Guild Wars 2

kash.9213:

I’ve been using this build for awhile.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY6an0MBVmiFmCmOBkmilria+5v+uv7mmuAwbCygPA-TFCFABIp87Klg7fQA4/BAE8+DAcEA0X9H11PsZYAIMGgZkRmyAkvFA-w

I actually used to run basically a mirror copy of what you are running stat wise, just with furious oil, it’s a solid all around build.

kash.9213:

When you’re on your acro version, are you still stretching out your attacks for the long game as you do when on CS?

Maybe I worded my OP badly. My builds are focused more on multi hits for burst. I’ve run staff, p/d, s/d+fist flurry as well; all with great success. I just prefer s/p. I’m very aggressive, until I have to disengage.

As for the acro variant, it just allows me to be more mobile and not have to worry about conditions as much. The healing and init returns are nice as well. It allows me to be aggressive in outnumbered or larger scale fights as it allows me to be aggressive but still have resources in case I need to nope out.

kash.9213:

I know I could bring up my crit chance and ferocity but in our servers matchup right now I feel like I still have enough stopping power although sometimes someone gets away when I know they shouldn’t. Do you switch up to more power upfront when on acro or do you stay on the same stats?

Nope I run the exact same thing. Damage isn’t really lacking even in acro with the setup I run. 10-12k pistol whips in acro are very easily attainable. However, in contrast backstabs when I do run d/p only land for about 8k.

I wouldn’t recommend what I am running for a d/d or a normal s/d build (s/d + fist flurry is a big maybe but were talking minuscule gains). A P/P or multi hit setup most definitely.

Umm I have a few but I wouldn’t call them ground breaking.

• Weakening charge and any kind of shadow step will make weakening charge spin in place. Hitting your target with all 3 hits.
• Debilitating arc can be used to reduce the after cast of vault.
• Shortbow 5 and bound dodge creates a psudo vault. Does good aoe blinds/dmg. Bonus points it you start or land in a field, it will count as a leap finisher as well.
• Withdraw you can shorten distance with camera same way as heartseeker.
• Lazy 4 stack stealth by alternating bound dodge and heartseeker (works with sb 2 as well but much harder). much less effort, works with action camera.
• black powder + blinding powder is good quick aoe stealth.
• a lot of people don’t realize that pistol whip has evade frames much like blurred frenzy.

The obvious steal combo’s precasting skills with steal ( or shadow step in general) makes it really hard to interrupt them. As the guy above stated pistol whip is a skill that really benefits from this. You can do it with all kinds of useful things on other sets. Such as blackpowder steal prevent hard hitting strikes (I like to do this for war arc divider). Another one I rarely see is black powder, bound dodge +steal into backstab.

Edit: one other thing, with pistol whip, it has a 180 arc in front of you and about a 60 arc behind you. Sometimes you can bait backstabs into the cone behind you.

Shepstar.8429:

“introduce Armor penetration” cough cough

They kinda have that, its called siphon. Its damage ignores armor but cannot crit. Leeching and blood sigils are one way to get it for a hit for most classes, sadly rev is the only class that reliably has this effect via heal and traits.

DeceiverX.8361:

Blaq and Eval (two thiefy guildmates of mine) have come up recently with some very solid builds in terms of stat performance and overall strength. I still prefer raw power over ferocity since I personally believe it makes builds more consistent and thus better killers, but your mileage will likely vary depending on what you do, what weapons you use, and how you play in WvW.

If anyone wants the skinny here is roughly what I run for wvw (add 85 power from infusions). I cap out about 90% crit chance with 265% crit damage.

I do swap out CS for acro taking bottom, middle, middle for outnumbered fights, and blinding powder in place of infiltrator signet.

As I said above it’s a matter of preference. I personally cannot stand having low precision because I set most of my damage up to happen over a series of attacks, so having high crit % and crit damage just makes sense to me for how I play.

We both know d/d is limited to hit and run tactics, which are better suited to the higher power/ferocity focus. Which is why I relate d/d closely with s/d as it’s the same thing just played differently. The issue with d/d’s set is it is focused on hit and run burst that hinges on a broken mechanic on top of being in a balance that is full of blocks and invulns.

In contrast if you run staff or s/p, or even to a lesser extent s/d with fist flurry; the multi hits combos allow you to face some of our problematic opponents defenses and spike through them. Stealth atttacks on these other sets are utlity focused rather than damage, so it’s not the end of the world when they don’t go through.

All that said, I will echo what many others suggested to the op; just go d/p if your looking for better consistency.

Some people have already outlined this, but wvw has been a pretty high priority lately.
Has anet made good changes? yes.
Has there been some questionable ones? yes.
Is there still work to be done. Yes.

As for the whole, “we need to spend gems” bit. I’ll be frank, anet needs to give the wvw things they want to buy gems that are not a p2w wall. Some one in here already mentioned cosmetic tower looks. I think that’s a wonderful idea. Siege is something else that could be cosmetically altered. There are so many small things that could give breath into creating more variety in wvw.

Lastly, for improving wvw, anet has a good idea now based off of feedback on what needs to change. There are plenty of mechanical fixes, which will make the game mode more enjoyable. To make the game mode boom tho, we need new experiences, things like another borderland (which they talked about) or additional features. The issue is they only have enough resources to do one large thing at a time. They’ve learned their lesson on trying to drop large sweeping after years of not changing anything and being met with backlash.

I think they are on the right track, and they are trying. Sadly, it’s not enough to retain a lot of people right now as they grow bored. Simply put bored people don’t spend money on gems. Which is why they won’t get money out of a lot of these people. If they break that cycle and manage to give people new experinces and make the mode entertaining again for many; I am sure that would change.

DeceiverX.8361:

If you want to play thief at a level of performance that won’t make you log out furious every half hour when you’re up against decent players using the more powerful builds in the game, you’re going to have to give up D/D power. There’s a movement to S/P and some P/P plays at the moment featuring similar or better burst damage which with Daredevil works similarly and typically exceeds the performance of D/D substantially.

D/D condi is still somewhat viable tho. It’s not for everyone. Same deal with S/P.

Honestly, if OP wants the d/d style of play and still want to be more reliable s/d is still somewhat viable. I know you went that route before kicking the bucket on thief.

Since were on the topic of counters, I’ll go over what I’ve found.

To echo other people, yes power rev works. The multi hit skills and glint heal allow you to smack around guards.

Druid is good if your using staff and properly using pets to destroy the traps. Honestly if and when druids sustained is toned down, I think druid will be moved to a place where many of the other classes are with guard/dh atm, they can contest a guard, it will result in a stalemate.

The only other hard counter works against lower skilled players and that’s power reaper. Unblockable marks, well of suffering and nothing can save you don’t really allow guardians to play with their defenses. Instead you bypass them.

Getting the exact same codes in the same order about roughly the same time.

I can log in, I can sometimes get into LA, but if I try to move to any other map I get the above error.

Kuya.6495:

What you guys are actually whining about is symbol spam. Blocks are the same. Healing is the same. Cleansing is the same. The new thing is symbol spam which when traited can provide a steady stream of healing through writ of persistence and/or a steady stream of damage (regardless if the trait is taken or not, in terms of damage)

Now question, are you guys asking for a nerf to symbols? If so, in what way?

No, what’s actually going down here is people are coming forward saying they don’t enjoy fighting this opponent for various reasons, and then your trying to put words in peoples mouths and tell them what they think.

I’ll be frank here as I could go on and write probably a 30 paragraph post of things I find frustrating with guard atm. Instead I’ll simplify, my issues with guard/dragonhunter are simply:

• Has to much persistent sustain
• Has to much aoe cleave/heal with no risk.
• Has to much reliability without denial mechanics

Kuya.6495:

So serious question: why is something that was there from the very beginning (guardian blocks) suddenly a problem now?

It stands to reason that if the blocks didn’t change, then something else must have that is actually the cause of your complaining.

Before there were other classes that had much larger sustain problems, that were rightly shaven down. Guardian didn’t get any shaves. In fact it got some sustain improvements.

Also before hand guardian had lots of blocks but very little pressure, now with the improvements with symbols, dragon hunters kit and sustain increases it feels at times guardian has little to no shortcomings. Which makes a very frustrating opponent. I don’t have a problem with guardian having sustain, damage, or traps for that matter, but the current overall kit and meta builds offer very few opportunities and counter play for opponents.

If I could relate it in cliché terms: it is like fighting the old burning ashes celestial elementalist all over again. I don’t think it needs large shaves, just a number of small tweaks.

Saku Joe.2857:

Eval.2371:

I got as far in as 2:30 and I have to say, this video is extremely over edited. To the point where it made me feel nauseous. If your intent was to apply some new kind of condition, it worked. Total turn off tho, which is a shame because I normally enjoy your content.

ty for the feedback. was it the black flashes, the flash back, the blur effect, contrast? if you could tell me i would appreciate.

Honestly, I think it is the combination of the amount blur, the low saturation, and the irregular stutters in one package. I get your trying to do something unique with music and still make it your brand but all of it seems to much.

I got as far in as 2:30 and I have to say, this video is extremely over edited. To the point where it made me feel nauseous. If your intent was to apply some new kind of condition, it worked. Total turn off tho, which is a shame because I normally enjoy your content.

I agree with trissitra on the whole the combination of active defenses and healing is a bit much. I do get where OP is coming from, and does not want to see the class nerfed into oblivion. As for the whole “we only go symbol buffs” crowd, you have to remember every single sustain class, including engineer got some pretty large sustain shaves. Some of them still need some more, don’t get me wrong, but where guard/dragonhunter is now it contends with sustaining like a druid or an engineer.

I think PoB is fine how it is. It is a large aoe cleave. I think test of faiths initial bonus damage is a bit much. However not crossing test of faith other than being pulled isnt a problem even on thief runnning dash. The only traps I have an issue with are the healing one (the absurd amount of heal in aoe format) and dragons maw’s very unclear and hard to see animations. The only exception of this is when traps cooldowns are abused by multi placement. Which leads me to think that traps in general just should not begin refreshing the cooldown until the last trap has expired.

I run a pile of different classes, the only three that don’t struggle with guard are ranger, revenant and necro. Druid only works because I can pressure them from range while the pet deals with the traps and the aoe, and match their sustain. It’s a very long fight that is often not worth it but is reliable. Rev only really works because of the absurd amount of burst and sustain counterplay to guards traps/symbols glint heal has. Power necro is another build that really punishes people that really don’t know what they are doing on guard, as none of their passive defenses save them when they continuously stand on unblockable wells/marks.

Aside from the options above every other class it takes way to long to down a guardian, even 2v1 it reminds me of fighting a june 23rd 2015 celestial ele, it doesn’t win the fight, it just stalls with a slew of blocks(instead of blinds), heals constantly, has tones passive procs that saves the players bacon and then resets the fight with invuln. All while doing decent passive aoe damage be it from traps or symbols. Sure there are counter builds, but it’s limited to three niches really.

Guard/Dragonhunter to me is a really unappealing opponent where, I feel that passive defensive components in addition to the amount of damage and healing in aoe format make a really boring and unskilled class to fight. That’s just my opinon on the matter, which is not fact. Anyways I’m rambling now…

What’d I recommend is:

• Reduce the aoe heal on the trap by 20%
• Change the cooldowns on traps so they do not begin to refresh until the other expires.
• Balance wings of revolve to be more easily counterable (self strips agis and stablity during leap) but raise the heal componet.
• Change dragon maws effects to be more visually noticeable.
• Change cast times of all traps to be non instant, and have a minimal 1 sec cast time, to allow counter play.

I think those changes would be fair, as it would open up windows where more classes could outplay the opponent. Class stacking is a whole other issue that I cannot believe is still not resolved. Simply put if anet enforces are rule at the pro level for team format, then it should be enforced in normal pvp as well.

Doomdesire.9365:

So I noticed this build takes advantage of furious maintenance oils, which is a big no no because you can only obtain one a day, so unless you plan to roam 30 minutes or have a stash of these saved up a different oil/stone is needed.

You can only craft one charged quartz a day and they are not tradeable. However charged amberite(the componet you upgrade the quartz) is trade able they go for about 2.3g a piece. All said and done if your buying charged amberite it will cost you about ~50s for 30mins isn’t far fetch. Crafting your own does further reduce the cost.

Personally I find value in them as I make nearly double that per half hour.

Bound is a very useful dodge when paired with x/p for more reliable leap finishers. I prefer this dodge on s/p, and when running staff. Generally this is the dodge that is for duels, it will add more damage to your fight, but is very telegraphed and easy to punish.

In contrast dash is a lot better for closing the gap and kiting. I prefer this dodge for d/d, s/d, d/p. This dodge is the best for just getting around the map. Im always switching to this in wvw to get around and then back to bound when I am roaming.

Kuya.6495:

It’s funny watching people complain about how anet doesn’t care about their classes, of course, until their class gets buffed and they change their tune. I remember fondly all the qq in the guardian forums before the one handed weapons buff. I also remember the lack of qq in the necro boards when chill caused damage.

Yup its like that in every class section. Still there is one consistant thing that is the problem. Anet continues to rarely if ever grace their presence on here and communicate with its base. Unless it involves cupcakes. So everyone thinks that anet hates their class, until it gets something shinny, then ultimately everyone freaks out and anet takes away their shinny. Then we go back to beginning of the cycle. Ah such as the way of cupcakes.

Silv.9207:

Tell me how that make us a Dragonhunter Killer, please. Expecially why a DH can simply active it another time using the elite and make again all out damage a waste, simpli why out of the RS we’re totally unable to inflict any decent damage. Also corrupting boons.

Power rev runs over dragon hunter. Block becomes ignorable because of all our unblockable effects. You got marks, nothing can save you, wells, etc. For pvp I’ve been just swaping to power necro when I see stacked guards. It amazes how many people I see run up drop their traps and get downed in well of suffering. It’s pretty easy to keep them lock down and prevent them from doing anything but running around on necro.

Jana.6831:

Maybe an interesting question:

If you were a beginner: would you roll a thief?

No I wouldn’t, and if someone asked me should I roll thief? I’d tell them go make rev. They have much more reliable tools and are better for groups.

kash.9213:

Eval.2371:

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time.

Most of that sounds good to me but I wouldn’t want to be punished for using what I need to at the moment otherwise why have initiative rather than cooldowns?

The problem is some of thief tools are always the best skill to use.

Take shadow shot for example, its a blind, gap close, unblockable, high damage all in one bundle. There is very few instances where shadow shot is not your best use for init. Which leads to senseless spamming with results. I am purely using shadow shot as an example, there are numerous other offenders: such as death blossom, vault, unload, & pistol whip.

I feel its a core issue with thief, that rewards bad gameplay. That change is just an example, I feel there needs to a diminishing return/an increase in cost for successive casts or sheer nerfs to bring some skills inline to make us fair with some of the tools mentioned above. I’d rather the former then the latter.

Ensign.2189:

If you want to give useful feedback, identify key issues with the class and targeted buffs that would address those issues.

This is so true. The problem is it becomes a fight of fighting fire with fire. For example I feel our key issues are:

• We lack survivability to deal with aoe cleave. When we are in a big fight we resort to haphazardly dodging to avoid aoe cleave because if we don’t we melt to sheer amount of it

• We lack the ability to indefinitely pressure targets that have an abundance of passive defenses or immunities. Stealth attack? block. Unload spam? invuln, Stack bleed & confusion? resistance.

• We lack reliability on the entire stealth attack mechanic. we only have one chance to land these key skills that fail to apply pressure because of passive defenses or invulns, or dodges despite spending enormous amount of resources to stealth, position and then land the attack from the back.

• Because of the three above, we are reduced to spaming both our defensive and offensive mechanics. Be it aimless dodges in hope to avoid cleave, or unloads chained together because its our only good option, or stacking stealth endlessly until we have an opportunity to land a stealth attack.

• Trickery & DrD feel mandatory Because were reduced to spaming, both lines pretty much be required or we run out of resources.

As far as the asking for fixes for these issues, I feel they would be pure power creep. I know this is the traditional blame the other classes route, but I think it would be much better if other classes were toned down, we could even use a shave is some aspects as well. If I were to ask for buffs/changes, I’d ask for:

• A trait that makes us immune to aoe damage that is not intended for you(ie unless your targeted or the sole person in the aoe you evade it). Preferably in acrobatics. Something like dodge all aoes that do not land on you first while vigor is up. It could be a rework of lightning reflexes that is a grandmaster trait.

• A augment of steal that rips invuln status from the target.Again a grandmaster trait. Probably deadly arts would be a good place for this.

• Make stealth attacks unblockable via trait. Hidden killer trait in critical strikes would be a good candidate for this additional effect.

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time. After casting a skill there is a 2 second window where using the same skill costs 50% more initiative.

• Make preparedness baseline.

• Lastly, change rending shade remove the 10% damage reduction, and allow thief to see(but not target-able) all stealth opponents.

People will say this is madness and frankly it is. Thing is that’s what balance has come to, madness of power creep. Which is why I am not really for buffs.

+1 because its a constructive request.

I would really like to know what things anet sees as problematic and shortcoming.
I’m not looking looking for a novel, it could be simple things like,

Issue: struggles with active defenses.
Problem: to high burst damage on backstab creating one shots.
Bug: Bound dodge appears as regular roll to opponet.

It’d be nice because then we the base could have a conversation and compare anets issues/goals with player ones.

Dagger / Dagger is still viable. Staff is a much simpler weapon. There are certain encounters that make one better than the other. Realistically you should have both for pve.

As for the meta builds and when to run what, refer to this

I agree with it. Staff is a pretty decent weapon. The only thing it really lacks is reset potential via stealth. S/P you can do similar shenanigans by precasting pistol whip and then moving onto them via steal/signet/shadowstep. S/P allows you to still have access to stealth too and a nice interrupt.

The issue I usually have with DH when running staff, or s/p is that it’s not worth you time to kill one, as it takes too long. You would do more for the team +1 or backcaping somewhere else on the map. It’s the sad truth.

Menaka.5092:

• being able to customize your gear is great, but the availability of certain stat combinations and runes in WvW make for some builds that are not fun to play against

Agreed 2000%

Menaka.5092:

[snip] various examples of abuse cases such as instant kills, unlimited stealth, near invincibility

Honestly most of these builds are not a problem in spvp because they removed various runes that cause a number of these issues. We don’t need unique balance per game mode in this sense, we need abuse case builds to be adjusted without running all forms of play across the other gamemodes. The only way to adjust it across the game is to bring pvp stats up to wvw/pve level and then do a proper balance pass. It will never happen though.

Menaka.5092:

• some thought must be put on the skills [& traits] that affect multiple opponents because fights aren’t limited to 1-5 opponents in WvW.

The main issue with this honestly is most aoe skills radius are to large and remove the skillful element out of hitting targets. I can hit people by looking in their general direction, rather than placing the skill on them. In turn this leads to aoe spam being the meta. Single target damage dealers either never get to the fight, or have to rely on immunity to be able to get to the target. Which leads into your next segment.

Menaka.5092:

• “passive immortality” is a horrible thing. […]It seems like these passive traits are necessary because the class active play is insufficient to their survival and that means that there’s a balancing problem somewhere: either the burst damage is too high in general or the class doesn’t have enough active defense mechanics.

I think the answer is c) all of the above. Damage, aoes, condi application are way to high. Which makes classes not able to survive. Thus we pile on defenses, and then complain that our classes are unrewarding to play and ask for damage. Guardians recent balance pass is a prime example of a class that had tones of defense but was considered useless the pvp format because it lacked damage. Now there is a lot of people complaining because it has both.

Menaka.5092:

• fixing the fact that is impossible for players to use their own ranged skills from the top of the walls would go a long way in making a nerf to arrow carts possible and make the game mode more about players and less about siege.

Agreed. I’ve commented in your other thread. I think each siege item needs to have a clear role, For example arrow carts should be about forcing the players to spread out. So that people could actually find value in outnumbered fights other than sitting on an ac and doing tones of damage.

@OP, I understand you have this vision and good intentions but there are some major flaws with your direction. Your changes forcibly lock people into blobs, and if your server does not have a large group going there would be no value in any game play as you would not be able to do anything objective wise other than camps on the entire map.

Take AC’s for example. They are needed for a number of reasons:

a) used to destroy other siege.
b) used to suppress groups.
c) the only mechanic that can safely allow you to fire from a height advantage.
d) used to fight outnumbered fights.

While your solution does help with a) and b) it completely removes c) and d) from the game play.

Currently until they fix walls so that you can’t fire further uphill then downhill, arrow carts are the only way to attack downwards without getting absolutely shrek’d in a half a second. The damage is on par on a normal ac with that of a normal ranged aoe that any class could put out but can’t because of the amount of uphill aoe cleave there is that shouldn’t be possible.

Currently ac’s are the only way you can get value out of a fight vs larger groups. Some servers just have higher populations. Combating them with your own blob isnt always possible. Sometimes you just have 20 people, and they have 40. On arrow carts that group of 20 can currently fight tooth and nail, vs 40 for a good while, but eventually they’ll run out of resources. That’s where I think this is balanced out. The larger group can spread out snip its supply line and starve the structure. That’s interesting game play and mechanics at work. It also forces smaller encounters which are healthier for the server and the experience.

What your changes would in contrast do would rip the option of defending for the 20 or so people on that structure. Give them the option to delay the opponent, and then hopelessly watch as the other group just steamrolls the objective. That isn’t interesting. That makes me just want to avoid defending and ktrain their objectives in similar fashion.

For something like ac’s, I’d like to see them do less damage at base, have a much larger radius, and do additional damage based on how many targets are inside with no target limits. Limit to 1 every 2400 units. That would force people to spread out. Then I could actually make picks and see value in some fights.

I could go on about each different siege item and how you’ve done similar things. What we need is siege that forces people to spread out, so that people could engage in small individual battles. Which would add up and decide the outcome of a structure. Your directions the opposite, it forces people into small clumps and removes any kind of counter play. So for me OP idea is a no.

Gibimo.2193:

6k mug is nonsense unless you are upleveled

Not upleveled. This was fully buffed out with bloodlust & food/utility. He runs an abuse case build, that’s all I’ll say.

Necrotize.2974:

If I’m not mistaken, he’d have ~15 stacks of might when initiating the burst just from activating the 3 signets. I say about 15 because he could easily steal stacks from you or have sigils that could proc more.

I’ve never seen him in the entirety of roaming with him (prob about 400 hours) engage with signet of shadows. It’s his get away/kite tool. He rarely pops assassin signet unless he knows he has the kill. So maybe 11 might, more than likely 6 might as I know he does not run bountiful theft.

Necrotize.2974:

I’d honestly settle for tying more unblockable to thief abilities instead of just straight damage/crit buffs. Maybe like “Mug is unblockable, your next 1-3 attacks are unblockable”.

This is more what I’d like to see, right now we struggle with the amount of blocks and invulns going around. Our only tool to break through defenses was re purposed.It makes thief really tedious to play.

I like the idea of mug or a similar trait adding unblockable effects. Possibly maybe even an interrupt effect that forces people out of invuln status. More than likely that would be over the top.

Vorhees.1296:

Is there a precision cap?

Yes and no. The cap is at 100% crit chance. If I remember correctly that is 2995 precision, but you’ll never hit this number.

What most people do is get close to 2400, or 73% crit chance. Then rely on furry and the spotter buff from ranger to put them at 100%.

Various traits can reduce that number, such as side strike. There is also a sigil you can get that gives you 7%, which is worth wile on some classes.

Vorhees.1296:

Is stat priority power > precision > fury

For a power based build, you want as much power & ferocity you can get while having that 100% crit chance. For thief that means berserker armor, for some classes like necro revanant that could mean valkyrie gear, while something like dps mesmer would benefit from assassins gear.

For a condition damage build, you want condition damage and condition duration. Conveniently the best condition damage stat sets are hybrid stat which also gives you decent power and precision, just lacks in ferocity.

Vorhees.1296:

Am I supposed to have such little health points at Lvl 80? (12k currently, as much rare/exotic berserkers gear as possible)

Yes, thief the low health pool character of the medium armor class. Elementalist and guardian share similar health pools. You can mix in some marauders or valkyrie gear for some hp gains and minimal hp losses.

Turk.5460:

DeceiverX.8361:

Necrotize.2974:

What is the point of comparing Mug crits from 4 years ago to the meta now? Back then thief also used to have pretty strong 1v1 and large teamfight potential yet look where we are now.

Here’s a post-HoT screenshot for you.

Mug has a 20% higher coeffient than CnD.

It would be stupid broken, just as it was back in 2012.

This screen shot was taken on a full glass build vs a full glass target with 15-25 stacks of might. Blowing that target a kiss from this build would hit for 4.5k… xD

I know the guy that posted this, ~18k hp is not really glass. Pretty standard as far as thief roaming builds go. He may have had 5 might maybe 10 at most. I’ve had him mug me for 6k before actually buffed out (without signet assassins signet active) . If mug could crit, he’d be doing it for 17k. Think about that for a second, 17k mug. He’d literally mug 90% of most peoples health.

Steal is a pretty loaded skill without traits. Then you can augment it to be even better with traits like mug. I don’t think crit buffs to mug are what will make the class more reliable. We have a tone of skills that are really low impact, and issues landing hits with all the passive defenses going around. Maybe those are better areas to look for buffs as we already have tones of damage in the thief kit.

Thief is part of raid meta. Groups that know what they are doing want thief in the group, sometimes even multiple for fast runs in raids. QT recent record gorse clear is a good example of this.

It’s purely comes down to personal bias within groups and the group situation. It’s very similar to how certain groups choose not to take engineers despite them being one of the highest condi dps classes in the game.

It’s not that thief is bad, it’s just that most groups need the extra utility from the other classes to survive the fight.

Jana.6831:

ETA²: Actually a solution would be to have one item for raids that can only be used by thieves and that you only get in and for raids.

Eh, I am hoping more for something along the lines of a supportive elite spec. Shadow priest or something. That offers some useful tools for the group. It’s the only thing thief is really missing for pve. People will freak out tho if they get anything but rifle again.

kdaddy.5431:

2- The conquests issue. You have always suggested PvP have its own skill system which would be different then PvE and you have always said conquest is not good for watching. I disagree, as someone who played Basket Ball at the HS level and more.

not trying to attack you or anything but the way conquest works and the scale its at is way different than a basketball game. If you were to put it in perspective, at the center line add two length of court on each side. That’s about the scale of your average conquest map compared to a single court. Now add 2 additional balls to the court because there is 3 possible places that plays can be made at once. What your left with would be something absolutely hard to follow. This is the issue with conquest in it’s current form ignoring class balance.

I play this game about 3-5 hours a day, I can watch an ESL match and barely understand what is going on at any given moment. The casters can just barely do better. I totally agree with Countless it’s the format that lends it self to being hard to follow.

What blaq said is correct. It’s all multiplicative. However flawless strike is not some unique multiplier. Its just your average positive multiplier it factors in like the rest, not afterwards.

No quarter is just an additional 250 ferocity nothing more. Also be careful with Practiced Tolerance as it ignores agility signet. So any build editor you use will be out by 18 when using the two combined.

What your looking for I’ve broken down before to calculate out the highest damage with maul. The first formulas you want are:

Skill Raw Damage
Weapon damage in raw form

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient

&

Damage calculation
The formula for damage inflicted on a target can be generalized to damage modifiers that increase the amount of damage inflicted or decrease the amount of damage received.

Damage = (Skill raw damage * Positive multipliers) / (Armor * Negative multipliers)

Multipliers would be multiplied by each other. For example Scholar (0.1) and Lead attacks would equate to a 1.265 modifier, when multiplied by the base for crit (150%) you get a 1.8975 positive multiplier.

I’ve modified a document that I used a long time ago to calculate out highest possible mauls on ranger. Here is an example spreadsheet for backstab’s damage with the modifiers you mentioned vs a pile of diff armors with 2300 power and 1700 ferocity.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xlz45Spd9f41PwkswWbB8rz9f7ReJkcWrBeuxK9uszM/edit?usp=sharing

Edit I’ve cleaned up the document a little bit. No more decimals, I’ve also made it editable. You can type in your own power, ferocity, food. As well as change buffs etc manually.

Maybe not as tanky as you’d like. Here is a pretty potent hybrid build

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Best way to kill DH as a Thief is P/P using assassins with AS, Haste and Either Devourer Venom or Skale Venom, kite from Range and watch them melt as they try to get you on their traps like noobs. This works great 1v1 or for sniping people in group fights.

Granted Engie Hardcounters this so much.

You will only have 11k Hp so if you are not good on positioning/ disengaging you will die so fast.

This works really well.

Something that works for me is precasting pistol whip and then stealing/infiltrator signet on top of them when the evade frames begin, which clears the traps and can get some of the blocks out of the way. If you know the dh has traps down ahead of time and the cooldowns are more than likely back up you can port out with sword 2 and double down on this combo to clear them. Then all you really have to do is run it out of cooldowns.

Or ya know you can just dodge the traps proc the passives on purpose reset, and then kill them. To be honest p/p is the easiest route.

DeceiverX.8361:

Unblockable stealth attacks as compensation for the stealth attack ICD really doesn’t solve the core of the problem on D/D, though, which as you said is inconsistency. Not to mention D/P would still be the primary beneficiary since they have reliable stealth and would also have reliable gap close, blind, and backstab.

There is more to stealth attacks than backstab tho.The ICD change just makes every weapon experince D/D problem of trying to land one of its key skills and being unable to so due to passive effects. D/D’s individual problems and D/P powercreep need to be addressed separately. There is nothing you can do to fix backstab that won’t affect d/p unless you attach the fix to dagger OH skills. Which is something I mentioned above, but again that does nothing for staff, sb or sword which all now share that same consistency issue.

DeceiverX.8361:

If they want to make stealth attacks reliable, they should do so by buffing HK to make them act this way. Instantaneous viability of Crit Strikes as a serious contender with DA and HK being made a half-decent trait in the world of power-creeped precision/crit availability on marauder gear.

Totally agree that this is an attractive route. I also thought rendering shade might be a possible candidate for a rework. Make the boonsteal effect have an ICD and the passive be the unblockable stealth attacks, rather than the misc damage reduction no one asked for (if you want damage reduction CiS is a much better option).

DeceiverX.8361:

There’s just no way to balance the thief in respects to the rest of HoT content. The game is too power-creeped to actually do anything meaningful with the profession anymore with respects to game-wide balance. If you’re not x/P, you’re effectively done playing the thief; ANet can’t offer support to a profession which is doomed regardless of what it does to the profession, and likely is unwilling to make the game properly balanced out of fear of mass retaliation since pretty much the only people left in the rapidly-falling figures are those playing faceroll cheese.

I do feel your outlook is a little cynical and biased. I do think there is viable play with d/d and s/d. Just not as an instant all in or nothing build. Balance shouldn’t allow those kinds of builds as they are abuse cases. All that said, I also do think it takes considerable more effort to play either of those sets and get results and are not a good weapon set for equal skill level fights.

Jana.6831:

Nope, it was a bug/bad programming since it’s gone and I didn’t get younger the past 1,5 years.
I think you can believe me that I’m a pro D/D thief.

I am always cynical & critical of everyones self proclaimed skill. Sorry if my statement came across as hostile.

Jana.6831:

Eval.2371:

The blind on CnD idea would provide defense upon using the skill. Basically your asking blinding powder to be added to CnD. We already have tones of active defenses, be damage reduction while in stealth, dodges galore, or damage reduction via weakness/dodge damage reduction buff. We don’t need this. This idea does not solve either of the issues of landing CnD or landing a stealth attack. It just band aids failed CnD attempts.

The blind only applies when CnD hits, not when it misses and it’s nice to have against all the AoE damage. Unfortunately Anet didn’t know what to do with SA Grandmaster traits, so CiS was moved from adept to grandmaster and a D/D thief now can’t take CiS and SRej – Deceiver, this guy needs some thief lessons.

Fair enough, personally I think the fact that CiS and SRej compete is a good thing. They are both solid traits. Anyways as I stated before hand. Even if the change to make CiS effects base on CnD it still does not change the issue that the thread is about. Which is stealth attacks.

Jana.6831:

So, my bug, you guys know about it. I couldn’t land any CnD, my chance to hit with CnD and steal was at about 0-50%
I haven’t really been in wvw lately but my hit chance should be back to ~70% even with all the blocks – I might test this further but you don’t really need steal to land it, although it’s a higher chance, granted.
I agree on your last post btw.

What you are likely experiencing is one of two things:

Either your muscle memory is too early and your casting CnD to early or your experiencing client side lag. I’d say its likely the former.

I’ll add my two cents to the discussion here. I will preface that I am biased towards some of DeceiverX’s thoughts, as I am a guildie of his, and do frequently roam with him.

The whole problem with the ICD change is that backstab, tatical strike, hook strike and even shortbows surpise shot all became completely unreliable with the amount of passive effects going around. Blinds, blocks, taunts, invulns all take away the reward for the setup thats required to enter stealth, position, and then land the hit on the target.

The idea of adding shadow step to cloak and dagger just takes the challenge of setting up CnD out of the equation. It also makes offhand pistol and dagger to similar. While this change would be welcome for say on d/d it would create balance issues on s/d and p/d which both have really good position skills already. The change still does not fix anything with actually landing the stealth attack. All it really does is make steal and infiltrator signet redundant.

The blind on CnD idea would provide defense upon using the skill. Basically your asking blinding powder to be added to CnD. We already have tones of active defenses, be damage reduction while in stealth, dodges galore, or damage reduction via weakness/dodge damage reduction buff. We don’t need this. This idea does not solve either of the issues of landing CnD or landing a stealth attack. It just band aids failed CnD attempts.

Unblockable in the form its mentioned (making CnD its self unblockable) I feel is kinda the right direction with cloak and dagger, but it does do very high damage, and could be spammed. It would create a scenario where you could ignore blocks and stack vuln on targets. You could end up with offhand dagger becoming much like unload but in melee form. The only way this would fairly work, is to drastically lower the damage. Again, this does not fix the issue of being able to land a stealth attack.

Honestly my own thoughts are we need have a mechanic of some sort that make the stealth attack reliable to land now that we cannot spam them and only have one chance to land. We used to have this in the form of bv. However with the changes to make it only one stun it makes landing the stealth attack no longer reliable. I mean you can do it, but your really pressed for time to BV during stealth and make the attack. Also d/d does not have this option, as you need to bv to gain access to stealth.

I think the only viable and fair way of going about this is to make the next attack after CnD unblockable. It would allow reliably to set up a stealth attack combo with CnD+BV again. My only issue with this it does not help or fix staff/sb consistency with stealth attacks. It technically would allow you to spam CnD but a huge cost to gain 2 unblockable hits at most.

Another thought is to make stealth attacks unblockable as a base or trait, but honestly I feel like that is asking for way to much. Maybe this would be the right avenue if anet does go through with the bugfixes to hearseeker(being able to leap finish multiple times in black powder by adjusting the camera is considered a bug) in the near future. Then I could see this kind of change be balanced.

Edit: I think I am done editing.

anduriell.6280:

As i see most of the classes are more or less balanced, Will Anet spend any time to improve the ranger?

this profession had a very bad skills and traits design

I think that many of our traits have more substance than other classes. We have traits like remorseless and quick draw that completely change how you play the class. I am not saying there isnt issues with ours.

Skills again functionally most of them are amazing. Long bow really stands above all our other weapons. Staff really is a truly flexible weapon. Greatsword and Sword would be absolutely amazing weapons if the coefficients were there. They are not tho. Personally I’ve always felt that shortbow and axe are confused weapons. They don’t functionally work. They are both ranged weapons that require you to be point blank to get the most out of them, with no way to close the gap.

We also have a lot of skills that are weaker versions of other classes skills but on shorter cool downs. This creates this whole visage of your pressing a lot of buttons thinking your doing something but you really are not, your just getting by, and some other class can do the same damage as your perfect setup rotation with just auto attacks. In many scenarios it leads to why would I bring a ranger when I can bring X instead.

We have pets, which for the most part everything excluding smoke scale still cannot hit moving targets. Aftercast changes are what ever. They don’t mean anything. The highest pet dps is just under 2k. Yet our coefficients on our weapon skills are across the board 50% lower than other classes on similar weapons. Our pets are supposed to make up the difference, or at least be 30% of our damage, not less than 10% in best case scenarios. Something has to change; pets scaling or our scaling.

Druid, many people have different thoughts. Personally I like all of it but ca 1.

The main issue with druid/ranger is its ok at a lot of things. It does not stand out at anything other then heal/buffing and that’s a problem. You cannot spec for damage and get decent numbers. Most of our utility is overshadowed by better tools that have longer durations.

More I think about this I wonder if swapping the return and engage ranges would be a good change to make the chase potential there while still having some of the return potential. I think that would be a simple fix, it would allow us to spend our init to chase. Obviously it would need some tuning as a 1200 range engage is a bit much. I think 900 range would be fair and allow us to gain 300 ground per cast.

Something like

Infiltrators Strike
Range 900
Cost 4

Infiltrators Return
Range 600
Cost 1

Rest unchanged. What are other peoples thoughts? would you rather we could escape better or chase? Frankly the 1200 return range has rarely been that advantageous for my own play.

OP I also don’t enjoy dagger or backstab. I used to play a s/d a lot, I personally find s/p a better weapon in most match ups(except engineer). From my perspective while running s/p condi is pretty easy to deal with. All I run trait wise for condi clear is escapist absolution. I do run signet of agility and shadow step for condi clear though. Here are some tips/option not listed above.

• One thing you missed is shadow step. It’s also a 3 condi removal on the return cast.
• Evading the application is your best friend. Abuse our 3 dodges to avoid major applicator skills.
• Channeled vigor and agility signet both give you extra dodges to allow you to dodge key skills and clear condi’s.
• Interrupt is also a good way to avoid condi, things like confusing images on scepter are high stacks, but are a long channeled cast that can be stopped.
• Sword 2 is 5 init, it is purely situational tho. I always try to engage or follow up with this to allow me the opportunity to nope out/clear. A combo I like to do with escapist’s absolution is to 2 in dodge behind and port back. You will get two clears out of the 5 cost and a dodge as well as confuse lower players. Be careful on repeating this move on smarter players. A smart warrior will ruin your day if you do this more than once.
• Escapist’s absolution works with pistol whip, you can get up to two condi clears from its evade frames. For dealing with things like wells and marks; you can pre cast pistol whip then steal on top of them, evading the ground targeted effects and clearing condi.
• For confusion your best bet is to black powder, bound dodge and wait out the confusion.

Evilek.5690:

Eval.2371 Guardian and passive defenses ? Guardian is not Warrior or Engineer with passive defences, guardian have all defences like active skills.

Only Hunter’s Determination CD 45 sec gain aegis after CC and Valorou’s defences make aegis on 5 sec 30 sec CD when your HP drop under 50%.

I’m using the trait as an example. Guard has a lotof passive effects either that proc automatically or add to a current skills. I didn’t feel the need to write it all out but since you asked….

A standard cookie cutter valor virtues dragon hunter build traits give you:

• Valorous defense block every 30 seconds below 50%hp
• Hunter’s Determination Gain agis and stab, then lay fragments of faith which will allow a guard to gain stab and another block, and potentially another 4 blocks
• Retaliatory Subconscious Every 30 seconds get an auto stubreak with agis
• Hunter’s Fortification clears 1 condi per sec. if no condi, 10% damage reduction

Then add in resolve and courages passive effects, which is extra regen, and block every 30 sec or refresh.

Sure none of it is auto defy pain. Still does not change that there is a lot of passive defense and sustain that automatically activates for the player without them having to do anything. That’s the point I’m trying to make here, there is a lot of dh that plays its self.

Dragon hunter/guard still has many active effects that allow it to sustain as well, things like smite condition on heal, or wings of resolve aoe heal and condi clear. I have no problem with the active side. I think those types of skills are healthy.

Overall what I am trying to get across is that dragonhunter is a frustrating opponent with all its active & passive defenses it takes a considerable amount of effort and time to exhaust all of guards passive and active defenses to have a window to finally attempt to kill the the thing. A lot of time this carries lower skilled players, because the class half plays its self. I do not believe the amount of active and passive effects together on the class are healthy or enjoyable to fight against.

My issue with DH isnt one shot potential or the amount of condi some people complain about. My issue is the amount of passive defenses combined with certain frustrating mechanics.

Guard as a whole has so many passive defenses; with traits like valorous defense which can provide agis numerous times in a fight and active defenses like renewed focus its really hard to burn down a guard. This combo of sustain heals, blocks, invulns allow guard to just stall out a fight for a very long time. Dragonhunter extended ontop of this base with even more passive defenses, and even better active effects on the virtues. I do agree with the statement of “Once all their defs are gone they floop like a pancake”. Most classes that do not have similar sustain or invulns cannot deal with dragonhunters pressure combined with its sustain. It’s very easy for a low skilled player to sustain against a much higher skilled player because of the amount of passive and active defenses dragonhunter/guard has.

Now I want to talk about dragons maw and hunters ward. Both of them do good damage. That’s fine, what the issue with this skill is how the walls are invisible. Which is frustrating because when you do make a mistake and are locked in one, you can repeatably punish your self for not being able to see the invisible walls basically that will repeatedly knock your self down. The only way to reliably deal with this is inulvn and standing still or pop stability and walk out. Stun breaks like lightning reflexes will only punish you with another knockdown. We used to be able to use block and stand in place but now that heavy light can be combo’ed with unblock able deflecting shot. Also blinking out cc’s you as if you hit the wall…

Traps one issue with is the fact that dh is bugged atm and it allows them to place multiple traps in one cast animation. This can catch people off guard at the start of team fights, rarely does in low man fights.

Traps in general have pretty fast animations. While I do agree with many that you can dodge them, they have a very short window to dodge and are visually difficult to see if you were not there to watch the dh place them. the visual ques on ranger and thief traps are much more clear and noticeable.

Another issue is test of faith damages you even if you do not physically cross it. If you shadow step out, you take damage. If you blink across the whole distance of the trap, you take damage twice. It works like this for any blink skill.

This seasons just as bad if not worse than before.

• Premade 5man guild teams vs my entire team randoms Check
• Class stacking is still rampant. Check
• Absurd amount of passive defenses that reward poor play Check
• Absurd amounts of high damage/application AoE Check
• Over inflated elite specs. Check
• Next to no viable build diversity Check
• Matchmaking geared for 50/50 to make it a grind fest Check

Kageseigi.2150:

noot.8641:

Well, it was a bug, But the bug has been ingame since launch.

Do you know what else is a bug? Heartseeker’s length being affected by the direction of the camera. As in what gives the ability to leap four times through a single Black Powder. Directly from one of the programmers…

Action Cam + Thief = Issues

Joel Helmich.7398:

pointing the camera down does not shorten the Heartseeker’s leap, making it much more difficult to jump inside Black Powder multiple times.

The behavior you want is almost certainly a bug in the first place, so I’m not sure what to tell you.

Sad thing is, if they were to change this, any half decent thief would know how to use bound and heartseeker properly to get the same four leap finishers. I dare anet to fix this.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zintrothen.1056:

Thieves are gods…if played well. The vast majority of thieves suck. A small portion is good enough to get somewhere, and then there’s the best. The best make the class truly OP.

Thieves are squishy but deal ungodly damage. A good thief can deal that damage while not getting hit.

So yes, thieves are OP. Most thieves will deny it, but most thieves suck or are extremely bias. Same thing goes for mesmers.

If it requires icy high skill to be OP then the class isn’t OP, OP is when a noob is able to run a class that pilots itself and allows the noob to play at levels of better players just for rolling the Op class.

/endthread.

Seriously tho, I won’t point fingers, but there are a few classes that enable poor play and reward them for it with passive defenses. Which is exactly what counters thiefs because they are all about active offences.

Agreed, it’s not just at the traits though. It goes further. A lot the active skills are defensive.

Look at chronomancer for example; shield alone gave:

• 3 seconds of block
• 4 seconds of slow from phantasms
• Aoe cc that can be used offensively and defensively.
• Projectile destruction
• Cool down reduction

That’s from a single off hand weapon. It’s a lot of defense. Then add on the utilities; the heal (condi clear and sustained heals), well of precognition(stability and protection) , well of calamity(weakness and cripple), gravity well (mass pulsing cc). Then the almighty reset button the chronoshift. You have an overloaded defensive kit, before traits, which just happen to have nice defensive options.

Currently on mesmer you can run around with zerker amulet and be as difficult to deal with as cele ele was before it was removed. Here is the thing tho. The issue isn’t mesmer or mesmers kit, its chrono’s. Chrono isn’t solely the issue either, every class got defensive additions similar to the descriptive chunk above. Then compound all this defense with damage/utility increases that came with the elite specs on top of that and you realize it’s raw power creep. Every single elite spec is grossly overtuned to the point that your selling your self short if you don’t take them. Elite specs were from my understanding supposed to change the class functionally, not define them permanently.

Sadly, that isnt what anet’s interested in, all they care about it selling a product. OP elite specs continues to sell expansions. So it won’t change. I’ll call it here and now, the next expansion is going to have even more power creep. Prob to the point that our current elites are unuseable.

Boons, and boon sharing is another problem on it’s own, but isnt exclusive to HoT. I can think of various ways to break boons with the base classes in it’s current state. It’s why cele ele was so strong back when it was a thing. People are just more aware of it because we have them coming out the ying yang now.

Jana.6831:

AikijinX.6258:

It may have been on blatant display, but you know Anet doesn’t knows how to Thief. What you did was gave them an explanation on how to do it. It may have been blatant in Thief streams,etc, but they were still left in the dark.

Whats done is done though, so no use in calling names.

Since I’m on these forums for now 2,5 years: Do you think this is the first time this trick has been explained? I knew that trick and I never played S/X.
You are right though: Devs don’t know how to thief and they like to copy &paste off the forums.
BUT is it the players who are to blame or them who should know how their classes work?!

I understand the statement’s redundant. Maybe anet should be looking to it’s base that better understands how it’s own classes play out for balance rather than the current team. I mean, for the most part I’d like to think that the community can and would do a better job at pointing out shortcomings and overturned points on their own classes. Sure their will be fanatics here and there that push for kneejerk changes. Overall I think the pro base would do a really respectable job of adding variety and viability as it would overall give them more approaches.

There is a lot of people that really have a sour taste in their mouth this balance quarter. Pretty much if you weren’t guard or mesmer you got skinned.

weskay.9217:

As I am writing this, I have AFK’d for about 5 hours. I’ve put a solid dent in my reward track but I do feel for those that would rather have my spot in a queued server. I’ve had a few nasty PM’s and a few nasty remarks in say chat but they shouldn’t even be directed at me. I’m AFKing here because ArenaNet decided it was OK to do so by implementing a reward track.

You know your right. They did decide that it’s ok to afk. They should make you play wvw. They should make gift of battle only obtainable by wvw achievements( see yak slapper and royal guard) not some phony reward track. I’d say that’s about as grueling as doing map completion.

Evan Nebula.4608:

It’s not like the weapon set has been completely destroyed

But it has, you effectively cannot chase a target anymore with sword.

This change only reinforces the need of shadow shot.
This change only stifles build diversity and locks players into d/p & shortbow.
I am tired of both of these weapons. I’m tired of seeing people use them. I’m tired how d/p is the only viable set.

The bug while not intended was a large part of swords mobility. I understand this is a bug fix, but it takes so much away from sword and were not compensated in any form. No range increase, no damage adjustments.

Can confirm seems fixed in the last patch…

Welp i guess I have no choice but to use dagger and spam crapshot to catch anything.

Blacksarevok.8104:

How far behind is sword compared to staff when talking solely from a dps perspective. Is it at least viable/competitive, or is it too far off?

Don’t know, why don’t you go to the dps golem and test it. Bonus points if you post your results here.

Jeknar.6184:

Chaba.5410:

Servers that are last in their match and have the lowest KDR clearly are getting blobbed.

And when the lowest score is the highest KDR such as TC is at T1 atm?

I am no analyst, but I’d say it’s related to the fact that we get night capped and karma trained on off hours.