Guild Wars 2

Great if you can make 5g/hour zerging on a populated server. PPT havoc players on middle tiers and below usually lose money.

There was a point in time where metabolic primers were cheaper than the food itself.

This is a question of a small economy of gatherers versus a game mode’s potential appeal and integrity that was one of the biggest selling points of GW2. Frankly, the only benefit I see to not changing it is the gold sink coming from the TP tax. Even then, a few badges of honor and a few silver for some food doesn’t seem too absurd and would sink similar gold.

Kallist.5917:

DeceiverX.8361:

Venoms are getting nerfed as far as what’s been revealed with the trait rework so far, so no, I doubt it they will see much use in HoT.

From what Ive seen, my Thief wont be getting any kind of a nerf in the new system. Where did you see otherwise? Been very concerned about my build surviving the upcoming Expansion.

Based on the notes from Dulfy, Shared Leeching Venoms is getting an ICD, or the entirety of Leeching Venoms is. It mentioned the Life Siphon Cooldown is 1 second, something which currently doesn’t exist.

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-thief-shadow-arts-specialziation1.jpg

SleepingDragon.1596:

Halan.7931:

Flippers (or Auction manipulators in other games) are parasites and leeches, just as stock/FOREX traders are in real life.

In my opinion, items bought from Trading Post should automatically become account-bound, and materials should go into some special part of the bank, from which they could only be used for crafting, so they can’t be resold.

So, should stocks and anything you buy at your local Walmart be account bound too? You should never have the rights to resell anything? If the stuff you no longer want, your only solution is to trash it? Is that your answer for real life items?

More like people aren’t allowed to invest in companies which ultimately forces the majority of means of growth being next to impossible outside of a dominated marketplace where competition is prohibited.

Kind of like why we get treated like crap by ISP’s or any non-privatized business for mediocre service at best.

The reason why you saw drops over the winter is because holidays tend to bolster out-of-game gem sales, as gifts, and people are often inclined to impulse buy whatever they can given a gift card, meaning many people just converted the gems to gold, possibly due to the demand for high-cost items like legendaries, ascended armor, etc.

The rise in gold per capita is undoubted, but the issue is more closely paralleled to fewer people buying gems in general (or at least converting them to gold) than they were in the past.

This may be attributed to a declining player-base, increase in freeloaders farming gold for gems in common hotspots (Silverwastes) paired with a spiked interest in doing such farming for beta portals, etc.

@OP:

This is an economy, not a single-player game where the coin can be destroyed/is arbitrary and the economy is dictated solely by the player with static prices from NPC’s.

What flippers do exists exactly in real life, and is performed by many other companies. This is part of business.

And part of successful business is ensuring you get returns on your investments. As soon as a flipper prices his items too high to the point where it is not reasonable or optimal for the intelligent consumer to purchase, the consumer looks elsewhere for the same goods, and a demand for lower-price alternatives comes along and takes all of the profits, leaving the flipper broke with a whole pile of items that have either returned to their original price or have deflated in value causing a net loss.

I dare you to go ahead and flip the TP – it’s harder than you think.

The reason you’re seeing less necros has nothing to do with the class being weak but because the builds that are currently being played are inherently stronger against what the necromancer brings to the table than most other classes/builds.

Frankly, the only reason why the thief is even played is because it has one or two available options which can hard-counter what’s currently being played. I’d distinctly argue that the necromancer is a stronger class in sPvP as a whole, but currently it just has no place since bunker builds coincidentally pack tons of CC and largely run healing, quick might stacking, and condition cleansing due to how devastating conditions are if left applied; which just weakens the necro on the basis it uses conditions to extend fights and whittle down foes.

In WvW, necromancers are a top-tier class and are always desired. More and more of the top guilds are requesting even more necromancers than anything now due to their hidden potency and ability to totally change a fight on its head.

Necromancers are in a weird place more than anything. They have a whole pile of “needs” to become played more in sPvP and PvE, but they conflict a lot, and if both satisfied, would just make the class wildly overpowered; a highly-mobile/stable ranged DPS/nuke with ridiculous control condition access and the highest effective defenses/health pool in the game would just be very, very silly.

I think a reasonable place to start is giving necromancers some starting life force in sPvP at the beginning of a match. Not being able to win or really even trade those big early encounters is what I believe is its biggest hurdle into the future, not so much always what’s being played.

Venoms are getting nerfed as far as what’s been revealed with the trait rework so far, so no, I doubt it they will see much use in HoT.

You’re leaving out a few things:

- Which utilities are getting replaced with the new ones?
- Why should a thief not use this specialization? → What are the traits like?
- How does someone counterplay the skills you have suggested? I see these as being etremely overpowered wen paired with what the rest of the thief has to offer; the only capability your opponent has to negate these effects is to literally do nothing. Put with Panic Strike, I see no way for an opponent to reasonably fight back against the thief or escape.

Thematically it’s interesting, but I think your mechanics design pairs closer to the mesmer, and I think what you have suggested is just way too powerful to be implemented.

I agree that almost anything would be more interesting than the rifle as a specialization weapon. That said, I have a good feeling ANet is going to be lazy with the thief and use it in a pseudo-sniper ranged build that will ultimately make people QQ and demand more generic thief nerfs.

Justine.6351:

ItIsFinished.9462:

Justine.6351:

Jim Hunter.6821:

That would be awesome but I’d settle for the skill not screwing up when running on uneven terrain. Nothing worse than trying to run from a zerg and stopping for a full second before doing the second part of the leap.

l2p issue.

It’s not a l2p issue. It’s a bug that happens randomly. Been around for a while now.

The tl:dr version…

Need to sprint first and then fly leap. It isn’t random as its very rare for me to mess up my swoop. This comes with experience aka l2p.

Um, no, it’s not a L2P issue. It’s a pathing bug for sprint animations and it exists on every class in the game with a similar gap closer.

The only “L2P” issue about it is that some terrain locations will have this happen more often than others, and just knowing where they are can help minimize it. Otherwise, it’s pretty much impossible to negate with anything but luck/guessing.

I have zero interest in what’s being offered thus far. If anything, I think a large portion of the upcoming changes are taking steps backwards, especially so in WvW.

TheLastNobody.8319:

…can someone link me to a decent build site? I had one then lost it in the sea of bookmarks I shall never use again

Just click on the above links people have been using and modify as you need to. Get the new link (generate it for gw2skills, copy the URL from dulfy as it changes dynamically).

Kind of an initial concept, but I’m focusing on a Reaper Shroud-based build with a ton of chill access and mobility targeted towards locking down enemies into huge amounts of damage to prevent escapes. I’m focusing largely on smaller-scale group havoc.

Skills and Gear (Traits left alone for solely stats for estimated gear stats after the rework):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fREQFAWnc0QLN2aDW2ABimAAAglIhWA-TFiBwAAeAAlVCad/BbqycV53ddAKuAA4UbIAACA38m38m38mlCQPdWA-w
(Wolf is a placeholder for the shout)

Traits:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6AXoBuw~

Reaper’s Onslaught and Deathly Chill are competing for the GM trait; Onslaught helps maintain Life Force, but Deathly Chill allows for pre-Reaper’s-Shroud damage and bolsters the staff.

I opt for the vuln over might stacking in spite due to the potential for opponents to strip/steal boons, and the gains from the power are offset partially by a lot of vuln application which may ultimately deal greater or similar DPS to ~10-15 stacks of might.

I am considering not using the greatsword due to its limited Life Force gains and slow speed, and instead using Axe/Focus for on-demand ranged chill, healing, more vuln stacking, and ranged cripple for stragglers getting away.

Signet of the Locust may also be swapped for Blood is Power if I feel that my Life Force pool in most fights doesn’t deteriorate too quickly, and if I want/need the extra damage.

New map is whatever (though I prefer the alpine environment for its looks, but that’s irrelevant), but I agree with the OP about the buffs and keep rewards. It’s going to be entirely about server blob size and havoc groups only being able to take sentries. The alternate paths are not accessible enough and overly-punishing to attackers while overly-rewarding to defenders against small groups, and again, rather irrelevant to huge blobs, for the tactical location-based play by small groups to take big objectives is effectively going to be removed/nullified.

Vertical terrain and fall damage being part of PvP as a whole are two things I don’t think mix well. I’d say leave the damage to ~10% max health at the highest drops as a means of executing low-health targets making bad escape decisions, but not letting people fall to their deaths/land in combat at 50% hp. The air keep is going to be way too important.

I think I speak for most people in WvW in that we’re not interested in gimmicks or PvE elements; that’s what EoTM introduced, and it led to a terrible community, a very poor feel to fighting, and k-training around since the gimmicks lead to pointless and imbalanced fights more than any number of players with guard stacks can.

lordkrall.7241:

But that is just the thing.
They can’t just switch out a Monday for a Saturday. That is not how things work in development. The other teams are depending on team x to be there during the standard working hours.

No sense in re-iterating the same points over and over. Obviously those who are complaining extensively either feel falsely entitled to a preview of the content on their terms and have no considerations for ANet’s employees, or know nothing of software development and its corresponding business practices.

For the people who farmed hours and hours for a beta portal, take this as a lesson learned in that you should never assume the conditions you will be treated without any kind of contract. ANet isn’t here to serve anyone; they’re here to make money. There’s a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and earnings, especially in private enterprise, but their ultimate goal has nothing to do with your satisfaction of their product so long as they’re still making good money.

Shinya.2598:

Is the fire on my underarms supposed to be there? It sometimes disappear when in combat. It looks poor, I dont like it, I’m not an elementalist. Plz get rid of it

You mean forearms? I thought you were referring to flaming armpit hair explosions for a minute, in which case, no, it wouldn’t be intentional :P

It’s intended. One of the reasons I dislike the Incinerator.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Stop trying to make “fetch” happen. It’s never going to happen.

LOL. You win the thread. +1

Kury.8210:

Thanks for all the feedback! So far I’m loving my thief, though it may be a while before I pvp with it. One thing I got to say though. Not used to glass cannons. It’s like everything seems easy, until you screw up.

So let’s see… Currently using d/p and shortbow. Lvl 35 so not much in traits yet. Any advice for using cluster bomb on shortbow? Feels like I’m doing something wrong when aiming close to me. I’d also love to learn how to do the clusterbomb/steal together. I’ve seen a youtube video where it seems almost instant, but never managed myself. Thanks again for all the advice!

Cluster bomb deals the most damage when you get it targeted right on your enemy, then explode the bomb in mid-air as soon as it’s totally within the monster’kittenbox. This allows more consistent critical hits since each part of the cluster has its own crit chance (which can raise damage at lower crit % as some will crit instead of likely none), and doing a successful mid-air detonation actually jut has a higher damage coefficient than the single bomb. The detonate cluster also applies bleeding whereas the single bomb does not. I prefer to engage with this since you likely don’t have aggro and the mob is largely stationary.

Point-blank bombing is just spamming the skill. This is done because the bomb thus has a low travel time and ultimately deals more damage in a short amount of time as the wait between bombs/from shooting them is small. This is done mostly for PvP purposes or AoE’ing groups of mobs if you use D/x.

A bomb-combo for D/D is often something like:
Basilisk Venom -> Cluster Bomb (no Detonate) -> While bomb is mid-air Steal/Mug -> CnD -> Stab -> Bomb lands on CC’ed target.

For D/P, you need to be OOC: Blinding Powder → Heartseeker → Venom →Cluster Bomb (no Detonate) → While bomb is mid-air → Shadow Shot/Stab combo

Lol, rifle melee weapon.

I’d probably just get up and leave if another specialization that wasn’t bullCat wasn’t immediately announced for the thief as compensation.

Because then it’s either just worse than our existing melee options and bad or better than them being OP and looking stupid the entire time. I’m no fan of the rifle even from long ranges, and hate the stealth-sniper concept, but at least that makes sense.

I see each specialization so far tie into the lore of each class. The Dragonhunter has a dumb name, but I believe the class in the way it plays and its concept isn’t too far-fetched. The Chronomancer and Reaper fit in excellently into the class themes they represent even if they drastically change the style of play and mechanics of the class.

Condition clearing has to be made more accessible, and/or health pools need to increase. Especially with the absolutely absurd incoming buffs to condi builds and some of the conditions that the thief kit simply has very tough times dealing with, such as confusion and torment (cannot be removed by HiS/Pain Response).

Learn how to survive intense combat. Especially learning to do so without Shadow Arts (2 pts max for SE).

The thief is a very easy class to kill things with. It does a lot of damage.

What’s not so great are its passive defenses and damage mitigation (granted, SA provides this extensively, but it’s an overpowered trait line that rewards poor play techniques and ultimately decreases player skill/learning.

As crimson mentioned, zerging is actually a good way to learn, especially if you force yourself to try and kill a particular target and practice target management. You will be faced with the decision of picking a new target and committing if you see one you can kill. It’s very easy to kill a target, but finding your way out of the mess becomes much more difficult. The bigger mess you get yourself into and escape, the better you’ll master using the thief’s best assets in smaller fights and retain control over the battlefield and your opponent’s cooldowns.

I actually whole-heartedly agree with any notions to nerf stealth spamming builds while promoting compensation in other areas. I’d like to see Trickery get access to condi removal on reveal as a GM trait, maybe even as a passive to Replenishment, to give the thief the condi protection it desperately needs (especially now in WvW with the removal of AF removing 25% of base HP) while opening up some build diversity.

Zero Day.2594:

Sagat.3285:

Cynz.9437:

Sagat.3285:

BFMV.3198:

Because they are tampering with either stealth or revealed

Anet just delete the class

No other class has restrictions on its defenses

Necro…there is no need for such measures they see it as bug too.

except the bug wouldn’t happen unless they were messing around with stealth mechanics for the future changes…

I doubt this is the “beginning part” of a change it doesn’t add up with anything,maybe a change but not this type.

Yeah… Stuff doesn’t magically break or bug out unless something was done on it or around it.

Elite spec stuff maybe?

I’d argue otherwise. A patch a while ago broke ranger pet passive/active such that all pets would always force-attack anything targeted or attacking the ranger, even if on passive mode. No changes have been made to AI or the ranger as a class since. It took ANet almost six weeks to roll out the solution because they had no idea what was causing the problem. The same issue also happened this patch.

A bad name or pointer can cause all sorts of errors even if in totally unrelated segments of the game.

Fay.2357:

DeceiverX.8361:

Clone stats and pet stats are scaled per level, which used to be the way stats increased before the NPE.

Citation needed.

All illusions inherit their base stats from the Mesmer. I see no reason for this to be not the case if you’re under level 80.

Apologies. I thought armor was also scaled per level, but it appears only health is scaled on a per-level basis.

My issue is that stacks arguably created more build variety and enhanced balance. Nobody can complain about the stacks being OP when in a fight against another player with equal stacks, regardless of the class composition; stacks tightened the relative gap between health tiers and kept a lot of condition builds in check b reducing their relative damage per tick in the small scale. 2500 extra HP for some builds is absolutely necessary to function, and 100 power/condi damage has helped a great number more find viability.

I’d be fine with seeing as cost reduction – after all, it does suck to get those points, and you need to be putting your ranks in the proper order to get the most benefits early on, too – but frankly, I see the changes to AS/AF as being purely detrimental to veteran players and the balance of WvW as a whole.

sPvP might be more “fair,” but it’s extremely stagnant, boring, and frankly, monotone. It’s been entirely figured out, and only some specific class/build models can make it to be competitive. The rest is sub-par and ruled out. This doesn’t happen in WvW; I can make a ridiculous build and make it work just as well.

They’re not predictable when they play P/P cleric’s/dwayna healing power.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. It makes them rage all the time when they fight a thief they physically cannot kill :p

But yes, they are very lackluster in structured duels. Then again, so are most DPS-based builds without much CC or stability.

It might be a relative nerf with the changes coming to other classes, but that’s not exclusive to D/D.

SA as a whole is getting better defense and lower offense.

If you need 6 points in SA and all of its OP traits to do decently in WvW, you need to get better at the thief in general. This forces you to. If you’re using 6 points in SA in sPvP and are also playing D/D, you’re not playing a half-decent build to begin with. If you’re using 6 points in SA for PvE, I hope it’s because you solo dungeons/extremely difficult bosses, otherwise you should just get better at the class.

SA is getting stupidly high amounts of defense which I still don’t agree with based on its style of play, but I think its power might be reasonable. Still concerned with RoS as a minor to be paired with SR, as that would make a soldier’s stealth build stupidly tanky, but we’ll see what happens.

Not saying you were or weren’t so much as it throw things off kilter in general. With all conditions applying in a stacking fashion with the HoT changes, there are no further benefits to keeping this around in PvE aside from the odd condition like torment which usually doesn’t get capped, and just like every other damage source (aside from fire/air, which I also would like to see replaced with with just better ferocity/precision-based sigils in general), such DPS should need to be built around using gear, with food to augment it, not apply 40% more damage.

evilapprentice.6379:

DeceiverX.8361:

OP should just make another video with weapons to demonstrate that the problem actually needs attention.

Just thinking about the extra some-odd 18 stacks of bleeding, multiple torment, and stealth/blind uptime is enough to make me cringe.

If dire/perplexity was not a possibility, this wouldn’t even be remotely possible.

I don’t see a lot of people saying “There’s absolutely no problem with this spec.” Most people (myself included) are pointing at Dire/Perplexity/Condi duration food (WvW only crap) as the issue. The problem is players with little critical thinking skills popping up to holler “Wow look at how broken thief is, and all these players defending it because they just want to stay broken” has muddied the conversation a bit.

But that’s the thing, though. WvW, aside from a few builds like this, is actually really balanced. There are by far way more viable build choices available for every class for roles than in sPvP, and frankly, the faster-pace of the combat IMHO makes for a better PvP environment where thinking and reacting fast both matter and the game isn’t so largely based around builds and counter-builds.

Yes, the GWEN meta exists for blobbing, but a meta will always exist, and what is outside of GWEN can easily have roles performing other things than the GWEN builds.

I genuinely believe static condition duration food (both + and -) should be removed from the game as a whole. it serves no purpose than to screw over WvW balance and bolster what is already an overpowered spec from dire/perplex in general and supports repeated condi dumps with little negatives.

OP should just make another video with weapons to demonstrate that the problem actually needs attention.

Just thinking about the extra some-odd 18 stacks of bleeding, multiple torment, and stealth/blind uptime is enough to make me cringe.

If dire/perplexity was not a possibility, this wouldn’t even be remotely possible.

It also depends on the weapon you’re using. A GS or staff mesmer usually won’t take aggro due to how far away it attacks from. A sword mesmer, on the other hand, will take it much more frequently.

Clone stats and pet stats are scaled per level, which used to be the way stats increased before the NPE. Now, stat points are allocated in mass quantities every few levels, instead.

You’re probably experiencing clones take aggro in such instances because your clone’s base stats in regards to their toughnes/armor values are higher than yours, are closer to the monster, and may be dealing more damage. Again, as I said, many mobs in PvE are scripted to focus on summons/pets first before the player as a means to make it easier. This could also be affecting your experience.

The way I described aggro above is factually how the system handles it. Unless there are special rules (such as “always attack marked target,” “always attack the player performing x action,” etc., which basically don’t exist in open-world PvE, this is how your clones are taking aggro.

The cluelessness in this thread is so real.

So many classes with 25% movespeed options don’t even use them because it’s not even worth using/temporary swiftness is just better.

See: Thief, Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger

There are clones and there are Phantasms. You’re allowed three of any combination of the two at any given point in time. Clones do basically next to no damage. This becomes especially apparently later on, as their damage scales with level, but these are meant to be shattered or used as decoys/bodyblocking for one attack. Clone skills usually have shorter cooldowns due to their repeated use from shattering them as cannon-fodder for extra damage or effects.
Phantasms are a bit bulkier in terms of their health pools, and provide very large sums of damage intermittently. They only have one attack, and repeat this attack until they die, or the target dies.

Monster aggro is determined by a few factors:
Proximity to the monster (who’s the closest) + Damage dealt (who hurts the most) + Armor value (as a means of letting tank specs hold aggro without a taunt system) + pets/summons for open world PvE.

Depending on when you cast the clones/phantasms, they may be closer in proximity or dealing more damage than you (say if you start with a phantasm and stop attacking to summon more things in the meantime), and typically, open-world monsters will focus on summons, pets, etc. before attacking the player just as a means of keeping the open-world content a bit easier for classes which can let their summons take hits.

Hope that helps explain things a little.

Again I’m seeing beating reapers coming down to build choices.

Glassy anything without much CC → Reaper wins
Glassy anything with tons of CC → Reaper likely loses if the stability can be broken enough.
High mobility (condi cleanse/stunbreaks)/ranged DPS → Reaper loses
Boon stripping → Reaper loses; dependent on built might stacks and its stability.
Tanky with CC → Interesting fight due to massive HP pool from Reaper Shroud and some access to stability.
Tanky with no CC → Reaper wins

In a massive-scale fight, I think the reaper will have extreme potency on the frontlines with paired with Guardians for the extra stability and might/healing/condi cleansing, but at the same time if the enemy does so, it loses its chill/vuln uptime reducing its potency; i.e., it’s hard-countered by mirrior-matches.

I think the reaper has a lot to fear himself from the mesmer and thief departments (S/P thief I think will be a nasty hard-counter to the Reaper due to the disengage/condi cleanse on return, stunbreaks, Withdraw cleansing chilled, and high CC potential from PW and HS, pulsing blinds from BP, with damage immunity from PW). That said, I see it as very strong against the more or less brute-force professions like war, guard, ranger, and ele which have limited ways to deal with stability, are boon-dependent, and need to get in close for the kill.

Unless things get crazy for the war/thief/ranger/engi, I see the mesmer as being the best specialization in terms of what it provides to all encounters.

Right. D/D can probably work fine in most unranked/lower-ranked games because players are either not using the meta builds very well/are learning, or are simply not using what is in the top-tier meta. I say this because the amount of success my GS/Rifle burst-zerker warrior has in unranked games is astonishingly high.

Once players start playing the meta builds better/start using them, D/D thief falls flat on its face just because of the nature of how the meta builds work and how D/D thief works.

Yes, but those skills are heavily based upon the existing class mechanic skills, and those also just replace the class mechanic as a whole.

Thieves are likely going to get a different class mechanic and set of skills tied to F1 etc. in addition to their new weapon skills. I’d also like to point out that the Reaper has been in development for a lot longer than probably what the thief elite spec will face; as even Gee stated that the Reaper has been in development for a very long time in the stream.

Likely rifle or OH sword.

I say this because new implementations on small-sized weapons would force the team to develop more skills, and as you may have already noticed, they are not even close to done developing the new skills/elite specs.

Consider the following number of skills need to be made:

Rifle: 5. Just like the Druid, Dragonslayer, and Reaper

OHS: 2(base) + 1 from MH Sword + 1 MH Pistol + 1 MH Dagger = 5

Any other dual-wield-able smaller weapons:
2 (base MH) + 2 (base OH) + 1 (Dual wield) + 1 (MH Sword) + 2 (MH/OH Dagger) + 2 (MH/OH pistol) = 10

That’s exponentially more effort to develop a whole pile of new skills and balance them all, and with them already being strapped for time on HoT with the need to still balance all of their new skills on all of the classes, create skill icons, effects, etc.), we’re probably not looking at any dual-wield-able weapons.

So we’re likely seeing an interrupt/blind-based rifle for group support (i.e., offhand pistol/rifle engineer) that will look and feel wrong on the thief in general.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

It’s not because people aren’t creative or aren’t trying it or are utterly single minded – hell, you can hop in a hotjoin (without matchmaking!) or jump on a smurf and will see tons of D/D around. It’s being played, a lot. It’s simply a huge handicap to whoever is playing it, and no one has been able to make it work well enough to get within shouting distance of tournament level player.

I agree that D/D is lacking defensive skills and the nerf on CnD made it undesirable, but is the real reason why people aren’t using is because it is really useless or just because it was nerfed and people are simply boycotting it?

Hotjoin will not prove or disprove anything since it is unorganized and lacking leadership. In a more organized team with team-captain and coach, I’m sure it would be a meta-breaking strategy with the right players if they actually put an effort into it.

Right now, all tournament matches are closely identical because everyone is practically doing the same thing — it’s bland and boring since all teams have similar team composition doing the same exact strategy.

It’s not “oh it’s nerfed so it can’t be in the meta/worthwhile,” so much as it is “it got nerfed, we tried to find ways to make it still work, with mediocre success, and then the meta changed in a way which directly counters D/D as a set and how it’s played, so now it’s actually just terrible since it has no use in the format at all under the competitive scene.”

There are top-tier duelist power thieves that use P/D on berserker builds because of its kiting potential and the very high scaling on Shadow Strike. It’s double attack also easily allows for fire/air burst damage procs to reliably cast as part of the skill.

I’ve tried it out a few times on berserker builds. It’s not a team-based sPvP spec due to the lack of utility, but it fares extremely well in duels no matter what build uses it.

Ensign.2189:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The only limiting factor in sPvP is the perception that there’s only one way to win a match.

The major limiting factor in sPvP is that D/D just isn’t very good. Amongst people who seem to know what they are doing, there’s a ton of D/P (which is simply the best build right now), a decent amount of S/D, a bit less P/D (which serves as a ‘you must be at least this tall to proceed’ build that wrecks people who have no idea how to rotate), with a smattering of S/P (brave soldiers they are) and P/P (kitten Wirriam stop trolling). You never see D/D.

It’s not because people aren’t creative or aren’t trying it or are utterly single minded – hell, you can hop in a hotjoin (without matchmaking!) or jump on a smurf and will see tons of D/D around. It’s being played, a lot. It’s simply a huge handicap to whoever is playing it, and no one has been able to make it work well enough to get within shouting distance of tournament level player.

It’s not even about the skill. it’s more about how the current meta builds within the competitive scene prohibit its use largely. It’s a sub-optimal burst set against anything that isn’t berserker due to the overall lack-luster damage the offhand dagger brings with the nerfs, and brings no utility to the table when the current meta is focused so heavily on team utility and fast heals shutting down burst specs. It saw plenty of play before the whole celestial ordeal and the establishment of very specific builds on points/interactions because it could hold its own against glassy opponents.

Since the build provides so much damage in WvW in comparison, it sees a lot of play since it’s actually capable of bursting targets a bit on the more durable end, keeping the set useful, especially for blob periphery; EP’s incredible GvG record and wins against other major guilds have largely come from the extreme D/D burst thieves it uses to combat the backline before they start racking up damage.

The problem with D/D is that it won’t really ever be viable as long as CnD remains nerfed, the format remains based on small-scale skirmishes of inherently more durable builds, and power is not easily achieved as a stat. I say this in the respect that it depends heavily on having an excess of power and ferocity to overcome your opponent’s defenses to achieve it’s goal: burst damage. Otherwise it provides no utility and if incapable of performing a high-profile trade, is not worth using.

D/P is for the most part stronger and easier to play. That said, I do prefer to use S/D when outnumbered, as FS can be chained many times over again if used without a target for effectively infinite dodges, blowing many foes’ cooldowns/rotations and allowing you and your party members to punish your enemies for wasting resources trying to burst down a glassy thief that just doesn’t get hit.

Nephrite.6954:

DeceiverX.8361:

King Noob IV.3560:

Hmmm ok so now I get that D/D, with meta builds, is useless compared to D/P in sPvP because of D/P’s ease of stealth and utility with teams. Now I don’t get why so many people play D/D in WvW. I understand that it’s more fun, but if that were the case then people would play it in sPvP too, so there must be something it does in WvW better than D/P but I don’t know what. Considering D/P has a gap closer on 3 and since WvW is very spacey for people to run away/kite I’d assume D/P is better in WvW.

Mostly because D/D builds are able to reach around 4 thousand power in WvW, and people in WvW have inherently lower defenses, all while CnD and other abilities do more damage due to sPvP-only nerfs. A thief when expending all of his resources can actually be played to burst people down in WvW unlike being forced into blindspam skirmishing in sPvP.

D/P still works fine (a lot of roamers use it for the permanent stealth uptime and skirmishing potential against tankier foes), but it’s a lot less fun if you’re not a big fan of stealth. D/D plays with stealth, but it’s more about the backstabs/coming out of stealth than anything else.

Did you gank an up leveled Necro or what?

No. I play signet stab with the best possible gear and the physically highest amount of power and damage modifiers available to the thief in the game in regards to a reliable stab. My thief is fully maxed, including six power omni infusions in the armor to provide the extra 30 power other thieves normally do not have. My build cannot possibly deal more damage in the very short time it can perform the stab. Only an RT-waiting luck-stab build can deal more damage, but I discount builds which are totally dependent on your enemies allowing for you to set up, and have them not try to negate a backstab or even move after the CnD.

Against level 80 foes, my backstab rarely hits for below 13k against soldier’s warriors, and an upwards of 22k on glassier targets. Uplevels are usually killed from the Cloak and Dagger alone and thus I don’t consider the damage dealt valid. I have peaked at 30k on an uplevel in downed state, but there is no reason to brag about high damage on an uplevel.

In sPvP, the same build yields on average around 6k damage stabs, inherently lower CnD’s, and is punished more due to constant fighting rather than the ability to run, wait, reset cooldowns, etc. Again D/D hurts way more if you make sacrifices since CnD and Mug will hit similarly to a stab in WvW, or more if the CnD crits. With the sPvP meta being focused more heavily on tankier builds, overall increased damage mitigation, and reduced power/ferocity from WvW, this doesn’t help, either.

Roaming/1vSmall? Take S/X alternate.

Blob Periphery? Take shortbow.

Shortbow was always the go-to due to the mobility/terrain hopping, evades, in-combat teleport, the most spammable blast finisher in the game, AOE Poison/Weaknes, and stomp security through the blind on IA. With more condi prevalence in the small-scale PvP formats now, the thief’s weakness to conditions is being emphasized and S/X is proving more worthwhile.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The biggest downfall of PvE is that the definition of “group support” is strictly defined to include things a Necromancer doesn’t do. I blame the design of PvE, not the design of Necromancer.

Plus, Shouts may still apply unique debuffs to enemies that indirectly support the party. No one knows yet.

Also, if anyone is going to say that Necromancer doesn’t feel fun, please don’t presume that everyone agrees. Necro in its current incarnation is more fun for me than any other class, and it looks like it’s just getting more fun.

This is one of the biggest things people seem to fail to understand. The necromancer isn’t meant by design to party-stack 25 might. They offer TONS of support, just not pro-damage-based support. They focus heavily on debuffs and AOE damage. That’s why they’re widely regarded as the single most important class to have in WvW and GvG; your hammertrain and might stacking can be amazing, but if you’re countered by opposing defenses and your own defenses are negated by a necro or two, it’s all over.

While I’m not a big fan of the necro as it is currently, the Reaper spec looks like a blast.

I express my concerns as well in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Gear-and-Specializations/first#post5023224

It’s also a massive deal for players who run omni infusions. To say I need another 1500 T6 blood, 600 more passion flowers, and 300 mystic coins is absolutely absurd, and they have already developed systems to resolve this issue and have used them before.

I don’t even care about making new armor; I’ve been pumping out as many of the daily mats as I can in advance. I do care about my ~2000 unavoidable gold spent on omni infusions which cannot even be salvaged.

Khenzy.9348:

Mesmers have gotten Illusionary Persona as baseline (spec defining trait).
They are also getting a passive speed increase as a minor trait (Time Marches On) with no restrictions and with codition duration reduction as cherry on top. This alone massively buffs them directly and indirectly (rune choice and whatnot).
They’ve buffed thives Shadow Rejuvenation (ridiculous) and gave them damage redution in stealth (even more ridiculous).
They moved a spec defining trait such as Panic Strike to master tier and moved another spec defining such as Executioneer from Critical Strikes to Deadly Arts, so now they can use both traits together in a single trait line.
YET they moved Necromancer’s Terror (a spec defining trait again) from Master to GM.
Or same case with Elemental Attunement.

They are full of contraditions.
Nothing of what they say can be taken at face value.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about Fast hands. It’s the trait that makes me play Warrior, I absolutely cannot concieve the profession without this trait. I cannot play other professions for long perdiods becouse of their weapon swaps of 10s due to this trait alone (with the exception of thief, as you tend to camp your main weapon set for longer due to initiative). So in my case, whenever I play Warrior I’ll just have only 2 specializations to choose from, that’s not justification enough to make it baseline though (Or yes? I donno). I don’t really know what to think about this one, unless you have a traited Warhorn, the Discipline line would still be taken due to Warrior’s Sprint.

On the other hand, the: ‘gain adrenaline on hit’ component from Cleansing Ire should be made baseline, definetly. Also, the adrenaline depletion should have a 10 or 5s delay.

While I am heavily against some of the buffs to the Shadow Arts trait line for thieves, I don’t believe the changes to executioner and panic strike will be as strong as you think. In terms of sPvP, the thief needs a little something to make it more viable as a 1v1 DPS. Right now it simply isn’t. Rejuv is buffed, but stealth builds for the most part are nerfed in terms of initiative costs due to the outright removal of the Infusion of Shadow trait.

The buffs to Shadow Arts through Resilience is uncalled for, and frankly, I think removing this trait and just buffing thief base health, or creating an alternative of it in the acrobatics line for the reduction while revealed would be more appropriate for the class as a whole, and give the new acrobatics line a reason to be used.

For the warrior, I’m not sure if fast hands should be made baseline. We’ve already had to see some swap sigils get nerfed because the interaction was too strong. Allowing something very potent as a baseline ability might prove to be a bit too strong, especially with the incoming changes to DPS builds for the warrior.

I play a warrior almost exclusively now in sPvP due to how strong it is, but I do not run fast hands. I run warrior’s sprint, and am anticipating the incoming buffs to it. That said, I don’t think making it baseline will help, either. Otherwise warriors after this rework would have very little reason to use the Discipline line aside from hammer builds, making the depth of choice dumbed down and builds overly-similar despite what the the reworks are going to be bringing themselves.

Don’t think it would happen only because of sigils. Otherwise a cool and possibly very fun idea.

@OP:

There’s really not much to tell you, sadly. If you’re able to determine why you’ve died when you get killed, I don’t think any response in terms of avoiding death will help that much.

The thief’s role in sPvP, and all of its current builds that allow it to fit in the meta, are based solely on ganking and resetting to make a fight outnumbered. The class for the most part (as it seems you’ve identified) currently struggles a lot in 1v1’s in the sPvP format (not so in WvW). As such, the builds you’ll be facing are going to be based on resetting, and as someone mentioned, these builds are what thief players use because it’s something the current meta builds can’t simply chase down and kill based upon their own builds. As long as you’re not dying, you’re basically doing it right, and there’s not much to elaborate on. They’re meant to be more of a nuisance than anything.

I’d just have to say to stay on point, and if they reset, just turtle and heal up, but don’t waste your cooldowns. If they want a true reset, they’ll probably need to wait another 60s before they can try again, and that’s a lot of points gained for your team. If they come back sooner, they likely don’t have an out so just smash them to pieces.

robertul.3679:

Daywolf.2630:

Additionally, dancing dagger is another gap closer. It’s just more bang for your buck.

What? How is dancing dagger a gap closer? LOL!
Also what I meant with death blossom root is that the evade frame is much shorter than the whole animation which prevents you from using other skills or dodge.

He’s referring to the cripple slowing down foes in order to catch up to them.

Thing is, Day, this thread is about sPvP. The cripple really doesn’t matter in sPvP so much, and D/P is just strictly better at small-scale due to its better supportive options since the damage from D/D isn’t high enough in the format to warrant its use.

DB’s evade is only really useful if your target has a 1 sec attack interval or you use it to dodge the CC, which is really risky. Otherwise it’s a very mediocre skill.

Cynz.9437:

d/p offers more than just dmg

And that’s exactly it. Since the damage isn’t enough in sPvP to change the fight quickly enough, having a build based on a full-damage approach that isn’t able to kill someone quickly defeats the purpose. The best GvG guilds in the game run very aggressive thief periphery because it’s much better to have a dead enemy than a CC’ed one. With the damage not there, a CC’ed enemy is better than one that can still perform actions and impact a fight.

King Noob IV.3560:

Hmmm ok so now I get that D/D, with meta builds, is useless compared to D/P in sPvP because of D/P’s ease of stealth and utility with teams. Now I don’t get why so many people play D/D in WvW. I understand that it’s more fun, but if that were the case then people would play it in sPvP too, so there must be something it does in WvW better than D/P but I don’t know what. Considering D/P has a gap closer on 3 and since WvW is very spacey for people to run away/kite I’d assume D/P is better in WvW.

Mostly because D/D builds are able to reach around 4 thousand power in WvW, and people in WvW have inherently lower defenses, all while CnD and other abilities do more damage due to sPvP-only nerfs. A thief when expending all of his resources can actually be played to burst people down in WvW unlike being forced into blindspam skirmishing in sPvP.

D/P still works fine (a lot of roamers use it for the permanent stealth uptime and skirmishing potential against tankier foes), but it’s a lot less fun if you’re not a big fan of stealth. D/D plays with stealth, but it’s more about the backstabs/coming out of stealth than anything else.