Guild Wars 2

ChaosStar.3162:

First, MoPain, otherwise known as the utility skill which doesn’t bring utility. It needs a secondary effect so that the skill doesn’t just deal damage.

Back before Orbs were removed from WvW, I had crit for up to 4500 damage with MoPain.

I think MoP is fine as-is.

The trick is that the player has to get into the habit of using it at the same time as using other abilities. E.g. exploiting its instant-cast characteristic.

Please “hotfix” all stealth break detection to NOT trigger when a projectile is in flight from a prior attack and lands.

~_~.

Channel / animation breaking would be cool, too, but that should be saved until they fix culling.

Breaking the channels/animations are basically a buff to stealth effects, and while they would be a good fix, it would be problematic to fix that while culling is still /facepalm.

Next time you go into water, set your utility skills to the Mantras that match the ones you have on land.

They will no longer reset.

Warriors:

1. Are more reliant on teamwork than other classes.
2. Gain more benefits from teamwork than other classes.

The part where this breaks down in GW2 in particular is that the PvP is not quite as team-structured by default compared to other games. Too much sPvP and WvW centers on solo play. WvW skews heavily between “solo” and zerg. Warriors are ok in a zerg, but nothing special.

Warriors are actually insanely good at small group action, but it is difficult / much more rare for that action to actually take place.

Beefcake.9032:

Somebody’s already gone to the trouble of working this out

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12dmi5/tip_stat_optimization_with_crit_damage/?sort=confidence

What doesn’t make sense is why they didn’t just solve with the current high-end gear.

The only practical questions to be solved are the following:

1. Using Berserker gear with a 30/30 spec, do you want a power or precision Sigil?
2. Using Berserker gear, with a 20/20 spec, is 100 power or precision better?
3. Using Knight’s or Valkyrie set of gear, do you want a power or precision Sigil?

Basically take those 3 answers (and how much one or the other is favored) to determine your gear / spec strategy.

It’s pretty common sense that X * Y is greatest when x and y are equal. That’s like saying the sky is blue. E.g. the reddit post makes me yawn. What’s more interesting is finding out if the existing stats in the game are imbalanced so that power or precision are generally more effective. Last time I looked at it, I think that power won (also from casual review and analysis from other players at other times) for raw pew pew.

Precision has a lot more additional synergy with Sigils, traits, procs, and other random stuff though.

lordhelmos.7623:

As the topic states, if you no longer WvW what keeps you from logging in? Just interested in what drives people away from this feature.

Because ANet added gear creep in WvW.

Also Thieves x culling kill the small scale gameplay.

Server xfers and no names kills the adversarial community.

No in-game alliance functions kills the teamwork community.

Annoying.

Reduce Mind Stab damage by 50% and have it strip 2 boons instead of 1.

Solved.

Edit:

The blast finisher suggestion is also an effective and elegant solution.

For Mass Invis, I would make the following changes:

1a. Increase the duration by 2s, or
1b. Add Swiftness for the duration and remove

-and-

2. Decrease the cast time to 0.5s.

-OR-

1. Increase the player cap to 20.

Done.

I think it’s mostly good where it is. I prefer the first set of changes. WvW does not need more mass stealth mechanics, and where you do need them you have Veil or the Thief house. Thief house is constrained and Veil requires coordination. Good.

MI is easy to use, hence I feel it should not be usable for large-scale mass stealth. Even if it has the word “mass” in it. I think it should be cleaner and more effective in small scale.

Rabid and Carrion are both ok in general. I feel that Rabid tactically over-invests into condition damage (by employing both Sharper Images and direct condition damage). This means an opponent with good cleanses shuts you down, and you have no burst.

Carrion will lose ~80 or 90% of the Sharper Images DPS, but will shift that to harder hitting Mind Wracks (which you use all the time for Confusion anyways) and significantly harder hitting iWarlock and other direct damage stuff.

I think Carrion provides a better spread of condition and direct damage.

The only complexity is that this type of build really like lots of Clones, and picking up Deceptive Evasion not only costs 20 points in a tree you otherwise don’t use, but also picks up SI.

If you can play this build without DE (WHICH IS VERY DIFFICULT IMO), then Carrion is the clear winner because you don’t need 20 Dueling. Otherwise, it’s a toss-up based on whether you want a bit more synergy (Rabid), or more damage vectors and burst (Carrion).

Actually, I feel like I want to investigate more ‘no-Dueling’ options for this build. Probably won’t pan out well, but worth looking again. Bye bye.

First, Mantras in general are heavily reliant on traits. Untraited Mantras are often inferior to their non-Mantra counterparts (MoRec), or simply aren’t strong enough to warrant a Utility slot (MoP, MoC).

Untraited Mantras are superior to their counterparts. MoRec has higher heal per second throughput than any of the other heals, with the additional benefit of uninterruptable heals, at the cost of having to charge it (note: by a small margin; this margin becomes large when you trait the Mantra).

MoC is pretty solid, but gets outshined by Blink and Decoy because those two utilities are that good. Edit: On the flip side, MoC can be used 2x (or 3x) as often during the similar-ish cooldowns of the 3 abilities.

MoP is more or less the only utility that simply does damage, and it can add a pretty good edge of burst. Generally speaking, it has no counterpart, although Mirror Image comes close in some situations.

they have a plethora of traits that seem to encourage slotting all Mantras.

The only trait that encourages mass use is EM.

Even with a full 30/30 build, it’s easy enough to drop the third utility Mantra for Blink when appropriate.

You have a projectile in transit when you stealth. You are de-stealthed 0.2 seconds later when the projectile lands.

djtool.8372:

Easymode you’ve said you run one before. I’m curious if anything in what capacity (e.g. glass cannon).

I haven’t played GW2 in awhile (been playing ME2/3 and LoL for the past several weeks). Mantra builds do some things well and have weaknesses.

Biggest difference is that the Mantras require a separate learning curve from the rest of the class. You literally have to un-learn how to press your buttons, then re-learn how to press buttons that are Mantras.

I’ve personally ran two builds that use Mantras: (1) a standard 30/30/0/0/10 BLOWkittenUP glass cannon build and (2) a normal Shatter burst build that incorporated MoP and Distraction.

The first is fine for what it does. The second is slightly weak because I made it like 2 days after I started playing GW2, so it’s rather unrefined.

My biggest complaint with mantras is the trait that lets yoj cast them three times. Its very hard to think about using mantras without it.

That trait is only for Mantra builds where you are whole hog on the MAXDPS train.

Generally speaking, all of the Mantras are good standalone abilities for what they do. Concentration gives you 2 stun breaks. Resolve gives you 2 condition removals. Both of these have lower cooldowns than other stun breaks or condition removals. Distraction is the same.

The tradeoff for being inherently better is that they require some time outside of combat to charge up. This is a playstyle adjustment, not a “POWER” adjustment. There are some situations where this actually becomes a question of power, and that is usually in long, drawn-out fights centering on bunker builds in sPvP.

General approaches to using Mantras:

1. Do not use MoRecovery as a solo unsupported Mantra, in general. MoResolve, MoConcentration, MoDistraction are all good tools on a standalone basis. MoP can be ok as a standalone tool in a heavy power build. You can fit 4 of those into almost any build where you need some random condition removal, stun breaks, disrupts, or extra burst.

2. MoRecovery is good to combo with on-heal runes, traits, or with the Restorative Mantra trait.

3. MoPain is “OK” to combo with the RM trait. I say it is “OK” (and not great) because you use up a utility slot to do so. In most builds where you actually “HEALBOT” with RM, you’d rather pack something like Null Field or Feedback, or both, or something else. That said, the MoPain – RM synergy is inherently strong.

4. HM is good in a disrupt spam build with MoDistraction.

5. EM + HM + 4x Mantra is good for a MAXIMUM DPS build although it sacrifices a lot of flexibility.

Did ANet nerf Mantras recently or something?

no idea if this is a good way to go just that it is working for me.

5 points in Illusion and 10 points in Dom is probably the only “mandatory” points to get started off. I’ve posted this awhile back in other “low level Mesmer 101” threads, but the basic advice is as follows:

1. Before level 7, use Scepter so you have some illusions out.
2. After level 15, use Staff/GS until you get a good feel for the class.
3. First 5 points go into Illusion.
4. Next 10 points go into Dom for 20% Mind Wrack or 15% Illusion Damage (pick whichever style you like).

That’s it. Everything else is learning how to actually play the class. After level, what, 45 or so you can get the basic spread of points to pick up Deceptive Evasion as well which is useful to further learn the class, but that’s miscellaneous. At this point you also have enough trait points to branch out and use whatever weapon combination you like.

Give me a link to a thread where I can actually see proof of someone playing a mesmer 1-40 in a way that is on par with other classes. I would love to be proven wrong.

I killed mobs 3-4 at a time that were 5-7 levels higher than me from levels 15-40. Below 15 it was more like 2 mobs that were 3-4 levels higher than me.

I figure I would have leveled faster if I killed mobs that were +1 to +2 levels to me.

Generally speaking, the Mesmer class requires a different play style and approach than other classes. It has a steeper learning curve for minimum performance level compared to most classes.

If you get it, you get it.

If you don’t, you don’t.

Shrug.

These classes are the focus of most QQ as many (most?) players don’t want to learn how the class works.

No.

The reason stealth classes get the most QQ in MMORPGs is because the stealth mechanic itself is significantly more binary than any other class mechanic in these games. In addition, the particular advantage it provides is proactive, rather than reactive. This provides for a significantly different requirement for “counter-play” compared to all other class mechanics.

As a result, stealth is difficult for developers to balance, and results in the most QQ.

Whether you are killed in .5 seconds or 3 seconds is irrelevant. It’s whether or not you can do anything about it that matters.

Against all classes except a Thief, you can counter glass cannon via good gameplay.

Thief, no. Gameplay doesn’t enter into the equation with nearly instant combos from range.

If you think some level 80 Elementalist in level 60 gear has any chance to avoid an exotically equipped warrior bullrushing and 100b’ing him from behind in WvW, you are dreaming.

Mist form. Also they have almost a full 1.0 seconds to dodge the BR. Thus, you have two chances to counter and avoid all or most of the damage. Thief gives you 0.3 seconds to dodge the combo. Fail that and you insta-die.

And why are we talking about players in level 60 gear? Lolololol. Pretty sure a Thief could kill a level 80 in level 1 white gear from Mug alone.

Thundar.3910:

when you go an entire day with an outmanned buff, and the enemies answer to every question is to portal bomb, you sort of get the feeling that while its a viable tactic, its overuse has completely negative effects on the game.

It’s not a “viable tactic”, it is Standard Operating Procedure.

It’s balanced when you die to a 2s channel followed by a burst after being CC’d.

It’s not balanced when you die to a 0.3s burst straight up.

Judas.5432:

Keep WvW out of this thread, please. Balance is and should be done in s/tPvP, not WvW. Period.

WvW is part of the game. No one expects perfect balance in WvW, but the Thief backstab combo is currently an extreme outlier.

Deal with it.

Or rather, wait till ANet deals with it. Hopefully they make reasonable changes along the lines that I listed, rather than something lame like nerfing Backstab damage to nil.

Hm … too bad you can’t stop it from using the chain without awkward cancelling of the third step.

Krathalos.3461:

And if the warrior was even somewhat intelligent and moved behind him after immobilize, the range is completely irrelevant.

So the Thief had over 2.5 seconds to figure out how to avoid Kill Shot. Lmao.

Meanwhile, <insertclass> has 0.3 seconds to figure out how to avoid the instagib.

Cloak and Dagger itself is .5 seconds. Backstab is .25. Nice try, though.

I said deal damage, not cast all the abilities in the combo. There is 0.3 seconds between the Mug, CND, and Backstab. The full combo being executed in less time than it takes for Bull’s Rush to land is pretty telling, however.

Infiltrator’s Arrow has a pretty long cast time when used at max range, so if he didn’t switch and use it as soon as he was immobilized, Kill Shot would hit him either way.

Except the Thief has >4.0 seconds to use Infiltrator’s Arrow because the Warrior had to run over 900 range to get behind the Thief.

At a minimum, the Thief has 2 seconds from the swap + Kill Shot.

Krathalos.3461:

Come up with a better reason than “but this class can hit harder than another class!” to try to warrant a nerf. You’re completely ignoring everything a thief has to give up to do it, or everything a thief already doesn’t have simply because they are a thief. All of the classes in the game can be built for instagib kills.

1. I never said Thieves should be nerfed because they can hit harder than another class. You’re trying very hard to fabricate arguments that are not only irrelevant, but never happened.

2. You’re completely ignoring everything a Thief still has. You’re also demanding that all classes give up almost everything so they can play the game at all.

3. No class can be built to kill in <1.0 seconds from range with nearly zero telegraph. Hell, no other class can be built to kill in <1.0 seconds period. A cold Frenzy HB on an afk target will still take most of 2 seconds.

I mean, the funny part here is that the troll brigade is trying to claim that Kill Shot, which has a 1.75s casting time, is somehow the answer to the Backstab combo’s balance, when the BS combo does more damage in 0.75 seconds. So sad. HB is even better at 3.5 seconds. Rofl.

There’s a reason why those abilities have legit counters, and a 0.75s backstab combo does not.

Come on man, you’re going to see bow+gun Warrs at least as often as you see S/D+P/P thieves.

The Sword/Dagger is perfect for setting up Unload DPS from the Pistol, right? Man these CC+ weapon swap channel DPS builds sound fabulous.

Daecollo.9578:

Blade Trail actually does A lot of Damage, Steals daze is a 30 point trait, blade trail isn’t.

Nobody takes steals “daze” trait unless they are a condition thief.

Immob on Bladetrail requires a trait in the defense tree, e.g. not a glass cannon Warrior.

Since we’re throwing in all sorts of traited CC augments, let’s add the Thief Immobilize when target’s HP is low.

Also, Bladetrail doesn’t do a “lot” of damage; it’s damage is moderate and the DPS is marginally higher than autoattacks when the second hit actually lands. There is a current bug though that makes Bladetrail actually do a lot of damage, but that will be fixed.

Krathalos.3461:

Excuse him that he couldn’t evade while immobilized.

He had a hair under 2.0 seconds to counter the Immobilize and dodge, or directly interrupt the Warrior.

This is the difference: a Warr can burst with a kill shot after 2 seconds of animation after a CC; a Thief can burst for more damage within 0.3 seconds with no CC since it happens so quickly.

Apparently, you think that three skills required to hit as hard as one skill somehow makes that one skill underpowered.

Never said HB was “underpowered”. I said it was slow and over time. Compared to CND-Mug-Backstab, it is very slow.

1. I’m well aware we weren’t talking about it. I just brought up two abilities that were comparable because they’re somewhat hard to hit with.

PW and HB are way, way harder to hit with than the BS combo.

2. This part is just hilarious. Thief has as many CC options as warrior?

As many, no, but many and sufficient? Yes, if they are even necessary (which they are not for the context of this thread).

A warrior can have roughly 6 CC options while also having GS.

6 CC options! That sounds impressive! Are we including weapon swaps like the Sword stealth daze or Sword immobilize now? Or wire which pulls and includes a knockdown? Maybe we should include the Pistol Whip stun as part of a CC chain for the backstab combo?

Man these are great ideas.

Or maybe we could just instakill the target.

If you count immobilize (which I assume you do, even though it’s a condition), it can have another one from Bladetrail. You can’t compare any other class’s CC options to a warrior’s. They have by far the most.

Oh yeah, let’s count Bladetrail’s immobilize like we count Steal’s Daze. This thread is getting better and better.

Flanking Strike could certainly use some rework. I’m not a fan of the “untargeted” movement abilities like that and the Ranger Sword poison attack (Sword3?). A LOT of missing based on a highly delayed (albeit cool) animation.

I think it would be better if the player faded into a black shadow, then shadowstepped directly behind the opponent (if one is targeted, or to X distance forward, turned around, if no target) for the second hit as they fade back in. The shadowstep animation can have a black shadow trail on the ground similar to the Mesmer Staff2 teleport. This will help the other player track the movement.

I think the damage itself is ok.

STRanger.5120:

The animation of C&D seems very obvious for me, and if you see a Thief running to you, with daggers in hands (daggers are small, you know), you have to be prepared that he will probably perform this combo. End of story…

Ah yes, I should assume that any thief with daggers is a backstab gimmick Thief and blow double dodge when I see them at 1200 range. This is assuming I can identify they have dual daggers equipped in the 0.2 seconds I have to identify that they are a Thief at all before I die. Unfortunately, I’m a terrible player and I can’t ID class and weapon setup in 0.2 seconds in WvW.

They’re also never going to be a Death Blossom condition spec, or HS spam quickness spec (not many of those nowadays though, to be sure).

And they can’t just hold the Mug and use CND again for the expiration of my dodge.

Lawls.

That’s because said “instakill” combo is only an instant kill against glass cannons or players who aren’t paying attention. Other classes can burst just as hard.

It instakills any target in WvW unless they are in full tank gear.

Also, please tell me you’re not saying Hundred Blades is “slow damage over time.”

HB is 3.5s. BR is 0.75-1.0s depending on distance. Full combo is 4.25-4.5s. Using Frenzy drops the HB to 1.75s, for a combo of 2.5-2.75s.

CND-Mug-BS is 1.0s total, with a 0.3s damage footprint.

2.5s is over twice as long as 1.0s. Hence, it’s slow as kitten compared to the BS combo.

It hits nearly three times as hard as Backstab

It does not hit nearly three times as hard as CND+Mug+Backstab. It hits for about the same. In over twice the time.

and with all of the CC options for warrior, can be easily linked into by CC. One combo,

Now you’re extrapolating unnecessary and additional counterable effects. The same could be said of Devourer or Basilisk Venom. They are extant to the combo and only exist to “help secure” the combo.

Your extended HB combo is hilarious and gives the player 5+ seconds to react and/or prepare for the expected HB. All the while the Thief’s target is already dead after 0.3s of being in range.

It’s pretty obvious: any HB combo requires CC for the HB. The BS combo doesn’t require CC, because the damage is within 0.3 seconds and typically kills the target.

Yes, it can be tricky to hit. There’s no arguing this. Just as Pistol Whip can be tricky to hit. But a thief doesn’t have the numerous CC options a warrior has.

1. We’re not talking about Pistol Whip, which is actually congruous with HB. Pistol Whip is not a problem (especially after the nerfs which weren’t really necessary). In addition, PW has an integrated stun.

2. Thieves have as many CC options via poisons. Less forgetting of half your class especially when the other poster brought them up this very page. Thanks.

I got Moa’d last night in sPvP (twice actually).

First of all, I was shocked.

Second, I didn’t die either time.

Third, I the second time I was Moa’d, I caught the fool with Moa5 and I could see him go wtf as he couldn’t fire any spells. That was so funny.

Except no, because CnD+Mug has nearly zero telegraph, and there is no indication of what spec the Thief is.

The BR CC and effect doesn’t take place until a quarter second after the BR arrives at your position, which is a half second after it begins, so you have just under 0.75 seconds to dodge a blatantly obvious animation irrespective of build.

The Mug is instantaneous, and the CnD animation itself is very subtle. Also, there’s no way to tell what build the player is who’s using the CND-Mug combo.

Furthermore, the CnD + Backstab full animation time is similar to the BR time, but the HB is completely in excess of the CND+Mug+BS. In other words, BR finished by the time the Thief cast their entire combo. By the time the Hundred Blades would even begin in the case of a Warrior, you are already dead in the case of a Thief.

You’re making a ton of excuses trying to pretend that a slow damage over time combo is anywhere near as good as an instakill combo.

Physical Utility spam is pretty solid. Tried it out last night. Has some obvious weaknesses (Aegis, block, blind, stability), but you work around those and it’s pretty fun.

Helps to have team boon shredding. In the build I tried I didn’t have much (any) precision, so the Sigil was unusable.

I looked at a similar build briefly a long, long time ago, but never actually messed with it. Good to see it getting some playtime.

The build I ran with last night was basically: 30/0/30/0/10, with Hammer and GS. I used GS since I was lazy and didn’t want to think too hard about a weapon swap. That said, I think it works pretty well for various reasons. Couple observations:

1. I used the kitteny elite that transforms, and it’s pretty fun to chain CC off of Hammer cooldowns. I just have to remember to turn it off after I cycle through the abilities, because my Hammer CC will probably be available again. That elite still needs a shorter cooldown, but ohwell what can you do?

2. The inclusion of Kick on a short cooldown means that the enemy is eating a lot more knockbacks than the traditional Hammer build which only has the Hammer4 kb. I like to use GS as a filler here (when Hammer burst is not available) to Bladetrail and WW. HB is also very useful to use as bait for enemy CC, or to force them off of certain positions. The extra mobility off of GS5 is also helpful. That said, Sword/x may be more effective strictly speaking.

3. 30 in the toughness line was fun, and I suck so the Endure Pain proc was helpful, and I continuously ran into the enemy team forever, so again it was useful. However, I think that 20 in the toughness and 20 in arms for the break-kittening-Immobilize-kittening-kitten trait would be a good alternative. Immobilizes gave me the most problems overall. That and chill. May need to consider the trait in the power line for ‘slow’ condition removal on heal.

All of a sudden I feel like being a nice and friendly team player and rezzing all those fools that managed to get themselves downed running early at the turtle.

Wasabee.5031:

I am playing in WvW and 2.7k toughness on exotic is different with 2.7k toughness on green. Also, if you rely alone on 2.7k toughness, stand still for BS, HS thief to spam then you need to read what I wrote up. “2.7k toughness and learn how to dodge/move at the right time”

1. Son, I haven’t had anything less than exotic gear in WvW for so long I can’t remember (except for my back slot which is rare from the guild armorer).

2. I apologize but I’m not skilled enough to dodge an ability from range than executes in less than 0.5 seconds that has almost 0 telegraph. I’m getting slow in my old age and I need big visual cues like a player charging at me to remember to dodge in less than a half second.

STRanger.5120:

EasymodeX.4062:

Get over it. Sig-CND-Mug-BS is the combo; the rest is fluff.

This combo is easier to avoid than the BR + 100b combo, therefore there is nothing to talk about if you consider that OP….

Oh please, you can dodge BR on reflex 99% of the time. And, HB takes twice as long to execute with Frenzy than CND-Mug-BS takes to execute without Quickness.

dont take increased field duration in inspiration it’s broken and doesnt add any extra time.

I heard that:
- The tooltips on all Glamours are broken to show the traited durations, even though they last for untraited amounts (this one is pretty obvious)
- The trait actually works, restoring the Glamours to the tooltip durations

Haven’t actually looked myself though, since I always end up getting the -20% cooldown. Medic’s Feedback is a pretty solid option though. I wonder if the Feedback from that trait applies Glamour traits like blind and confusion, or not.

Bonus AOE blind + confuse + ethereal field + the actual reflect every 10s huehuehuehue.

The issue they need to fix is the setup.

The quickness and two venoms are unnecessary to the combo for WvW. They are only relevant in sPvP because there are no non-stealth culling limitations and the damage levels are much lower overall, so it’s possible for players to actually survive the SigAss-CND-Mug-Backstab.

My recommendation from the other thread was to:

a) Nerf Mug damage directly (significantly) and add bleed stacks to it.
b) Increase the cast time on Backstab by 0.25s and enable the bonus damage from the sides as well as the back (not just the back).
c) Increase the cast time on CND by 0.5s and deal the CND damage at the beginning of the cast, with the damage still triggering the stealth, but the stealth occuring at the end of the cast. E.g. “damage – 1.0 – stealth”, rather than “0 – 1.0 – damage+stealth”.

This would space out the damage of the combo to an extent where the combo is essentially avoidable or counter-able similar to Bull’s Rush-HB, improve usability of sustained backstabs in a mobile fight, and improve the usability of CND as a stealth tool for multiple builds. It will also marginally help the stealth culling issue by placing the damage away from the stealth, so you cannot pre-cast some of the CND while in stealth.

Draven.9521:

Daendur.2357:

EasymodeX.4062:

Everyone is complaining about the 8/9k dmg backstab has. It isn’t that much.

Actually I’m more concerned about the 15k Backstabs.

Actually I’m more concerned about the 20k 100blades aoe.

finally someone that agrees with me.

Except you’re not, because HB is absurdly easy to avoid and is highly telegraphed, whereas backstab is basically instant from 900 range.

If your toughness is around 2.7k, you will survive the burst

Not in WvW.

This combo ppl are complaining about is using Basilisk/Devourer venom (1 Elite/util slot), Assasins signet (another util slot) and a lot of ppl are using another signet for the 5x might boon (you know, to do the damage :-) ), so that leaves you with 1 utility or 1 elite slot left (basically the basilisk is used more because it´s better for this purpose), so 1 utility slot left…. and some initiative (9 if traited to Trickstery, less when traited for some survival).
See the difference?

Lol, no. The combo itself is SigAss-CND-Mug-Backstab.

Basilisk and Devourer are for longer sPvP fights that no one cares about because sPvP Berserker gear doesn’t have the extra 40% crit damage on it, nevermind food buffs. However, in either case those are not core to the combo that executes in 0.3 seconds. They are extra stacking to make that single combo more effective.

Extra Might boon stacking is beyond unnecessary in WvW or sPvP, and makes a good backstab gimmick build into a terrible backstab gimmick build.

If you’re suggesting that the “combo” also “requires” vulnerability stacks from a Pistol swap, and a utility slot for poison to reduce healing, and …

Get over it. Sig-CND-Mug-BS is the combo; the rest is fluff.

Artemeas.8763:

Mesmer- I Run full mantra bomb, it’s jsut better

I run full Mantras and it’s just better for my kitten.

Also … I love my Mantra of Recovery after running without it/mantra traits for a while.

Duh, the combo uses Signet, CND, Mug, Backstab.

sPvP variants probably crutch on Basilisk Venom because sPvP gear has less DPS, so you actually want to follow up the combo with 1 HS or a couple autoattacks. However, for WvW it’s unnecessary.

This leaves you with, as I said previously, 2 utilities, 1 elite, a heal, and a pile of initiative because the only thing that cost any was CND.

Why am I explaining to you how your class works?

Hmm.

Edit: Although “your” is probably the wrong word since I have a Thief too … doesn’t everyone?

What are the defensive measures a mesmer has? I know staff 4, portal, blink, staff 5 then 2, but I want to know as many as possible.

Feedback then staff 2, Feedback then Sword3, Chaos Storm then Sword 3.

F4.
F3 on enemy burst combos or abilities.
Decoy.
Staff5 itself when placed on you or on the enemy or both for great justice.
Various other abilities on various weapons.
Using clones as objects to block various projectiles.
Feedback itself.

Everyone is complaining about the 8/9k dmg backstab has. It isn’t that much.

Actually I’m more concerned about the 15k Backstabs.

You’re taking a specific subset of thieves (People who have built for assassination, have a plan they intend to carry out, and are likely geared for it) and pitting them against a random target from the general population (likely not level 80, likely not geared, likely doesn’t have a plan, likely has their PvE traits equipped and is just there to zerg).

You’re assuming a lot of things. Random target from the general population? Please. The thief combo deals more than two times the amount of HP a glass level 80 has within 0.3 seconds.

A level 80 with hybrid defensive exotics will still get instakilled. Full toughness will not reduce damage by 2/3s. Full vit will not triple HP.

You demand full 100% tank gear and traiting to merely survive the first 0.3 seconds of a fight, when the Thief still has 2 utilities, 1 elite, a heal, and 8+ initiative available.

Absurd.

Why exactly do you feel that a Thief should be able to deal twice the damage of another glass cannon profession in half the time, while using fewer resources and maintaining higher survivability, all in the same package?

Something’s going to give, and it will probably be coming down in the next patch to two.

In any case, as I said in a previous post, the issue isn’t really the raw damage for the most part (except for Mug), and can be easily fixed with small tuning that could also buff Thief builds in general.

^

This.

Turtles aren’t exactly hard to smash, just takes coordination and practice.

ANet does need to apply a fix to add target cap limits to friendly effects, though, to be generally fair. Probably a target cap of 10-15 along with an exclusion of Mesmer clones (but not phantasms) and perhaps Necro weaker minions.

Protip: there are some “offensive” AOE-effects in the game that are “uncapped” by their mechanics.

Not to mention there are a few very specific reasons why turtles work at all outside of the AOE capping, and those reasons can be countered in a straightforward manner.

Takes too many human players to hold Bay and Briar.

This leaves that team on the full defensive. Hills+Lake allows defense while maintaining offensive pressure elsewhere.

Of course, if you build up Briar with absurd amounts of siege, with a small coordinated defense force, then Bay becomes a gigantic zerg trap and you can run across the map. In addition, a successful SW defense means that the north team is going to get railed from both the west and east at the same time (unless you are fighting a kittenon in the south).

fallconn.6480:

IMO… the warrior that killed me so many times was using some type of bug or exploit since I had never been killed that quickly by a warrior in the past.

You don’t get killed by that build often because very few Warriors run it.

Very few Warriors run the build because it’s terrible and only kills bad players.

But keep on trolling.

Anyone not specifically built for duelling should be disadvantaged in this context by design.

It’s fine for Thieves to have a general class advantage in 1v1. It’s not fine for Thieves to instantly kill almost any 1v1 opponent they find in WvW when they look at them from 900 range.

Heh, “99% of the time you want 5 in Illusion unless you’re making a very, very, very specific build and you really need 70 points allocated in the other trees”. I mean your build logic is valid with the assumptions you make, but /shrug. In any case, by the time you spec into 20/0/10/20/0, you need to really ask yourself whether Dueling at all is worth it. Even if you advance it to 20/10/10/20/0 for Blade Training, you need to make a good case of Sharper Images for WvW, when WvW tends to include a hell of a lot of “Illusions do not stay alive to drop bleeds”.

Also, -20% Illusion CD in PvE is extra lives, especially when you stack it with another weapon trait where the incremental effect is exponentially more clone generation. And, don’t neglect that the Illusion CD trait applies to both weapons for the cost of 1 minor trait. And lastly, the -20% Illusion CD is extra damage too, not just extra lives.

General mathematical observation on clone generation:

- Assume 1 illusion per 10 seconds. This is 0.1 i per second.
- A 20% cd trait (weapon trait) will drop that to 1 per 8, or 0.125 i per second. This is 25% more illusions per second than baseline.
- A second 20% cd trait will that to 1 per 6, or 0.167 i per second. This is 67% more i per sec than the baseline, and 34% more i per second than the first trait alone.

Hence, due to the additive stacking of the %reduction effect, you get exponentially more illusions per second by taking both.

This is part of the reason why Mesmers feel more powerful at later levels.

I would love to have +250 power, condition damage, and precision. That’s like the best parts of 5 orb bonuses in WvW.