Guild Wars 2

Again, not so certain it’d be so much as overpowered but rather leave little room for other kits.

So for example you get stealth potential built into BP or Headshot, which then invalidates the use of Heartseeker for stealth, making it redundant for D/P. Then there’s an argument of changing Heartseeker to not be redundant for D/P’s sake. But if you change it, D/D ends up with no gap close. And if you make it a better gap close in the name of D/D that isn’t just a leap, it’s redundant with Shadow Shot on D/P. And Shadow Shot doesn’t make sense without a pistol, so it’s not like it could just be moved to Dagger 2, even though this is probably the best handling of it on a purely mechanical level (although it’d need a nerf either from the blind or damage to make sense, too).

Ends up being very cyclical in a who’s-who for what weapons should take precedence or how much overlap should be allowed. Without major reworks of all of the weapons I’m not sure this idea is feasible to implement in a way that is fair to every kit in the end, while also keeping kits diverse, while also keeping the different kits balanced in general.

Sorry to say it doesn’t matter. Profession design developers are not involved in PvP or WvW development, and as it’s been made very obvious by the late ghost thief nerfs, they don’t actually care to be; they base their decisions by PvE.

Aenaos.8160:

The work Anet did on balancing the classes and the overall combat gameplay is good enough for an MMO.

I staunchly disagree. Just look at WvW, now.

And like… massive battlefield persistent PvP areas are basically only doable in an MMO.

ANet failed on all things competitive, bottom line.

Sadly, it has very little to do with the PvP team, and mostly with how the professions are largely balanced around PvE, especially in the past few years. Fun fact: The sPvP and WvW teams has zero control over or insight into anything profession-balance-related. This has been stated multiple times by ANet staff.

Randulf.7614:

GW2 is not yet at the stage of needing nor benefiting from a new gfx engine. It is too young and still performing strongly enough as it is. The gfx and art have never really been the loudest criticism of the game.

There are other things way more important to the game (a content dump from the forthcoming expac, a wvw focus just to name 2) right now that will help it continue to compete with the other Triple A MMO’s.

Agreed. GW2 needs to fix its gameplay issues more than anything. It lacks the staffing to do this kind of major overhaul in any reasonable amount of time, either. It’s already beginning to struggle to retain its existing core audience/players. I’m not sure how much updated graphics would keep people here for long enough.

KrHome.1920:

The dailies are fun… the rest… not so much.

PvE design applying to WvW is currently the biggest issue from a roamers perspective.

I had to fix this. I’d really like to encourage ANet treat all the formats as one to balance, and just change PvP amulets to reflect PvE stats.

Things would be a lot easier to manage. And a lot less cheesy. Zero-tell damage, perma-boons, passives, etc. could all get deleted.

If I’m not mistaken it was redacted because people were stealthing on S/P and one-shotting others with P/W. Mind you, P/W had a much higher coefficient at the time, and Quickness was 100%. Also very redundant with HS. I can see it actually working with S/P without issue, though; the gap-increase enables a safe return/retreat location to combo into IS without needing to physically walk, making things quicker. Still, it doesn’t solve or really help woes with other kits. It likely ends up making things more difficult if you were going to try and fix everything afterwards.

The big follow-up regarding HS as well is that it begs the question of what to replace it with. It can’t really be utility, because D/P already has so much, and D/D has so much low-function utility, nor can it really be damage… because then D/P also gets overloaded between the AA, backstab, Shadowshot, and this new skill. Not to mention then D/x is likely also out of a gap close at that point, which is pretty huge.

Without a big rework to a lot of the skills in general, this idea may contradict too much in the game already. Not so much out of overpowered-ness issues, but because of it further invalidating other kits indirectly.

Granted, touching any weapon skills on the thief right now is mostly going to require the same treatment.

Crinn.7864:

DeceiverX.8361:

I just see any response accepting power creep as one which will reduce the quality of the game.

What power creep? The power level has gone down in the two years since HoT. The last time any power creep occurred was in 2015. It’s now 2017.

The game moved on. Get with the picture. 2014 isn’t coming back.

So we should just settle on an overwhelming majority of builds having zero viability. In the name of what was against ANet’s intentions of what the elite specs were supposed to provide to begin with. Gotcha.

If this is really how you feel, please never again complain about the state of any of the professions, game modes, content, or point out any contradictions against ANet’s design or stated intentions, nor suggest any improvements to be made to the game in any of these regards.

With that mentality, let the game outright fail, I say.

Cobrakon.3108:

I think its ok for thief to have something like that but not at the same time having an insane amount of evades. Evade spam is real.

Its funny thinking about whether a class should have something or not considering all classes need to be looked at if we are thinking balance.

Absolutely. Senselessly just asking for more power when the problems are so rampant game-wide isn’t going to get anyone anywhere.

All of the elites need substantial changes and nerfs. I even said that in my first post.

Doesn’t change the fact that such a buff is unnecessary and not in the best of intentions for the general game-state.

And that’s the thing; I don’t even mind “extra” in some areas if it comes at a definitive, identifiable cost. The comparison to necro and reaper, at its foundation, for example, is a well-thought-out design; sacrifice the range/caster design entirely for melee cleave/beatstick. Obviously there are implementation issues with some aspects of the reaper (DChill), but the underlying ideology is sound. The commitment to Reaper over core necro is huge, and has its problems. If necro had better stab access, I’m pretty sure most people until the DChill buff wouldn’t have even played reaper competitively. Not to say that’s intrinsically okay (ideally it’d be split even in competitive). But there’s so much emphasis on the elite specs being so much stronger in so many ways that it’s hurt the game. A lot. Maybe NudDah’s more fortunate, but most communities I’ve been in have perished solely because of this problem.

Thing is, most elites didn’t make this tradeoff, and most of the new mechanics are just blatantly more forgiving or un-fun for most players involved. Even the top of the pro players have expressed this sentiment outright, mostly silenced by ANet.

Given ANet’s lack of capacity to balance the initiative system as it is, I’m not sure adding another whole resource is the best of ideas. Not to mention as pointed out, it has synergy issues with existing traitlines including Acrobatics, SA, and Trickery.

jul.7602:

I think we share common ground in that wvw would benefit from an improved algorithm that better estimates sever population and coverage and reacts to changes in these parameters, but I disagree with you (and others) that say a faulty algorithm is the cause of population balance, and here is why.

To make my point more clear, I will cite previous wvw match ups and servers because they are just as relevant in explaining the fundamental problem in population balance.

The power differential between servers is so huge that it I believe it is impossible to create truly competitive and balanced match ups between servers, even with links. For example, in the current state no individual server can field enough players to be competitive with Blackgate. The next largest server, Jade Quarry, while not as big as Blackgate is substantially more active than arguably the next largest server Fort Aspenwood. The rest of the servers follow a similar pattern.

Even if we had the best possible matchmaking algorithm money can buy, it will be impossible to create a competitive and balanced match up when the servers themselves have huge disparities between them when it comes to population and coverage. Take the following made up distribution

#1.Blackgate: Population strength10 l Coverage-8
#2.Jade Quarry: Population strength 6 l Coverage-8
#3.Fort Aspenwood: Population strength 5 l Coverage- 4

#4.Sea of Sorrows : Population strength 4 l coverage-3
#5.Maguuma: Population strength 4 l coverage 3
ect. ect.

Analyzing this distribution which more or less describes recent match ups, there is simply no way to create a balanced match up because there is too much disparity between successive ranks of servers. Even if we could someone match the “closest” servers together you could very easily end up with a complete wash. This problem continues even at lower “tiers”- the top ranked server of one tier has historically almost always been annihilated if the move up a tier.

Admittedly, this is probably the chief reason why we have server links in the first place because it allows anet to automatically boost a server’s manpower between matches to allow them to be more competitive, but again this comes with it’s own set of drawbacks which I’ll outline briefly.

1. Server relinks are too slow and by the time anet gets around to relinking them, people quit the game, guilds transfer and communities dissolve.
2. Server relinks absolutely destroy server identity for the linked servers. If you’re not proud of your server’s identity, there is very little to stop the average person from bandwagonning. Not that I blame them for playing with friends, just saying in the long run it can cause problems
3. Introduces too much randomness. Linked servers are cheaper to transfer to and can fluctuate almost immediately after server links which because of problem #1 make match ups even worse.

To conclude this long post, my belief is that if we can reset the servers, get rid of half of the servers, and enforce server population caps (which seem a little sketchy, how can JQ and BG both be full when JQ is barely competitive with two servers to help them.) so that it closes immediately upon reaching a threshold, the we will end up with a lot less servers, but these servers will have the games population distributed among them more evenly. With properly distributed servers, we can enjoy more competitive and varied matches.

That’s the thing; it’ll always be flawed given 1:1 pairings. I think a major stride ANet made was linking different numbers of servers together to face another one.

So it could be something like BG vs all of T1/T2 vs the entire rest of the game one week, maybe splitting hairs on low-impact servers into other tiers another week. In all reality, the very notion of tiered lists doesn’t need to exist, and should be susceptible to change dynamically week-to-week.

I just see any response accepting power creep as one which will reduce the quality of the game. It’s not nostalgia. The game is just less fun and less engaging as a direct consequence of it. Reworked Acro is loaded with awful design principles. The dagger AA chain buff was just lazy. Nothing is fixing the OH dagger skills. Many aspects of the daredevil are forgiving to play and diminish from the competitive experience of playing a thief in GW2, much like the other elites.

The apathy of accepting more power and lowering skill requirements with unfun mechanics is something I find appalling in general. It’s the reason why we’re in this mess to begin with.

Again, not arguing that. And the entirety of Daredevil/HoT was senseless powercreep that made the profession extremely forgiving relative to core. But that’s my point; why objectively improve a skill that’s already highly-functional for making the profession easy and forgiving enough to make mediocre or poor players get even more bang for their buck, if the intent is to try and buff it to the point of usefulness of BP which is only strong because of over-synergy with a given kit when played well? As you said, and I agree with this statement, BP wouldn’t be taken if it wasn’t for D/P/OH pistol being so solid together when the player doesn’t need to depend on extra defenses.

It’s the same arguments people make about buffing CnD into absurdity; it might make one kit or build better, but it doesn’t really improve the state of OH dagger builds in the greater context of the game, while it just decreases the difficulty of how easy it is to gib people.

Jacion.6302:

Choppy.4183:

Arkaile.5604:

No one is being one-shot by 7.5k hammer bolts from a slow weapon. Consider using blocks, reflects, or some other form of defence if you’re really having that much trouble with it. As for CoR, it’s slow and has a clear telegraph which moves forward along the ground. I’ve been hit by it twice since the release of Rev and neither of those were a one-shot.

Man, (assuming the numbers are accurate) there’s no justification for 7.5k auto attacks. At range is even sillier.

I can only assume the number is either bogus or glass canon melt , which would be terrible frontline without optimum group carry

It’s not bogus. Actually, it can be achieved even with 2700 armor or prot.

Unless you really need the “portability,” which I say with a grain of salt because either it’ll overheat from having a low profile or will be only marginally easier to transport than a superior micro-ATX build (a la ROG), and would only really be beneficial if you’re walking long distances with your computer day-to-day or are setting up in a public location. Generally-speaking, I wouldn’t really recommend it. It was a nice thing to have very early on in college when making new friends and gaming with them in other buildings/areas, but once we all started living together, and as the years passed on, desktops reigned supreme from reliability and superior hardware. Mind you, many laptops run full-fledged GPU’s now; ours didn’t, which also quickly because obsolete for new releases. I still prefer the desktop approach due to easy upgrades and reliable drivers. For example, I have an ASUS G75VW from 2012, but ASUS made no drivers for Windows 10, making the upgrade unstable. Most package-deal sellers for their laptops don’t keep their older models optimized for new OS features, and as such, you’ll potentially suffer long-term, depending on what happens with OS’s and updates over the years. Heat is also really bad for computers, and my desktop runs way quieter than my laptop ever did, while also never going over 30C. The laptop often went over 70C under load.

For WvW, the problems with skill lag have nothing to do with your PC. It’s ANet’s servers being unable to handle the game’s powercreeped coodlowns and proc effects in larger fights; there’s no fix unless ANet changes professions and runes/sigils. If the problem is FPS lag, it’s also largely unavoidable due to issues with the game engine optimization CPU-side. If anything, the lag will be more noticeable on a laptop with slimmer CPU hardware than a desktop, especially if things are getting throttled from heat.

So if you really think that the portability when gaming is a big deal, sure. Otherwise, though, it’s a huge waste. Most of those machines that are worth anything cost enough to a point where you can build a really powerful desktop for gaming and get a very low-profile high-battery ultrabook for work/browsing on the go. Battery is also a huge consideration; most powerful laptops will only get around 2 hours on a full charge, maybe 4 with the display dimmed and on battery-saving mode (so no gaming).

archmagus.7249:

Have you considered AMD’s new Ryzen line? They deliver about the same performance as an i7 but cost way less.

On optimized benchmarks, yes. If anything, they can be superior. The thing with AMD is that some software groups will optimize their engines for Intel architectures and will subsequently perform worse. It can be absolutely worth the savings on a budget build, but on a premium machine the Intel chip will typically perform better. I’ve yet to see GW2 be compared fairly between chip architectures, so I can’t comment on how it’d affect this particular game.

The flaw with this design is that you’re just going to have the same groups of players hyper-stack one server/group/side/color whatever if they get the choice, because most players communicate out-of-game and would quickly work together to stack.

So then you end up with a static, non-changing environment of servers where one totally and undeniably dominates the others. Basically, just how T1 NA is now, except made game-wide.

The only way to fix WvW stacking and population is to have the matchups be data-driven based on previous matchups and play habits through game log parsing and a comprehensive learning AI that also utilizes a little bit of genetic algorithms for diversity, and not by glicko or a simple 1U1D, and then have it quickly change matchups on a weekly basis to try and make the best-balanced matchups, give or take some mutations to prevent stagnation. That’s the only way to fix the problem; you need to have no community decision whatsoever, and kitten the people that try to stack by either forcing them into spending huge sums of gold (unsustainable) to keep transferring weekly, or to stop playing (kills off toxic players which is better for the long-term health of the game). Fact is, however, this solution is complex, time-consuming, and very expensive. So it won’t happen, since ANet doesn’t care about WvW.

Charrbeque.8729:

Xenesis.6389:

OriOri.8724:

Ragnarox.9601:

K.O. finally. Took them long enough.

Yea. I’m just kittened it took until someone soloed a raid boss for Anet to actually do something

Wait wait wait… did that really happen?
I would think bosses would have built in see through stealth mechanics.

LOL.

Yep. He posted a link to the almost 2.5 hour video soloing that sloth raid boss with a ghost theif. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5yy0yl/slothasor_solo_kill/

It took them only 16 days from the time that was posted on Reddit to finally do something about ghost thief, when WvW players have been complaining about it for months.

My observations: at least 1 player here had suggested many weeks ago that damage be added to thief traps so the thief will be revealed when the trap is triggered. It’s been suggested multiple times before the most recent balance update.

Months of complaints about ghost thief in WvW: nothing done about it.

Show you can solo a raid boss with it: Oh Lord Almighty! We can’t have that! Nerf it ASAP!

And whenever I say that they balance for PvE, people deny it.

It’s so pitifully obvious they just do not care about the competitive formats at this point that I really have nothing left to say.

Rising Dusk.2408:

OriOri.8724:

The nerf came about directly because of that. Anyone who believes otherwise is just wishful thinking

Or you’re doing like so many other and just believing what you want to believe. They buffed a lot of those utilities, sure, because they sucked in any context other than ghost thief and that shouldn’t be the case. They also buffed other classes and changed light fields directly in response to WvW balance. More likely than anything else, they felt that the other changes would circumstantially bring the ghost thief into balance, which it didn’t. That’s why we’re seeing the change now.

The change to light fields is literally a slap in the face for the WvW folks, btw. It’s just a running joke because of just how terrible the idea is that it’d actually have any effect on the game. ANet’s move to this exemplifies that they’re actually just totally clueless about the state of the competitive formats, WvW in particular.

Kolly.9872:

I use D/P too when going for ranked but dunno why I find easier to win duels when I am on my S/P build than on D/P. Maybe I’m just bad on DP but I win easily on SP those duels I always lose when on DP

Like I said, I think this mostly has to do with people not knowing how to play against it due to how unpopular it is. It also has really wonky hitbox geometry that if not learned will cause people to think they’re safe when they’re halfway behind you like a warrior’s HB (and in the case of PW, they’re not).

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

Azukas.1426:

DeceiverX.8361:

JonnyForgotten.4276:

Azukas.1426:

Highlie.7641:

No other profession complains about this utility, they have stability and CC which will counter this. They might also realize the transition from block to kick leaves the thief wide open.

And this fella is the winner. Anyone paying attention to frames can easily destroy the thief during the kick animation.

+1 Gold stars all around

I see very little incentive to use the kick in general. Only when it’s opportune.

12s cd stunbreak block with endurance refill on it is good enough for me.

You have to trait the end refill & CD reduction.

I have no issue with thieves have that low of a CD on a stun break due to them having no access to stability, protection, or sustain.

And most thieves will do this for CV as it is. DA offsets the need for WS, and HM isn’t really considered worthwhile by most people.

I disagree with the skill having the cooldown it does for a stunbreak + block in conjunction with UC. It pretty much makes a given daredevil immune to the CC most kits are capable of. Factor in Shadowstep and SoA and it pretty much just outright cannot be locked down.

So isn’t the point of the thief squishyness exactly why it should be hard to lock down? I mean if they were easily locked down they would die instantly and be useless, in most fights… just saying…

I don’t have an opposition to the thief being hard to lock down. I have an opposition to the thief having a tool that makes it harder to lock down that also makes it easy to get out of being locked down, too. The thing about BD is that it’s overly-forgiving to thieves that make mistakes and get caught, which is totally contrary to how the profession is supposed to play. The Daredevil is both extremely strong on its own and extremely safe. BD isn’t carrying the Daredevil, but it does carry poor players to do much better than they ought to be doing. This isn’t a Daredevil-exclusive problem (all elites are guilty), but it is a problem in general with the design of the utility/profession and the general ideology of elite specs; numerous pro-league players agree with the notion that the game as it stands is far too safe in its combat, and mistakes are very difficult to punish.

tomwjd.8172:

and yet optimal ppl still run blinding powder on the meta build. This utility just helps the non meta builds that we have stay somewhat relevant atm which is good.

Which is why I’m not saying BD is any kind of causality for the Daredevil being OP or anything at the high end. The high-end players don’t need BD because it’s a massive crutch tool that when played perfectly, the profession doesn’t need and can’t make much use of. What I am saying is that it causes bad players to be pretty much just as difficult to lock down as one which plays perfectly, since BD allows for huge mistakes and its low cooldown can be utilized more often than most CC abilities.

What made the thief balanced in the past was its very high risk-factor. BD, among other HoT abilities, really nullify a lot of the risks for the profession in general, allowing good players to perform much better than they should, while reaping the benefits of what the thief can do and is designed to do well. This just makes it demand further nerfs now that pretty much anyone can pick up a Daredevil, slot BD, and survive with relative ease.

Azukas.1426:

DeceiverX.8361:

JonnyForgotten.4276:

Azukas.1426:

Highlie.7641:

No other profession complains about this utility, they have stability and CC which will counter this. They might also realize the transition from block to kick leaves the thief wide open.

And this fella is the winner. Anyone paying attention to frames can easily destroy the thief during the kick animation.

+1 Gold stars all around

I see very little incentive to use the kick in general. Only when it’s opportune.

12s cd stunbreak block with endurance refill on it is good enough for me.

You have to trait the end refill & CD reduction.

I have no issue with thieves have that low of a CD on a stun break due to them having no access to stability, protection, or sustain.

And most thieves will do this for CV as it is. DA offsets the need for WS, and HM isn’t really considered worthwhile by most people.

I disagree with the skill having the cooldown it does for a stunbreak + block in conjunction with UC. It pretty much makes a given daredevil immune to the CC most kits are capable of. Factor in Shadowstep and SoA and it pretty much just outright cannot be locked down.

I’ll be totally honest in saying that I think a lot of S/P’s effectiveness is due to its unpopularity causing people to not know how to play against it.

A long while ago, it used to be the best set, then people learned how to counterplay it when Quickness got nerfed, and it fell to bottom-tier.

A guildmember of mine runs it every so often, and in our duels when he was first practicing the kit, I lost a lot more than I’d like to admit; the hitboxes are deceptive on PW and it was the first time probably playing against it in three years.

It’s got potential to do work, but can be pretty comp-dependent. Shocking Aura ele in particular can be pretty much outright immune to it, since it’ll interrupt return on the stun-hit component of PW’s initial portion of the cast, cancelling the whole channel and burning initiative.

Anchoku.8142:

The stat’s you want are not available because they are too good.

Expertise, condition damage, vitality is not in the game for the same reason boon and condition duration were removed from trait lines – balance of risk vs dps.

Too bad that this decoupling made things less-balanced since boon and condition duration are back in the game as stats, where now people can just pick better traits/lines and get the stats they want.

JonnyForgotten.4276:

Azukas.1426:

Highlie.7641:

No other profession complains about this utility, they have stability and CC which will counter this. They might also realize the transition from block to kick leaves the thief wide open.

And this fella is the winner. Anyone paying attention to frames can easily destroy the thief during the kick animation.

+1 Gold stars all around

I see very little incentive to use the kick in general. Only when it’s opportune.

12s cd stunbreak block with endurance refill on it is good enough for me.

Straegen.2938:

The number of people that don’t know I can see their pets… priceless.

Shhh I like my free answers to stealth builds caused by clueless players >.>

martin.1653:

Sndrenerr is top PvP player for a reason. Duels really don’t matter much for thieves as far as PvP goes, so if someone is good at dueling it doesn’t guarantee he/she is good thief. WvW thieves are generally better at dueling, but that doesn’t really guarantee they are good in PvP. Rotations win games, not dueling a druid for a minute.

This is an important distinction to make.

However, Sindrener also does play in WvW and pretty much just straight-up doesn’t lose in duels there, either.

He’s certainly the most knowledgeable on rotations and nuances of sPvP. For mechanical skill, Sind is the best D/P player, but I think Min is extremely capable on more kits.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

i think that is his point. it is kinda silly how an “evasive class” has an ability to block/stun break AND kd with only 12 or 15 seconds cd.

I agree. BD is a low-cooldown low-counterplay get-out-of-jail-free card for the thief that also gives it extra benefits when traiting around with other synergies such as the endurance gain on phys util use (already great for CV) and potential PI proc.

If anything, I think the skill needs an increased cooldown and a reduced duration to 1s flat. It almost innately makes bad thieves perform way better than they should.

It definitely needs normalization to 2 in the PvP formats with potentially lower durations. Right now you pretty much just press 5 4 3 and everything nearby dies.

Cutting initiative costs would go a long way.
Unblockabke is tough because on the one hand, D/D power hinges entirely on CnD, but shield-wielders and people using blocks well would get countered innately.

The bigger issue underlying it is still HoT powercreeping defenses, though.

And even still, the kit will have questionable purpose given the nature of how poor skills 3 and 4 perform, especially when on the stealth attack icd.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

How can you push more damage than in your previous vid? Most damage I gave from backstab is just shy of 13k.

Run full Signet Thief

Thats just being silly you silly goose. Full signet you lose so much for a bit of damage…I was also referring to his build in general…Only way to get it would be to replace bandits defense with power signet (but you lose your block). I personally ditched it for Imparing Daggers (the one that immobs cause…you know…if they cannot run then they is ded plus it adds a bit more damage)

That’s just the nature of it, though. That or play with Sadow Trap and run DA/CS/DrD with HM/Bound as Trickery is technically a loss. Assassin’s Signet plays a substantial role in boosting damage to huge values since it scales everything as well. One can elect CS/Tr/DrD for a bigger backstab, but will lose out on damage overall from no longer having Mug.

As Aiki mentions, a lot of the crazy huge stabs come from the target being squish more than anything. This is rare now given HoT. His build honestly hurts mostly from the mixed and simultaneous hits of Mug, PI, and the stab combined into a smooth burst combo, and stacking into power and ferocity appropriately.

There is not really a universally good build that hurts so much consistently on Tankier targets. You’re either making big sacrifices for the most part or aren’t going to deal the damage as consistently.

The initiative cost per damage unit on CnD and Backstab is better than what PW does. PW also has a cast component and long pre/aftercast frames both before and after the stun component and cleave portions on PW. A CnD + Stab is objectively faster single-target damage and D/D itself clears mobs in non-grouped environments faster and is subsequently more efficient in killing since it doesn’t need to ball mobs.

Dagger AA cleaves, and has cleaved for what’s pushing two years. It’s objectively superior to the sword’s cleave/DPS.

The sword has never out-damaged the dagger and still doesn’t. P/W is a nice burst on an easy-to-cast ability. A D/D build is objectively and always superior single target and cleave damage unless you’re only fighting pocket raptors. CnD + backstab does subtantially more damage than P/W in a much shorter period of time, and the rest is fulfilled by blatantly superior AA’s which already out-damage PW. PW’s only gain is damage during immunity frames.

Backstab isn’t hard to land can be delivered faster than PW.

The OP asked for damage potential. The cleanse doesn’t matter, and is mostly a concern for PvP; most monsters pre-80 in PvE do not load up on excessive conditions, and SoA provides ample cleansing with the recent buff + good damage bonuses during its downtime, and the player can still elect to use Shadowstep for an additional cleanse. Until 80 and full party buffs, there is no way to make any build compete with the kill rate on a CS + D/D build due to the early HK crit boost. The base crit modifier of 50% will already mostly push CnD + Stab well-over what the sword is capable of doing. Aside from the very early levels where one doesn’t have access to traits, pre-80/group optimization, there’s just no conceivable argument suggesting S/P is going to out-damage D/D if CS is taken (which is the best source of increasing outgoing damage).

Porting from mob to mob assumes a kill speed that’s at 15s or longer given the nature of IR’s effect duration. That’s an insanely slow kill speed and HS spam covers the same distance at only one more initiative, and is only marginally faster than walking OOC, which given a D/D build, any given mob should die in two or three hits.

I still don’t see how any of this disagrees with what I originally said; Unload is the highest given might, PW is highest baseline coefficient, Backstab tied for highest single hit with vault if CnD is used for vuln prior, which pushes CnD + backstab together into the easily-highest damage output per initiative.

And in order to get matching power damage output, one needs to spec into power as well.

And it’s very much mathematical. Most professions in WvW in all environments are better off playing conditions. It isn’t the case in PvP because a mix of damage is necessary and is best pushed towards +1 builds designed to help burst down other players in a gank environment, and some builds can still push heavy power damage numbers depending on the matchup. However, the best builds are always budgeting offensive vs defensive pressure. This is just how it is, and how it has been since just a few months after release. Signet thief isn’t considered a good build despite being the best quick burst in the game, just because it’s so vulnerable to pretty much everything. I don’t think a full-berserker-gear build aside from backline has been in the meta in WvW for years. Even now, most of the ZvZ/backline builds play conditions because they still just deal more damage.

Otherwise the skill-per-skill value and cooldown cycles are near-identical.

Burn guard and venom thief can easily pull of 8-10k+ tick engages. Reaper stacks an instant 40 bleeding and 12 poison on foes with two skills. There are some aggressive condi mesmers which can quickly pop out over 20 stacks of confusion and 12 torment on engage. There are a number of streamers that have shown these builds and play them. I believe one of the top 50 thieves in NA plays a D/D condi non-death-blossom-spam venom build which a guildmember of mine runs now, which applies absolutely huge condition pressure right off the bat.

Not necessarily. Depends on how you build and what level you are.

Pre-80, at what I believe is around level 30 or so (to have the points for traits and utils), D/D will offer substantially better killing speed without balling massive numbers of mobs since one can spec into CS for HK and crit every stab. The 100% stab crit rate will easily offset the non-crits on the 8 hits from PW, and the combined coefficient will allow typically one kill per cast of CnD + Stab. Dagger AA out-cleaves P/W as well, The only advantage to P/W is the evade frames, which typically aren’t seen as worthwhile since in open-world BP on D/P will normally provide enough negation to avoid taking hits if the defense is needed, and is generally more efficient on negation per initiative.

It’s also worth noting, to clarify my earlier post, that Backstab, in the event of using an OH dagger via CnD’s 5 vuln, now hits equally hard as vault on its own given the vuln bonus.

AikijinX.6258:

rbbthole.9074:

BikeIsGone.8675:

Larcenous Strike + Steal: Since Flanking strike doesn’t actually have to hit the target to give access to the chain skill, you can use it as an evade. Then precast LS and steal as the cast is about to hit.

lol

lol Whet?

Yea I’m not sure what he’s saying. FS needs to land in order to gain access to LS.

As far as the OP goes, you need to play an all-in full-offensive build for the most part, and connect with squishier targets. You will not OHKO anything tanky or when utilizing any meta build. You’ll need to likely play mostly Berserker or Valkyrie gear (issues with critting), maybe with a few pieces of Marauder.

CS/DA/DrD is optimal but CS/Tr/DrD taking all damage modifier traits or CS/DA/Tr can also get there, though core thief is kind of absolutely horrible except for the condi ghost build.

D/D technically has the best combo burst but D/P is very close and much more effective in general, typically. P/P has the highest single-target burst potential in the game per cast, and S/P follows closely and can deal more on engaging hits from on-interrupt effects like Impacting Disruption + Sigil of Draining on a double interrupt from SoH and the stun on PW. Post-CnD backstab (due to the new 5 vuln) is now tied with Vault for highest damage on a single hit.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Venoms don’t become more powerful, just because they get applied by a trap instead of something else. Thief can already run venoms + traps, but nobody does it, because a thief is a free kill without any defensive utilities, unless he sits in stealth permanently. Which he can’t, if he wants to apply those venoms. With or without traps.

Not really. Run Dire/TB gear and as long as the thief isn’t actually clueless he should be able to survive the incoming damage from most players in a 2/3v1 scenario until he can stealth again.

Stealth stacking on all professions really needs to die, though.

babazhook.6805:

Kamara.4187:

If they yanked trail and dire I wouldn’t get a fun fight from a lite armor class ever. I’d eat them all. No. I don’t want an instant I win button. I want fun fights. Leave it alone and learn to play your class better like the rest of us had to.

One hundred percent correct. A few nights back I used a close to 8k shadowshot and a 10k HS right after to instant down a fellow thief I got the drop on. Yes he was glass and would likely have managed like damage against me but the point is this.

If I was facing a condition user “Forced” into wearing armor other than DIRE or the like because the people here can not seem to handle it, that sort of damage would down him in seconds and he would never have time to get all of those conditions on.

Most condition builds tend to have one Condi Bomb which is followed by the slow and steady reapplication of conditions from other skills traits to gradually overhwhelm an enemy.

They would never have the luxury of that time without being tanky and no, they can not output the same sort of damage in the same amount of time like a power user can.
Were such a bad idea to happen as suggested in removing dire/tb, I could drop a whole lot of condition cleanses as KILLING the enemy quickly would preclude my needing them.

You make it sound like every other condi option is viper or sinister, though. Truth is that it isn’t. Sinister was the first set of condi gear to come out with all-offensive stats. There are plenty of options which pack a good mix of toughness/vit and another stat.

Compare Dire to Soldier and it’s no contest which is better. Compare Dire and TB to Berserker and Marauder and the condi options in most builds/most professions are still mathematically better when comparing damage dealt vs damage taken at any given time, which is ultimately what PvP environments are about. Boon-bunker has been prominent for so long for this reason.

Shadow Shot’s not really a good example for basis of comparison, either; it is and has been mathematically too strong of an ability in its damage coefficient per initiative cost for years.

The problem with condi builds is the breadth of condition availability on many builds and how easy it is to apply them, particularly since HoT. I don’t think anyone is complaining so much that conditions deal too much damage, but rather that you can take a thief or guard or mesmer and run around with an EHP of over 30k (or more) while pumping 8k-10k+ ticks per second on a burst condition build regardless of the opponent’s armor, have lots of intermittent damage mitigation tools, and how condition pressure negates post-engage or reactive defenses such as blocks and re-positions. It’s the sheer lack of tradeoff for many builds to have a lot of offensive pressure and massive defensive numbers that make it so potent and in many cases, frustrating to play.

apharma.3741:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

apharma.3741:

DeceiverX.8361:

Svarty.8019:

DeceiverX.8361:

@10k backstabs being big, it’s really not. Spec HM and Bound and you already bring similar damage to what CS offers, which can pretty readily get over 10k on most builds.

… and yet in terms of health pools, 10k is an enormous chunk.

It is, but it’s not really that much compared to what everyone puts out these days. Backstab is actually on the lower-end of what’s possible when it comes to burst.

15k Arc Divider from a Marauder Berserker isn’t uncommon. True Shot for 10k is easy to do. Tri-clone MR has been hitting for 20k+ since release. Rapid Fire for 20k isn’t unheard of. Maul ranger can spec to reach over 40k on Maul on the same cooldowns as Signet thief burst. Meteor Storm hits 7k per impact from many. Air Overload destroyes pretty much everything in under two seconds. Soul Spiral on reaper goes to 15-20k without issue. Electro-Whirl can get to 10k without problem. The list just keeps going on and on. WvW damage has always been historically very high and the pace much faster than sPvP. I prefer things this way since it makes fights more decisive and intense.

@Baba, an “8k mug” is not the same as as 3k Mug + 5k PI. The former is literally impossible to achieve, which is what I was getting at. I wasn’t sure what you meant by “3600 base steal” since steal baseline does no damage and didn’t know what to make of it. It’s equivalent to a mesmer stating that he dealt a 15k Tides of Time without mentioning the Power Block trait. A 3k Mug is normal given some modifiers and maybe a bit of might. The lack of critting only requires some power, which is best-achieved through more durable kits via food conversion. PI-interrupt thieves should actually be running Soldier’s P/P since it has the highest potential PI damage of all kits. 8k is why I said “It wasn’t Mug that did that much damage.”

A lot of the builds you described are very much 1 shot builds that rely on landing that perfect one shot damage to kill someone but generally would die in any fight that lasted longer than their second chance at one shot. I don’t often see 15k arc divider from marauder warrior out of the blue as it only will do that if you’re under 50%, likewise I haven’t seen a 6k true shot in a long time let alone 10k. 20k MW on a 4 hit shatter is extremely rare and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever seen it done and many times either outright fails due to passive procs like prot/weakness, invuln, reflected CC.

I know the math supports that they are possible and I don’t doubt it just that such builds usually aren’t very viable without a lot of support or some kind of gimmick/get out of death free card. That’s without mentioning the set up required for some burst combos is like flashing a billboard saying burst inc, great one from your list is overload air where it’s easy to interrupt and it won’t kill you in 2s but will do heavy damage.

I think that’s the point you’re missing. A thief has no choice but to play such an offensive build because they have no real team support builds, where as all of them other class’s can build either way and still share some support

He wasn’t making that point…

He clearly said the point he was making about how damage in WvW is much much higher than in PvP which while I do agree with it I haven’t seen damage numbers as high as he’s saying very often as these are mostly oneshots builds.

I dunno, aside from the Maul ranger hitting 40k Mauls, I find these numbers pretty achievable quite outside of dedicated builds; I’ve to some extent built or played most of them. The point being is that generally speaking, every profession is very capable of large burst damage (>10k) with limited build investment, and crazy high values are not at all exclusive to the thief, which makes equal or even more substantial sacrifices to achieve.

Exedore.6320:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I’ve updated the original post with some updates. Please take a look!

Sigil of Enhancement
Unless you plan to greatly reduce boon spam with profession changes, this is essentially a straight 5% damage sigil.

Sigil of Ruthlessness
Please no on-interrupt sigils. Interrupt/CC spam from certain abilities is already a pain and they could stack this sigil insanely quick. An ele could wade through a group with shocking aura and trigger this sigil multiple times just from incidental cleave. Pulmonary Impact spam thieves will do even more damage.

Sigil of Absorbtion
Doubly bad. It has on-interrupt design and is boon steal, something which should be left to profession abilities.

+1

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

charchar.2149:

Removal of Sigil of Accuracy is not ok.

This we need accuracy to stay.

+1 again. This sigil is so important for a few niche builds.

Xenesis.6389:

Reward for overstacking and blobbing to stay on top? Now the call for balance when tier one has been sucking players upwards for more than 4 years.

lol enjoy the pvdooring.

Historically, most of the lower tiers have been upheld by people transferring down and out of T1, because blob-fests aren’t fun for a very large number of players.

Thing is, most smaller-scale groups or GvG groups quit with the balance state of HoT and the essential +5 supply buff locked behind a huge paywall in GHalls which favors bigger, blobbier guilds.

Currently, there’s no incentive to do anything but blob. Strategy and technique in small-scale is and has been dead since HoT. Even most pro PvP players have come out and said this, claiming they only still play for the money.

When your pro scene, which is supposed to market the game in a positive and competitive light, says the gameplay is bad, it’s really, really bad.

Xenesis.6389:

I prefer this method, works for every character.

No no no, that’s how you apply conditions, not cleanse them.

And this is why I’ve been saying forever, the server system will always fail, if allowed transfers and not with a hyper-responsive matchmaking system.

Getting rid of transfers isn’t feasible since people may want to move and play with friends over time. A responsive matchmaking system is also something ANet has proven to be unable to achieve for all this time.

So the only way to actually offset the problem long-term is to simply do away with servers/tiers entirely and default to EoTM-style matchups.

Servers haven’t meant anything since the megaservers, and transferring has been around since day 1. Ask any player from a low-tier server that was around in 2012/2013 when transfers started being a problem; they’ll say Day 1.

Honestly, though, WvW isn’t dying because of matchups. It’s dying because nobody wants to even fight. The game in its current balance and profession design isn’t fun to fight in. HoT content killed most of the enjoyable parts of WvW. Even blobs getting bigger and server lag getting worse is a consequence of failures of HoT.

Loading.4503:

I was thinking, if there was a stat that was a dires version for power, I would guess maybe toughness vit ferocity, and people used runes and traits to make up for the precision, would there be topics everywhere about people being tanking and still doing all this high dmg?

Lol no. Ferocity is only worthwhile with high power. It’s a scalar modifier, so if your damage is low, it still remains low.

The equivalent to Dire and TB would be Main stat power (non-diminished a la Berserker and Valkyrie gear) with secondary stat Ferocity, Toughness and Vitality (non-diminished a la Valkyrie + Soldier) with diminished Precision as the tertiary scalar like stat like TB’s expertise.

Of course, this would be a massive increase in raw stats notably defensive ones to maintain massive pressure, which is why Dire and TB are regarded as being so overpowered.

Dire has been around forever, but it has always been overpowered. People have been running it and complaining about it in small-scale since its release, because it was just blatantly busted. It wasn’t complained about as much only because the blobs didn’t run it since there wasn’t enough condition pressure when running old GWEN to really have an impact. Buffed condition pressure and buffed power damage negation have forced condi into every part of WvW, however, so now everyone is realizing just how dumb the sets actually are.

It’s preference. I do believe according to many game publishers, the vast majority of players prefer the damage roles. I recall a video interview with MO and CJ before GW2 launched about how the game was specifically designed to feature no dependencies/classes/trinity on the basis it often acted as a gate to have fun/play the content because a majority of players are looking to find groupings with a dependency on what are only a small minority.

And aggro management exists in GW2, and is best-done by tanks and DPS working together to utilize how the aggro formula works, which combines a mix of proximity + toughness + outgoing damage/recent damage + degree of “fixation” which is mob-dependent. Actually, stacking in it of itself defeats most of the purpose of aggro maintenance in GW2, and again, the emergence of the berserker gear meta and so on are a result of un-maintained encounter design + staleness and power creep; early on, before players utilized stacking, dedicated tanks were absolutely a thing in dungeons. And the power creep of traits/stats and in particular elites has allowed even the squishiest of builds a lot of room for error to avoid death (Daredevil can spec to being almost permanently in evade frames, for example). This is what has kitten ed PvP and WvW so heavily, too.

Toughness definitely dominates aggro, but it was also originally intended to. The thing is, high-toughness builds didn’t have a ton of damage to bring to maintain that aggro as well, since conditions, which can spec heavily into toughness without issue, were not a competitive source of DPS, and Soldier’s or a dedicated tank stat were the only alternatives.

kdaddy.5431:

zealex.9410:

kdaddy.5431:

This game was suppose to be a play it your way.

HOT came out and pushed people into the small trinity we headed into too.

A small % of the people who were playing this game liked it. Someone posted GW2 Quarterly sales and its lower the base GW2 at year 3. HOT has been out for a year or so and it catered to everyone who doesnt play GW2.

It messed up PvP, WvW and a huge group did not like the meta maps which was 3/4 maps for HOT.

When you increased the speed of game play probably around 2-3 times. Destroy build diversity, cant deliver on promises given before HOT came out.

You destroy a trust you have with your player base.

Lets be honest, GW2 was casual friendly with WvW, PvP, Dungeons suppose to be the end game game play. They tried to make raids that content for hardcore players.

They probably should head in the direction you are suggesting but a problem is GW2 player base was not into the trinity. Heck GW1 is about playing X class then picking up another class to fill a different role. For instance i played monk/necro.

I like how you took the small opportunity to poor out all that salt xD and no other than a few bosses in raids there is no trinity in anyother part of the game that would make it suggest that we are heading there.

Really?

So in PvP ele plays what? Heal bot shouts, before HOT you could play a dps fresh air ele. You could play a more defensive staff build and then there was a the d/d ele which was a jack of all trades.

In PvP for warrior its not condi or pure damage. Before warriors could run banners or physical skills. For instance the best 1 vs 1 warrior build had 2-3 physical skills and 1 1-2 signet and endure the pain. A support build used shouts and a tank build used the stances.

ETC ETC ETC, these 2 classes alone used different traits. FA ele was air-water-arcane, staff was earth-water-arcane and d/d was fire/water/arcane. Literally all 5 spec lines could be used in ANY part of the game effectively.

Warrior same thing, these changes are the same with WvW. Basic choices that make a huge difference for group fighting or a roaming group.

HOT is nothing like this. Lets get something straight, the rest of the game is GW2 which was for its main consumer loved the game. Simply wanted more stuff to do.

You refer to a small part of the game, yeah just the expansion called HOT.

HOT literally ruined PvP and WvW. Its all those 2 forums could talk about when HOT came out.

It literally went 180 from the player base that liked GW2. You have players saying HOT is for players who wanted more serious content to play is a joke. As someone with near 29k AP, made it to Legendary seasons 1-3, platinum the past season (right off the 250), on T5 of all my WvW AP that are left and as finished the fractals and completed W1 of raids. Its not more challenging, it literally turned into a WoW clone.

I give Anet credit for raids because they are fun but they should of done it in line with the olds specs. Instead of making the new specs super OP. I love VB easily my favorite map but just as easily DS and AB are my least favorite maps in the game.

Thank you.

Elite specs at their power level and how they function I think very well may be the single biggest disappointment this game’s faced.

I just don’t understand why they can’t just remove stealth stacking entirely on all professions. First application maintains its duration and doesn’t get overwritten by others. This solves many problems for many builds.

Yes, it is a substantial hit to D/P thief in sPvP for map traversal for surprises for +1’s, but initiative costs could be managed and the innate capabilities of the thief (or traits) also buffed as a means of compensation.

I never touched SA outside of experimentation and had issues only with Dire condi mes just because of its capacity to flood a diverse set of conditions and PU prior being higher aegis uptime.

Partial trait investment was a good thing, but it wasn’t why OH dagger struggles; the defensive power creep and increased number of passives on top of higher offensive pressure in general from other professions and increased game-wide mobility, particularly brought in with HoT, is why it struggles. The OH dagger kits functioned and were defined heavily through damage avoidance and positioning. Death Blossom, Shadow Strike, and Flanking Strike for example offered ample mechanics to negate incoming damage from melee attackers. In particular, due to the higher number tells in the core game, every X/D build if played perfectly could negate a substantial number of incoming attacks or entire kits while playing against most professions. OH dagger currently is countered mostly by traits and design of new, low-or-no-tell abilities that provide substantial damage or negation with little downtime.

The gains from losing Executioner in CS are disputable depending on the format and environment the thief is in.

babazhook.6805:

@Deceiver I should have simply put the word steal in place of mug and mug in place of steal thus getting 8K+ from a steal.

If you want to suggest that “no it not steal doing the damge it PI” then you would have to apply the same logic to your 25k backstabs when they enhanced with traits.

Just was pointing out some inaccuracy somewhere, since the prior conversation was just about Mug itself. An 8k Mug is certainly impossible aside from extenuating circumstances, but dealing 8k damage from multiple effects tied to Steal, isn’t.

maddoctor.2738:

Now we get players with severe memory issues saying that all builds were fine before Raids. Maybe you never touched an instance in the past? Or you only went with your guild and experimented because there is zero difference between pug dungeons and pug Raids.

Hint 1: there was build exclusion long before Raids. Rangers in particular should remember this VERY WELL and any Ranger who ever comes here and says they weren’t excluded from dungeons and fractals is a liar.

Hint 2: Raids have been cleared with multiple types of builds and compositions. There is no one comp working for everyone but there is good variety. Again, moot argument.

This was entirely player-determined, though. The same thing said about the zerk gear meta. People just wanted efficiency because the dungeons gave good gold and the content became stale and trivial. Most people didn’t do dungeons because they intrinsically thought they were fun (they did at launch/when new, but it gets boring). It was about cash money.

So arguing that just because there was elitism and a meta before and having it be a dev-side focus is not valid, because the justifications were totally different.

I never in my hundreds if not thousands of runs played an all-zerk group, and never got kicked for being a ranger, and neither have any rangers that I personally know.

Not joining the “10k AP zerk only no ranger” listings on LFG would have helped a lot to avoid being kicked. I always just made my own “all welcome” groups which typically filled in about thirty seconds. They weren’t speed clear runs, but I wouldn’t expect that having not been playing a meta build. But completion times were still typically quite good, give or take maybe three to five minutes over the all-zerk groups and so on.

The differentiation is that those who complained about the dungeon meta were misinformed, lazy, disrespectful to how other people wanted to play (without them) or just bad, and subsequently got kicked. In raids, the elitism is stemmed by the very nature of the content design itself.

It was pretty funny trading back and forth yesterday, though. Pretty much came down to who got the jump on who every time we crossed paths.

“Man that guy really hurts” → Friends List → “Oh it’s gotta be Aiki.”

Svarty.8019:

DeceiverX.8361:

@10k backstabs being big, it’s really not. Spec HM and Bound and you already bring similar damage to what CS offers, which can pretty readily get over 10k on most builds.

… and yet in terms of health pools, 10k is an enormous chunk.

It is, but it’s not really that much compared to what everyone puts out these days. Backstab is actually on the lower-end of what’s possible when it comes to burst.

15k Arc Divider from a Marauder Berserker isn’t uncommon. True Shot for 10k is easy to do. Tri-clone MR has been hitting for 20k+ since release. Rapid Fire for 20k isn’t unheard of. Maul ranger can spec to reach over 40k on Maul on the same cooldowns as Signet thief burst. Meteor Storm hits 7k per impact from many. Air Overload destroyes pretty much everything in under two seconds. Soul Spiral on reaper goes to 15-20k without issue. Electro-Whirl can get to 10k without problem. The list just keeps going on and on. WvW damage has always been historically very high and the pace much faster than sPvP. I prefer things this way since it makes fights more decisive and intense.

@Baba, an “8k mug” is not the same as as 3k Mug + 5k PI. The former is literally impossible to achieve, which is what I was getting at. I wasn’t sure what you meant by “3600 base steal” since steal baseline does no damage and didn’t know what to make of it. It’s equivalent to a mesmer stating that he dealt a 15k Tides of Time without mentioning the Power Block trait. A 3k Mug is normal given some modifiers and maybe a bit of might. The lack of critting only requires some power, which is best-achieved through more durable kits via food conversion. PI-interrupt thieves should actually be running Soldier’s P/P since it has the highest potential PI damage of all kits. 8k is why I said “It wasn’t Mug that did that much damage.”

charchar.2149:

This list is far better than V1 but you guys are spinning your wheels, and degrading the game by leaving out sigils like Accuracy, Transference, Water and whatever other good sigils that are getting flat out deleted.

Woah woah woah, are they deleting Accuracy?

Because I’m definitely never setting foot in the game mode again if this sigil isn’t there.

Fluffball.8307:

I would be astounded if any video game can make a game without an optimal choice.

It’s not about a lack of optima but rather the magnitude of how viable a non-optimal build is.

For example, you look at the WvW scene from pre-HoT, and in small-scale play, any build could be made useful if it jived with the team. Small groups ran plentiful mixtures of different builds and specs to fit into their styles, and fair-numbers fights in this respect were pretty much always balanced. Even blob tactics weren’t as strict; a good thief or periph group could carry a GvG. Most players could find success in sPvP with whatever build they ran, aside from the very top tier (and even then this had some pretty big occasional outliers). Now it’s just not the case.

It’s the difference between a game with an S/A/B/C/D-tiers for picks and a game with an S-tier followed by a C-tier, because nothing fits in the realm of A/B to be competitive with what’s in S.

The fact I can equip a meta build that I’ve got very little experience on and immediately see obvious, huge performance boosts over builds I’ve tuned to the absolute maximum and have spent thousands of hours playing on is only indicative of a massive disparity between the optima and “the rest.”

Because ultimately that’s what makes for a successful PvP game; “the rest” should largely be good enough.