Guild Wars 2

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

By that logic P/D is an incredibly mobile set because none of the abilities root you in place.

Yes and no – it doesn’t have DB.

DeceiverX.8361:

S/D also doesn’t have any skills which root the player

You’re still bound to move in a certain way when using your #3.

DeceiverX.8361:

and has more seamless and fluid animations on its skills than D/D does. Actually, Death Blossom’s movement/animation is slower than Flanking Strike’s, and S/D also offers better travel speed, gap opening AND closing, and fight reset potential.

I thought we agreed on the movement, yet you talk again about gap closers :P. The animation of DB might be marginally slower – I don’t think anyone is able to really see that.

So I’m really not seeing your point here.

That’s ok, as I stated my opinion.

Death Blossom also forces a movement pattern, just as FS does, and FS’s movement can be controlled with perfect granularity in any direction as DB can, plus FS can be used in stealth and in closer proximity to the target or swap-cancelled at the end of the evasion frame/re-position while not revealing the thief.

Mobility is not uniformly defined by casting speeds and roots. Doing so would be ridiculous and would be a blatant lie. In the past game I played, one class had a passive 2.5x land speed over all other classes, but could only deal substantial damage by rooting itself in place, and was subsequently very, very squishy, but dealt absolutely massive damage while rooted. Cancelling these effects early and knowing when to attack and when not to was critical to succeed, and the profession was so mobile to the point where it could become literally impossible to hit if played properly. By such a definition, it would be considered extremely “immobile” which is absolutely not the case. Declaring otherwise is equivocal to try convincing people ranger shortbow has incredible mobility while a warrior’s GS has horrible mobility.

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

Please elaborate. In my three and a half years of playing D/D I have found the set to be extremely poor in its mobility.

S/D packs so much more in-combat mobility that I don’t even run shortbow and use it as my second set because D/D lacks it so much.

Jana.6831:

No single skill roots you, they’re all fluid. To me that is mobility – to most other people it’s probably really moving from a to z.

By that logic P/D is an incredibly mobile set because none of the abilities root you in place.

S/D also doesn’t have any skills which root the player and has more seamless and fluid animations on its skills than D/D does. Actually, Death Blossom’s movement/animation is slower than Flanking Strike’s, and S/D also offers better travel speed, gap opening AND closing, and fight reset potential.

So I’m really not seeing your point here.

Carighan.6758:

Darknicrofia.2604:

what the hell is the point of blocks if everything in the entire game becomes unblockable?

Well, it’s an arms-race issue. They’re giving out blocks and invulnerabilities like candy.

Consequently, we need more and more abilities which can ignore them.

The correct solution is ofc to restrict access to either, and ideally use it as a class theme:

• One class (and only one!) has access to a lot of blocks and invulnerabilities. Conceptually I’d see this on the Warrior, but whatever, doesn’t matter. A second class has access to a 1-2 duration-based block abilities. Everyone else has only a single-hit block, and only on one weapon, if even that.
• Likewise, only one class is able to pierce vulnerabilities frequently, ideally via a debuff (so the target can react). A second class can pierce in limited quantities, probably as a secondary effect on specific attacks, all on one weapon (easy to identify). That’s it.

We have a lot of elements in GW2’s combat which could be used really well to differentiate the classes, yet the constant arms-race coupled with the “me too, me too, me too!”-approach of many PvP players and the devs genuinely listening to players (IMO always a bad thing in MMORPGs, players know what they dislike but not what they want) leads to classes which are washed out and effects which are all over the place.

The high block/invuln time was meant for guardians due to the low-tier health and aegis/RF/blocking weapon skills being a big part of their class mechanics, but yea, if I could +1 this harder I would.

Even as a thief main I don’t think BV making attacks unblockable was necessary; it’s just power creeping a “solution” to a problem, as BV’s huge cast time doesn’t counter-play blocks, it just makes the thief strictly better on engage with it and safer to engage with. While it really doesn’t have any impact at all in most 1v1 encounters (as the skill has a very long cast time so you can’t react with it), the issue is stemming largely from classes in general just not being able to get their burst off and do sustained damage because everything just runs around invuln or spamming blocks these days. Not to mention that only a few skills should be unblockable and that such skills should be used as counterplay or for effects rather than just pure damage/essential portions of damage/burst.

There are too many damage-prevention effects in the game right now and too many passive effects which activate these. The skill-demands from the game are slipping rapidly with an excess of power creep brought in from HoT due to bad design.

Buffing AI doesn’t help the problem.

See ranger; either it’s monstrously strong for no reason or it’s extremely weak and inefficient.

The AI just shouldn’t be there to begin with.

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

D/D isn’t justifiably mobile outside of HS spam, which is just MH dagger, and D/P offers better in-combat mobility from Shadow Shot. S/x is more mobile so long as there’s a target, and obviously shortbow is mobility king.

The only sets D/D is more mobile than are P/D and P/P, which are the worst for obvious reasons being that neither of these have a gap close or OOC movement abilities.

D/D doesn’t have to sit in a smokefield
All that matters with D/D is your own moves.
ETA²: So yes if people mean “running from a to z”, then D/D isn’t mobile. In fight though there’s nothing more mobile than that set.

Please elaborate. In my three and a half years of playing D/D I have found the set to be extremely poor in its mobility.

S/D packs so much more in-combat mobility that I don’t even run shortbow and use it as my second set because D/D lacks it so much.

D/D isn’t justifiably mobile outside of HS spam, which is just MH dagger, and D/P offers better in-combat mobility from Shadow Shot. S/x is more mobile so long as there’s a target, and obviously shortbow is mobility king.

The only sets D/D is more mobile than are P/D and P/P, which are the worst for obvious reasons being that neither of these have a gap close or OOC movement abilities.

Kodiak.3281:

DeceiverX.8361:

I completely agree. Fact of the matter is it’d come down to nerfing the coefficient by like 50%, though, which obviously people would get very upset about.

People would be upset because that’s not balancing, it’s simply an axe job.

In actual balance everything is worth a value. So lets say, theoretically, a weapon is supposed to have X amount of value. Things like DPS/CC/Heals/etc all have their own values as well that make up that total weapon value. If you reduce the damage on an ability by 50% that value number dramatically shifts downward and thus, balance wise, you have to give that number elsewhere on the weapon.

Flip the damage coefficients on long and close range, then (50% reduction at end, double damage point-blank). As-is the Rev Hammer even without CoR is one of the best ranged options in the game.

Kodiak.3281:

This is a great change.

One friendly player should not be able to negate the damage of another friendly player through bad (or good) timing.

For the players who are concerned about WvW, all I have to say is there are better ways to accomplish what you’re looking for rather than a bad solution that inadvertently does the job.

I completely agree. Fact of the matter is it’d come down to nerfing the coefficient by like 50%, though, which obviously people would get very upset about.

The meta is always low-skill : high-reward for the most part. Too many passive procs and unskillful mechanics in GW2 and not enough effort in balancing diverse combinations paired with a game mode featuring defensive play and balancing efforts for PvE/Raid content.

DanAlcedo.3281:

NONONONONONO! Pls not! WvW is finaly playable without 14k+ CoR´s at every corner.

Now im sad

Right? This was a breath of fresh air and now we’re back to just watching ZvZ of CoR spam. 2s → 4s cd means absolutely nothing.

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

D/D condi doesn’t become a ranged weapon set with these adjustments when paired with the changes I’ve suggested to Dagger Training in other threads (we’ve had this discussion). This bumps MH dagger’s melee condi potential up dramatically, and Dancing Dagger functions in melee or close-proximity range, anyways. Dancing Dagger is easily-avoided through movement because the projectile is so slow. This just gives P/D more bleed access as the “dedicated” condi set without needing trait investment, but gives D/D better condition access overall through poison, which then gains superior mobility and stickiness over P/D by yielding much more damage at a higher investment cost by traiting into DA.

If I said D/D condi could potentially get four times better DPS than it has now, with better mobility, and a higher skill-cap, why is there justification to complain?

You can’t compare power and condition builds from their style of play and ignore their stat differences by discussing the merits power has over conditions. Of course berserker power does more burst damage to squishy targets than a carrion condi player. The carrion condi player ignores toughness and doesn’t need to stealth and is also innately tankier from the defensive stat advantages condition sets and builds offer. These are two completely different styles of play and ideologies with massively different figures. And being innately tankier while dealing damage at a lower risk makes no sense.

There’s a massive difference between blind and evasion, considering single-target blind applies to one hit and can be cleansed mid-attack, while the evade gets on-trigger effects from traits and negates all incoming attacks for the duration, and the opponent has no say in the matter for the evade duration. You can get hit by area denial, but at that point it’s the fault of the thief for having DB’ed into it. You’re also comparing DB to Shadow Shot, the already-single-strongest skill the thief has from a damage : initiative : time : reliability perspective (when considering realistic cleansing rates etc.) Bound frequency is lower than DB usage, too, and bound has a longer aftercast/downtime than DB does. Thieves are complaining this skill is overtuned in its damage. Justifying your argument stating that DB doesn’t deal as much damage as one of the single most powerful skills in the game and subsequently is not needing damage placement moved elsewhere is innately flawed logic.

The build is easy, and a lot of people do play it. It’s just not “meta” because the best-of-the-best define the meta, and the best-of-the-best play cheesier/numbers-wise better tanks for bunkering at the top-tier and need the thief as +1’ing and uncontested caps. Old bunker mesmer or D/D condi thief? Old bunker mes certainly did a hell of a lot better and required a hell of a lot less skill. D/D celestial ele once nailing the rotations is the same. We should be promoting more skillful play game-wide, and not reducing the game down to boring and thoughtless spam. So the masses follow the leads of the professional players and play other things. Those who innovate, though, are playing this build because it’s simple to use and extremely, extremely strong and can actually help carry games in a role the thief normally cannot do anything with: playing on point. With pugs, this capability is massive.

There are hardly any d/b spams builds that I see. Your claiming it just easy and that why you do not like it shows bias against it and that where you coming from. that IS elitism as Jana suggested on another matter. I suggest d/p is easier to use.

I suggest you read what the skill is. It is called “an evasive attack”. All professions have evasive attacks. Why are you not lobbying against them all?

An elementalist has three in total A ranger 5. A thief has 4. None are OP as you claim. Revenants have two and so on.

With the thief PW is not OP. It is not used all the time because the PW is used in sync with other skills in a power set.

Flanking stikes has the exact same evasion time as does DB and inflicts damage. You can get a whole lot of damage off flanking strikes but you do not seem to have the same issues with flanking strikes.

The reason flanking strikes not spammed is because s/d users have better sources of damage in the set and s/d users can be caught quite easily between the frames of the evade by enemies in the know. In fact it even easier to catch a DB user as you can act before the evade frame finishes.

The exact catching between frames can be done with D/B. D/B is spammed more often because it does the most condition damage in the set. The AA is used less frequently because it does less condition damage. If you are trying to get conditions on an enemy you have to do it as quickly as possible especially as a thief. That is the nature of the thief with his burss attacks in power and that the nature of the thief with his condition attacks.

I would point out I play an s/d thief with 3100 armor , 18+k health and attack of 2800 (wvw numbers) that can generate almost at will three seperate sources of 10 percent damage mitigation on top of that. He also has an evasive attack. Why is that not op?

Lastly you seem not to understand how a d/b build works in conditions. It is not the evades that give it the sustain. it is the HEALS of SOM and it one of the few builds where people will choose SOM and one of the few builds where an investment in healing will help the thief.

As to your problems with Spam. I would note that in the meta builds there a d/p thief outlined there. In the text of the build describing its rotations it finishes with “spam 4 heartseekers”. Where are all the power users complaining about HS spam?

DB is not an issue.

The Fix to d/d should look at 4 and 5.

I suggest a build gets improvements to its viability and that the prospect of playing well gets rewarded. This isn’t elitism; this is trying to promote a competitive environment where skill matters. If I said all D/D players are innately bad players and deserve to die more often, that is elitism. In the name of defending your argument, you’re resulting to attempting to tarnish my name via false proclamations about my personality to belittle my argument. I’m stating a simple fact: D/D condi is a build with an extremely high potency with a very low barrier of entry with little interaction to and from opponents and very little depth in play; it is easy because it doesn’t allow the player to really do anything except press 3 for optimal results. As a consequence, unless the build catapults into becoming blatantly overpowered, it will never be optimal due to its extremely limited skill ceiling and relatively fixed level of reward. D/D will never see meaningful changes or improvements on the sheer basis that the skills as is are poorly-designed.

Not all professions have “evasive attacks”. the engineer, necromancer, and guardian do not, and most other classes which do have such skills (warrior, ranger, revenant, ele) have access to them at the shortest possible cooldown of 8s, and except for the ranger, only have access on one weapon, and these skills usually hover over 15s cooldowns. Do realize one Wild Strike with MH dagger on the thief will yield the same evasion uptime as these skills due to the endurance regeneration. Two for the ranger. Unless you wish to tell me that the thief’s MH dagger attacking twice every 9s is comparable to the use of Death Blossom for evasion uptime, these effects are not comparable, because that’s what you’re comparing Death Blossom’s uptime to, not to mention a bulk majority of the skills mentioned do not deal damage during the evade but instead at the end of the evasion frames.

I’m not sure why PW was mentioned. PW is a poor-performer because of its pre-cast/post-cast frames which leave it neither evading or dealing damage, locked in an animation. Remember how Death Blossom used to be bad? Yea, the same is still said about P/W, except it’s even worse than DB used to be, because those frames are longer than even the old DB’s.

FS/LS isn’t spammed because it can’t deal damage while it dodges. LS has a huge animation with its wind-up longer than the entirety of Death Blossom’s whole animation. It also costs more initiative. And yes, it isn’t spammed because it needs to deal damage from another source not on its evade. That’s literally my entire proposal’s reasoning to bring D/D condi’s damage up and move its damage off of the evade: every other class and build in the game needs to take a brief moment to deal damage. D/D condi doesn’t. Also, Death Blossom has near-seamless aftercast animations now. They buffed it. There’s a reason it saw a sudden huge jump in people playing the build, and it has very little to do with Lotus Training.

Those stats on S/D thief don’t mean much. Care to discuss your crit damage and outgoing damage modifiers? The thief has horrible power coefficients, so it really comes down to how you modify your damage. My stab thief spikes at 4k power and 251% crit damage with an additional 70% extra damage modifiers on 19k health in WvW, despite the 2.2k armor. And that’s the weakest build the thief has and is one of the weakest builds in the game (signets). My condi thief each DB if not cleansed does over 9k, with almost 24k health at 3100 armor, ignoring toughness and mitigation entirely. Your S/D thief might be “durable” and “evasive” but it means nothing if it hits like a wet noodle.

SoM is also an extremely weak heal. P/P unload gets the biggest benefit from the effect because it has a positive hits per initiative cast, and Withdraw is still better healing per unit of time. Even with infinite initiative using DB the healing from SoM is marginally better than Withdraw, and it gives no cleanse, evasion, and the heal has a pitifully long cast time. Frankly, you’re better off with CV in every way, so claiming D/D condi succeeds on the heal is untrue.

D/P is a set which promotes unskillful play, I have mentioned that in this thread on behalf of suggesting nerfing Shadow Shot. HS spam works because of fire and air procs letting the damage ramp off of Shadow Shot, quickly cutting people down to < 50% letting HS spam ensue. HS spam is attributed to fire/air procs, which, by the way, I have vouched for nerfing, and still would like to see removed. Otherwise, HS spam is worse than AA damage. Shadow Shot is better damage than HS when the target is > 25%, though. D/x also has no damage outside of Backstab, Shadow Shot, and HS, as OH pistol is utility on 4 and 5. It’s why D/D power players are complaining: our 3 and 4 do no damage and poor utility and 5 is just weak relative to the synergy so many effects have with BP. It’s not so much that CnD is weak but BP is crazy strong and our other options (3 and 4) which are big enablers for D/P to succeed are so poor and subsequently need tweaking to close that gap. CnD is strong, but it’s all D/D power has, and when CnD can’t be used, power players have no options but to spam HS because it’s the “best choice” – just like DB is on D/D condi – except HS doesn’t evade while it does damage, and that’s a big difference.

I have repeatedly asked for more granular damage staggering to HS to remove spam, asked frequently for the removal of fire/air sigils from the game entirely, and nerfs Shadow Shot in the past. I’m a bit different from most people, as I have mentioned, in that I care for engaging and spam-free play. I chose the thief because it didn’t have rotations, which in most cases, is glorified spamming of buttons to boost APM to make rotations happen better/faster. I encourage skillful play and play D/D signets on this basis; if I lose a fight, I am encouraged to improve to the point where I can overcome the enemy via skill. The gibbing is for ending fights faster for those who are inattentive to their surroundings to notice me (as I do not engage from stealth, playing D/D signets), have skills on cooldowns (me playing opportunistically), or simply lack the speed or resource management to keep up and stunbreak when necessary (punished for not keeping up to pace and/or paying attention). I expect the best out of my opponents when I win and lose and expect the best from myself. Expecting anything else implies that the game should not be seen as competitive and demeans the entire notion of requesting for balance adjustments, for then logically it could be argued the game could be considered balanced in any state regardless of number disparities or potential logical concerns with balance.

This whole argument you’ve raised about abilities being strong isn’t even relevant, though. Your objections stemmed from a disagreement of concept making D/D “ranged” yet you have failed to provide evidence that such a style would be advantageous over fighting in close proximity or conversely that fighting in close proximity would imply a definitive disadvantage versus a distance, especially considering that the “ranged advantage” is not a valid argument on principle that the numbers disagree with you and as such the claim would imply that using Dancing Dagger as is on a power build makes D/D a “ranged” set when it is certainly not so due to the horrible tracking the skill has and terrible damage coefficient.

Defending has gotten easier… sort of but not really.

Once structures/ranged projectiles stopped being bugged to clip through walls and we don’t have the issues of druid airborne divisions, defending will be objectively easier.

Cata costs are getting reduced because guild catapults (superior-level stats) got normalized to 60 supply from 20. This hurt smaller groups substantially, and buffs to defensive structures on top of catas already being slower and more expensive than rams could justify a cost reduction.

If they bumped rewards for defending such that more people did it, I think we’d start seeing an obvious understanding of the favor defense has. A thing to realize is that a bulk majority of the players in WvW right now just want fights, and with the gimmicks placed in structures from upgrades, fighting inside is unappealing. Thus, many find it more fun to go on the attacking side and play aggressively. Since you’ll see more people playing aggressively, it’s only natural attacking forces will appear at an advantage; typically speaking combat favors those with superior numbers, as it should in the event of equal skill, attacking or defending. Favoring defense too heavily yields stagnant gameplay such that people don’t both to attack, which then de-values defense. Either then it’s a constant push back and forth, or simply the players just leave the game mode and it dies, and neither are very good for the game’s future.

Necro durability and Reaper being designed to function optimally while against multiple foes makes sense it’s the strongest class to do so; I can’t say any other professions were designed to optimally perform while handling many foes at once.

Ranger/druid is also very easy to do this with, if not easier than the Reaper, depending on build. Scrapper’s in third as they’re just better than the reaper. Warrior can do it fairly easily, though this is build-dependent, a friend of mine does it frequently on his guard and ele, I’ve witnessed a few mesmers do it (it takes some time for them, but doable) and I’ve done it on my thief, though my record is far from perfect, and I certainly run a build not at all meant to take out camps to begin with.

Pretty much comes down to baiting the chainstun and either isolating or grouping targets as needed. Otherwise it’s not too bad.

Dredge drive me insane with the boons and daze-locking, though.

Manthas.6234:

Akijo.7395:

I’ve never seen as much people on map as now, maybe the people playing GW2 are too busy playing it to complain on the forum?

As the basic marketing suggests, for every vocally complaining user, x amount of users are leaving the product silently. In other words, the more threads of complains in forums, the less users in game.

However, with the expansion, Anet took a huge change of direction and some of those changes were not received well by veteran players (me including). So, while the change of direction may force some of the older player out, it may attract more new players as well. It is yet to be seen how the population balances out in the long run.

Thank you for for this logical response regarding a subject driven by anecdotal evidence and often proclamations about the subject where the data is simply unknown.

The only player metric we do have since HoT is that WvW populations are down by significant margins.

Silverbolt.2301:

DeceiverX.8361:

Silverbolt.2301:

DeceiverX.8361:

Mug one-shotted people when it could crit (it also got its damage nerfed), and it never healed beforehand. On a light or medium, I personally know I could reach close to 10k+ Mugs now in WvW. That’s kind of a problem And D/D OHKO never got nerfed. People learned how to play and realized D/P is just straight up better and offers more damage.

Frenzy GS war didn’t one-shot people and didn’t have stealth. I could run SR on S/D on a critting mug and hit for 8k + 8K CnD on most classes. Anything playing damage except a warrior would quite literally die before I’d get revealed.

Mug/PI removing the auto-crit procs are intentional. That’s part of the build and just how things are; a shatter mesmer would only get one clone to crit on a MR with Daredevul runes. Having run intelligence sigil and played with on-swap effects on the thief, you’ve gotta learn your timing better or sit back and realize you’re putting what’s effectively a GM trait in a line offering nothing but damage on weapons and runes. Expecting better results than what that trait can offer is pretty insane.

Mug never 1-shot anyone, what are you talking about? The most it hit for was 4k on a 30s cd in WvW with PvE gear (which has increased damage than sPvP). D/D got gutted really hard with C&D nerfs, DD nerfs, and HS nerfs. AS was nerfed from 150% on a single hit to 15% damage in 5 as well (which was the whole point of using it on insta-gib build for backstab).

Somehow I am getting the feeling you may not be as familiar with thief history as you feel you are. Perhaps you don’t even main a thief.

I’ve been playing signet stab since this game released. I know the damage achievable.

Check the screenshot. No signets needed. This is pretty normal for me against other thieves.

Multiply that out by 2.954 if it could crit without even the old AS. With the old AS, 4.43.

I’ll just say now I’m one of the hardest-hitting thieves in this game and have been playing as one of the hardest-hitters in this game since close to launch. Do not tell me that our Mug damage was only capable of such pitifully low values while critting, because 4k is nothing.

I hit pretty hard on up-leveled people too.

“No signets needed”?…yea…okay…I’m sure…..

That 10k+ C&D tells me more than enough about the validity of the screenshot.

Anyways, this is where I stop responding to your nonsensical babble, where you try validate yourself with deception, “DeceiverX”.

Unfortunately I cannot prove it was an 80 as people tend to respawn after they’re dead. I did get the backstab in a second screen. I have many others and have posted them in the past with 20k+ stabs, none of which are on uplevels.

You can live in denial if you want, though. You’ll never get your buffs because you’re simply incorrect.

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

I’m just very much against the notion of dealing damage while not being able to take any. I’d be okay with leaving the bleeds on DB only if they made it a 900-range gap close evade that always went the full distance so that it couldn’t be spammed for damage, thus requiring more cohesive buffs elsewhere to OH dagger.

P/D can’t have a teleport gap close, so no-go on Dancing Dagger. The engage->disengage combo potential would be way too strong, especially when combined with the ease of stealth access and SA stacking with naturally tankier gear.

In putting the bleeds onto dancing dagger in d/d you still want to turn D/d condition into a ranged weaponset. Your proposals give no reason to select d/d over p/d in such a case.

DB works because it applies lots of bleeds up close and personal. It is not immune to damage as you suggest. It is very easy to avoid a DB as the range so limited and it very easy to drop AOE where the DB spammer WILL land as you know where he will land.

In order for any thief using a condition build to apply damage at melee range they need a means of mitigating damage. Unlike a power set that can get in and out spiking 8k of damage at a time a condition build takes along time to output that type of damage and no thief can survive a long time trying to apply it. Thats why they need some combination of stealth/range or evades. P/d already has stealth/range covered.

D/d condi works because of evade and rapid application. added to that the GM trait impaling is PREMISED on applying damage on evade. Just as bounding dodger is. It too has limited range and it too works by evading while dealing damage. There nothing wrong with that concept.

Were d/d condi as faceroll easy as you suggest it would be dominating the meta. it does not because it has weaknesses. In applying damage it really no different then using shadowshot and bounding to avoid damage even as it applied. Shadowshot used 4 times in a row will apply far more damage then a DB used 4 times in a row. Rather then evade your enemies attacks you blind him. Why is one ok and the other not?

Your personal dislike of a style of combat gets in the way of a sober assessment of the skill.

D/D condi doesn’t become a ranged weapon set with these adjustments when paired with the changes I’ve suggested to Dagger Training in other threads (we’ve had this discussion). This bumps MH dagger’s melee condi potential up dramatically, and Dancing Dagger functions in melee or close-proximity range, anyways. Dancing Dagger is easily-avoided through movement because the projectile is so slow. This just gives P/D more bleed access as the “dedicated” condi set without needing trait investment, but gives D/D better condition access overall through poison, which then gains superior mobility and stickiness over P/D by yielding much more damage at a higher investment cost by traiting into DA.

If I said D/D condi could potentially get four times better DPS than it has now, with better mobility, and a higher skill-cap, why is there justification to complain?

You can’t compare power and condition builds from their style of play and ignore their stat differences by discussing the merits power has over conditions. Of course berserker power does more burst damage to squishy targets than a carrion condi player. The carrion condi player ignores toughness and doesn’t need to stealth and is also innately tankier from the defensive stat advantages condition sets and builds offer. These are two completely different styles of play and ideologies with massively different figures. And being innately tankier while dealing damage at a lower risk makes no sense.

There’s a massive difference between blind and evasion, considering single-target blind applies to one hit and can be cleansed mid-attack, while the evade gets on-trigger effects from traits and negates all incoming attacks for the duration, and the opponent has no say in the matter for the evade duration. You can get hit by area denial, but at that point it’s the fault of the thief for having DB’ed into it. You’re also comparing DB to Shadow Shot, the already-single-strongest skill the thief has from a damage : initiative : time : reliability perspective (when considering realistic cleansing rates etc.) Bound frequency is lower than DB usage, too, and bound has a longer aftercast/downtime than DB does. Thieves are complaining this skill is overtuned in its damage. Justifying your argument stating that DB doesn’t deal as much damage as one of the single most powerful skills in the game and subsequently is not needing damage placement moved elsewhere is innately flawed logic.

The build is easy, and a lot of people do play it. It’s just not “meta” because the best-of-the-best define the meta, and the best-of-the-best play cheesier/numbers-wise better tanks for bunkering at the top-tier and need the thief as +1’ing and uncontested caps. Old bunker mesmer or D/D condi thief? Old bunker mes certainly did a hell of a lot better and required a hell of a lot less skill. D/D celestial ele once nailing the rotations is the same. We should be promoting more skillful play game-wide, and not reducing the game down to boring and thoughtless spam. So the masses follow the leads of the professional players and play other things. Those who innovate, though, are playing this build because it’s simple to use and extremely, extremely strong and can actually help carry games in a role the thief normally cannot do anything with: playing on point. With pugs, this capability is massive.

Speed of play and mobility, and the rush of what happens when you’re fighting tooth and nail for a victory by strategy and resource management when you’re exposed rather than rotating skills. Nothing more satisfying than winning a fight where your burst failed (at the least setting them into a panic) and you can only out-play your opponent for the win.

Silverbolt.2301:

DeceiverX.8361:

Mug one-shotted people when it could crit (it also got its damage nerfed), and it never healed beforehand. On a light or medium, I personally know I could reach close to 10k+ Mugs now in WvW. That’s kind of a problem And D/D OHKO never got nerfed. People learned how to play and realized D/P is just straight up better and offers more damage.

Frenzy GS war didn’t one-shot people and didn’t have stealth. I could run SR on S/D on a critting mug and hit for 8k + 8K CnD on most classes. Anything playing damage except a warrior would quite literally die before I’d get revealed.

Mug/PI removing the auto-crit procs are intentional. That’s part of the build and just how things are; a shatter mesmer would only get one clone to crit on a MR with Daredevul runes. Having run intelligence sigil and played with on-swap effects on the thief, you’ve gotta learn your timing better or sit back and realize you’re putting what’s effectively a GM trait in a line offering nothing but damage on weapons and runes. Expecting better results than what that trait can offer is pretty insane.

Mug never 1-shot anyone, what are you talking about? The most it hit for was 4k on a 30s cd in WvW with PvE gear (which has increased damage than sPvP). D/D got gutted really hard with C&D nerfs, DD nerfs, and HS nerfs. AS was nerfed from 150% on a single hit to 15% damage in 5 as well (which was the whole point of using it on insta-gib build for backstab).

Somehow I am getting the feeling you may not be as familiar with thief history as you feel you are. Perhaps you don’t even main a thief.

I’ve been playing signet stab since this game released. I know the damage achievable.

Check the screenshot. No signets needed. This is pretty normal for me against other thieves.

Multiply that out by 2.954 if it could crit without even the old AS. With the old AS, 4.43.

I’ll just say now I’m one of the hardest-hitting thieves in this game and have been playing as one of the hardest-hitters in this game since close to launch. Do not tell me that our Mug damage was only capable of such pitifully low values while critting, because 4k is nothing.

Mug one-shotted people when it could crit (it also got its damage nerfed), and it never healed beforehand. On a light or medium, I personally know I could reach close to 10k+ Mugs now in WvW. That’s kind of a problem And D/D OHKO never got nerfed. People learned how to play and realized D/P is just straight up better and offers more damage.

Frenzy GS war didn’t one-shot people and didn’t have stealth. I could run SR on S/D on a critting mug and hit for 8k + 8K CnD on most classes. Anything playing damage except a warrior would quite literally die before I’d get revealed.

Mug/PI removing the auto-crit procs are intentional. That’s part of the build and just how things are; a shatter mesmer would only get one clone to crit on a MR with Daredevul runes. Having run intelligence sigil and played with on-swap effects on the thief, you’ve gotta learn your timing better or sit back and realize you’re putting what’s effectively a GM trait in a line offering nothing but damage on weapons and runes. Expecting better results than what that trait can offer is pretty insane.

Was going to pipe in saying that last I knew, the game was very unstable and performed poorly for Mac users.

Alienware machines are overpriced for what they offer; ASUS’ ROG line is usually more competitively priced and offers superior or the same specs and better hardware quality and cooling. If you’re insistent on low-profile, the Razer Blade is the best in-between, but be careful with buggy synapse software and a very frustrating RMA process if something goes wrong.

Building is your best bet if you don’t need a laptop at all. Cheapest and best performance.

sirsquishy.8531:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I understand your thoughts, and perhaps we will be able to do that for some topics in the future; I agree it would be great! But what’s important to note is that we all — as forum members — have a certain level of visibility into our how feedback is handled simply by our participation here on the forums and our involvement in the game.

Here’s what I mean: I’ve seen the request for “gliding in central Tyria” hundreds of times on the forums. I’ve heard it in the game a hundred times, too! So when I see it come to the game, as a player and a forum member I know that ArenaNet listened to player/forum member feedback. I don’t need someone to come and tell me that, I can actually see it in the update notes and in the game.

So while I’m not discounting — believe me, I would be absolutely the last person to discount the potential or the value of further communication; trust me on that! — I like to think of an old expression that my granny said, “The proof is in the pudding.” In this case, take that odd expression to mean that we, as players and forum members, can see through actual game development that the feedback that we give is being read, reviewed, analyzed, and often implemented!

Again I do love communication, and I positively adore when devs post, or when they ask me to post on their or their team’s behalf. But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes. And because of that, I like the idea of productive threads like this, which you should know will be shared with every single member of the ArenaNet team as highly-suggested reading.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. It’s just a personal opinion, but I like to think it has a certain logic.

Gaile – The biggest point you missed here (and really made yourself) is there is no feedback from Anet back to the players UNTIL the updates have been pushed to the game or are road mapped via the ‘release preview’ blogs you guys do.

This subject is more or less restricted to gameplay and class balance, but it carries substantial weight. There are absolutely aspects of HoT that are/were relevant here (hero point costs on elite specs, the mastery system, hero point bosses/encounters, etc.), but new shinies are supposed to be just that, and revealing too much without a surprise will cause new content to lose its luster quite quickly; a test server potentially hurts game marketability and success of new content for this reason.

This is really where most of the harshness and frustration seems to be coming from, and frankly, it doesn’t quite seem economical from a business perspective to follow the mentality of withholding information until shipment of changes or immediately prior to it. The content is already there and really only discussion of making the game play better is going to make that older content enjoyable into the future and the game better overall.

Simply, there are a lot of ideas and design philosophies out there, not only between players, but within the ANet dev staff. Obviously, only one set of changes is allowed to go through, so the change made need to be pretty much spot-on. Metric data can only go so far, and in-house QA doesn’t encompass everything, either. Balance adjustments require a lot of analysis work and reworks take a lot of development effort across multiple teams or individuals which could be spent on other projects. That said, the current strategy employed is proving ineffective, as in many instances, new mechanics, features, and balance tweaks, often need to be re-visted several times after release. This wastes a lot of development time and resources, and like in any software engineering project, documentation and working with the client’s specs is critical for success and not wasting huge amounts of time and money.

Outsourcing the analysis, or even part of the analysis through two-way discussion can rapidly cut down on development resources expended. The ranger CDI was wildly successful in making the class perform better at what it needed to do by fixing an array of essential issues with the class at the time, and even now, some of those issues are beginning to return with the elite specializations. Obviously we can’t expect dev involvement on that level on a day-to-day basis, as that would be insane, but the interaction of simply getting into designers’/developers’ heads can be massive in shaping suggestions or getting big-names in mathematics and game analysis on board to facilitate the process. Players being able to support or refute a new idea before any implementation work could allow parallel development of other areas of the game while things get figured out if there’s huge uncertainty, or get the kinks nailed out once a good idea is decided upon. It’s silly to design new changes in private, release them, redact them, change them again, release those, redact them again due to another thing, and then new feature X comes out which completely turns the tables on the whole notion of balance or the approach to the competitive modes, requiring now finishing work in the first concern and adjusting the second, whereas in the process of conceptualizing the second idea, resources could have been moved elsewhere if the community reaction to the concept was negative or very different than expected.

Developers and designers are likely always going to be behind the curve of people with profound ideas or the state of the game to balance. Profession adjustment to a stale meta may not be able to change until a year later due to scheduling/resource allocation and just sheer design and implementation time needed. It’s important to make sure on some level the efforts are relevant throughout the process, though, and that such ideas and implementation isn’t wasted due to something else changing.

Daniel Handler.4816:

DeceiverX.8361:

People need to understand that game programmers are not the same as game developers/designers.

Game programmers fix bugs and create new engine features. These people have strong comp-sci backgrounds and pretty much just delve in code. These people optimize code for performance and develop new API’s for both in-house development use and external API functions for community-driven projects.

Game “developers” use game engine tools build by programmers and assets created by artists to create content. They do animation, make decisions regarding level design, get invested with game balance, asset management, and design for playability with the mechanics behind everything in mind. Rarely is the truly complex code exposed here, and in instances where it would become very complex, this task gets handed to the programmers to work on and optimize for new frameworks.

Many people vouching that making numbers tweaks is “difficult” frankly do not have any experience working in the game industry or in a game engine. Frankly, making these kinds of adjustments is extremely simple, and which is why it surprises me so much time is taken between any balance adjustment patches, as rapid iteration typically works better in regards to competitive games.

The design changes are the more complex ones, and take much more manpower. New assets, animation, concepts, and re-balancing everything repeatedly while not removing existing styles/builds while fixing core problems with old ones is a much more difficult task. That said, we largely haven’t seen any since the game launched, and it’s really getting to the point where many classes and builds desperately need help or are being carried by power-creeped abilities or specs preventing the rest of the class/builds getting love.

As far as financial stability goes, ANet is doing fine. Trust me. The big issue with video games these days is selling the initial copies when the game launches. And they absolutely made their money back with how successful the game was at launch with the $60+ price tag. The cash shop is just icing and to keep it supported long into the future with top-notch customer service.

So what is causing the delay?

For action regarding profession balance and reworks?

The community, and subsequently the developers, does not know what it wants for said changes, nor can it come to an agreement on what fair and reasonable solutions may be. So long as the game is doing well and publicity isn’t bad, manpower allocated by those in charge will go primarily towards creating new content to boost revenue. Only when there is an apparent fix or problem will re-designs really need to occur to begin with, for doing so takes development resources away from other areas which could be more profitable.

It’s why you see the same developers working on wildly different parts of the game at different times, and why balance patches are rare and scheduled far in advance; the resources needed to make frequent and substantial changes would be extensive enough to the point where the return on investment isn’t worthwhile. Games are a business and not a charity to the gamer, and even if yes it means that revenue forecasts will decrease by not expending such resources, long-term said plan will likely be the most lucrative.

So long as the community isn’t able to agree on what needs to change (go to any profession balance discussion trying to make overhauls to something weak/strong to make it more fair and more interesting to play, and people will object with their own reasoning), spending dev time sitting around trying to solve complex and abstract problems that may or may not get anywhere is a waste.

While ranged burst right now is a bit overtuned, there’s a huge difference from doing it from stealth.

I’d also love to see said 20k RF damage build. 14k is where I cap out unless I’m sitting on 25 might from other people with capped vuln and stacked modifiers from utilities, in which case if we’re talking being supported by other people, my backstab hits over 35k.

It’s more or less just that some things need a 1200 range attack to land, such as Jormag, and especially so in offensive and defensive measures in WvW, etc. It’s not so much that the thief needs a powerful 1200 ranged option so much as a 1200 ranged option in general. Frankly, the a weapon with 1200 range on the thief shouldn’t be able to deal substantial damage and should instead focus on control and disablement as to avoid extended stealth-> kill shot effects which isn’t fun to play against. I agree there needs to be a risk associated with dealing lots of damage. That said the utility on 1200 range sometimes just can’t be overcome in other ways.

I would rather see HK take a condition cleanse on Reveal. This is one of those cases where for raw damage NQ is pretty much still always better, and you can just wait out a block or keep attacking through an Aegis, otherwise by sitting in stealth. D/P already has Shadow Shot as unblockable, and the new BV is already a huge buff, so giving more unblockable skill potential to D/P doesn’t seem like the best idea. CS needs to walk a line between engage assistance and getting hits in after engaging, and one of the big weaknesses an attack-focused trait setup currently has, as does the core thief in general, is on-demand condition cleansing. A build featuring CS and SA would get some solid in-out stealth potency here by neither needing to camp stealth or constantly be revealed in order to remove conditions.

SoP change looks awesome and would definitely be welcomed. As it is, Signets offers no real potency except for ganks against a single target, even if staying alive post-burst isn’t the issue.

Dual wounds might be excessive. The gains from buffed CnD for more vuln to 10 stacks would be pretty scary. Plus, Flawless Strike already does the whole “moar damage” thing. I’d argue Side Strike just needs a bit more lovin’ to get the thief better crit chance; this is the Critical Strikes trait line, yet our options, aside from HK, don’t really boost our crit chance that much beyond just giving ourselves fury, which most classes have access to. I’d suggest giving Keen Observer the 5% crit chance back it currently has as to not reduce build diversity (it’s 105 precision), but modifying Side Strike to give 15% crit chance from behind or from the side. This gives CS-builds some options to either spec into crit chance via berserker/valkyrie specs or crit damage from sheer modifiers if already on a high crit chance from marauder/assassin, while making the trait options competitive, and still ultimately based around critting.

Sundering Strikes should remain crit-based as it is. It is in the CS line, after all, and unload just applying 4 stacks of vuln on 3spam regardless of build would be a bit out of place for the trait line.

Unrelenting Strikes being made to an on-steal effect would make the trait line more useful on engage by letting D/D have the option of not needing ToTC for the crit on CnD, upheld by NQ or any other build. This also gives CS an “on steal” effect which it lacks unlike most of the other traitlines.

You’re nerfing NQ and I’m not sure if that’s intended. It currently gives 250 ferocity instead of 200.

Too early to call for changes to FG, especially with Daredevil and now reworked (stacking) Vigor in the mix. Stacking endurance regen on top of getting more endurance regen on evade on top of many other effects on evade might be over the top. Acro’s an under-performer right now because Daredevil is just pretty much straight-up better and the play-styles overwrite each other too much except in the case of D/D condi, which is proving a bit troubling to balance.

Preparedness changes are huge. They might be too much. More logical I think is making current Kleptomaniac baseline to give the thief some better potential sustained presence, and putting the stunbreak where Kleptomaniac is. I’d also move the steal cooldown reduction from Sleight of Hand to this new stunbreak trait. It’s hard enough as it is to not take SoH for the daze, so giving the reduction on steal to more builds wouldn’t really power creep the thief so much as open up other doors.

Backstab really doesn’t need more damage. Really. We have so many damage modifiers, and a buffed CS line would put the thief in what I think is a really fair spot. 25% more damage would just be unnecessary, especially now that the bunker builds are fading fast in PvP. While other class’s damage is high, it doesn’t justify ours going into absurdity.

I’d bump DB’s evade distance to somewhere near the 900 mark to keep pressure and allow disengages. This way it can’t be spammed for stickiness as you’ll pass a target too close, can’t be spammed for point defense in sPvP as it’ll send you too far, but allow for D/D to get some mobility superiority to D/P over stealth superiority, kind of like an in-between to D/P and S/D. Even Dagger Training could be buffed to apply poison at a 100% rate with a minor ICD of like half a second. HS is nice, but it’s extremely poor when dealing with the CC and escape potential other classes and specializations are being equipped with.

The idea of spreading conditions is quite interesting on the dagger, but the big issue D/D sees no use of this skill is more or less from low damage and the fact it still doesn’t offer much stickiness. No bounces to the same target and a 50% power coefficient increase paired with the condition spread from target on impact + cripple on impact would keep the AOE cripple utility there, buff the damage appropriately for power while reducing the disparity of “it does 3k to one target or 6k to two targets” and keeping the skill and its condition spreading useful for condition builds.

Don’t think I agree CiS needs to be made baseline on CnD. D/D is an aggressive and risky set. Why take away the risk for the sake of power creep and remove counterplay opportunities? I’d rather see it unblockable, which rounds the skill out more to bump stealth reliability but doesn’t make the thief harder to stop once it lands its already-potent skill. The vuln stacks are whatever; 2 more vuln won’t really mean that much.

Shadow Shot needs its skill damage coefficient turned down by around 20%. For how cheap it is, how much damage it deals, its casting cost, and the blind, it’s just too good and preventing D/P and the thief overall from seeing some love elsewhere.

Pistol Whip’s damage might be too good. Seeing the initiative cost normalized to 7 but the pre-cast animation dropped a small portion would make the skill better overall while not just making it the “oh you’re dead now” button. Again, especially if we’re seeing a lot more use of Sundering Strikes pushing for multi-hit attacks stacking lots of vuln.

Black Powder needs its radius small if it’s applying blind every second like it used to. Counterplay to counterplay involves moving inside the smoke field. You shouldn’t be allowed to just stand in it and be safe from most melee attacks. I stacked two of these on my old P/P tank build and was pretty much unkillable in melee. We don’t need that on top of a larger radius preventing skilled players from getting larger-hitbox hits inside while an unskilled thief could just stand there immune in the center.

Front-facing daze and two-boon strip on MH sword would be too much. Boon builds got nerfed from the removal of celestial amulet/bunker stats, and the necromancer is absolutely the most devastating corrupter now, which makes sense. You’re already buffing Lacenous to 2, and making one boon stolen as baseline on steal. Sometimes the blind is preferential by allowing your enemy to force a cooldown as well (especially for stomping guardians), since daze just prevents skill casts.

I don’t think surprise shot needs buffs. Since the AA damage is buffed on the thief, surprise shotting -> swapping and just getting in for AA damage is enough to make this skill worthwhile.

IA also doesn’t really need cost reductions. We’re already basically forced into the shortbow as it is, and retain superior mobility from it. Emphasizing more use of this skill shouldn’t be where we put our priorities.

Dagger Storm is probably better to just see a cooldown reduction more than anything. It has a niche use, but that doesn’t pop up frequently enough. Mass condition transfers are again something the necro is meant to specialize in, and we shouldn’t be stepping on their toes in both boon removal and condition transferring. Just letting Dagger Storm, even if on a shorter duration, be used more often to reflect things like Bristleback F2 would be immensely useful.

Venom changes look good, except for BV. BV needs to retain a stun. Part of critical counterplay to the thief is to break that stun fast and either fight them down right then and there or break that stun and head for the hills as fast as you can. With the damage buffs mentioned above, I think this change would just make fights too easy and deterministic early-on.

Assassin’s Signet change not really needed with the SoP change. As a signet thief, I do kind of prefer the attack-based nature of the ability as it rewards enemies for playing very well and the saved charges can be really important for more prolonged fights.

SoS change is pretty busted, no lie. Revealed duration cut by so much is just too good on such a utility. Frankly I don’t know what I’d replace it with, but I think your suggestion would just make it overtuned.

New SoM doesn’t really jive well with Signets of Power or the concept of a signet build. Maybe we can work on this one. Signets revolve around getting sustained benefits from not using them or a big benefit on cast. The big thing with SoM is it neither gives a big benefit on cast (even with SoP), nor does it offer the instant-cast heal that the signet style really depends on (getting damage when necessary). Its poor healing justifies its short cooldown, but I think withdraw is simply a much better heal for this purpose. Perhaps it can retain its small damage per hit as the skill has now, but upon use, after a period of a few seconds, it can burst-heal the thief for an amount of damage based on how much outgoing damage they dealt during the duration, getting no healing effect post-cast until the effect expires. This works for the hit-and-run style of play and can use an increased cooldown and instant cast.

Didn’t get through everything, but these are just initial comments after skimming through my first round. I’ll look again later.

I’m just very much against the notion of dealing damage while not being able to take any. I’d be okay with leaving the bleeds on DB only if they made it a 900-range gap close evade that always went the full distance so that it couldn’t be spammed for damage, thus requiring more cohesive buffs elsewhere to OH dagger.

P/D can’t have a teleport gap close, so no-go on Dancing Dagger. The engage→disengage combo potential would be way too strong, especially when combined with the ease of stealth access and SA stacking with naturally tankier gear.

This was my thought process for the substantial buffs to Dagger Training and Potent Poison, buffing DB’s evade to cover a bigger distance, and putting the bleeds on Dancing Dagger, removing the bounce, and upping its damage by 50%, as it’d unify the evade as an evade/reposition on all combinations, make P/D a devastating condi set (bleed on auto + torment/disengage on 3 + bleeds on 4 with some chase potential), and allow D/D condi using DA to deal better condition damage due to poison’s high coefficient, but at a higher risk than just spamming 3.

The community doesn’t know what it wants, though. D/P players don’t want 3spam nerfed, D/D condi players don’t want 3spam nerfed, D/D power players proclaim using DB as an evade should be a one-click-wonder evade and want a teleport on Dancing Dagger to make the set a D/P clone.

Passives suck in all forms. Look at the warrior; half of their problematic balance state comes from having a heavy-handed passive design in their traits and abilities that lowers the skill cap and ups the skill floor, leaving them either weak/ineffective as they are now, or too strong from a numbers point of view, like the way hambow was.

Passives are a big cause for balance problems and at launch there used to be extremely few to the benefit of everyone, and PvP was more interesting,

It’s called the initiative mechanic after all – eagerness and action. I see no reason why it should be saved for defense/utility, especially when some sets have next to none to begin with/some are just innately superior at being defensive than others, and the offensive-oriented sets aren’t even much better at damage than those with defensive-oriented design.

That said, I won’t deny a lot of the proposed buffs are asinine and ridiculous (although this isn’t really anything new on these boards, tbh).

Trying to convince Jana that SA wasn’t mandatory or even more-useful to D/D over D/P before June is nigh impossible.

Trying to convince a variety of players Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger need to be changed to sport more potential utility is also nigh impossible, because many D/D condi players love their 3spam for damage and giving the set more utility on Dancing Dagger is unnecessary, removes flavor, and D/D condi already doesn’t need more buffs.

Lumpy.8760:

Khisanth.2948:

I don’t really follow your logic there.

If it was “since poison slows reviving then healing power should speed it up” then it would make more sense.

Quickness and slow affect the rate while poison would be affecting magnitude.

poison directly slows down revival rate, just like slow. worse, it can prevent revival skills from reviving

why does it need an opposite to make sense to you?

It doesn’t; that was the point of his post.

The purpose of poison is to cut heals and subsequently res speed. Quickness/Slow are blanket effects which cover any animation and are meant to be used on people who are up and fighting.

People need to understand that game programmers are not the same as game developers/designers.

Game programmers fix bugs and create new engine features. These people have strong comp-sci backgrounds and pretty much just delve in code. These people optimize code for performance and develop new API’s for both in-house development use and external API functions for community-driven projects.

Game “developers” use game engine tools build by programmers and assets created by artists to create content. They do animation, make decisions regarding level design, get invested with game balance, asset management, and design for playability with the mechanics behind everything in mind. Rarely is the truly complex code exposed here, and in instances where it would become very complex, this task gets handed to the programmers to work on and optimize for new frameworks.

Many people vouching that making numbers tweaks is “difficult” frankly do not have any experience working in the game industry or in a game engine. Frankly, making these kinds of adjustments is extremely simple, and which is why it surprises me so much time is taken between any balance adjustment patches, as rapid iteration typically works better in regards to competitive games.

The design changes are the more complex ones, and take much more manpower. New assets, animation, concepts, and re-balancing everything repeatedly while not removing existing styles/builds while fixing core problems with old ones is a much more difficult task. That said, we largely haven’t seen any since the game launched, and it’s really getting to the point where many classes and builds desperately need help or are being carried by power-creeped abilities or specs preventing the rest of the class/builds getting love.

As far as financial stability goes, ANet is doing fine. Trust me. The big issue with video games these days is selling the initial copies when the game launches. And they absolutely made their money back with how successful the game was at launch with the $60+ price tag. The cash shop is just icing and to keep it supported long into the future with top-notch customer service.

Chaos and Tormented weapons did make a return at one point. I’m not sure if I’d expect them to come back again, but do not rule out the possibility that they someday may.

Not really. It isolates supply within structures from supply being used to upgrade. It also takes the upgrade process out of the hands of players, both for better or for worse.

On the one hand, it stops people from using alts to build troll siege in a keep to waste supply to prevent an upgrade.

On the other hand, it does take away a level of depth and strategy that comes with said resource management.

It probably wouldn’t be as big of an issue if F2P accounts and the absurdities that are guild upgrades weren’t in the mix.

The removal of the celestial amulet and other defensive ones was big, and it should help diversity to an extent.

That said, a lot of the balance tweaks did not seem to stem from PvP/WvW needs but instead raiding. Even in the stream, PvE functionality was mentioned a lot more than it should have been.

Most core issues facing sPvP and WvW were ignored entirely, adding more gimmicks to classes/builds where they did not need them and what was frankly a very underwhelming set of changes to sets which were stated as going to be getting substantial changes. The size and extent of the balance patch I feel like could have been pushed out in under a month; many aspects of the classes need substantial work from a design perspective rather than what we’re seeing as largely numbers changes and small tweaks, and many elite specializations are still way too strong, especially compared to their core specializations.

AA damage on MH dagger and staff way, way overtuned. Just what the hell are they thinking?…

Gibimo.2193:

babazhook.6805:

I think we can all agree off hand dagger needs a gimmick and one that will help p/d s/d and d/d but what is that Gimmick?

It can not ignore that there three weapon sets that are in fact suffering nor do I personally think duplicating something one of the other two helps a lot.

Now s/d might see a bit of a boost come tomorrow and we might well see more s/d but we also have to realize if the gimmick something that does too much to help s/d relative to d/d , then s/d could become the nect d/p.

P/d in my opinion is in as bad a spot as d/d. On the server I play my own wvw on I certainly see more d/d power users then p/d thiefs.

I think we should just wait a bit, see the changes that happen tomorrow, measure the impact they have on exisiting x/d sets and then rethink from scratch.

yeah I can’t agree more for that off hand dagger need a gimmick.
I think the main problem of off dagger is its stealth is too passive and defensive.
It needs effective gap closer for main hand to use it properly and requires high skills to use it aggressive. which is directed to the pressure problem.
thief can take some defensive options but not like this.

I don’t think gimmicks would solve the problem. Then you just end up with spam.

I disagree completely that OH Dagger’s stealth is passive and defensive. You can’t just reset a fight and sit in stealth at a distance licking your wounds like you can with D/P; you need to play aggressively in order for the skill to land to get the stealth. The problem is that getting this skill to land is dreadfully difficult with all the invulns going on right now, and D/P’s control is just so much better that once it’s engaged it functions better in melee from a defensive perspective via BP and Shadow Shot’s fast blinds, and interruption on Headshot.

The big question is how to make D/D effective while not gimmicky/spammy for both its power and condition options, and to define a style and purpose for the set that isn’t just objectively better/worse than D/P.

I’d argue DA is better overall due to similar damage and the control and healing it offers. On steal, you get heal cut + weakness + damage + self-heal, with utility on Panic Strike and bonus damage on executioner for the +1 role better.

CS is definitely a worse trait line. That said, when talking strictly burst damage output potential, CS > DA, but again, only marginally so.

Bristleback is primary-stat toughness. BM + Bark skin + CD + druid heals + SoS makes the thing absurdly difficult to take down.

I push close to 3k power in sPvP and 220 crit damage on my thief on an additional 68% extra damage modifiers and can’t kill the thing on Mug + CnD + Backstab + HS + HS. Put simply, this hits the heavy golem for 3k + 5k + 13k +11k + 11k That’s a huge amount of damage.

More extreme, I run 4k power in WvW and 261 crit damage and still can’t kill it. I’ve one-shotted warriors before with backstabs over 20k.

To achieve this damage, I expend all of my escapes, utilities, elite, steal, heal, and initiative, while running DPH gear.

When it spikes for 15k+ and the druid sacrifices no defenses for it, there’s an issue.

Smokescale is kinda whatever – it’s a real pain and probably does a bit more than it should, but it’s manageable. I’d argue the damage immunity field is more frustrating than SA. The bristleback, though… it’s just wildly over-tuned.

Tyrian pets do need a lot of love. Most of them are pretty much just straight-up horrible, but this comes largely from a lot of useless skills, bad pathing, slow animations, and lack of synergy overall. Would be nice to see some variety, but that’s not happening until Bristleback loses some damage. Pets should complement the ranger, and the druid should be able to ramp his pets into being the primary threats. It’s a bit overboard right now on the bristleback, most notably from the ~1500 range bit (physics projectiles), though.

Not true. CS on a given hit will hit harder than what DA offers when the target is above 50% health in all circumstances. Mug is what makes DA have competitive damage above 50%, and DA exceeds CS only when the target is lower than the damage due to Executioner. You’re bursting for the same damage only because Mug is allowing for it to happen.

I do see them about once every hour as it stands. There are enough people playing the set because it’s fun and great for periphery in blobs. The best GvG guilds in the game even during hammertrain won their fights almost solely due to the use of aggressive, burst-built thieves taking out backlines quickly.

For a while, P/D made up a bulk majority of the thieves I encountered around a bit over a year ago. That said, the trend stopped pretty abruptly when PU condi mesmer got buffed substantially, and P/D was seen as a set used by bad FoTM players; such as the videos of people fighting as a condi thief with no weapons and winning duels. And then PU condi mesmer took over the cheese roaming scene.

SA was mathematically imbalanced. We’ve discussed this. Other people discussed this. It needed repeated nerfs prior to when you were even playing the game, because the line was just flat-out overpowered. It was offset by relatively poor attribute stats (toughness/healing), but when trait-line/stat allocations were decoupled, it was problematic for balance, and the gains it had needed to be cancelled out to an extent. I laid out the math, tested this out in-game, recorded damage, discussed what the line used to offer and its impact on the game relevant to what was around at the time, at one point experimented heavily with the build (it was border-line optimal damage, but I preferred the gains from Mug and CS’s reliability paired together for quicker burst without needing to run D/P), and ran the trait line. You denounced all of my arguments by pure anecdotal evidence proclaiming that you know it offered less damage than DA or CS, offering no formal analysis on the matter. It offered too much damage. One of the traits was not working as intended (D/P issue, though). CiS got bumped because BP + HS couldn’t be countered in melee, and because (from what I can gather as a design decision) to attempt to isolate frequently entering and exiting stealth for blinds at reduced initiative costs which ended up being problematic at the time. It got its durability upped as a consequence and was made into a more functional defensive trait line.

Obviously we disagree over SE’s effectiveness at keeping a thief alive. I’d argue that you can have your SE back as it was, curing conditions like any other removal skill, but then that’d be unfair to those who support the DoT prioritization (which as I mentioned, these people exist, and do not visit the forums to complain about this trait being weak on the basis they do not think it is weak to complain about it). Rejuv was consolidated/buffed, and the thief got 25% damage reduction in stealth. The 50% on RoS as intended was too strong due to it stacking with protection on top of Rejuv.

LR was made optional so people stopped getting revealed without their consent. I understand you like SA and the style it brings. Thing is, it needed to get nerfed, and even post-nerf, it is one of the more commonly-selected trait lines out there. We see Trickery as #1 for obvious reasons, Daredevil second for obvious reasons, DA third on power, SA third/fourth. Acro for condi, and CS in last. When Daredevil wasn’t in the picture, or if the cleansing is to be nerfed, SA would makes its presence again at the second-place mark, which is solid, and in all likelihood, implies balanced. The fact staff Daredevil can use the line demonstrates it has amazing utility potential despite the damage losses from cutting DA and/or CS.

I make suggestions for a lot of classes. I advocated for hambow nerfs, I’ve advocated for elementalist sustain nerfs via the removal of the celestial amulet. I’ve advocated for turret resilience nerfs, and scrapper damage nerfs. I’ve advocated for burning nerfs. I’ve advocated for death shroud improvements. I’ve advocated for exclusive D/D thief buffs (work in progress to try and figure out what the heck people actually want and can agree upon) and damage nerfs to Shadow Shot (something you agree is cheesy and busted). I’ve pronounced my displeasure with various mesmer mechanics, which have seen a variety of corresponding buffs and nerfs (although this class I will admit, while my posts are highly-rated, the developers do seem to ignore and make stupid decisions, but the incoming ones are overall relatively sound so far). Every suggestion I made short of re-designing the ranger’s pet mechanics in the ranger CDI was implemented. Most of these have been done or are being done, and most of these have been seen as positive implementations overall.

That said, ANet has done a lot of concerning or downright disturbing balance mistakes in the past several years. I am outspoken against many of these and have received a lot of criticism from ANet as a consequence.

I’m not trying to be some bad-guy in the background asserting anything other than trying to define and promote a fun and balanced game, and unify players’ understandings of the game and their desires on what needs to be addressed and both why and how they should be addressed. If I had a vendetta against you, I wouldn’t be attempting to promote your thread, its discussion, any consequent solutions, or attempts to garner intelligible responses, but rather, I would simply not respond and let the subject die or respond in meaningless, counter-productive manners and refuse to justify any conclusions I reach. A cluster%^&# of complaints facing all directions with no intellectual discussion or debate, number-crunching, and the likes, results in absolutely nothing being accomplished, and the forums and suggestions from the community itself forsaken as a consequence.

If the moral of this thread is to nerf D/P because you’re still upset over the changes to Shadow Arts, and proclaim me and what I bring to the table from experience and mathematical perspectives as invalid or unwanted for whatever reason, justified or not, just say so now. I’ll take my posting elsewhere.

Lower innate defenses, lower health pool, no protection/toughness/damage reduction effects which many classes can maintain permanently or have passively built in.

Basically, we’re performing at the same level of balance the rest of the game did at release. Everything’s just so power-creeped that incoming damage feels high (because it is when looking at coefficients) that it seems out of whack. Sad news is unless they do lots of nerfs to damage outputs and damage reduction effects to counter-balance everything, it’ll still be broken, and a few buffs to passives are typically easier when there’s so much accumulated power creep, which is the route ANet usually takes.

Your references to my writing were based on the premise I spoke in terms of the present day, despite me blatantly saying this statistic no longer holds.

Not sure if I’d argue that’s a fair representation. Typically, those who make videos are more competitive and try harder to win, so subsequently they will make videos using superior weapon sets. Most prominent D/D players have either switched sets or moved games because the set under-performs. So yea, you’re not going to find a lot of new videos out there featuring amazing victories over other classes and builds – because the set isn’t competitive enough in sPvP and strictly not as good in WvW, especially now, due to the dependence on CnD landing which is quite difficult to do these days with all the blocks and invulns on elite specs.

The D/D crowd has largely fallen out since HoT due to Daredevil’s superiority and nerfs to CnD, but then again, so has a large portion of small-scale WvW in general.

Tomiyou.3790:

he and his buddy Helseth

Oh, that explains a lot as to why he’s so popular and why he’s such a [censored].

CS can burst harder than DA including Mug, although it’s extremely marginal (like < 5%), and this implies the target is above 50% HP, otherwise Executioner will cause a better increase in damage.

synk.6907:

What does “glitched on the gliding” mean? You couldn’t fly up? You did but couldn’t control where you moved? A lag-type issue where you saw one thing on your screen but then you rubber-banded (remember that in GW1? so frustrating!) to dead?

If the rifts are appearing on land that’s not there, it is quite likely the retry mote was used before the encounter was given time to properly reset, as mentioned above and in other threads. Braham, or anyone, going through the floor is a new one to me. What the heck…?

As in I deploy my glider above it, and nothing happened; I’d fall to the ground. This occurred many, many times. Latency wasn’t an issue during the encounter.

The rifts broke during my first attempt, and no, it was always a new spawn and not the result of the stage not resetting. I distinctly remember having jump off the cliff because it was about 800 units off the stage. This happened repeatedly throughout other encounters as well.

Whether or not these bugs have been fixed, I don’t know. I just can’t be bothered to deal with it again, and as it sounds, people are still having bug issues with the fight.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

That’s the beauty of initiative and not having things like very-important cooldown reduction or important utility for specific weapons tied to our traits as other classes do. Trickery is pretty much “necessary” because it’s pretty much the best trait line in it of itself for a variety of reasons and has immense synergy with pretty much every build. I have vouched for better trait-utility and initiative management spread over more trait lines for some time, and this is more or less what the thief really needed than AA damage buffs.

Trickery is staple because it has very-important cooldown reduction contrary to your belief. It has CDR for Steal and for weapon skills. Even though Thief uses Initiatives, any initiative gains from any trait is equal to 1s CDR. So a low CD Steal that grants 2 init per Steal IS a CDR for the Thief’s weapon skills.

I mentioned this explicitly in an above post. CDR on steal, initiative, and a variety of other bonuses put Trickery into being one of the objectively best trait lines. Given initiative regeneration sources matching it in others, and flat steal cooldown, the line wouldn’t be so heavily-depended on.

But I digress.

Jana, please re-read my post. I said the following:

“Before HoT, I would say about a third of the thieves I encountered were playing D/D.”

I even mentioned this statistic has dropped heavily since.

You seriously have a tendency of twisting my words and it’s kind of annoying.

synk.6907:

I’d love to see video of these glitched out attempts folks keep posting about. I’ve done it for 8 or 9 characters without issue, but I can imagine how frustrating it might be. Makes me curious to see.

Lucky. I only bothered on one character. Boss took me almost twentry tries because every single time I glitched on the gliding and died; all of the combat aside from this was frankly extremely easy. The pools were constantly bugged out of the stage. Braham fell under the platform like four times. Never again.

No traits are really required for any of the weapons to function; they may help improve it, but consider the thief in a good state in this regard; look at Marksmanship for the ranger; it went from absolutely essential from RtW being an absolutely necessary trait for the longbow to function (attacks went from a 100% miss chance to a 100% hit chance) to next to pointless when the effect was made baseline. Quickdraw also helps offset the cooldown concerns quite nicely for them, too.

That’s the beauty of initiative and not having things like very-important cooldown reduction or important utility for specific weapons tied to our traits as other classes do. Trickery is pretty much “necessary” because it’s pretty much the best trait line in it of itself for a variety of reasons and has immense synergy with pretty much every build. I have vouched for better trait-utility and initiative management spread over more trait lines for some time, and this is more or less what the thief really needed than AA damage buffs.

The might added up quickly, particularly for condition builds. 2 stacks at 15s duration with FG and permanent, superior vigor + SoA + endurance regen on dagger MH auto lead to a LOT of dodging and might gain, and subsequently, extra condition damage. Not to mention bleeding used to deal more damage and might gave more stats per stack. Ask any condi player if 10 stacks of might makes a big damage difference, and they’ll readily claim that it’s pretty massive. FG and PoI were the big players in why Acro was used to begin with; the might gain could offset the damage loss from not running offensive setups like CS. It’s for this reason that HA also was nerfed (we’ve had this discussion, and I’ve run the numbers and also tested this in-game); there was too much damage coming out of defensive trait lines.

As far kitten goes, it could be argued that it is worse on D/P and permanent-stealth builds than it used to be as a long-duration stack of vuln or the likes could prevent an OOC reset, but on D/D, the DoT prioritization is typically more useful for strictly not dying; you lose a lot of cleansing per time by running D/D, even on a build focusing on maintaining stealth, so stopping DoT’s and likely healing partially from Rejuv every so often is a pretty substantial improvement for the weapon set in particular. We’ll have to agree to disagree I guess because there’s no convincing you that anything about the thief has seen any kind of general improvement in regards to SA, but oh well.

Again, thieves run very similar builds in regards to always using Trickery because of the initiative and steal cooldown reduction on SoH, and better fury access on engage than CS, with tons of condition damage pressure no other line has. It has nothing to do with weapon skills; so many of these traits are just objectively superior to others and have a high level of dependency attached to them via modifying the core mechanic of the class that the line is just too good to pass up overall. The same is said about Daredevil in that it’s just power-creep on multiple traitlines, taking the best from a variety of them and combining them into one nice package that’s next to irresistible.

As far as encountering D/D thieves in WvW, like I said, we’re in different regions. I’ve also played on 17 servers, often recruited for commander spiking or PPT havoc with my guild (although not so much in the past few days/week-ish with the latency issues). I know an offhand pistol when I see one, and I know what weapon skills correspond to which weapons, thanks. Like I said, I fight these players; D/D is absolutely less common these days than it was before due to D/P, S/D, Staff Daredevil, but some players do still run it.

Again, I’m not vouching for the removal of CiS or Rejuv. If I was an elitist proclaiming “because I don’t need it, nobody should have it”, I would be asking for the traits to be removed and replaced with something on my agenda, or talking lowly to those who use the traits. I do think SA as it is designed often acts as a crutch to poor players and enforces bad habits which ultimately detract from the skill of the thieves who learn to play the thief using the trait line. That said, a skilled thief using SA is devastating and I will not discount their ability to play the class if they are good. Usually, I do like to face these players without the trait line to determine for my own interest (and potentially theirs) where to improve and how the trait line impacts play. Part of playing competitively is learning how to get better and being willing to learn how to get better, even if it means losing a lot. Being unwilling to do so will not improve one’s abilities and will fortify potential sloppy or bad habits expressed in play. There’s a reason very skilled players call out SA as a “crutch” line in that the only way to really, truly improve and excel is to play without it for an extended period. Then going back to it in the future, you’ll be on a strong trait line as a superior player. A long-time gaming friend of mine learned the thief after undergoing learning how to play it as a signet build. He switched from SA/Acro/Tr condi P/D and died a lot, and then some. Now he runs SA/Tr/DD S/D + D/D/P (varies) after really learning the class and does extremely well for himself – much better than he ever did after really nailing down the class when playing without any support (speaking for WvW). Most people I’ve mentored have had similar experiences in that they see huge improvements to their performance when learning while deprived.

I play in a way which does not require the traits you are claiming off of anecdotal evidence, are required. Just as my evidence is also anecdotal, proclaiming such requirements as truths is a fallacy, which is the entire reason why I am using anecdotal evidence and my perceptions to prove my point; the basis of the argument is not truth but personal perception. The only agreeable instance of such “requirement” could be measured if in all instances the sole functionality of the weapon set hinged upon such traits. Since we do not see this in a variety of builds and lack the metrics to understand whether or not this has even a remote trend in the success of play, we cannot diagnose this as being pivotal to the success or lack thereof of the weapon.

I’m not making elitist remarks. I’m saying Rejuv and CiS are not absolutely required for D/D to function. Every single post you make about this simply isn’t true; they’re good traits. They are not required traits. I’m not being elitist. I’m saying the truth, and that I’ve been running without these traits for a very long time and have had no performance issues as a consequence. I did not mention anywhere that I think these traits are for inferior players but the simple notion that they are not required to make D/D power function in some regard.

Acro before the nerf used to provide D/D condi with better damage via might, evasion uptime across dodges via better vigor and FG, and DB use through initiative regeneration (it still wins here) while offering less cleansing. That’s all. The only actively better component to DD is less cleansing, and many D/D condi players would run SS and SoA for extra evasion and cleanses to avoid condi bombs.

For cooldown reduction/weapon skills, I was speaking generally, for all professions. The notion of weapon-specific traits is in my opinion poor design overall. Unfortunately it’s the only system that can handle hybrid-type weapons like D/D. That said, I think the greatsword on the warrior is pretty much a straight-up power weapon, and the likes. I don’t think these traits are designed well, and I don’t think the hybrid concept is a good one, either, as it mathematically always under-performs.

As far as frequency of encountering D/D thieves in WvW goes, yes, I am referring to lately, and no, I am referring to unique players. Most of them also play power (because I often fight these players), because again, condi just gets out-run for the most part while roaming, and condi application is relatively poor in blobs from mass-cleansing. Right now, S/D + Staff/SB Daredevil vastly outnumbers those playing even D/P. You’re on EU, I’m on NA; different strokes for different folks, perhaps. Before HoT, I would say about a third of the thieves I encountered were playing D/D, split over S/D and D/P. I’ve also gotten a lot of people playing the build. Before HoT, the people aiming strictly to win a duel would run D/P, the sPvP’ers S/D, the experimenters S/P, and the loyalists/burst players D/D. You and I aren’t the only D/D players in the world. Turns out there are a lot of people who like the style of play and its aesthetic.

We did have a discussion about SE in the past. Neither of us could agree. Most of the people I’ve talked to or mentored since, however, have taken to the notion that SE is better at preventing death than before. There was a lot of outrage initially, but people started realizing how nice it was to prioritize DoT’s when your class is on the lowest health pool with the worst DoT cleansing in the game, but some of the best control condition cleansing in the game.

Trickery is used for a variety of reasons; simply, it holds everything together. Kleptomaniac and Preparedness are traits which you simply don’t get elsewhere outside of defensive trait lines. It has a substantial damage modifier. It gives a 50% uptime on Fury, Might, and Swiftness, and a 32% reduction on steal’s cooldown, on top of CC or substantial confusion, and boon theft + vigor or extra healing and condition removal. The line is simply doing everything well that most other trait lines do not compensate for. Honestly, I don’t really use SoH for the daze so much as the cooldown reduction on steal (it’s more than what the entirety of trickery as a trait line offers). If the cooldown reduction was baseline, I’d run Quick Pockets in almost every case except maybe a PI/PS interruption build.

Again, you’re twisting my words methinks. D/D doesn’t need CiS or Rejuv to function; those traits are just universally extremely strong and help the set function better than it does without (as traits tend to do). If you play in a manner which does not camp stealth at all, such as the way I do, Rejuv is worthless, because I rarely spend more than a second in stealth. CiS is good, but not a be-all-end-all trait to make the set function. D/D would be just as bad as it is now if CnD blinded on use. As you mentioned, my style never really relied on these traits to begin with, and as a consequence, when these were put in contest with each other, nothing changed for me. Many others and I are doing fine without the trait, because we never used it. I appreciate what the trait brought to the table, as I did heavy experimenting for the better half of six months to figure out my build in full.

To proclaim it’s mandatory simply isn’t the truth. I don’t have a fundamental disagreement with you asking to get CiS moved down to the second-tier slot. I do have issues with you proclaiming that x traits and by association SA are requirements for a weapon set I’ve played since day 1 of release and have put several thousand hours into without those traits aside from experimenting, and have done so with fair success, while you simultaneously denounce the integrity of others who disagree with your opinion on the basis that your experience is more worthy or has more merit than theirs through comments like the following:

I somehoiw doubt that you’re playing actually. As all you seem to do is making elitist remarks and demanding that this class is being destroyed.

Yet here I am the one proposing changes to improve the state of D/D utility and agreeing on a focused target to the damage Shadow Shot provides (as others seem to agree within the confines of this thread alone) as being the only necessary action to properly balance out D/P for QoL improvement to traits, rather than trying to get blanket nerfs/buffs to force the class into becoming what could be objectively overpowered or further imbalanced and removing the skillful nature the class promotes. I’m trying to help the thief become a solid, well-rounded class in respect to its design principles and better-reward skillful play and initiative management. I’m not trying to make the class I like the most inherently overpowered on sheer anecdotal evidence without consulting other players on other classes, doing out the math, and looking at trends within the community and experiencing what’s going on from other perspectives.

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

Many other classes’ weapons have niche purposes for optimal use. That said, most of these skills have general use.

Thief working with the initiative mechanic is both great and horrible for the reason that while other classes will always use their full set of skills, and skills are designed to be well-rounded and impactful, the thief needs tools that need to be both impactful but not overly-so as to prevent spamming the same skill to be a viable means of play: See Shadow Shot and Death Blossom.

Most S/D thieves use CnD intermittently. The stealth attacks on Sword are actually very strong control effects, and flickering stealth between evades is a big part of how the set plays. Just going pure stealth-less damage and evasion falls more into the lines of S/P due to interruption/evasion/CC/blind field but no way to gain stealth aside from bound on Daredevil.

Overall I think the thief’s weapons are fairly well designed. Shadow Shot’s damage is definitely over-tuned on D/P, but the set plays cohesively. Same with S/D, S/P, P/D, and to an extent, P/P. Only a few skill changes are needed on most of these sets to give them a bit more oomph. D/D suffers because ANet doesn’t seem to have an idea as to what they want the set to do, not because of trait mis-alignment or low ability potency. Because its condi and power styles play so differently, the skills feel inversely weak depending on build, and because of this, there is no room to create sound utility. Daredevil coming into the mix also really screwed this up, as now you also have things like S/P getting stealth access when it was designed not to.

I think S/P has largely not been as successful as D/P because of its dual skill. The windup and root kill it as an evasive set.
P/D had a great dual skill, but the autos are low pressure and body shot is highly situational. It also suffers from the the weak OH dagger.
P/P has just too low sustained pressure except for unload, but as such is an initiative hog that doesn’t allow for the use of defensive skills. I almost feel like the blog post was talking about this set when they mentioned needing initiative for survivability but also requiring it for damage. I’m hoping unload gets a similar treatment as warrior’s rifle 4 and much of the damage is moved to the autoattack and P/X 2.
I just want to echo you in that D/D suffers the most because of the lack of both utility and damage of dagger offhand combined with the disjointed nature of deathblossom within the set.

Just thinking high-level skill design. Key word is design rather than numbers like cast times and damage spread, etc.

Jana.6831:

Deceiver:
Most S/D thieves never use CnD – I only met one who did. I know the skill is strong, still a lot of them believe in stealthless play or don’t even know what the dagger is good for.
Not being able to take CiS and SRej was pretty devastating for that set. Also the SE nerf hurt a lot.
In my time as a wvw roamer I’ve met maybe 75? D/D thieves. 3 of them tried DB spam – condi D/D is new, D/D itself is pretty much dead and has been for the past 2 years. Just saying – things haven’t been fine for quite some time and condi D/D has become a thing with daredevil – it basically didn’t exist before.

…

In general:
Then how about designing some traits especially suited for S/D, D/D, D/P, P/D and even P/P? – it would be new in this game but it could be done: “If you’re wielding mainhand sword/offhand dagger…” or “Mainhand sword and offhand dagger”

And the thieves who do not ever use CnD when playing S/D are people not using the set to its fullest potential, or are just so much better than their opponent that it isn’t needed.

There’s a difference between believing in stealth-less play and simply not ever using stealth at all. I hate stealth despite playing D/D + S/D. As soon as I enter stealth, I re-position and leave it for damage, control, etc. That said, that 1/2 second period I need to be in stealth to execute the stealth attack is just necessary, just as how many staff players are using SA to get hook strike procs more frequently; it’s not about stealth but the ability attached to it.

I’ve never run CiS or Rejuv outside of some Duel Arena trolling with things like my P/P healing power build. To say they’re necessary traits, especially for D/D or S/D simply isn’t true. SE also got buffed. Tremendously. 4s of cripple or brief of blind off a random AoE or skill like The Prestige doesn’t take priority any more over 19 stacks of bleeding or 14 stacks of confusion, which is quite common for condi builds to do as a strategy to prevent low-cooldown cleanses from just wiping off their stacks. Withdraw and SE will cleanse all debilitating conditions except slow + one DoT, except for Fear and Taunt, and fear doesn’t really matter at that point, and if you got taunted while in stealth, good on the guy doing the taunting for countering stealth properly. Much better than having to wait 9s for the absurd stacks of bleeding/torment/confusion (pre-burning/poison stack change) to get cleansed. Rejuv is functionally better on D/P because it maintains stealth better than D/D since D/D needs to hit the target whereas BP + HS/Bound doesn’t.

D/D condi didn’t really “exist” before because P/D was better at sustain in WvW and the evasion frames on old DB were strictly poor, both for power and condition builds. Daredevil didn’t really change much except some better overall condition coverage while maintaining near-permaneny evasion uptime; all conditions applied via Lotus Training exited via DA or baseline on the dagger. Daredevil just offers better and safer play, particularly after nerfed Acrobatics, making 3spam easier and more forgiving on top of the buffed evade on Death Blossom. I know it may be hard to distinguish the difference between Daredevil and the DB buffs because they occurred simultaneously, but these are not one and the same.

Also, only 75 D/D thieves in WvW in two years? I’d estimate I come across one every hour at the very least. The build isn’t common in WvW now, either, on the basis that it succeeds in a sustained fight and D/D as a weapon has next to no stickiness, so pretty much anything can just run away from it if they start losing. In sPvP, this isn’t the case, as you can’t hold a point while in stealth, and you can’t win without controlling the point, meaning the lack of stickiness on a more bunker-oriented D/D evasion build doesn’t matter.

As far as tailor-made traits for specific weapons, I’m not fond of them. I think it artificially limits the confines of what weapons can do. I’d rather just see cooldown reduction and bonus damage effects on weapon-specific traits made baseline as to let the trait lines see more variability in terms of what weapons can be used for what purposes and to open up doors for diversity while making the weapons more rounded and traits universally improved. This goes back on the “we need x trait for y weapon” philosophy which is part of the basis for your complaint – you think D/D needs CiS and Rejuv – so there’s no reason to provide specific trait-answers to specific problems, when the “superior” weapon will just bypass these kinds of trait dependencies and accelerate even further beyond the rests’ performance metrics.