Guild Wars 2

CorliCorso.6254:

Daecollo.9578:

I believe the Vitality Tree needs a little work, especially the 5/15/25 abilities, they just seem crap compared to almost every other traits in the game, nobody needs help rezzing, rezzing is usually done once the fights over, and in the middle of battle, 10% faster rezzing isn’t going to matter much.

If you’re just going to run straight past downed players then I don’t think you’re going to be very popular.

I’d say there’s a bit of a question mark over Determined Revival, as it’s best to avoid rezzing whilst you’ve got some aggro, but sometimes it’s absolutely necessary and a free +150 toughness is very helpful.

If you asked a downed player if they’d want to be back on their feet 10% faster and they’d be very happy to.

The only thing I’m not that happy with is Reviver’s Might. A single stack of Might to nearby allies isn’t a great reward for such a heavy investment in that line – especially when you compare it to the fact I’m already giving everyone permanent 3xMight with FGJ.

It would be much easier to rez downed players if we had a lot more stable bodys, 10% revive speed won’t help downed players as much as throwing down a banner/giving them regeneration and then helping them up.

To explain why I made them like I did:

Vanguard: Warriors always seem in the front, but they are usually the ones killed first, Vanguard means pretty much “The foremost or leading position in a trend or movement.” Why Regeneration? because it doesn’t seem that overpowered compared to other boons, but its a boon warriors lack when they spec down anything but banners. Plus it goes well with the flavor term Vanguard.

Unstoppable Force: Warriors I believe, should be the masters of self regeneration, we don’t have fancy healing abilitys and we don’t have much stopping us when we are being wailed on with lots of bleeds and poisons (I hate poison more then anything…) Warriors are very squishy, a lot squishier then people take us for, but this is because of mostly those poisons. (I seriously hate poison…) This is a fair hard counter to this.

Juggernaut: Very overpowered, but also underpowered, it has potential to be devastating, and potential to not do anything, it just depends on how you build your character, however if you build glass cannonish you won’t get much from it, it gets a tick for each time you are healed, I don’t know how a trait like this would work in real pvp, but I would love to see something like it, especially for warrior. (you pretty much have to get hurt, and then live for several seconds to get any benefit.)

(I recently changed Juggernaut to only affect the damage of melee weapons.)

I believe the Vitality Tree needs a little work, especially the 5/15/25 abilities, they just seem crap compared to almost every other traits in the game, nobody needs help rezzing, rezzing is usually done once the fights over, and in the middle of battle, 10% faster rezzing isn’t going to matter much.

I recently redid this.

5: Determined Revival: Gain Protection for 2 seconds after a dodge roll ends or reviving an ally.

15: Fast Healer: All Regenerating healing effects are increased by 33%.

25: Vanguard: Increases revive speed and damage reduction for every boon on you. (6% Revive Speed, 3% damage reduction per boon on the warrior.) [for example, if I had three boons on my warrior, I would have 18% revive speed, 9% damage reduction.]

I redid it a bit, I believe this will be much better for everyone, now the traits have dual functions, but go with what I believe what was originally intended, for this to be a combat healer.

5: Determined Revival: When I go to revive someone, I’m usually rolling to them, then rezzing, the roll gives me immunity, and its not like i’m rolling when I revive someone, so I usually burn it before I do.

15: Fast Healer: With Healing banners, this will make healing downed allies faster anyways.

25: Vanguard: Warriors don’t get access to damage reduction or a lot of boons besides three, I believe that this is a very fair trait, because it gives the warrior a sort of tank role when they use banners or shouts, which is completely fair, since there are other traits for example that add vigor or other buffs when you use shouts, which is why I would love it in this tree. I mean, they are gonna need it if they go into a zerg and attempt to revive somebody.

Plus it makes sense:
vanguard
n vanguard [?v?nga?d]
1 the part of an army going in front of the main body.
2 the leaders in any movement We’re in the vanguard of the movement for reform!

Going in and reviving allies, notice how you get protection when you revive allies with trait ‘5’ as well.

Helios.3598:

Daecollo.9578:

Thieves can’t be hit when they are stealth, which buff or trait is that?

Four out of five attack spells require you to target the opponent to actually attack him. You might as well throw AOE spells in there too since you need to see your target to know where to put the aoe. Tell me, which trait or buff can I take to target a stealthed thief?

No they don’t, I don’t need a target to do anything.

Basicly, P/P does not know what it wants to do, and it currently is probably 30-40% DPS behind the other ranged weapons, and on utility, the utility is good, but its just too costly, also P/P is one of the few weapons that don’t have a melee knockback, you literally can’t do anything if a melee goes up in your face.

swinsk.6410:

Daecollo.9578:

Actually it only gives you 33% movement speed. (like before.), Movement speed is capped at 33%, in combat thats lower, but it doesn’t go over 33%, ever.

That Trait and Swiftness do not stack, Swiftness/That trait are the same speed.

Out of combat this is true, but in combat the stealth is faster than swiftness because in combat your base movement speed is much lower. So you get the benefit of the full 50% while in combat and it over-rides swiftness and sos. It’s only 17% faster.

It’s impossible to hit cap speed in combat, but this trait comes close.

Make a video and proove its faster then Swiftness.

I don’t see a difference.

Get swiftness and go into stealth.

Then get that trait and go into stealth and do the same, compare videos side to side with numbers, start from point a to b with a timer.

I notice I run 8% Faster in stealth with the trait signet of shadows (25%.) 25%+8% = 33%.

How about: 5 stat points per point spent? (every stat.)

Its worthless in pvp, because it causes a huge animation of smoke around you.

Its worthless in pve, because of its short duration.

Honestly, they need to bump its duration of stealth for 30 seconds, it already gives the enemy plenty of warning where you are by the smoke, if they didn’t see the smoke or hear the animation, then you deserve to be stealthed for awile.

Helios.3598:

MHE Tiger.4875:

I’ll try and sum this up as easily as I can….

Thieves, when traited to deal insane damage, are not traited to take ANY damage. I, on my lvl 80 thief, have been easily destroyed in seconds by virtually every class. They are not overpowered. Once you learn to catch one, it’s game over for that thief. Guardian greatsword skill 2 will take a GC thief down pretty nicely and many of the other classes’ skills will as well. Just saying, the thieves that you believe are so overpowered are not. The player behind the keyboard and mouse just knows how to play one. They get in, slash some stuff out, and if they are good, get their rear end out of there and stealth. Though like I said, if you catch one, it’s really no longer a fight.

Sylosi.6503 sums this one up pretty much perfectly.

In response to Tiger.4875, every class can go with a glass cannon build and have the same survivability issue you define. However, the extreme difference is that thieves can’t be hit when they chain-stealth. Hence, they practically have the survivability of a tanked guardian, the escapability of an elementalist, and the spike damage of a burst warrior.

I’ve I mentioned before, this gets somewhat balanced out in spvp because thieves are forced to hold points to win and therefore have to stand in a defined place over a period of time allowing aoe to have some effect.

Thieves can’t be hit when they are stealth, which buff or trait is that?

Give us all traits available in all trees and allow us to pick them, this would further allow customization between the trees, and add greater and more viable builds to all classes, for example:

Warrior Vitality Tree:

‘5’ Determined Revival: Gain 5 toughness per level while reviving.

With this, I can pick between that and other ‘5’ traits, such as:

‘5’ Reckless Dodge: Damage foes at the end of a dodge roll.

So now I have that instead of the before, its not that overpowered if you think about it, it just gives us more choices in customization, its not like I can use a ‘5’ trait as a ‘10’ trait, you have to pick the 5 choices that are already available.

zallesz.1650:

Judging from the obvious: my roomate and best friend is a thief (my main is mesmer, but tried other classes at 80 as well), we only play together.
Simple fact: he delivers 3 attack in 3 seconds (skill1, skill1, skill1), and I see numbers like 3000, 3000, 4000 in a quick row.
Just for the record: my 3 attacks take 5 seconds to be completed and you can see numbers like 800, 1000, 1300 (even 400).
And he has lower lvl gear than mine (which is: full exotic, power, prec, toughness).
He does no activate the +15% (or something) damage for 5 attacks signet or anyhings, only pressing buttons.
Therefore, he kills a mob faster. With his +25%passive movement speed, he proceeds to the next one, whereas I am still hitting my lovely little 1000s.
If in trouble, he pops 2 thief mateys, giving him combo starters, decent bonus damage whatnot. His healing skill makes him invisible, cures conditions and applies regeneration. If all seems lost, he teleports aways and runs til the sun rises with his +25% movement passive. His traitpoints look like as if made by a 5 year old, since he can hardly understand english.

Numbers. All I see is numbers and laziness maybe? It takes absolutely no effort for him to overcome my damage output, escape skills or anything, whereas I struggle and carefully spend my trait points to be able to come near to my lovely roomate who started playing computer games in august…

Before I get the complaints that I am only stressed that a newbie overcomes me…no. This is not the case, I am happy for my friends, I’m glad to see that he is successull and enjoys playing. I am only sad that this level of OP-ness still goes unseen by many and I’ve been checking the forums of every profession and thieves usually throw around phrases like “This is the most difficult, less fun class to play with”…" we need more toughness and hp, because it is already unfair to thieves"… and such.

Please relax and contemplate on the fact that your profession is not the most difficult, and can easily be regarded as the most OP.

This is my personal opinion, by looking at 2 monitors, videos, forum topics and compairing them.

Eh? What class are you.

Actually it only gives you 33% movement speed. (like before.), Movement speed is capped at 33%, in combat thats lower, but it doesn’t go over 33%, ever.

That Trait and Swiftness do not stack, Swiftness/That trait are the same speed.

Delsabre.5934:

Why is the most mobile class also the class with the highest burst and best pvp defense (invisibility)?

Make invisibility break on taking damage or increase initiative cost on HS. As it is now, stealth has no counter except guess where the thief is and hope he/she dies in 1-2 hits.

That would be Mesmer, Mesmers have much higher Burst DPS then thieves do, and clones and invisibility. (it just takes a little time to setup, not much though, but also, they do a lot more sustained damage then thieves do, besides just burst.)

Making Invisibility break on damage would also hurt mesmers a ton.

Stealth does have a counter, its called your mind.

Koga.7215:

and what about the thief’s who do not use conditions but use the trait in a PvE dung build as a healing source for some content?

I typically run initiative regen, but there are some bosses (mainly fractals) that the switch is needed and without the extra heals i’m as good as dead in. If it was made to heal when a condition is applied i’d heal on.. very few attacks and be a useless thief on the floor too much in some fights.

There are already enough “bad rep” for theifs from those who are always on the ground and bring very little to a group in PvE, lets not make it worse by potentially messing with a healing method that currently works for both crit and condition builds and make it only viable in a condition build…

Thieves weapons have conditions on them already, it would be about the same healing for condition thieves/power thieves.

Dagger/Sword/Pistol ‘s ’1’ all apply conditions.

muscarine.5136:

What can i say, no it’s not ?

I’m running out of arguments, i’ve stated facts, you consider them wrong, i think it’s understandable to have so many people mistaking like you do with this bursty/tanky meta but at the end of the day i win my duels against s/p d/d p/d thieves, hold my own against bunker d/d eles and guardians, there’s not much i need to prove myself you guys just need time and a big Anet green flag to tell you it’s ok you can use p/p now.

/p is an ok pve weapon, mediocre pvp weapon.
p/ is a poor pve weapon, and alright pvp weapon.

p/p together is a sack of crap that doesn’t know what it wants to do, because its all over the place.

Its just a big handicap.

ASP.8093:

That’s the same build as the Death Blossom thing, isn’t it?

Well, it would allow me to heal more by applying conditions from weapons I guess?

3% Burst Damage is very very weak.

I think it needs to be changed to Adrenaline gain, or CC Reduction.

-1.5% Condition Duration per point would be very viable, since warriors are terrible against conditions.

This way, 30 points would give the Warrior -45% Condition Duration, which would be very good for Warriors, because we are terrible against CC, most classes have passive ways to remove conditions, but we do not, this would not have us remove them, but be very viable against them.

Or another one.

100% Adrenaline Gain.
(3.3% Per Point.)

Tulisin.6945:

Daecollo.9578:

stof.9341:

I don’t think caltrops need to be made even stronger in the healing department :p

People still stand on them? LOL

Even if they stood in all of them the healing would be almost as much as a warrior shout heal. (14 × 69 × 2?)

Per target, up to 5 targets, from one utility that does a bunch of other good stuff. Yeah. Not to mention there’s dodge-trops too, which are even cheaper.

Assassin’s Reward is a good mechanic. If it is too weak then the power/scaling on it should be tweaked. It is pretty much the only thief mechanic ATM that rewards initiative dumping with something, which is a pretty neat dynamic.

The only problem is its not responsive, and it usually doesn’t reward the proper initiative spent.

ASP.8093:

Daecollo.9578:

Currently, relying on Initiative kind of makes the skill poor, applying conditions to heal would be a fun mechanic and would open up a lot more options to thieves besides stealth.

Consider this, though: what are the thief’s actual condition builds?

The #1 condition build is the super-stealth-spammy P/D. Many of them already invest into Acrobatics. So, you’re just giving more healing to a build that already heals pretty hard.

The #2 condition build is the PvE Death Blossom spam build. These builds generally use a lot of initiative regeneration to spam Death Blossom more, so they can already make pretty good use of Assassin’s Reward in its current state.

Wait, don’t they need full trickery/full toughness?

They would need the 2 initative every 10 seconds to spam death blossom, wouldn’t they?

stof.9341:

I don’t think caltrops need to be made even stronger in the healing department :p

People still stand on them? LOL

Even if they stood in all of them the healing would be almost as much as a warrior shout heal. (14 × 69 × 2?)

Can you change it to: Gain life when you apply a condition to a foe:

Basicly, be the opposite of http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing.

“Applying a condition to enemies heals you.”

At level 80, this heals you for 69 + (0.035 x healing power), per condition applied.

Currently, relying on Initiative kind of makes the skill poor, applying conditions to heal would be a fun mechanic and would open up a lot more options to thieves besides stealth.

Sil.4560:

I’m not demanding a change right here and now, merely one to keep in mind for later assuming they can’t sufficiently fix the culling, since it’s a complex issue. We all know this stuff takes time.

I wish my culling were like 1s max…it usually seems to more than double stealth duration. I feel so cheated every time I’m presented with it because it feels as though I can’t properly fight my enemy due to something completely beyond my control.

I fought against a culling abuser on my thief, he was a P/D Stealther, and he would use the guy beside me to stealth over and over, after he died, it was a pretty good duel, I was mostly using Infiltrator’s Strike to cure the bleeds as soon as they placed on me, and heal myself up with SoM/Lifesteal by hitting him I knew where he is, since I healed when I hit him.

“This is rediculous!” I thought.

And then when I did beat him, he logged out…

But this is because culling is some times broken, not because thieves are overpowered, the fact was we could not kill eachother, every time he bled me, I cured it, and I found out where he was and slashed him to heal myself up.

kenshinakh.3672:

@Sil.4560

Putting a band-aid in for stealth from the culling will not solve anything because culling varies for different people. My guild and I RARELY have issues catching thieves that run away (D/D eles are harder though, but they are rarer).

Did I mention culling has varying mileage? Stealth is fine as it is. Leave it be. Wait for the fixes for culling, and don’t demand for a bandaid in the meantime because not everyone gets culling issues as you do… I know I don’t since it’s 1s max usually for me. That’s my argument against yours.

Fighting against Black Gate, I don’t really see thieves, I see mostly D/D Elementalist and “Rangers” Truth be told.

To be honest, I’ve been seeing less and less thieves lately.

Sil.4560:

I thought it was apparent when I said I was done with the thread, really. Someone told me that people are still responding, however. I suppose it’s not surprising, given how little of my posts were allowed to remain and how fewer yet were likely actually read by the people replying to me.

Guys, the escape thing I’m talking about is a combination of the way the current stealth mechanic works with the culling issues. Please actually do read my posts before you try to refute them. Again, for the Xth time, what I am saying is that if culling cannot be satisfactorily corrected, the stealth mechanic probably should be for the sake of satisfying the same ends. Make sense?

A few specific things because you people are so relentless:

Is it op? I wouldn’t say so. Neither you or him could kill each other, and that’s proof enough of the balance it gives.

If anything, it confirms that Thieves need more options to be able to hang around in a fight after this is resolved. The fact is that were it not for culling adding on to his apparent invisibility, he’d not have stood a chance. I’m not one of those people screaming, “Nerf Thieves”, despite what I’m sure most of you would like to believe.

And yes, as an aside, I’ve killed more than a few D/D Eles on my own. Most of them aren’t that skilled it seems. Also, I fought a P/P Thief the other night, who managed to remain invisible for 90% of the fight, despite the obvious lack of useful stealth abilities. I think we can agree that culling needs attention, but it’s important to note that this was only made possible because of how stealth actually interacts with it perfectly by virtue of complete invisibility.

You might wait a lot of time for satisfying patch notes. Anet wants thief to be a class with a lot of escapes.

Also, d/d ele complaining about thieves’ mobility. Hypocrism in its highest form. Nothing can catch an ele.

I get the feeling that, due to their acknowledgment of the culling problem, they did not intend for them to have escapes in this particular way. It’s one thing to outmaneuver your opponent – it is yet another to be given much longer invisibility than intended because of the way a mechanic works in tandem with an existing game flaw. One fix or another, the problems obviously should not co-exist.

Your comment on my Ele is irrelevant to Thief mechanics I described. However, it bears mentioning that an Ele can still be immobilized, repeatedly stunned, knocked down, etc. because targeting them is still an option.

Thief may not have had their stealth intended to be a perfect exit strategy (or other broken “strategy”), but again, repeating this because people still can’t seem to read, this is how it is able to function due to the culling issue. Again, in massive, bold text for those who can’t seem to understand what I’m saying:

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOUR MOBILITY IS SUPERIOR OR NOT IF THE ENEMY LITERALLY CANNOT SEE YOU OR DIRECTLY TARGET YOU AS THE RESULT OF CULLING INTERACTING WITH AN INVISIBILITY MECHANIC; YOU DO NOT NEED TO OUTRUN AN ENEMY THAT CANNOT BEGIN TO FOLLOW YOU

Now if you’re all done trying to refute an argument I’m not making, perhaps you can move on.

Culling is extremely frustrating, but it only affects certain kinds of thieves, I admit though, I’ve fought a S/D Thief that abused Culling to the max, and could barely target him, but the problem was, he couldn’t really target or kill me, I play S/P, so I don’t have much stealth. (I don’t use stealth utility either.)

Culling also depends on the time and place as well, in SPVP, Culling doesn’t really affect me, in WvWvW, it depends on the area, and my game’s settings, I usually have to turn my rendering to max for wvwvw.

But a class shouldn’t be balanced around such things.

Honestly, when culling is fixed, I think this class will probably be weaker then ranger, which I’m starting to see a lot more of in pvp lately.

muscarine.5136:

The first black powder shot blinds your target at a 900m range, then you have a smoke combo field you can 20% with unload or 100% with body shot / headshot, it’s not that melee really.

Rifle Warrior can also blind from that range, there attack also does lots of damage, unlike our blind which does none.

Rifle Warrior is very short cooldown, 8 seconds for volley, which does 45% more DAMAGE… (Basicly almost the same as using 1 and a half unloads.)

Rifle has a faster recast then pistols, but higher channel, this means Bleeding Shot/Vital Shot are almost the same, exactly, except for the fact… Bleeding Shot does 20% more damage, has way more range, and can pierce, Rifles seem to be even faster then pistols if you think about it. (also, the bleed part of rifles is longer, but I don’t even want to go into condition damage at this point, too much work.)

Rifle also has kill shot, which they can use between cooldowns, this is a 1500 (1500 what!?) Range attack that does MORE damage (not by much.) then back stab!
Healing Surge/Precision Signet/Berserker Stance = Adrenaline no problem.

Rifle warrior has more survivability, better armor, better mobility, and better range, P/P doesn’t have stealth, unless you wanna add it to utility, but really have fun killing anyone with your nerf gun.

Just because of the rifles recast Advantage, Brutal Shot and Volley will out DPS two Unloads and do it in a shorter (not by much.) amount of time.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

………

2k damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

First off, that video cherry picks the best Kill Shots and posts them. Look at his buffs, too. 90% of the time you play Rifle, you are gonna see Kill Shot crits in the 10-11k range. Against light armor wearers and with tons of buffs it will be higher, but so would Backstab (I can get 15-20k Backstabs buffed against light armor, and a far more sustainable rate than KS). Just go on the Warrior forum or better yet play one yourself, KS montages are the same as the Backstab montages we complaning about people making because they aren’t accurate, just cherry-picked scenes with the intention of showing off or whining about OPness. For reference I can hit light armor when buffed similarly for 11-12k, on an attack that I can use back-to-back.

As for Traits:

Damage traits Warriors get (specced 20/30/0/0/20) that affect Rifle:
+10% increased Crit to KS
10% damage when bleeding
+20% rifle recharge
+3/7/12% damage/adrenaline
+2/5/9% crit/adrenaline

Damage traits Thieves get (specced 20/30/0/0/15) that affect Pistols:
+10% damage when weakened
5% Dual Skill damage
+10% Pistol damage
+5% dual skill crit (if you take it)
+10% damage above 6 ini
+20% damage below 50% health

As you can see, traits actually favor P/P over Rifle. I’ll admit that the optimal Rifle build would probably be 10/30/0/0/30, but it’s really not going to make a huge difference.

But back to KS, even if I give you the benefit of the doubt about KS spamming, as I already said, you aren’t going to see those kinds of numbers in that video doing anything solo. Make a Warrior, go full berserker, and run around PVE a bit. I guarantee you will only be seeing hits around 9.5-10k without buffs.

On the subject of pierce, I’m not gonna argue really since it’s a valid point, but not really related to sustained single target damage. Also, we have Shortbow, so does it really matter THAT much?

Again I agree that P/P survivability is low, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

You keep insisting it’s less damage though but you aren’t providing any evidence for this, just a cherry-picked Kill Shot vid (just like the ones with 15k+ backstabs, because we all know we see those numbers every time we use Backstab, right guys? lol). I showed you some numbers, no they aren’t very accurate but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at tooltips and come up with a decent idea of DPS.

Not to mention you can just kill heavy golems, and I promise you P/P and Rifle will be killing them at about the same rate

You forgot the important trait: Rifle Shots Pierce… and you forgot 50% BLEEDING duration…

You forgot “Empowered” 2% Damage per boon, Rifle warriors should have Infinite Might/Fury/Swiftness. so thats at least 6% more.

Its way overpriced, can you please fix it.

I try to buy gems with my credit card, and it says I can’t, says my new credit card is invalid, I called them and apparently “You can’t use VISA Debit” cards on games, what?

This doesn’t make sense.

#130105-002425 is my card number though, for support, hehe.

I play my thief kind of like I would play Zelda, sword/pistol though, I wish I could use sword and shield with thief.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Its not slow… You have a healing ability that puts you at full adrenaline + precision signet that does the same thing, both have LOW cooldowns.

You can use these BOTH before the fight even starts as well.

Fair enough, but 2 things to consider:

1.) You lose 12% damage and 9% crit every time you Kill Shot, and it takes a long time to build that back up manually.

2.) Kill Shot (for me) has a 1.75 cast time for 2k damage (though it crits a lot). It’s an intimidating burst tool, but when looking at it from a sustained point of view, it’s not that mind-blowing (especially when you take what I listed in #1 into consideration).

………

2k damage?

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

Anyone else not able to use a debit card?

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Its not slow… You have a healing ability that puts you at full adrenaline + precision signet that does the same thing, both have LOW cooldowns.

You can use these BOTH before the fight even starts as well.

Blackwolfe.5649:

Thats likely more due to your bank rather than it being a debit card. I have no problem with my banks debit visa.

But my regular credit card from the same bank did it.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

I can’t speak for Mesmer, but P/P has equal, if not better, sustained than Warrior Rifle. Yes Vital Shot is worse than Bleeding Shot, but Unload has a much higher up time than Volley and ends up covering for it. Volley does about 30% more damage than Unload, but you can easily fit 2-3 Unloads during Volleys down time, meaning Unload is dealing more damage than Volley over x amount of time.

I agree that P/P mobility is terrible and and the survivability is meh, but the damage is actually really good when you compare it to other ranged sets.

EDIT: Also, Volley has a longer channel time than Unload, further reducing the DPS margin when comparing it to Unload.

Lol… No… Sustained Damage is damage over say a 2 minute timeframe, which Rifle Warrior’s Damage out put is almost 3 times that of a thieves in that period.

Pistol can spam unload 3 times, and then are completely useless for awile, since they can’t do anything else. (it takes about 24 seconds to get your initiative back up, meanwhile rifle cool downs are only 8 seconds for volley…)

Warriors have more access to “FURY” (20% Critical Chance.), while Pistol Thieves do not.

Volley and Bleeding shot do 30% more damage then Unload and Vital Shot.

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

Anything that relies on using your healing skill is terrible, you end up using your heal when you don’t need it and killing yourself.

The only way it would be good, is if it gave you what you need added to the skill.

10 seconds of Regeneration.
5 seconds of Protection.

Now you get something added to what you use the heal skill for, survival.

Adaneshade.2409:

I tend roll in in such a way that my avatar is inside theirs, nothing short of a dodge roll will allow them to get out.

Or moving towards you while you move towards them will let them escape.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Daecollo.9578:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Daecollo.9578:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Just ignore them and laugh at their pitiful damage as you go about doing more important things. D/D eles are only good for one thing in WvW, and that’s distraction. Don’t be that guy who tries to chase them down instead of helping his team take a tower.

D/D Elementalist don’t do pitiful damage, they have the highest AOE damage in the game, even if they fully bunker, they can switch attunements to crit 100% of the time, so they don’t need precision.

I’ve fought more than my fair share of excala clones by this point (even ran it on my ele alt for a bit to see what all the fuss was about). Even if I kitten in combat and manage to get hit by their entire rotation, I’ve got plenty enough toughness and vit to shrug it off without popping my healing signet. Plus, you pretty much have to be afk to get hit by churning earth.

You wouldn’t happen to be running glass-cannon, would you? The only time I feel threatened by a d/d ele is when they bring friends with them.

An ele can teleport to you with churning earth.

After 3 seconds of standing completely still with a giant circle around them. >_<

Wait until the animation is almost done, then teleport.

Adaneshade.2409:

Keep in mind that you spin to the right, and that you can move between the first and second strikes. After a while it just becomes muscle memory. You never want to face directly at your target.

Keep it mind, the target can also move during the strike as well, and if he is as “skilled” as the supposibly “skilled” S/D thief master, he can also predict and avoid it easilly by moving to the left, since he knows the thief using Flanking Strike has to move to the right and behind the target.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Daecollo.9578:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Just ignore them and laugh at their pitiful damage as you go about doing more important things. D/D eles are only good for one thing in WvW, and that’s distraction. Don’t be that guy who tries to chase them down instead of helping his team take a tower.

D/D Elementalist don’t do pitiful damage, they have the highest AOE damage in the game, even if they fully bunker, they can switch attunements to crit 100% of the time, so they don’t need precision.

I’ve fought more than my fair share of excala clones by this point (even ran it on my ele alt for a bit to see what all the fuss was about). Even if I kitten in combat and manage to get hit by their entire rotation, I’ve got plenty enough toughness and vit to shrug it off without popping my healing signet. Plus, you pretty much have to be afk to get hit by churning earth.

You wouldn’t happen to be running glass-cannon, would you? The only time I feel threatened by a d/d ele is when they bring friends with them.

An ele can teleport to you with churning earth.

Stiv.1820:

Adaneshade.2409:

There is no “luck” involved in flanking strike, it can be aimed to hit 100% of the time. Most people are just too bad to do it.

Question for you. I’m new to S/D. I am able to manually aim as long as they are within X units of where they were when I started the skill. When you use the ability do you normally drop target first and use manual tracking for the entire ability (which seems to make you leap directly to the right of the direction you face) or keep the target and only manually aim after the first part of the animation?

It has a 50% chance to hit moving targets, it usually only works well if your enemy is standing still, which usually isn’t the case.

Its a chance, and its luck as well.

Calling Luck skill is kind of wrong, seeing as how you are relying completely on how good or bad your enemy is and where he moves and how well it tracks him, its all luck.

Auesis.7301:

Daecollo.9578:

Um, When did I ever say root?

Anyways I’d rather be rooted then unable to control my toon and moved around randomly like I am now.

Flanking Strike does require skill, but I believe it should not move you at all, just grant you evasion and let you control where you want to go, like whirling axe and other abilities do it.

It doesn’t need anymore damage, its damage and control is enough.

I do believe it should steal the boon though, this would bring even more skill into equation, because you have to pick which boon you want to strip and steal.

And letting the player have full control with how the ability moves instead of just leaping or tracking the target would be a fun mechanic.

My understanding of being rooted came from the description that the skill would no longer move you at all. I assumed that would mean that you literally can’t move while using the skill. Guess not. Makes sense to me.

I said the animation would be shadowed between your character using “stab” and “cloak and dagger.” and look like the thief was slashing your target with a dagger and stabbing them with the sword all at once, both abilities can be used while moving.

I wouldn’t really call a skill that relies on luck and tracking “skill.” more so that these thieves are luckier then most.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Just ignore them and laugh at their pitiful damage as you go about doing more important things. D/D eles are only good for one thing in WvW, and that’s distraction. Don’t be that guy who tries to chase them down instead of helping his team take a tower.

D/D Elementalist don’t do pitiful damage, they have the highest AOE damage in the game, even if they fully bunker, they can switch attunements to crit 100% of the time, so they don’t need precision.

@Sil, I love the way you said it, and your right about that.

But as a Thief, if a warrior or elementalist uses his mobility skills to run away and they have a decent body, theres no way I can catch up with them.

Mobility Skills being just the basicly sword 2 or great-sword whirl and rush, two common weaponsets.

However, I can get away from pretty much anything, however, this fact doesn’t help my team.

I used to run around with some people, and they always complained that I should stand and fight and die with them, they were always angry because they said I ran away too early all the time, but the truth is, a thief can’t really stand and fight, if we’re not constantly abusing our stealths and mobility, we are finished.

Visionary.5681:

possante.8310:

ensoriki.5789:

typingofthedead.5614:

possante.8310:

typingofthedead.5614:

Jon, on a related note, can u or anyone say if the chilled effect slows thief initiative regen?

pretty sure not , 60% slow regen on thief initiative will make them useless.

i mean, i think thats more fair then them being largely immune to a condition just because of the nature of their class mechanic

Their utility, heals and elites are affected by chill.
The classes gimmick is mobility and Chill strips the majority of that power as well.
They’re not largely immune.

obvious they are. initiative is only used for weapon skill

I’m actually massively suprised by this.

I run a power necro in spvp as he has access to quite alot of chill effects.

Since Chill is listed as ‘skill cooldown increased by 66%’ and since a thieves skill cooldown is his initiative recharge. I have absolutely no idea why its not affected?

It seems more like a design oversight than a design choice.

To me, it feels alot like saying ’Warriors need mobility to fight. Chill counters mobility, so all Warriors should be immune to any snares and slows.

I actually really would love some Dev replies to some more of the questions posed in this thread. They seem to be on a roll at the minute with descriptive and open replies

Lowering Initative System by 66% would be devastating, it would mean we would have to wait almost 3 seconds to get 1 initiative, it might as well be a daze for the duration.

Imagine being dazed for 5-8 seconds in pvp, or 30 seconds in pve, not fun.

Thieves might be able to use the same skill over and over, but we can’t use as many skills as other classes can.

Think of thieves like mages in other games, we have a big pool to use abilitys from and we can use them back to back, but then we have to wait awile to use them again, unlike other classes.

Daemonne.5018:

If anything is going to take a boon and add it to the thief, it should be added to Steal. It’s on a long enough CD that it would not become a bit OP.

If it stole a boon, it wouldn’t be OP, steal can already be traited to do such, but it has too long of a CD.

Stiv.1820:

Daecollo.9578:

Stiv.1820:

Daecollo.9578:

Stiv.1820:

I’m new to S/D but starting to really like FS. You have time to manually aim the 2nd attack after you fire it off. It’s amazing to use on thieves who are coming in for a C&D.

Yeah, but useless against everyone else it seems like, its not like Thieves have any boons to strip.

C&D spamming shadow arts thieves usually have a few stacks of might to get rid of. It’s good for getting out of 100 blades/BF. Also to damage Engies who camp in their yardsale of awful while pooping grenades without taking much damage yourself.

You got 2 stacks of might that probably had 1-2 seconds left anyways, good job.

If you got in BC/100b you will be knocked down, you can’t use FS when your knocked down.

Grenade Engineers are pretty BA…. lol

I have 8-10 stacks most of the time. Sometimes warriors don’t bother with the KD and Mesmers randomly BF all the time without root. Situational but not useless. Also really easy to land on churning earth as is everything but ti’s not a bad opener to CE punishing. Good for rangers spamming and walking slowly backwards just waiting for you to get close to KB.

I know dodge works for all of this too but it saves endo and does decent damage.

Somethings wrong if you let the thief stealth 5 times to get that 10 stacks of might.
I’d rather have an ability I can use reliably all the time that lets me move, not the animation, because that means its on my skill and not on luck.

I’d like a 0.25 CD on thief skills, I hate using two of them at once, thief skills should never que.

Wouldn’t it be cool for necromancers to have some kind of “Terror Track” when they enter a zone, and the more terror they get, the more powerful their minions/spells become?

Kind of like Grand Theft Auto, where you get stars for doing bad things.