If damage goes up, mobility needs to come down.
Seriously, #1 landspeed in the game shouldn’t be attached to such crazy DPS.
HB is a combo-skill with an emphasis on PvE. You either build for it or you don’t, and either it destroys things or it doesn’t.
Birds are the most responsive while they’re not too busy swirling around giving swiftness for like three seconds that can’t be interrupted.
Difficult.
Getting away with a ranger is – Difficult. And a major problem.
The Short answer is: You dont.Well this is completely wrong on all points. Mobility is zero problem for rangers and escaping even thieves is fairly simple. In OPs case it’s as simple as hunter shot, LR, sword2 sword2 and he’s more than out of combat.
Ha, I’ve seen that video before.
I still have to disagree. That is not escpaing or getting away. Thats extreme dodging that might eventually make the enemy turn around and give up. I never said the Ranger is bad at dodging.
An escape for me is a distanse covered in a time frame that your enemy cannot keep up with.
Which rangers are one of the best at doing. GS/Sword War and shortbow thief are the only other builds capable of keeping up, and even then, the thief may be unable to since the mobility is more sustained rather than burst mobility like the ranger’s, and initiative will probably be blown in combat.
Swoop is a fantastic gap-opener. De-target, and swoop the opposite direction. I also use it during map traversal if I do not expect any threats. It also has a pretty short cooldown. To me, the greatsword is a defensive/escape weapon, or a finisher if I need it. I never engage into melee with it unless I need to.
Hunter’s Shot can let you reposition (once in combat) with relative ease once they start closing in, and I preserve PBS rather than blowing it on an aggressive RF combo in most cases as a means to maintain distance.
GS4 is also a fantastic gap-opener against ranged foes, since it blocks all projectiles for the entire duration of the skill. You can simply cast it, leave it casting, and run away. Stunning the target on GS5 and utilizing the dodge on the AA chain can also really help you out. I prefer using healing spring due to the cleansing of mobility-impairing effects as well, and would also suggest you possibly look into a Wolf pet instead of a spider for both offensive CC and defensive AOE fearing/fearing while someone is trying to stomp you.
For WvW, D/D is plenty viable due to the lower player-defense stats and ratios on damage that don’t actually suck.
Da hell did i just read
What, the fact that thief skills have been nerfed by an upwards of 30% damage reduction exclusively in sPvP, or that players are inherently squishier in WvW?
Because both are factually correct. I can assure you my CnD alone in WvW against even a PTV build hits harder than most berserker stabs in sPvP on glass cannons.
WvW damage numbers are MUCH higher and defenses are way lower on average.
I assume you’re talking WvW?
Conditions are nigh-useless in WvW. Unlike sPvP where frequently people rely on their own condition cleansing, WvW allows to freely stack group cleansing together, allowing for very rapid and very reliable removal of any condition.You can only use them against skirmishers, but then, what’s the point? You’re not going to make a large difference that way and any Warr/Engi able to utilize them well is needed on the frontline.
And if you roam, as always, you should instead start playing to win, not playing to lose. Roaming is equivalent to intentionally losing as someone else can just bring superior numbers, kill you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Doesn’t matter how classes, runes, skills or sigils are balanced, if you play roaming you shouldn’t care. That’s not what decides your fights.
1.) Large-scale cleansing is used in WvW on the basis that AOE condi bombs are too problematic to deal with as a zerg without taking those precautions. The reason why condition builds are “weak” in WvW zergs is not that the damage source is weak, but because it’s totally on the contrary; it’s so strong and the effects also posed by conditions can be so damaging that hard counters are necessary for large groups to succeed and sustain through fights. In fact, this has been the rationale behind nerfing a variety of AOE condition skills, such as Choking Gas, since one or two AOE condi placements could render a massive number of foes at a huge disadvantage.
2.) I’m sorry, but are you saying that roaming and havoc squads have no purpose in WvW? If that’ what you’re trying to imply, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Organized havoc and roaming squads focused on PPT/alternate objectives (and not kills like many are, however), can be argued as the most significant part of PPT gain/denial strategies on high tiers. A group of five can reliably flip any objective on a given map if it’s utilizing the main zerg as an attention-grabber for the opposition to prevent alternate-objetive capture. Tower maintenance significantly holds back pugs and makes re-caps on more difficult enemy objectives easier, and camp maintenance and flipping/yakslapping acts as one of the best long-term stalling tactics while narrowing disadvantages in PPT or making advantages even larger and contributing to the defense of larger objectives held by one’s server.
Good roaming actually defines a server’s success while the blobs are busy duking it out over main objectives. Usually these battles are extensive and slow-moving, making alternate-objective play the more significant source of PPT.
3.) Runes actually can decide fights. 10% damage on scholar runes on a burst build can either cause the target to live or die. Removing all conditions when using an elite can turn the tables entirely. Might-based runes allow for the incredible viability of tankier builds which need little offense to shell out huge numbers. In the case of perplexity runes, not all condition cleanses are treated equal, and not all classes have equal access to good cleansing while retaining the integrity of their desired build. Perplex runes are a cool idea and open doors, but this set in particular also shuts many as well, and makes certain classes and builds function overly-well. Granted, this has a lot to do with +/- condition food (both food types should be removed and then conditions as a whole could get looked into again), but it doesn’t necessarily justify the extensive power discrepancies between sets and the allowance of entire builds to be based upon them/be viable because of them.
I’ll say that the runes need some adjustments. Removal? I don’t think so. But I think the effects need some additional work to make them more suitable for all classes, or for those playing dedicated interrupt builds, but first I believe it necessary as mentioned to first remove condition duration food, rework some cleansing abilities, and then re-evaluate conditions in general in a sort-of-vacuum (with a change in mind to perplexity runes and some additional ones/effects) and create a healthier condition environment game-wide.
Sadly, none of that will likely happen, since gameplay overhauls and systems design for the sake of balancing seems to be something ANet prides themselves in avoiding.
>> THE PROBLEM <<
To understand how to add more build variety to PvE, we need to first understand why there isn’t variety. Many people would be very quick to point fingers at the poor implementation of dungeon encounters, but I feel the root of the problem is far deeper, hidden in the mechanics of the game itself.
The thing is, while your post is nicely formatted, this is your own personal opinion with no real basis of research or evidence supporting this claim.
Simply put, from a game design perspective, berserker stat setups yield the most efficiency of time spent versus content cleared. People want to clear things as quickly as they can, for a variety of reasons. Because the dungeons are all linear with no real shortcuts/utilization of other particular styles of play or builds, and the allowance of hot-swapping gear and traits on the fly, there is no particular need or desire from players looking to optimize their time spent : reward ratio by building heavier on the defensive.
Skill scaling will not increase diversity. If anything it will decrease it, and make combat less interesting. It’s this reason why D/D thief is considered a bad spec in PvP formats: Only three of its skills are really useful, and the spec feels pigeonholed between either burst damage/DPS or condi spam via only the 3 skill.
Poor dungeon/encounter design paired with the player demand for efficient dungeon runs is what has caused and will continue to cause gear preferences in certain environments. Be it berserker, soldier’s, sinister – whatever it may be – it does no matter; as soon as one gear setup or class is optimized for more damage outputs than others, the others will be and remain as outcast builds and undesirable. All additional/different scaling would bring is ultimately less diversity due to the lack of self-selected skills within the use of the weapons chosen, and again, players pursuing further optimization by possibly then being able to negate the inclusion of other classes into parties based upon skill kits and overall reducing the impact of each individual skill/resourcefulness that GW2 combat allows for. And such implementations would also negatively effect various other formats of the game (WvW) which do not at all resemble said metagame to the extent that said proposition would break more than it would fix, while efforts to re-design dungeons would resolve many of the metagame problems while not affecting other modes of play.
If berserker builds were the end-all choice of all game modes, the suggestion would have (slightly) more merit, but unfortunately this idea simply does not cater to truly resolving the problems at hand.
Arrow speed was never buffed and you can’t dodge RF by just walking left and right in the past. In the past there are latency between each arrow shot, the patch just address those latencies, not making the arrows go faster.
Well, this is half-true statement.
Arrow speed wasn’t buffed directly, however the new traits gave the opportunity to make LB/Harpoon projectiles faster, for a 6 points in the Marksmanship line, yeah, it’s a grandmaster trait, and the investment is heavy for it.
I know it’s a hard hit to those who abused the strafing “glitch”, let’s be honest, arrow flying at a basic speed (without the trait) should never been implemented in the first place, because it would hardly take off from the bow…
A lot of projectile attacks have this problem, the anticipating in target movement makes them totally unusable against a human target on longer ranges, because it can be simply “out-strafed”, meh…
RF before the patch had a high projectile speed by default. It was actually the only reliable way to hit moving targets. RtW did not change reliability on the skill.
The only thing that’s changed before/after the patch is that healing and regeneration effects have a much lesser effect against RF. Your SA thief using SR and regen through a RF prevent only like one shot’s worth of hits now, instead of around four.
The complaints are really unjustified since all it really takes is half of a dodge roll to not get killed by the skill and a heal, to recover from their primary burst/DPS, anyways. Using HiS will also prevent targeting of the thief, too.
People would QQ even harder about QZ + RF ranger.
Again.
D/P is way more viable in sPvP due to lower damage numbers overall and the requirement of running more defensive builds for the format (blinds). D/D brings no skirmishing ability to the table, and nerfed skills/stats in sPvP prevents D/D assassination builds from working due to lower-than-needed damage outputs.
For WvW, D/D is plenty viable due to the lower player-defense stats and ratios on damage that don’t actually suck.
You don’t necessarily need to build glassier to pump more damage.
This is my build, and while I run HiS, the damage is near identical to yski’s in that he ends up missing out on a 10% damage modifier for 200 power. It also brings a lot more durability to the table due to HiS’s cleansing and simply better healing.
You used to be able to with a tanky P/P healing power/healing effects blindspam build. It did absolutely abysmal damage and condi bombs were pretty strong against it, but pretty much nothing could decap you. The build was actually able to out-bunker or simply holdits ground against every guard, engi, ele, and necro I tested it on, while simply going undefeated against warriors.
With BP nerfed and rangers hitting for real damage on longbow now, though, it’s probably another story (I haven’t tested it since).
CnD got its damage nerfed a LONG time ago, and that’s only applicable in sPvP. It did not get nerfed in WvW.
D/D is a viable set in WvW on builds which are built around it. I don’t mean SA berserker backstab (generally speaking). I mean full-on nuke builds like 5/6/0/0/3 Valkyrie signet stab and some of the wonky SA/Acro creations I’ve seen which utilize might stacking and damage modifiers. When you build for the weapon set, it becomes much better. It is bad and will be forever bad in sPvP due to cut stats, lower skill damage ratios, and inherently higher toughness and armor on your targets.
D/D is a set with little diversity, but it has been in the same state for a very long time. The only way to make it more viable is with “better” skills on 3/4, but nobody can seem to agree how to change those for the betterment of everyone.
After reviving my friend a zillion times, I asked about his traits. He said he didn’t have any because he spent the skill points on….uhm SKILLS! Wonder how many players are trying (<- notice the word TRYING) to enjoy the game traitless?? Very sad!
Anet, don’t you think it’s time to fix this?
Every single new player I’ve met has had this problem so far. Most of them end up not coming back for more once they realize this.
I can’t believe they haven’t reverted these changes. It’s like they’re afraid to despite it being a healthier change for the game.
He’s not referring to a lack of chains but a lack of diversity in options, which I do agree with. This isn’t a flaw so much with the design of the class as much as it is the skills and traits themselves, though.
I found that P/P leeching venoms, Assassin’s Reward with sigil of Purity/Water and Dwayna runes with Cleric’s armor/weapons on a blind-spam full-healing/bunker build worked remarkably well during the ridiculousness of when BP was a permanent blind.
Not sure how well it would do now as I haven’t played it since the changes to BP, but it was unbelievably tanky and near impossible to displace on a point.
I initially thought Improv worked similarly and when I performed my tests I admittedly left some variables unaccounted for which led me to believe I was also seeing a damage increase when in reality it does not get modified.
DT is the only option to reliably increase damage for that trait spot, and improv only procs when steal hits, not when it’s cast without a target like how ToTC can be used.
Eles are usually pretty predictable and have many pre-defined rotations, though. I think S/P thief has the most diverse kit where all of the skills feel significant and can individually change the way a fight turns out.
Let’s be actually real here. You are talking specifically about D/D. I cannot agree more and I consider this setup is a 1-trick-pony for the very reasons you mentioned. However not every thief set functions like D/D.
I originally thought the same thing about S/D, it being a 1-trick-pony, but the more I see people like sizer play it, the less I feel that way.
The sword mainhand sets are one of the few that actually function well as a cohesive kit. On both builds, 1, 2, 3, 5, and S/P all five skills and the stealth skill are all very strong skills when used properly. D/P is the only other example of this, as both pistol builds and D/D are locked into only one real way of dealing with encounters.
When half of the available setups have major problems, the skills need some examining. When every spec running dagger offhand considers Dancing Dagger as ineffective, that’s also skill design flaw.
I’m not saying that these skills need number buffs – far from it, actually, as then we’d need to tone down other things which don’t deserve nerfs to compensate – but I do sincerely believe the effects from these skills/skill designs need to be reworked to make all of the combinations feel as though they’re not one-trick-pony setups.
I do understand what you’re saying, however in most cases, the extra power (for the stab build type mentioned by the OP) is far more beneficial as in some cases it can lead to those extra criticals not even being necessary.
The real problem resolution pretty much lies in removing the “hybrid” effects of the under-used skills or simply just making them slightly stronger or garner additional effects to make them more useful than the same, repeated combos. This will not only make playing a thief more interesting, but would also possibly open up more trait build options and synergies elsewhere. If all of the skill options are viable, then the whole class feels less spammy, and overpowered abilities like Shadow Strike can be nerfed while underpowered ones can be tweaked or reworked to accommodate for more options.
A lot of the “issues” with Thieves come from people insisting on playing with Stealth. S/D is popular in sPvP due to the way the mode works against stealth, but outside of that, most people seem to consider Thief synonymous with Stealth. Stealth in turn pigeonholes you into Shadow Arts and stealth skills (Backstab, Sneak Attack, Tactical Strike), which make for repetitive combat.
And stealth fits into this as well. When your best attacks are on stealth attacks, your only real condition cleanse comes from stealth, and the rest of pretty much all of the traits and utilities and weapon skills are not very good, there’s absolutely no reason to be not using stealth. And because as mentioned, some skills work better with stealth, it only makes sense to use those abilities when the rest are bad and drain resources. Frankly, these other abilities are what should define good thieves in that the decision made to perhaps use them over the no-brainer stealth skill should have some merit.
The initiative system gets wasted on Thieves because there’s so many weapon sets that have at least 1 skill that is considered useless. When does a power D/D use Death Blossom? When does S/D use Dancing Dagger? When does P/P use Body Shot? The great thing about initiative is that you can use the same skills in a quick repetition, making weapon swapping a choice rather than a necessity.
You’ve absolutely nailed it. Though it’s really anything building X/D rarely uses Dancing Dagger. The skill on almost all levels is just terrible while at least DB has some applications. I love D/D, and I love playing backstab, but I completely agree that two of the five skills on my bar feel far under-used due to their lack of cohesion with the kit or just because they’re down-right weak.
That said, Burr has some points in that initiative does make for some spammy play with only a few skills being used per kit. This is because of two things:
1.) As mentioned, weak skills which due to the initiative pool just drain necessary resources.
2.) Kits with “hybrid” capabilities and the lack of cooldowns make skill choices obvious based upon build. These problems have the most significance in the case of D/D, so let’s examine it closer:
Of the five skills (six with stealth skill), we have the autoattack, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, Dancing Dagger, and Cloak and Dagger, and Backstab.
The auto is a power-scaling auto with some poison access on the last hit of the chain which if traited provides a short weakness application. Nothing worth complaining about here, and it’s regarded as strong in terms of DPS but totally balanced.
Heartseeker is a skill which makes the dagger complete and truly utilizes initiative. Heartseeker is designed to not be spammy (and I believe thresholds should be modified to make it more punishing to spam, but that’s just me) due to the DR on higher-health targets, but it acts as a short-range low-cost leap. It’s a source of damage, an executioning move, a gap opener, and a gap closer. It’s a very powerful skill and used frequently with dagger mainhand, but again, is not inherently overpowered and does not really define builds aside from D/P for its stealth-on-leap through BP.
Death Blossom is a very powerful bleeding application skill due to the base length and number of applied bleeding, but its evade frames are awkward and short, and its reposition uncontrollable and junky. It’s also the only source of real condition damage on D/D.
Dancing Dagger used to be very powerful with the bounce – in fact, it used to deal more damage than backstab if it hit the same target more than once – but it was subsequently nerfed and nerfed again because of it. Now it acts as a high-initative, low-damage, mediocre/short-duration cripple tied to an unpredictable casting range with no honing and a slow travel animation with no synergy to power or condition builds.
Cloak and Dagger: This is what defines dagger offhand. High damage, quick stealth for what can be a very low initiative cost. It acts as an enabler for all of the very powerful stealth skills and leaves a lot of extra room for additional, repeated skill use due to the lack of dependency on expensive combos like using BP + HS for stealth at the cost of putting the user in combat/requiring a nearby target.
Backstab: The nuke of dagger mainhand, it defines entire builds and styles of play. A staple burst skill tailored to those who like playing an assassination-style character, this is an absolutely devastating attack which can be used repeatedly by accessing stealth repeatedly. This is also effectively the standard by which D/X is balanced as a setup.
So when we look at builds, we have:
Power:
– DPS non-stealth versus Stealth-based. Seeing as the auto-chain isn’t enough to build around, 2 punishes repeated use, skills 3 and 4 provide worthless DPS, and CnD is the stealth skill, there’s no effective way to utilize really anything in the kit for out-of-stealth play. For stealth users, you at least get to utilize 1 and 5, where 1 transforms into a very, very powerful nuke and skills 2 3 and 4 can be used on a whim when they find themselves desired.
Condition:
All you have is poison on the auto-attack and Death Blossom. So you’re left just spamming 3 all day, maybe with intermittent other skills due to lack of condition-spec synergy.
So what the problem really is is that we have no real synergy within the weapon kits themselves. Some skills being inherently better than others (and others just being initiative wastes) pigeon-holes a lot of thieves into utilizing only a few options repeatedly. Because a lot of skills are also individually rather weak or do not pertain to the build of the player, the strongest options need to be spammed repeatedly to compensate.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
there is no way in hell that stealth should detarget oneself
but it already does for literally every other type of attack.
ranged channeled attacks are the only exception to this in the entire game, and it makes no sense for that seeing as they already have the initial advantage of being ranged burst.
I just want to say now
That RF has always tracked stealthed targets. So does mesmer GS auto, and other multi-hit effects.
Actually, since the rework to RF, it is less effective on stealthed targets since the old skill used to last longer and therefore used to track stealthed targets for longer, making all attempts to reposition while stealthed futile. Currently, it lets the stealth-user get a reposition attempt/lose target.
Unless, that is, OP is whining about how Shadow’s Rejuvenation or playing a PU mesmer no longer means he’s safe from RF’s damage by facetanking it without actually using a dodge roll.
and yet this still doesn’t explain why rapid fire amongst all other ranged channel skills like unload get to ignore stealth as a defensive mechanic almost entirely.
saying “it’s not as bad as it used to be” isn’t something that helps discussion at all.
And stealth shouldn’t be an end-all defensive mechanic. It de-targets and gives effectively free in-combat repositions. Shadow Arts for thieves and PU on mesmers already gives way too much defense for how accessible the mechanic is to the classes/builds.
Stealth is a hard counter to projectiles since you cannot be hit by new projectile attacks due to the de-target. Multi-hit projectile attacks are the counter to stealth. They’re also usally tied to DPS, so counterplay is dependent on how and when the ranged user deems it necessary to use his ability. Either you can use it to deal damage while they’re revealed/visible and attacking, or use it to counter stealth. It’s really that simple.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
Hi All,
For over four weeks I have been playing sPvP, and not been having a great time.
The build I play is a D/D thief using 56003, so a lot of burst lol (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMp0pdOxsJ8PNRLBtdHi+H87N6+gAA-TZRBwAz2fQzRAgcZAAnCgHPAAA)Anyways, it seems like every other class can out beat it or counter it.
From guards, rangers, warriors, engineers, and even elementalists, it almost seems they “have it all”. High damage, high CC, great sustain/armor, and even some skills that allow 0 damage (Signet of Stone, Endure Pain etc).Not sure what others think or say, but I can’t even get past a 20k backstab (as they say). I can’t even get past 10k or let alone let my attacks get evaded, invulnerable, or get countered with CC or conditions, etc.
I am not looking for pity, I am looking for strength here. I know Thieves are strong, but not as strong as other classes.
Anyone have any tips for sPvP Thieves? Should I change my strategy, build, weapons, traits? Or should I suffer another few months until I figure something out.Thanks for any tips/suggestions.
I assume you’re referencing my signet stab variant burst build regarding high stab outputs like 20k+. 5/6/0/0/3 signets is only useful in WvW, and numbers like mine can only be achieved via a tri-signet build with Signet Use. In PvP, stats and skills have been substantially nerfed to the point where a D/D stab build is useless and brings nothing to the table due to the kit’s nature paired with sPvP-only nerfed skills, stats, and abilities, as well as everyone having inherently higher HP from offensive amulets giving extra vitality. Pure stab builds are countered by everything in the game if they do not dispatch their targets immediately. D/P is widely-considered as a far-superior setup in this format due to the blinds and ranged interrupt to permit the damage while giving enough of a defense to not die instantly. Many running D/P will utilize a lot of condition-removing effects like S/x infil strike, Shadow Return’s condition cleanses, Withdraw, and Shadow’s Embrace.
To put things into perspective as to why you’re not hitting your desired numbers, reference my own:
My personal record for a stab in sPvP is 12k on another glassy player. Keep in mind that my build has a tolerance of dealing only around 3% more damage if I run no heal and use it instead for damage/might, and 23% more on a given stab if I get a lucky critical on around 40% crit chance while using executioner on a target already reduced to low health (so I run HK instead); otherwise my build offers the single-highest burst damage available on a given backstab. My max noted in WvW is 26k.
That’s a 54% reduction in damage.
Hope that helps why you’re getting your numbers. People talking about high stabs are referring to WvW-only builds.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
BP was broken. A good thief with offhand pistol could literally be untouchable to all melee attacks. Over-nerfed? Maybe for its init cost, but the ability as it was was just way too strong.
Frankly I miss the old old FS when it wasn’t a two-part skill. It was a lot more fun and a lot less situationally imbalanced.
It feels kind of like playing PvE, but against real players.
This is a perfect summary as to exactly why everyone hates this build lol.
There is little the set depends on. I’m not sure what kind of combinations you’re referring to. Shadow Strike itself can and should prevent almost everything threatening to the build in melee, and steal and utilities to close gaps with DS while providing condition overloads let the build destroy most ranged builds while remaining relatively safe. It’s also not dependent on many traits and can build quite a bit more defensively, and it provides the best ranged throughputs of any other thief set. With the lack of a 1200 ranged power weapon, thief as an entire class will always have issues being out-ranged. Thus, if anything, P/D has the biggest advantage in that regard.
It’s random as to which type of skill is recharged, however, Plexxing. In order for it to be marginally effective, you would need to have one of each type of utility equipped which all provide the same effect (which doesn’t exist), and hope that you don’t get unlucky on your 20% chance to possibly not have any of your skills recharged, since you only have four. Otherwise it’s just a wasted trait and would then only be marginally useful.
Rutilus, I don’t think you understand that there’s still a net gain with the change no matter how you look at it. Traited BV would be at 36 seconds before. Now it’s 32.
If you’re comparing the reduction numbers, then by your logic giving BV a 10 minute cooldown would be a buff because then the trait would reduce it by a whopping 120 seconds, but that would just mean your cooldown is still longer lol.
Right. This is of course a situation where sustained damage is being calculated on Double strike exclusively, and we’re operating under the assumption that the thief is not utilizing fury, banners, spotter, etc. When the coefficients increase, the effectiveness of power does and the effectiveness of precision doesn’t.
This is why berserker remains more effective for DPS and burst in most scenarios; high coefficient bombs which have better power scaling paired with some fury end up making the set deal more sustained damage. This is especially apparent on stab thieves seeing as HK provides a 100% critical chance on their highest-hitting skill, making the effectiveness of assassin’s gear even lower than it would normally be.
If the initial burst fails, just shortbow kite the heavies to death. They eventually will lose, as most wars run healing signet so #4 can stop them with ease, and guards lack effective ways to close the gap in most cases, letting you whittle them down.
Dire condi builds like P/D dire perplex thief, condi bomb necro, and durable PU mesmers are really the difficult ones to fight.
Assassin’s will never beat out full berserker in anything unless huge, constant might stacking is involved on constant auto-attacks regarding PvE DPS throughputs. This is due to the ferocity change to critical damage increasing dependency on power since the critical damage ratio has fallen by a fair margin.
If you’re stabbing, Valkyrie is the answer on the basis that vitality -> power food will further augment stab damage per hit, you’re operating under a 100% critical chance on HK, anyways, so might stacking does little to help the initial burst, and you’ll be able to receive more damage while out of stealth after your burst since your health pool will be higher than Assassin’s + PT, anyways. Not to mention the increased power will make base mug and CnD hit harder enough to compensate for the lack of possible crits on the opening CnD.
While I agree that Dire + Perplex condi is what’s really the culprit behind most condition ridiculousness, P/D having such a low-risk : high-reward kit doesn’t help its case. The only time P/D should die is if it gets outnumbered by multiple targets using CC lock skills through the stunbreaks or manages to get long-ranged immobilize locked while burned with conditions and focused while on cooldowns.
So, the request for more suggestions….. is that because there’s nothing in this thread that seems feasible?
Oh actually, the request was for any different suggestions that forum members may want to offer. That’s not to say that the previous suggestions are wrong, or bad, or unworkable. Many of the suggestions were extremely valuable, in fact, and they’re retained through the pages of this thread.
Basically, if a suggestion has been made, it’s on record and we wouldn’t want players to believe they need to restate a previously-offered suggestion. If it’s in this thread—previously or in the future—that’s great. Meaning if there’s a new thought, suggestion, or opinion to offer, that’s very welcome.
If suggestions were never repeated, then there would be no way of discerning the magnitude and merit of a given suggestion aside from solely the number of replies such a suggestion garnered in a positive way.
This would therefore imply every user on the forums would need to read every post in the history of the game to be aware of previous suggestions while reading additional, current discussion about that topic.
I said this in my single-highest rated post I’ve ever made:
If there is overwhelming support for certain changes, why are these ignored when feedback was asked for to begin with? Why waste everyone’s time if the community’s opinions do not matter regardless of their magnitude and merit?
Anyone feel like possibly explaining this absurd behavior?
Aside from “it’s on record” there seems to be no way to prove that any of our suggestions will actually have a meaningful impact on the game, and therefore one could argue that they are subsequently ignored. Yes, maybe there an open ear, but that does not mean it is truly listening and retaining the sounds is receives. In fact, the attitude raised of “We’re looking for other suggestions” further emphasizes this concern.
It’s why players are disgusted. Apparently player feedback is valuable, but is not valuable enough to have the game catered to said players and instead needs to be created on the basis of the “vision” of the game designers.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
Ele attunement problems have more to deal with the attunements than ranged weapons. I’d love to see different weapons focus on different attunement sources for damage and utility effects and function differently, but that’s just the “vision” of the developers and how they handled elementalists.
Longbow and Rifle war are not really meant to be utilized as ranged DPS. I mean the rifle should be a kind of slow and clunky weapon thematically as it is, and using a longbow with plate armor with no formal and extensive training should lead to sloppier shots.
Why it shoots fireballs, I don’t know at all.
Ranged weapons aren’t so much imbalanced as they are situational. GW2 focuses pretty much entirely on melee combat and uses ranged as augments/options when melee is not possible.
I just want to say now
That RF has always tracked stealthed targets. So does mesmer GS auto, and other multi-hit effects.
Actually, since the rework to RF, it is less effective on stealthed targets since the old skill used to last longer and therefore used to track stealthed targets for longer, making all attempts to reposition while stealthed futile. Currently, it lets the stealth-user get a reposition attempt/lose target.
Unless, that is, OP is whining about how Shadow’s Rejuvenation or playing a PU mesmer no longer means he’s safe from RF’s damage by facetanking it without actually using a dodge roll.
It genuinely is too easy and gives the rest of us a bad name and a lot of undeserved nerfs elsewhere, and is why P/P remains a sub-par set and always will be.
It depends just how heavily you want to invest in damage and how much you want to sacrifice doing so.
This is effectively the setup I will use on a given day. It’s glassy signet stab and conditions will destroy you, especially Dire PU mesmers, but the results in terms of burst damage throughputs are like no other.
Never Assassin’s.
If you’re optimizing for the damage of a given backstab, Valkyrie. For DPS in general, berserker.
Based on my time playing the Ranger I’d be very surprised if the devs had anything in mind that was too far off from the classic D&D Ranger archetype. Fighter type yet preferring lighter armor, proficient in ranged and melee combat(but generally not both at once), fighting alongside an animal companion, high evasion, some stealth capabilities, nature magic, the list goes on…
Oh and Rifles are loud. Very non-(fantasy RPG)Ranger if you ask me. Also, as many have pointed out, we already have a single target power based long range weapon in the LB.
They’re extremely close to D&D. Look at the skill and ability names on so many classes.
PBS, AoO, LR, the list goes on with abilities word for word.
To be honest, I’d welcome any new weapon.
Pretty much how everyone feels about every class. It’d freshen the gameplay immensely.
Pretty much what Jana said. If you want to deal better stab damage, you’re going to have to move over to valk/berserker armor pretty much exclusively.
I’d rather first see some fixes on known armor clipping problems like Body of Koda or the Magitech Medium skirt on humans, frankly :\
Apparently one of my previous posts was not considered constructive by the moderators, so I’ll re-iterate with some… “improvements” and no criticism whatsoever about the way this new system has been handled to prevent someone from getting upset.
The trait system should have been reworked to include on-demand paid resets which scale by level up to the original 10 silver fee from a low base copper value as well as the implementation of a rather expensive (such as about 20 gold) unlock to remove the associated price to reset for those who are a tad reset-happy (to act as a proper sink) and remove level-gating from trait tiers while not blocking any of the original traits behind content, with trait point acquisition beginning at 15 every five levels through 80 to keep with the 14-point system if need be. New GM traits implemented later could be given the buy price/unlock system treatment if released with new permanent content to have players be more interested in exploring the new regions and promote new areas without needing huge boss encounters to divert player attention, etc. It then becomes a constant, clean rate, and by removing the gating, players can better-experiment with builds at the equivalent acquisition rate that used to exist in-game with a further-improved experience by allowing for players to utilize more powerful traits earlier. This also nicely complements the NPE since trait unlocking will begin effectively as soon as the NPE experience rate increase ends, making players feel as though they have truly begun the game and left the introductory period to demonstrate that traits are impactful. This also helps increase build-leveling diversity within the pre-80 game by allowing for builds which are dependent on certain traits to be functional and effective before endgame, letting players further enjoy their leveling experience by playing the way they want, and promoting an environment which lets them experiment at will for a low cost to find the style of play and build they like best before committing to gear upon reaching 80. This reduces endgame confusion/apprehension and overall reduces confusion about the trait system across all levels to all players.
Examples of the new system:
Player A at level 40 may use a 6/0/0/0/0 build for optimized damage throughputs per attack or through effects gained on his primary style of play for necessary effectiveness, while player B may use a 2/2/0/0/2 build to be more adaptable while not being dependent on a GM trait for build success. Player A is now able to use a particular weapon/utility combination which is considered by players examining the current implementation as “ineffective” or “not as effective” as perhaps the approach taken by player B.
And player C, a new player, can be told in a pop-up on reaching level 15 that traits are gained every five levels. He now is less confused on when he will receive new traits and when he can use them in what.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
And yet we’re still looking at requirements for traits sitting at level 80. And often these traits are what make entire builds function.
There is no such thing as good main-hand pistol build in pvp, especially not any kind of condi thief.
There used to be. Before the blind nerf on offhand pistol, P/P healing power bunker was insane despite nobody using it. It could literally survive ANYTHING, granted it would take around 15 mins to bring down an ele lol.
Holy freaking thread necro, batman!
But yea, this was caused by culling, which was removed like… at least sixteen months ago ._.
Just because he wants to use p/d doesn’t mean he is/wants a condi build. The plain fact is condi build for thief is OK but everyone and their pet has condi cleanse and reduction food. Other players also drop a lot of aoe around themselves to gain an advantage on thieves but if one is ranged, this can be easily avoided. This is the p/d power build i use wvw
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqYVlsMpypdPx0J8PNBNhwdtYz8O83yaFA-TFCBABCu/wAHBgzUCilyPAeAApoPYiTBgOq/QGA9JA-w
mostly because I have latency problems and I just love c&d. Yes I have used this in spvp and got a lot of qq because of c&d and being ranged out of the aoe’s.
Everyone needs reduction food on the basis that duration food is wildly overpowered to the point where mesmers could achieve 60k condition damage per rotation. He’s also not playing in WvW, so there is no food.
P/D condition is just inherently better in WvW on the basis that modifiers are far greater for damage throughputs and skills like CnD and power stats are nerfed in sPvP. P/D condition thief is also one of the strongest and most aggressive condition builds in the game, and it can and will bypass condition cleansing for high damage faster than any given build in the game.
Dire is also a substantially better gear set than most due to its high damage and durability. This benefits the thief more than other classes due to their low base health.
The only argument one can pose as to why P/D condi isn’t useful in sPvP is because of the stealth dependency from CnD possibly making it weak to defend points (although it really doesn’t need stealth) and reduced effectiveness in organized team fights.
Again, the build is super face-roll easy and provides the greatest results with the lowest skill requirement, and since OP claims that thieves need to be banned from sPvP as a format due to some random over-powered-ness somewhere, I don’t see a reason why he would need assistance to become even remotely useful.
Person who insists the class is overpowered aims to play the most faceroll build on the class which is one of the most powerful specs in the game.
I mean, if it’s so strong, and this build is, and it’s so easy, why do you need any help building to be better? Shouldn’t you just be winning by default?
That’s a good point there, Eberle. Feedback and promises need to be followed up with concrete action, or, if no action is forthcoming, then we need to be informed or updated so people don’t get their hopes up. (It’s still a rotten situation if that’s the case, but it’s better than just waiting and hoping in vain.)
Again, that’s why one of my original suggestions was that each major sub-forum should have its own dev representative, so that the burden doesn’t just fall squarely on Gaile or any single person. John Smith is doing a great job for the BLTC forum, as are Maclaine Diemer and Cody Crichton in the Audio forum. We need more people to handle the Living World forum, the Dungeon forum, the PvP (although this one has been getting more attention of late) forum and the WvW forum. Possibly the Crafting and Racial forums could use one too, but these tend to be slower moving and don’t require as much feedback.
This is initially how I worked in a previous environment regarding forum-based information-gathering and it was very effective for some and not at all for others.
That said, it’s a much more viable way to handle a community this size than having just a few dedicated forum/player-communication heads try and look at everything.
Or rather, perhaps give a dev a section to examine, and have forum staff look into threads as a whole and report the particularly important ones and common trends and tendencies so that at least the time spent by developers is spent in the right areas.
Blech. P/D dire condi is a set that needs to get thrown into the pits of nerfblivion in WvW like PU mesmer.
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