I have a thief main which I love, but I want an alt that is sort of similar but is a bit more tanky and is good for group pvX and has multiple viable builds.
Would would you suggest?
Give Guardian a try. Even in full berserker gear, it’s a hearty class that’s a great contribution, regardless of what aspect of the game you’re playing.
Just stick to scepter. The DPS on that weapon is decent enough to kill the warden in time. Staying alive is much more important than increase you get from partial meleeing the fight.
Once you’ve done the fight enough times as range, you can look for opportunities to melee if you really feel comfortable with it, but there’s no need to push it unless your teammates are dying too early.
This deserves a bump. Still an awesome guide!
Any thoughts on this skill in Wv3? vs Mug? or Potent Poison? Assuming at least 15 in DA for weakness…
In zergs in WvW, it’s good, but when roaming, it’s pretty weak compared to mug since it’s only you doing increased damage from the vuln as opposed to 5 people in a dungeon getting the benefit. On top of that, the heal and spike damage provide particularly strong benefits in PvP, which makes Mug harder to pass up.
If you have at least 15 in DA, mug really is easily the best option for most PvP type situations.
I’m sure they wood make that change, but I think it may be too hard to do at this point in the game.
If you plan on running dungeons as a thief, then this is probably the best guide out there:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/87167-a-guide-to-the-thief-meta/
Which band of Charr always always called upon to deal with laundry?
The Iron Legion.
Few people look like the ripped/super thin characters that devs make up.
Fewer people realize that not looking like this isn’t an inherently bad thing.
(edited by Moderator)
I didn’t think all Norn body types were muscular…
Also not all Asura body types are small… Some are quite rotund.
Anyway I’m backing out of this thread because I don’t really feel it is conducive to constructive conversation.
Only if you’re talking about male Norn.
Men can be fat, but women can’t. It’s a sad double standard that a female’s worth is so tightly wound into how attractive they are that the concept of playing a fat female character in a video game is beyond comprehension for most people.
I find it disgusting that you cant make a character that is more reflective of the vast majority of MMO players. Whats wrong with us REAL people wanting to stay somewhat connected to our character by having it reflect my REAL body. No one has the six pack green abs of the sylvari character in game. I find this irresponsible and I will NOT be allowing my children to play this game until its fixed.
Yea, I agree with you.
(edited by Moderator)
P.s. If you’re going to compare a thief to another class, compare it to a class using a min/maxed dps build, not some condi duration stacking build. =P
That’s the imbalance. Elementalist, for example, doesn’t need to be a “condi duration stacking build.” They can stack 4 stacks of vulnerability with 15s duration — no runes, traits, nor sigils — every 2 seconds. :/
Who cares, lol. If you wanna cry about grass being greener on the other side of the profession balance, go make a complaint on the balance forums.
This thread is about whether it’s a good idea to take Sundering Strikes. Another profession’s ability to stack vuln better or worse than thieves has no impact on whether SS is better than other alternative traits.
With 100% crit chance, 25 in Deadly Arts, and dagger auto (2 attacks per second):
Formula for average maintained procs is (proc duration) / (proc chance) x (attacks per second)
Current version is:
(6 × 1.25)/(.5)x(2) = (7.5)/(1) = 7.5 stacks maintained on averageFormula for procs with ICD is:
(proc duration) / [(1 / ((proc chance) x (attacks per second))) + (ICD)]
So old version was:
(10 × 1.25) / [(1 / (.33 × 2)) + 1] = 12.5 / 2.52 = 5 stacks maintained on average
Well, in reality, you’re not just auto-attacking with your dagger, but CnD’s vuln contribution does kick in as well, which pretty much offsets that.
And yea, there’s no reason in penalizing your party by taking Mug just because you wish SS stacked vuln as well as (insert class/build here).
P.s. If you’re going to compare a thief to another class, compare it to a class using a min/maxed dps build, not some condi duration stacking build. =P
Vol, he’s talking about Flamekissed.
Flamekissed was taken out of the gemstore due to a ton of people complaining that their cultural armor was available for everyone. It was basically human t3 cultural light with flames.
Anet had a previous issue with cultural armor being transmuted to other races, and they had said this was not allowed about a year prior. So they took it off and are working on a rework. Anyone who currently has this armor will have it replaced by the rework when it’s done.
^ This is why we can’t have nice things! =P
1. Are there any plan to change its animation ?
In PvP it’s slow and clunky, especially the first part.
2. Are there any plan to revisit its damage ?
Post nerf, damage wise you would be better off autoattacking
3. Are there any plan to fix the kitten evasion ?
As things stand right now, it evades some stuff and some other doesn’t, it’s often random ( i even got CCed while whipping) and unpredictable.
For example, necro minions attacks go through the evade frames like if there was no evasion at all.
the set would be overall pretty good and competitive if these things were addressed.
Some people can still make it work, but these issues are glaring and really keep the set behind, along with retaliation killing yourself on a single pistol whip.
*okthxplsfix
About 2…it’s been a long time since auto-attack was higher DPS than pistol whip. The actercast change before Dec 10th made it higher DPS than AA and the Dec 10th aftercast change made that difference even greater.
Either way, it’s going to be overhauled soon anyways.
This part from Colin’s quote, I 100% agree with:
For me, the best parts of watching a PvP game experience is being able to see cool tactics or actions in play that don’t require me to understand every single skill or ability players are using. Even if I can’t tell every detail about why people are killing one another, if the game mode allows you to see the strategies and key moments and visually understand why they worked, those make the best games to watch (and often to play.)
However, I think this is one of the biggest reasons that conquest is so boring to watch and why GW1 GvGs were so much more interesting.
Conquest maps are so small that 90% of the action is based around small team fights on concentrated sites with very little movement between spots. GW1 GvG on the other hand, had larger maps with much more going on. Sure, small maps put players in the action immediately and frequently, but the game borders on a big clusterf*** of action.
How long can a Thief stealth for continuously?
In WvW I saw a thief stand his ground verse a group of 20 people , for 5 mins. We had a hard time even finding him.
I want to create such a build and learn how this is done.
D/D:
Hit someone with Cloak and Dagger. When that stealth is almost up, cast CnD again less than half a second before your stealth is over. If you get your timing right, your hit lands after the stealth drops naturally so you don’t get revealed.
However, my favorite way to make people think thieves are OP is to stealth and log off. =P
You just suggested balancing the game around Skyhammer…
I think that’s a better counterargument than I could have given, haha!
Stopped listening when he said that thieves could 100-0 people on backstab just because of fire stacking with air. =P
Since we only got a teaser trailer for upcoming release, I’d like to know how long will LA merchant that allows us to exchange wooly stuff for items stay. And after removing the similar merchant from PvP, will there be an alternative trader in the future or is this the only chance we’ll get to monetize our glory ?
I’d expect some more info on the subject but since nothing was mentioned during the Ready Up and there are no release notes, with only 2 days ‘till the release I’m a bit concerned.
ANet is generally pretty silent on details about when patches go away, but they did say that the Wintersday event ends on the 20th, so I wouldn’t expect the vendors to be around past that.
Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?
I run a thief in Valk gear with Zerker weapons/trinkets. As a roamer, this is the best option available, particularly since I get 100% crits on stealth attacks through traits.
As you may see, this is about roamers, not people in zergs and just because a roamer is using berserker gear doesn’t mean it’s all berserker gear with no defense.
Coding that would be a nightmare for a negligible change to gameplay.
Is this a good change, overall?
Yes. A lot of classes, like engineers, have really been punished for whenever they switch from something like P/P to Rifle and this will help put those weapons on a more even playing field.
Could this cause imbalance?
Yes, particularly in PvE with classes like Warrior who already deal heavy damage when using 2h weapons.
Something to think about:
If the changes to sigils results in Sigil of the Night being able to stack, then a warrior can essentially use 2 Night sigils to offset the crit damage nerf, while other classes like thief still get hit.
Duration doesn’t matter unless you stop attacking, lol.
If you’re auto attacking your target, you will always have at least a few stacks of vuln up.
Wow, at least anyone coming to this thread will not have and question over which trait is better for dungeons.
Sundering Strikes is greater DPS than Mug. It has been discussed and beaten to death now.
*Note this isn’t any new news. I dare say all the good thieves have been using this in dungeons since it got buffed.
/Thread GGKTHNXBYE
I was still running Mug up until a few weeks ago when I took a serious look at the math and realized just how good SS is, haha!
Wanna duel? Go to Custom Arenas.
Personally, I’m happy not to get spammed with duel requests from random lowbies who feel the need to constantly jump up and down at all times….
(Bad memories from back in World of Warcraft)
You already can buy levels. You just buy gold, then buy mats from the TP and craft through levels.
=P
That’s blindly assuming that no one else in the group can stack vulnerability.
If all I can maintain is 1-stack, it’s still more reasonable to take Mug because someone in the party will be out stacking me and the extra damage I get for using mug with their vulnerability stack over shadows the need for SS.
That’s the point, someone else will be doing it better and you’re better off taking advantage of it by choosing damage.
It doesn’t matter who stacks more vuln. As long as the target doesn’t get capped, a stack of vuln does 1% dps increase for all 5 party members, whether the target has 0 stacks or 24 stacks already.
Compare that 1% DPS for 5 people to Mug, which at best is around 2k damage. If you’re doing great and putting out 10,000 DPS, then mug is a .07% DPS increase for you alone. If you’re doing terrible and are only outputting 5,000 DPS, it’s still only a 1.3% DPS increase.
Considering that you’ll realistically upkeep much more than 1 stack of vuln in most situations, it’s clear that SS > Mug.
There’s some really bad logic going on here.
It doesn’t matter which class is best or better at stacking vuln.
Vuln is a 1% damage increase for all 5 members of a party. As long as you’re not going against a boss that has 25 stacks already, then one, single application of vuln is still a strong contribution to a group.
Let’s look at the math for 1 single vuln stack. I’ll throw you a bone and assume that you’re group can’t even do 6k dps per person. Let’s assume a 5k dps group (to give you some perspective, a zerker hammer guard with a good build can hit over 9k theoretical dps with autoattack alone).
So, 5,000 damage per second * 5 players = 25,000 damage per second
25,000 damage per second * 30 seconds = 750,000 damage
1% of 750,000 damage = 7,500 damage.
If you can maintain 1 stack of vuln by yourself in 30 seconds, you will more than double (almost triple) the damage from the Mug you can pull off every 30.5 seconds if you use it exactly on cooldown.
So it doesn’t matter how much vuln any other class can stack. The only thing that matters is if your target is fully capped with vulnerability before your contribution.
If you’re in a group and you have an ele that’s specced completely towards upkeeping vuln and there’s still room for 1 extra vuln stack for you to contribute (besides what you my already have from CnD), then it’s better to have SS. If the enemies are stacked with full vuln, then, let me repeat:
No one is arguing that you should take SS if your group already has 25 stacks fully maintained
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)
I think that’s your long, drawn out way of saying that “I don’t think that SS is a DPS gain in any situation.”
Vuln is a 1% damage boost against a target for each stack. Step into the Mists and even in PvP gear where you’re only getting about 75%ish crit max (zerker gear, combo crit chance, side strike, etc.), you can keep up around 7 stacks of vuln and can hit upwards of 20 if you burn through ini on Pistol Whip. In PvE, you can hit 100% crit rate when you consider PvE gear’s difference along with getting the 20% crit from fury….but I’m playing a conservative estimate to please you.
Let’s assume you have a group where each person does 6,000 DPS. Not a perfect group by any standards since many classes/builds can hit 10,000 DPS, but I’m playing a conservative estimate to please you.
Over 30 seconds, these 5 people will deal 900,000 damage. Assuming you’re just keeping up a steady 7 stacks, that’s a 63,000 damage boost to your group over 30 seconds.
On the other hand, you could take Mug, which will deal maybe 2k damage on a 30.5 sec cooldown.
Groups damage improved by 63,000 vs 2,000 personal damage gain every 30 seconds.
So yea, I think it’s worth it.
I don’t see what all the controversy is with this trait.
If your group is stacking 25 stacks of vuln, then swap out Sundering Strikes for Mug on boss fights. On trash fights, I can’t think of a reason to not take this trait, particularly since it works so well with S/P.
If your group is already stacking 25, that’s more than enough reason for you not to take Sundering Strikes even for trash regardless if it works well with S/P. Your group can already do it without your SS — that’s how useless this trait is.
Ok, I guess what I said wasn’t explicit enough for you to understand, so let me break it down:
Realistically, in my experience, few groups that can stack 25 vuln on boss fights can also do that in AoE encounters and can stack it fast enough to hit cap before the mob dies. However, if you are in such a group, then of course you don’t need this trait and might as well bring Mug instead.
No one here is arguing to take a trait that applies vulnerability if you are in a situation where the vulnerability cap is preventing you from applying additional stacks. No one.
If you are in a situation where you are not prohibited by the stack cap, then this skill can potentially be a greater dps boost than taking Mug. If you want to argue this point, then please do so with some math. Otherwise, nit picking misinterpretations and fighting against obvious points that no one is making does nothing productive to this thread.
You don’t like the trait and that’s fine. Feel free to grimace at it and give it ugly looks all you want, but if you’re going to argue against it, do so in a manner that acknowledges that traits can be swapped out at any time when out of combat. Treating it like some big investment that you can’t undo is just silly.
Have fun playing other games. Downed state is a pretty core mechanic of the game and I doubt they’ll disable it even in custom arenas.
I don’t see what all the controversy is with this trait.
If your group is stacking 25 stacks of vuln, then swap out Sundering Strikes for Mug on boss fights. On trash fights, I can’t think of a reason to not take this trait, particularly since it works so well with S/P.
Stealth doesn’t need to be “fixed”.
Seeing a video like this, I don’t feel so bad about how my AMD machine runs, lol.
When I run a 0/30/30/10/0 D/D build, I use dagger #3 occasionally when I’m surrounded by clones and can use the dodge since it’s effectively a dodge that clears clones at the same time. It can be handy against MM necros as well.
This is going to come down to personal preference.
For me it’s bunker guardians. Every time I play one, I feel that I’m just delaying the inevitable. I can stay up for awhile, but I can’t do enough damage back to outlast my attackers. However, I believe this mostly comes down to my lack of experience (timing of skills) and understanding of the profession.
Which builds do you think require the most skill to play?
Really, I think bunker guards are one of the easier builds to play. Sure, it’s not as easy as something like a spirit ranger, but it’s still a very straight forward build.
Engineers with 2-3 kits are probably one of the tougher classes/builds to play since you have so many tools to choose from.
From a twitch reaction standpoint, thieves can be difficult since they go from being impossible to hit to dead in a split second with a small mistake. However, they don’t involve as many complex decisions as something like an engi.
Q: When do norn stop arguing?
A: When they decide it’s a moot point.
High toughness and/or wielding a shield will do that to ya, =P
Buyer also beware that you’re paying 40+ gold worth of gems for some of the cheapest metals in the game, which will likely decrease in value quickly.
Ask yourself: Would you be better off with 40+ gold or several nodes that you have to visit on a daily basis which may not provide you with 40+ gold worth of materials.
I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
What’s not viable about taking off the leash mechanic? It works fine for dungeons in other games (ex: WoW).
If you’re worried people will feel penalized, then just pair this with the change for better rewards/more interesting trash mobs that you outlined.
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man, don’t listen to people saying this is weak and this is not. just pick something you enjoy playing and stick with it. i myself have tried every weapon set for a while since launch (main thief) and now i can say my fave is S/, sD. i switch to D/D if i feel like it for single targets (bosses mainly).
It is weak, relative to other options…
But if you enjoy it, then have fun. You don’t need to lay with optimal traits/gear/weapons/etc. to get through 99% of the game anyways. =P
My favorite thing to do in Skyhammer: Find a necro, steal, run away, stealth, port up to Cannon, then fear the enemy controlling it off the cliff before they know what’s going on.
I tend to counter Black Powder by not stepping in it. =P
I won’t touch the PvP vs PvE differences, but for WvW vs sPvP, there’s the following:
- sPvP maps are all tiny and WvW gives an environment where you can do things like call out incomings before enemies are on top of you.
– Ranged and stealth builds are actually viable in WvW. One of the big reasons that engis using the bomb kit in sPvP are so strong and often have so few direct counters in games is because people rarely want a build that involves standing far away to pick off or kite enemies in a game where they are forced to stand in a tiny spot on top of their enemies.
I’d say Defiant is one of the biggest problems in dungeons, if Defiant would be removed you could actually support through, blinds, weakness, fear, interrupts and such, That would make support build a little stronger, not on par but stronger and it would make thief/necros atleast be wanted some more for interruptions, Hammer warriors would be something you could consider as well and so on.
That wouldn’t change the meta though. My zerker guard running 10/30/0/5/25 in full zerker, can do 5 blinds back to back, and even more if adds are killed to renew my VoJ. The zerker meta, still brings all the support you need. What people want however, is to wear PVT gear and face tank stuff.
Yea, I love my Guardian, but they are really broken in PvE. It’s easy to bring a max DPS spec that also brings all the utility you can want from a Guard. Not only are their utility skills so powerful, but the traits to lower the CDs of shouts and consecrations are both easy to pick up without losing nearly any damage.
I just thought of an idea that I feel would immediately stop the zerker meta without having to nerf or buff anything. The solution is, remove respawn from dungeons and fractals. If you wipe, you’re dead, exit instance. This will make teams that focus on surviving much more viable, while speed clears will still be possible, however this time doing a speed clear will require more thought and skill than currently.
Thoughts?
Making things more high stakes isn’t the answer. That will just push players to be more elitist.
The reason full offense gear is so readily accepted is that so much of the damage in this game is either reflectable or comes in big chunks that can be dodged.
Damage from dungeons needs to be re-tuned so that it comes frequently in small amounts so that dodges alone aren’t the saving grace that they are now.
I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.
Right, so the DPS only system they have now is just so wonderful, and is chock full of build diversity. Oh wait….
And I think you missed the point, what Arenanet were trying to do wasn’t so much to get rid of the Trinity, but replace it with their own version of one that was more diverse and less crippling then the original holy trinity. DPS-Control-Support.They however failed to do this, and created a system where you effectively are only a DPS, and everything else is a side dish. In fact in most modes of play, it’s Zerkers or go home.
While you can play with different builds, the game punishes you for it pretty much. You always going to be less effective then your pure DPS counterparts.
Not to mention it’s a very isolating and solo experience by design, which clashes head on with their more collaborative multiplayer events and scaling.-
I do give them credit for doing well with just one type of play, but you can’t ignore the great whopping problems that come along with it.
Not to say that a sub-class system would fix that, thou I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand based on assumptions. But it possible to begin addressing some of the issues, depending on how it is executed.Which is the main problem with your argument, you just declare ‘sub-classes’ won’t work, without defining this incredibly loose term that means different things to different people.
You might want to define your terms.
As a point to add to this discussion. We have, and are still working on getting the support balance right in regard to the global role balance meta. And it is due to agreement with points made by yourself (and those of others) that we have been working on this.
Chris
First of all: Thank you for your time and effort devoted to this thread. ANet’s continued dedication to the community keeps me energized and optimistic about the game.
To get support accepted as a viable role in PvE dungeons, it will probably take a good number of various changes, but I think that two changes in particular would make the biggest difference:
1) Damage should be more frequent in smaller amounts. This would keep players from being able to survive so much with dodges as their only defense. One of the main reasons that pure berserker groups are viable is because experienced players can simply avoid the vast majority of damage and don’t need much healing or defense from party members.
2) Trash mobs shouldn’t leash. Preventing groups from avoiding trash not only keeps players from burning through dungeons so quickly, but it also means that CC and other effects can play more of a role and that player performance can be measured by more than just how quickly a player can burn down a single big target.
There will need to be plenty of profession adjustments, of course, since many professions can bring maximum DPS without sacrificing much of any support (looking at you, Guardians). However, I think that adjustments to the Environment side of PvE will likely have the biggest effect on how viable the support role is.
S/D is probably one of the weakest weaponsets for PvE, next to D/P right now. S/P will do more DPS while cleaving on every strike while also giving you an evade weapon skill and bringing a spammable blind field on top of that. S/D, in the best of circumstances is outpaced by every other melee weapon a thief has and Larcenous Strike is single target only.
Also, the bulk of the auto attack’s damage comes from the 3rd attack, so chaining 2 attacks, then breaking to FS or LS is not a good idea.
S/D used to at least be a good weaponset against enemies with boons, but now that it only steals 1 boon, it’s mediocre at that.
I vote No. Downed state is awesome and I love the extra element it adds to gameplay. I mean, I love that a fight against a good ranger using the elite spirit can be made or broken on how good the timing of the ranger is on activating the rez as well as how good the attacker is at stunning/dazing the spirit at the right time to prevent the rez.
A smart player would actually just focus the elite spirit first and then the ranger. I would actually vote yes in the case of spirit rangers, it’s simply wayy too easy for them to rez themselves with their insta-cast, low-cooldown, insta-rez.
The rez takes about a second to cast, which is why the ranger can use it to rez themselves (they trigger the cast right before they go down since it can’t be triggered from downed state)…so there’s no insta-cast involved. Also, the spirit is on a 180 cooldown and the rez has a 30 sec cooldown, meaning that they can self rez once, maybe twice in the perfect situation before the spirit dies.
And killing the spirit will take you a lot longer than throwing out a single stun on the spirit.
I would suggest you take a bit more time to understand class mechanics you have trouble with rather than hastily blaming them.
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)