Guild Wars 2

Agreed with most of the OP, but I don’t think Soul Spiral needs to be stronger. I was reaching 10-16k’s in WvW on most targets, and as an AOE with all the poison damage it ticks for, that ends up being a hell of a lot of damage.

That said, I think Soul Spiral could use a cooldown reduction if not much changes with the RS auto. Something like 25s would feel a lot better for the natural flow of the class, even if the damage has to be cut by a small percentage (like 15%).

TheLastNobody.8319:

I love the elite shout, but agree we either need more defenses to cover it, like…stability, blinds, or projectile destruction, or reduce the cast time to 1 second. The cool down I think should be 90 as well, considering even with the shout trait and five hits, it’d still be around a…60 second cool down? I’m not the best with math sorry.

IIRC, it’s 7% per target hit, putting it at 120 – (1 – (5* .07)) * 120 = 120 – .65 * 120 = 120 – 42 = 78s

While that’s a huge reduction, I’d just prefer something like 100s base and 80s traited or something with the reduction on the channel. 1s is still really long, but the stun duration isn’t at 2s (similar to Basilisk Venom which is on a base 40s CD, which can be traited and shared split up to 10 targets, or still for 5 targets realistically, if partied, and we all know BV/VShare thieves aren’t overpowered).

While I agree with the OP in a broad sense, I don’t think it’s that the Soul Reaping line is too mandatory so much as the weakness of the rest of the lines and their lack of synergy with Reaper Shroud that makes it feel that way. Granted, I’m a fairly new necro who only really started looking into the class extensively with the Reaper announcement, so maybe all of my observations are all wrong.

Spite’s biggest draws are might on Shroud Auto, and the rest is pure synergy with Reaper Shroud/Reaper as a whole.

Curses is the condi/corruption line that’s best done playing along with the defensive options.

Death magic is pretty much entirely a defensive line, and while very strong, is difficult to use with Reaper due to the Reaper’s low ratios on most skills (needing spite) and dependency on Life Force (dependency on Soul Reaping).

Blood magic’s gotten a ton better, but again, it’s another supportive and defensive/sustain line. It’s got decent life force management, but at the cost of pulling conditions which in the current state of condis can easily get you killed, while also not having a lot of damage potential for the Reaper.

Necro’s emphasis on shroud complicates a lot of things; make it too easy to build life force/not need shroud, and the class just becomes an unstoppable monster, but make the trait lines not give much synergy into shroud, and the entire class feels underwhelming. Maybe less-shroud-focused builds are where the class design needs to go, such as improving the utilities or out-of-shroud effects and perhaps punishing players more for being in shroud? I don’t know. It looks like a tough nut to crack in regards to the necro’s current balance state.

I could see it using some CD tweaks and cast time adjustments. 2s is a very long time.

Unfortunately I think it’s the best elite we’ve got at the moment aside from the obvious use of Lich Form when blobbing WvW.

I wasn’t a fan. I did some preliminary testing and number-crunching before the beta rolled out, and found it just feeling mediocre. That said, I ran a much glassier reaper, so I can see where the reviews differ.

If you’ve got a group of players around you where you can afford to spend the utility slot doing it, are running a tankier build, and are anticipating longer-duration fights, I can see it working fairly well. Otherwise, I’d rather take LF/CttB depending on your needs. I found myself liking CttB a lot in small havoc by the end of the weekend due to how effective it was at preventing stomps and locking groups of targets down for the rest of my allies to rip though.

I just wish they’d rework shouts to not having the scaling CDR, reduce the base traited CDR, and reduce the base cooldowns a little bit. Even if it nets a higher minimum-possible cooldown, having CttB at 100 or even 90s would make a big difference in regards to trait desirability, I think.

Russian Bear.7310:

has anyone tried rune of rage? idk how much more damage the 5% bonus gives compared to the extra ferocity from wurm, but just a thought

Mathematically, it’s just not very well-optimized. The thief has so much access to Fury that the duration aspect feels pretty wasted, it offers no better sustaining potential and overall substantially less damage from both lower ferocity/critical damage values from wurm and lower power/damage modifiers values from scholar.

One of those sad runes that I feel belongs better on classes with limited access to Fury and traits/utilities that make it not worth traiting into, but the classes which have these kinds of scenarios don’t really have much of a use for fury to begin with, such as Necro/Reaper with Death Perception.

Jana.6831:

I doubt that your build has any more purpose than one shotting people. Which is ok, but don’t say it’s “a roaming build”

Why, because it doesn’t use SA or because it’s not part of some kind of stealth-optimized-outnumbered-sustaining-soft-CC-abusing rotation build? I’m sorry, but this build works fine for me. If you feel the need, I can hook you up with one of my server’s most well-known commanders who will gladly tell you just how well I frontline 40-man blobs using the same build, too.

Honestly, the only time I usually ever go down is taking RF’s from multiple power longbow rangers or situations where I’d have to or by reasons of reasonable game balance, should have to run to begin with (5/6+ v 1) and the odd guy playing the really unused build really well (I once found this M/S guard that I couldn’t fight against for the life of me, and props to him).

The build has nothing to do with its potential. It’s how well you play it and how well you utilize what you have. I’ve played D/D SA/Acro, D/P meta (old and new), P/D condi, S/P, and S/D main. I found anything involving SA completely imbalanced and faceroll-easy, especially when paired with fire/air sigils. Yes, there are some really bad matchups which when playing on the safe side, should probably be avoided, but that’s not really different from sPvP and for the most part is resolved through using S/D alternate over SB.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s designed to one-shot people, but if I really need to get permanent stealth for some reason (of which I have no idea now), I can always trait into SA on the fly. Currently, mesmers can permanently stealth themselves just fine utilizing some adjusted utilities and swapping in SB for blasts on SS.

D/D is weaker than D/P because you can’t spam Shadow Shot or just mash Heartseeker and win a fight. I rarely see D/P thieves utilizing Headshot and still coming out on top.

Shadow Shot is overpowered for the damage it does, the utility it brings, and for how low the init cost is.
D/D mashing Heartseeker will just die from not being stealthed in the first place proccing the “below % hp” aspect of it.

Midori’s right in that as long as even Headshot remains part of D/P and D/D doesn’t get a ranged interrupt or blind, I don’t see D/D being as good of an alternative, unless DB is completely reworked to fill in for this utility, and condi-3spam builds are just dropped as a consequence from D/D. This of course means Dagger Training needs a subsequent rework such as actually giving certain skills poison in the first place and in subsequently much better amounts.

Ed’s right, though. ANet doesn’t have a devoted thief developer. Karl, while a great guy and caring developer to GW2 as a whole, doesn’t seem to take any particular trouble to resolving the problems the thief’s other weapons are facing or is willing to make some sacrifices to D/P to bump the rest of the weapons to appropriate strengths.

2k hours in D/D thief, here.

I have no problems CnD’ing. I think D/P is just so wildly strong compared to D/D that it not only feels weak to newer thieves/less-experienced D/D players, but its absurd toolkit of utilities prevents the thief as a whole from facing better viability buffs across its weapons. Buffing the thief as a profession simply cannot be done the way D/P is in regards to competitive play, and in regards to how absurdly [overpowered] P/D condi is in small-scale skirmishing. Both of these sets are pretty much 1/2-button winners and no real risk from the amount of soft CC, stickiness, and damage it offers.

Would like to see no changes aside maybe an initiative reduction to Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom – I play D/D + S/D a lot for WvW, and throwing loads of Dancing Daggers helps immensely for ranged/downed executions while defending towers and keeps. DB could use some love in regards to the gap closing, and it’d definitely help D/D a lot in regards to its engage/mobility potential (or just a directional attack like Whirlwind Attack from War’s GS as a mobility skill).

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY8Yl0MhKnYjTwzJw/EHwE0uDLPF+0En2oTQAyAA-TlCBABHfCA2Tvwlq+UpaAnpEEr9HlSA8EAySZTeaCY4gAEAAB4mtZb2mBn38m38m38czbezbezbWKAB1ZB-w

Why the vitality food?
Try Seaweed Salad or Plate of Truffle Steaks . Edit: I see at least the latter wouldn’t really be better in your case, still I’m pretty convinced that Seaweed salad is.

Possibly, though I’d still probably take Butternut Squash Soup over it as the higher power gains a bit more consistency against heavies and the likes. I was just posting what I was running at the time, as when I’m not really trying to push out crazy damage figures/max a stab, I usually run cheaper food as to not go broke. The vitality bonus helps reduce the impact of conditions as well, due to the very minimal condition cleaning the build offers. Even 700 HP can sometimes make the difference.

Projectile speed increases would help a lot to make this utility a strong choice. I love its utility and flavor, but having to re-position and get close to begin with for the pull to consistently land is rather frustrating. The same goes for thief’s Scorpion Wire.

Traits:
Augury of Death: Again, the whole per-target thing proving to only be mediocre. 20% reduction baseline and 3% per target hit would be preferable (or 15%/5%)..

Chilling Nova: The ICD is too long for this effect, especially when up against relentless pursuit.

Soul Eater: The amount of time saved from this trait is poor due to the chances of constantly cleaving 3 targets in a PvP environment being low. I’d prefer a 20% reduction base and 5% if Gravedigger hits at least one foe, causing the reaper to gain benefits from AOE’ing for reliability, but allowing him to not be punished for fighting one-on-one.

Deathly Chill: Poor damage that only really works well with GS autos, which are sub-par as mentioned above, and chill itself is a rather mediocre condition as a whole at the moment, making this entire trait feel terrible. This could be a means to solidly bolster GS auto-chain damage output, so I’d bump up the scaling by around 15% and allow it to crit.

Reaper Shroud feels great. Extremely well-done. No complaints from me in this regard. It literally needs nothing done to it.

Shouts suffer from ineffectiveness when hitting only one or two foes. While the intent of the reaper was to work optimally fighting many targets, the shouts themselves are easily-countered when against multiple targets to due their cast times, long cooldowns, and only mediocre effects as a whole. Dropping the cast time and improving the baseline effects and toning the per-target scaling down a notch would help the reaper across the board and make shouts feel more useful and impactful.

Just some day 1 observations.

I played reaper for what was probably around ten hours today in PvE, WvW, and sPvP. I absolutely love the class in how it plays, and the synergy with the spectral skills is awesome. That said, I think it could use a little bit of love.

I played Berserker/Marauder, Soldier’s, Knights, Celestial, and Rabid stat mixtures. I found the most success on tankier builds focusing entirely on LF gain due to the rapid rate of LF degeneration during Reaper Shroud and the need to be in melee range causing a lot of damage to be dealt to me. I’ll talk about life force in a moment.

Design Review: Cool concept (Ha! I made a pun!), but it struggles in execution (Ha! Another!). LF gain is too weak on the greatsword, and the focus on the reaper only getting big benefits from its shouts when surrounded by enemies makes the class as a whole feel overly-situational for optimized performance within the spec. Wells are still better, and other classes are just better at the whole tons-of-mobs thing in regards to utility skill usage. Drop the CD-reduction-per-target concept or minimize it; give the reduction something like 2% per target and just lower the base cooldowns or buff the effects. I found myself running 2 spectral skills and a signet for LF maintenance purposes.

GS 1: This skill is weak across pretty much all formats. Out-DPS’ed, out-sustained, out-ranged, and simply out-done by pretty much every other weapon. I found myself finding much more success even with the lowly axe and scepter over the GS. As a specialization-exclusive weapon, one would want this to offer a lot of synergy and overall strong potential for the investment cost of an entire trait line. The Reaper needs a lot of life force and the ability to stick to its target. The mobility/movement skill changes and their interactions with chill make for this concept to feel overly-weak in regards to chase potential, and the GS’s poor life force gain makes it a poor choice in general as a melee option due to the general necessity of staff on the necromancer.
My fix: GS Auto chain provides 2% LF per swing (paired with below), bumped damage coefficients by around 15%, and a 2.5s base chill duration on the third attack OR a flat 2s with Reaper’s Onslaught also affecting the GS’s attack speed.

GS 2: Very inconsistent. Can be a total game-changer nuke if it lands, but in most cases, it doesn’t. It’s extremely easy to avoid, interrupt, blind, etc. and the range is short. With the above-mentioned issues pertaining to chill/mobility skills, this skill has limited potential in most matchups. In the event it lands on a target below half HP, however, it feels too rewarding in regards to its damage. This should be spammed as a finisher but also as a means of generating LF to pop back into shroud. Right now it feels not-worth spamming unless you’re in a safe scenario and don’t need the shroud.
My Fix: Bumped cooldown to 10s baseline, Reduced cast time to 1/2s, reduced damage by 25%, static 5% life force gained on use when hitting a target, additional 1% per target hit, if target under half HP is hit, reduced CD by 90%.

GS 3: All effects are fine, I could only suggest a 200 base range over 170 to make this skill feel more worthwhile.

GS 4: Feels good. No change needed. Perhaps small duration reduction (1/2 to 1s) for the field finisher with the GS 2 changes above to prevent abuse.

GS 5: Much like other pathed skills, this needs reliability adjustments. It fails. Often. This needs some serious terrain pathing fixes, similar to Spectral Grasp, Scorpion Wire, and S/S revenent skill 5. The cooldown seems overly-large for a midrange gap close that frequently fails. Again, more issues with the multi-target LF-gain concept.
My Fix: Drop the cooldown to 15s, reduced poision duration to 7s, 10% LF gained baseline with 2% per target hit.

Post-patch, this would be the best I’ve got recorded on an 80 (sorry no proof/he resurrected as you can see the combat log has to be shifted). There have been some a bit higher, but most instances where I stumble upon a truly glassy foe and get huge stabs in the 22-24k area, there are almost always other people nearby which make the damage logs push the damage out.

As far as the build goes, pretty standard signets. Similar innate durability, much, much less utility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY8Yl0MhKnYjTwzJw/EHwE0uDLPF+0En2oTQAyAA-TlCBABHfCA2Tvwlq+UpaAnpEEr9HlSA8EAySZTeaCY4gAEAAB4mtZb2mBn38m38m38czbezbezbWKAB1ZB-w

Uhhh.

No.

Life Blast’s coefficients are ridiculous (excuse my 6-9k autos), and the class itself given life force is quite strong. It’s not part of a competitive PvP meta almost exclusively due to lack of stability and starting with 0 LF. MM necro can benefit from dead minions as a means of an early starting pool, and unless it gets lucky towards the start for some LF gains near team fights and not focused, it’s mostly just sub-optial being locked out of its primary offense/defense. More power damage or baseline projectile finishers being 100% (uh, burn guard/celestial ele WAY over-synergizes here) is just unnecessary.

Starting at 20-30% LF in sPvP would probably bump the class into competitive viability, more access to stability would definitely push this class into one of, if not the best.

The answer isn’t damage. Necros have a ton of it coming from LB. Reaper’s DPS is likely going to be lower during shroud. The answer is a bit more starting potential so that it’s not just able to be shut down immediately and made kind of pointless if the opponents aren’t either hard-countered or unskilled.

Define “better.”

There are builds with similar stat durability and deal more damage, but offer less utility.

Thaddeus.4891:

DeceiverX.8361:

Nothing’s stopping you from running this way with your own groups. Or just running solo.

You can’t complete any final boss or a level 50 because agony can’t be mitigate without AR. You use to be able to mitigate it by dodging the attack, now you can just absorb it with AR.

Put on 60 AR on the boss. Build properly to offset the damage/heal out of it (Friend’s nomad ele with some extra support help has done scale 30’s with zero AR and survived Mai Trin’s AR checks) Take the same damage as you did once before. There is literally nothing stopping you from using less-than-maximum AR. Problem solved.

AR checks are there to prevent people from being carried by other people/carried into higher level fractals because the entire point of FoTM is the grind. ANet has come out and said this because it offers a means for grind-wanting players to get the grind without affecting the rest of the game.

Is the system the best one? I don’t think so, no. But is AR being easy to acquire reducing the difficulty/causing fractals to become easier than they once were? Not in the slightest.

D/P is universally better, coming from a D/D burst main since day 1 through today.

Pretty much spam 3 and win (SS + fire/air = backstab damage + teleport + blind + unblockable + ignores dodges for procs of fire/air due to a current bug (at least in WvW).

D/D’s skills are pretty much vastly inferior aside from playing full burst. If you’re not killing your enemy from CnD/Stab alone, you’re better off playing D/P, which in sPvP, since you’re pretty much never killing people from CnD/Stab alone unless you play signet burst, which is by far the most difficult build to make work in sPvP due to the dependencies of your success being solely on your enemys’ comp (it can’t do the damage to heavies and tanks it needs to like it can in WvW), which implies that D/P is always the optimal choice.

S/D used to be a solid build, though the nerfs to the Acrobatics line and the vigor boon have pretty much dumpstered the viability of it – when the best in the game switch to D/P after playing exclusively S/D for a very long time (and doing so extremely successfully despite having previously seen as a mediocre build compaired to D/P), you know it’s not as effective as it needs to be.

I love to encourage D/D as a set to learn on because it’s challenging and makes you a better thief in regards to commiting to fights, positioning, etc., but in all competitive manners, D/P is the only really viable set you can use as a thief – otherwise you’re just bested by other classes (or D/P) by a very large margin.

As addendum to WvW viability, it’s amazing as periphery in blobs. Being able to instantly kill a heavy-DPS back-line ele, necro, or ranger can frankly change the entire outcome of a fight based upon one good play. This is especially useful in pirate ship using effects like Shadowstep which can bait enemies or let you spike someone as a leading engage to return/stunbreak back to safety and bait enemy cooldowns. Even doing so on an enemy commander (and possibly dying if need be) to blow important CD’s can lead to much bigger trades than 1 for 1 due to a disorganization of the enemy grouping. You just better be sure you’re playing with a sword on one of your weapon combinations, even if it means dropping shortbow.

ronpierce.2760:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

zapv.8051:

Can these all get buffed to 40 or 50 percent? 20% is not enough to be even remotely reliable. No one thinks, “let me use my 20% projectile finisher through that field,” because it isn’t reliable enough to change your play style for that.

20% projectile finishers are basically all auto attacks, or attacks that have multiple projectiles (like rapid fire). Increasing this to 40% just adds even more random passive play to the game.

Or, like Revenant’s, they could just simply balance the effects and auto speeds around 100%. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your attack will be stronger steadily when attacking from a combo field. That actually forces people to play well with them. Not having them reliable, you get random chances at benefits, but it’s not enough to push anyone to try to play better and utilize it. There’s nothing passive about combo field finishers, that’s why they were made, to reward people for comboing. Right now there’s no reason to.

Sure, projectile through burning might need a little tweaking and 100% projectile ranged attacks could possibly need to be slower attacks like the Revenant, but it adds play to the game, which the game desperately needs, that makes you think about your placement. As is, you don’t think about your 20% chance moves and as such, you gain very little play value by having them.

As for multi-hit, you could leave it at about 25% chance and that’d be fine. You’d have enough quick hits to want to take advantage of fields still.

Back to my forever long design philosophy don’t design around balance. Balance around good design.

Absolutely. A 100% chance doesn’t increase the “random”/RNG element of utilizing the fields. If the effects of a ranged attack through a lightning field were a chance at a sigil of air proc, a 20% chance makes the damage even more unpredictable and random, and thus more difficult to counter.

Of course the effects would likely need to be nerfed, or the percentages changed on a per-skill basis (I don’t think anyone can argue rev hammer being a 100% finisher is OP due to the skills themselves), but removing the RNG elements from finishers/fields creates much more interesting and creative play.

Thaddeus.4891:

The only think that bug me about AR is that is make higher level so much easier than it use to. Back when fractal just had started, AR was for noobs or players that wanted a easy lowe level run. In level 30+ you just couldn’t have enough AR to survive any hits from an Agony attack. Each arrow from the Shaman could kill you (now down, dead right away).

That was the only hard content in the game. Each mistake had the potential to wipe your group. It could be frustrating, especially in pugs and it was bug never intented by Anet, but it was so freaking hard and so much more fun to play.

Nothing’s stopping you from running this way with your own groups. Or just running solo.

As far as AR/OP’s complaints go, there’s no reason to remove it. FoTM was designed and released blatantly for those who want the more traditional/grindy MMO dungeon experience.

The only thing I have issue with regarding AR is the rate at which the infusion materials drop/the fact these are entirely dependent on RNG. At scale 35 now I’ve never gotten enough materials to infuse a single item; a friend of mine got six shards in one run recently.

Grinding FoTM for ascended armor drops is kind of silly. The drop rate is the “highest”, but it’s not much of a significant improvement over PvE. With regular play in WvW (which is NOT optimized for gold/loot at all) on a T6 server (so it’s even worse), I manage enough silk for about two pieces per month. Dedicating any reasonable amount of time to PvE/dungeons or the TP would get me likely a full set each month.

All I can say to this topic is
“Good riddance. Now fix Ele.”

Those two sigils were the undisputed best DPS option for burst and sustained damage, and offered zero counterplay as it wasn’t based on out-going would-be crits but only successful ones. With power-heavy builds, these two combined could hit for 4-5k easily. Really dumb to take an auto for 7k out of nowhere. This is coming from someone who plays a crit build. Simply, the sigils are/were dumb.

Now if only they’d revert the change that prevented fire/air from working together, or bumped the cooldown up again to 10s/6s.

Not AFAIK. I had friends join a few months back and they did not have the ability to join servers listed as Full when first logging in to a new account.

IIRC 500 Jewelcrafting is coming → Ascended ring crafting.

Legendaries, being the switchable BiS gear that they are, came out conceptually before ascended, too. If it’s not there at the launch of HoT, it’ll come in time.

If the thief can’t use stealth attacks, why bother playing a thief at that point?

I’d prefer to see an emphasis on the revealed effect, such as all of the skills applying large amounts of revealed to the thief, but for stat gains similar to Revealed Training.

Warrior trait one (Heightened Focus) is not on demand and gives no other effects except the swiftness; it only applies when hitting someone at under 50% health, and is not just a proc for Frenzy (so no stun break, either).

It’s strong, but a trait a lot of wars don’t use. I think the real culprit behind rampage + Heightened Focus is… you guessed it… rampage.

Rampage is blatantly OP. Even warriors are asking for nerfs to it (myself included; I main war in sPvP due to D/D thief’s lack of consistency) because it’s just faceroll -> kill enemy team -> move on.

Though it does make for some great moa opportunities.

Sandrox.9524:

With the new specialization.Cant express enough how our condi cleanse options are very very limited,every condi spammer proffesion have 100% advantage over thieves.Trapper ranger,burn guard,condi engi,condi necro and mesmer->they have a headstart on us cause we have no condi mitgation even if we spec hard for condi cleanse on purpose!

Here a suggestion:Make shadow embrace BASELINE

While I agree we lack general cleansing, IDK if making SE baseline is the right way to do it. That’s a really powerful trait, and frankly, before the rework, something that was almost always used no matter what build.

Yes, it justifies the thief being weak against conditions and the trait being “too important and thus baseline,” but I feel the raw power there is pretty high. Then again, we saw a lot of really OP things get made baseline in the 6/23 patch for other classes, so who knows.

Perhaps “On gaining stealth (or even revealed), cure 1 condition” would be a little more balance and give the SA whiners what they want :P

It’s effectively just regular signet stab. The concept of ST over SoS or even IS isn’t really anything new. The might is great, and imho, ST is great in PvE for nukes, but getting a target to step on the trap and at the sacrifice of better engage from IS or passive run speed/active ranged blind from SoS isn’t worth it to me, not to mention the high cooldown.

It synergizes nicely with D/D as CnD → Mug can take a target to half before the stab. As I mentioned above, this helps offset effects like protection or mitigation traits to make the other half get burned down without needing HS spam afterwards. D/P doesn’t benefit much from this trait at all, since it’s normally going to be just auto-attacking or mashing 3 for damage after a stab, and the 20% modifier doesn’t help immensely there.

OP Dancing Dagger was OP, but it was really funny. I’d argue old mug was more OP, though :p

I think SS itself is too powerful and nerfs to it could justify changes and buffs to the thief as a whole, inclusive of D/P.

Right now, the thief is difficult to balance for builds like D/D and P/P because modifications substantial enough to make those builds viable would overbuff D/P in most cases. Spamming 3 (or 2, or any skill) shouldn’t be rewarded on any build.

It’s also pretty hard to dodge a third time after dodging stab and steal, and in most cases, a D/P build will have the init to use SS twice in case one fails.

I would argue D/P’s relative strength is holding the rest of the class back. As far as fighting other classes, I don’t have a bias because I play warrior and ranger in sPvP when I do (I used to play mesmer but PU is super lame), because I think D/P is boring and cele ele/cele engi/new mesmer are similarly boring, and D/D thief doesn’t work against anything at all.

The balance state is pretty laughable in sPvP, too. If I want balanced fights, I actually go to WvW, because everything is so strong in there it’s relatively even. Yea, you can die in one hit, but that’s part of the skill requirement to avoid. A lot of stab builds fail to burst me down because I react and expect it. You can get chunked by builds that aren’t part of a meta or anything by people who play well and can push the stats they need from the available build diversity and food.

Taobella.6597:

Oh i completely agree that rotation is full gimmicks but give you full burst combo if dancing dagger hit because they perma stun under basilisk. (asuming no stun break)

It’s not really a “best” rotation then, is it? :P

A trailing HS will deal more damage as well, since even if you’re getting an executioner backstab, the 20% damage from it is lost to a low-power HS at the beginning. A boosted HS at low target health will out-damage the gains from Executioner stab. Depending on the build, DD -> Mug -> CnD will often put your enemy below half, too, allowing the same burst without wasted time or initiative.

Edit: Apologies, Kocoff, though I just don’t know if I still agree with the claim that D/P requires more skill to play successfully.

DHawk.2687:

dancing dagger isn’t bad in theory, it has helped me out a lot tbh, the only downside is that the ini cost is way to high for a simple skill like that, anet needs to eihter buff it’s damage and cripple time or reduce the ini cost

Someone finally gets it.

I find myself using this skill more than almost everything else playing D/D. The utility and just ranged damage (I always jump when throwing if possible for more range :P) are extremely useful.

The problem is that I normally have to dump a full bar of init to make it actually have a significant impact on anything. The skill used to have the same damage modifier as a frontal backstab IIRC and more bounces, and for obvious reasons, it got nerfed, as throwing a single Dancing Dagger into a group of two people would hit each player for like 25k at the end lol.

As far as the thread’s usefulness goes… at least we identified some people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about I guess :P

On topic, though, my biggest issue with D/P is how Shadow Shot has such a low init cost for such a powerful skill. Instant 900 range teleport double-strike (guaranteed fire/air procs in most cases) unblockable front-stab projectile finisher that blinds and can be used many times for 4 initiative is a little much. 6 init and it’s fair.

Haha on bads and uplevels, maybe. HS spam is terrible and is punished so easily.

Anything beyond that and you’re in for way more of a challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, D/P is a great set, and there are a lot of amazing thieves using it, but D/P is absolutely not more skill-intensive to play successfully than D/D. Yes, the damage/burst component of landing a backstab is not mechanically difficult unless again, your foe is skilled and knows how to beat thieves, but surviving the encounter and out-playing your foes is a lot more difficult due to the overall limited capabilities of the set.

If Shadow Shot got nerfed, a lot of D/P players would be outraged and would be incapable of winning fights they currently can dominate.

@Tao:

An early HS is a waste of initiative. If you’re going to use HS at all, it should be done as a finisher after a CnD -> stab (under the assumption you know you can kill your target this way) and to close a gap if your enemy survives the burst and re-positions. Personally, I’d just recommend not using it at all and swapping weapons to a better skirmishing set like S/D or SB while you’re revealed and need to be on the defensive.

It’s a neat concept, though I’m not really certain why you’d run a build focused on negating soft CC using D/D + S/D when HS’s leap ignores the effects of cripple/chill and IS can be used to teleport away via neutral mobs, other enemies, keep enemy structures etc., and IR cleanses a condition on its way back, letting a stealth + IS/IR without a target remove DoT’s and conditions. I can see the traits making a lot more sense on D/P + SB more than D/D + S/D.

DHawk.2687:

the 20% damage is overrated, it won’t increase your time to kill unless your mainhand is sword or you try to autoattack someone to death with the dagger, but since it’s a BS build it makes no sense

A stab build should be running executioner on the basis it allows for smoother +1’ing and secures kills much better. If you’re 100-0’ing, it’ll better-offset the effects of damage mitigation if your enemy reacts quickly, such as through protection or other trait effects.

Improv is only worthwhile in a build with a diverse set of utilities also utilizing SA or acrobatics on the basis that they will not be stabbing for substantial damage and will need to skirmish their way to 50% and under to begin with, likely blowing utilities beforehand.

If the OP ran withdraw, I would recommend improv on his build because it’s not really a true backstab build that will get big gains from Executioner unless he’s in an organized group as a +1’er, and his utilities would include everything except a trap, and all of the skills are high-impact if their CD’s got reset.

Kocoff.7582:

D/P thief … requires a lot more skill than D/D

.

I think you vastly over-estimate the skill requirement for D/P. It’s one of the thief’s easiest weapon sets.

Kocoff.7582:

I implore you, my fellow thieves, please share your D/P wisdom to those in need.

Spam 3, auto-attack, execute with 2. 4/5 When you need it against tanks or bunkers you can’t kill, shortbow to run away.

You can cancel stuff as it was mentioned, but it’s really not even necessary half the time.

I think ron has a pretty good handle on which conditions which classes would have.

I can see torment on the thief, but only from venoms (some venoms can be extremely painful after consumption). Torment on P/D 3 makes no sense. It shouldn’t even deal a DoT, IMHO.

The mesmer really has no flavor reason to have blinds, though.

Yea… Ele doesn’t need another off-hand. The existing options are not only strong and diverse, but the MH options available now feel underwhelming IMHO.

Sword could have fulfilled a much-desired role. I was hoping ANet would focus on particular elements as well with the elementalist specs (rotating makes the class boring IMHO), and/or change their use by specializations, such as DPS’ing in water, etc.

Heightened Focus is a blast. I run a GS/Rifle War build with Sigils of Rage + Frenzy + HF for 50% quickness uptime. Very fun to be able to shell out so much damage so quickly, especially with no penalties on quickness, now.

Rampage is certainly over the top, and I think the hammer’s CC has too much AOE/cleave on it (just me, though), but otherwise the class feels good and not too powerful but definitely not weak.

+1, OP.

I’m disgusted by ANet’s leads’ responses. At this point I’m genuinely just considering dropping the game altogether since I see the reason why I play having no future. Gimmicky new maps do nothing when the core systems – and server resources (they used WvW resources/reduced the player cap in WvW for all servers/matchups recently to make sPvP less laggy) – are at fault, and with such remarks insulting the seriousness of players focused heavily on one game mode, I see no reason to have faith in GW2 as a game or ANet as a company. The incredible passion for their games and the notion to make all game modes a way of playing – without needing to touch other game modes – and the overall promotion of huge-scale battles with siege, etc. is why I signed up for GW2 to begin with. If I wanted e-sports, I’d play LoL. If I wanted a PvE grind-fest, I’d play a wide variety of highly-refined Asian RPG’s.

They’re completely off their rockers.

Genavelle.9516:

Xenesis.6389:

Well most of the gvg guilds will move out of wvw with the expansion because of guild hall arenas, no reason to be in wvw other than zerg busting. Smaller groups will remain in wvw, would they prefer the new eotm map coming or the older borderland map though?

As for twitch transmissions on a saturday….. anet doesn’t work on the weekends, as anything broken usually gets left until monday to be fixed. If you meant player run then sure go for it. Would be nice if anet ran the wvw buffs every few weeks like they do for the spvp tournaments.

Lastly anet wouldn’t know customer loyalty if a st. bernard came and slobbered over their faces. They don’t care about veteran players, that much is evident by some of the screw ups in the last year. They only hunt for new whales if you catch my drift.

So…we all just write a bunch of really bad reviews for GW2, publicly go around and dissuade people from buying it, tell our friends it sucks, etc?

The last time this happened, there were changes made to some systems.

“We” can’t control the matchups, guilds, and coverage/number disparities and the overall pug community within WvW to make it as interesting as it could be. Those are handled by poor systems on ANet’s end which aside from purposely plummeting tiers, we can’t do.

KittyCat.2059:

- Sheep leave if they are just being fed to wolves, wolves leave if there are no sheep

And this is why the current server-based model fails to work and always will, and why ANet is losing people.

Valvador.4291:

What do you guys do for Condition clearing without SA?

Spam alternate weapon sword 2 + Trickster/withdraw + don’t get hit. An unfortunate sacrifice, but a necessity if playing D/x. Shortbow is amazing, but condi cleansing is more important.

That and just run from condi builds as a whole if you start losing.

What a disappointing interview.

Without WvW, there’s zero reason to play this game.

Yes, damage multipliers are multiplicative. It’s statistically better to get more, smaller modifiers than one big one, which is why Ferocity as a stat functions poorly overall unless paired heavily with modifiers.

This is why many misinformed people fail to understand why backstab can hit so hard despite the damage of the skill itself not being very high; the thief has access to more damage modifiers when built for damage than every other class in the game, and most of these modifiers are nothing to sneeze at.

If OP played deadly arts or even trickery, his stabs would be substantially higher. If playing both, expect 10k’s fairly easy, food buffs and other misc modifiers, much higher.

Edit: In one given attack, Rangers offer the highest damage modifiers in the game due to Attack of Opportunity and the new Remorseless.

Waiting is one thing, resetting the fight altogether is another. That’s why I completely disagree with the notion of giving SA builds extra damage.

DA/CS/SA would allow for 25 stacks of might with the highest damage modifier in the game at the end with passive damage reduction, healing, and cleansing, plus the obvious benefits of stealth. Or DA/SA/Trick netting the same damage as DA/CS/Trickery signets… without needing signets.

If you want more damage, you should have to work for it or invest into it.

NinjaEd.3946:

DeceiverX.8361:

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that GM trait would mean you don’t have SR.

Its all about opportunity costs with the new trait lines, you can’t pick 2 adept or 2 master traits anymore so each tier sets you up in a different way. The values are only suggestions, but I think 3 is a solid number of stacks given its a GM trait, the duration could maybe be lowered to 10 seconds so the base limit # of stacks would be 12 vs 18 from a single trait.

You’re still pulling the best defensive utility and similar damage – if not better – than DA/CS, and passive play is still being rewarded by sitting around and doing nothing.

DA/SA/Trickery would provide better damage than DA/CS/Trickery signet stab, with more defense and utility to boot, as a rune of strength build can just pull up the durations as well.

You have to run SA/Trickery/Acro x/D + SB thief in full stealth everything/initiative regen traits + blasting SS with no nearby target to make it work on top of chain CnD on a nearby non-moving target for just self-stealth while also combined with perfect 1s increment dodges to bolster the initiative regen fast enough while meanwhile not hitting anything. All 18 points and a trait setup so bad you’d probably lose to a condi perplexity axe/axe warrior.

Theoretically possible, I guess, so I’ll concede that okay, the thief can have permanent stealth uptime, given a build that cannot fight and cannot have nearby enemies or full control over attack-able objects’ positions, from SS blasts (leaps will not work). In any way shape or form usable? Absolutely not.

So yea, unless you’re running a pointless build that physically can’t deal damage and offers really nothing to anyone, the mesmer ends up with better combat stealth uptime due to the revealed effect opportunity cost when considering realistic initiative and skill use from a thief.

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.