Guild Wars 2

Been back on the game since 8 months of leave.

I played some soloq today, and twice has happened that. I’ve been always under the impression that Withdraw can’t be interrupted in any way (it has the kitten incorporated evade) and has no cast time, but nonetheless I got it cancelled twice.

I didn’t have it on queue after another skill either, and no stun/daze was on me, I just started casting it and after a really brief time it reverted to uncast status.

Just a lag/ping issue or is there something else that I’m missing?

Honestly, I’ve had this problem since the beta. I quit the game for 8 months, came back, they supposedly changed something in the targeting code in a patch, but the problem it’s there unscathed.

It’s ok imo to have SoloQ arenas with an associated leaderboard.

The problem lies in the fact that TeamQ shouldn’t be used to single out people from the overall team.

We should have:

- Hot Joins, to have a laugh/test things;
- SoloQ, to give egomaniacs the right to brag in being top 10 without showing any relevant team skill
- TeamQ, which should be handled exactly as GW1 GvGs: only a Guild may start a TeamQ (in particular, only GMs/Officers with the right to do so), even if they have in team people from other guilds (i.e.: old GW1 guests). Use ELO ratings associated to guilds, and only for guilds, so we’ll have a ladder system exactly like the one in GW1 which functioned pretty well (even regarding matchmaking).

This should be a team game, and as such team matches should be given the top importance.

Custom servers could be used obviously even by pro guilds to play training matches, sparring matches with other guilds (with no impact whatsoever on the ELO rating), etc.

I agree with everything that Elitist said, and I’d like to add one more thing about D/P vs S/D: disengage/engage capabilities.

Assuming both thieves are using SB as a 2nd set, in a duel between 2 equally skilled players, the S/D one is at a loss when trying to disengage, due to the fact that the D/P has one more gap closing skill, Shadow Shot, which gives the D/P the ability to almost always reach a disengaging S/D thief (unless he’s a scrub and while the S/D is fleeing he wastes time in stealthing with BP+HS instead of going after him, but I said “two equally skilled players”).

Sube Dai.8496:

That’s a good point actually. Worth some discussion. One big reason that comes to mind would be too many particle effects in GW2, which GW1 didn’t have…

Sure, the particles/effects bordering trigger-happy epilepsy are a downside.

But as a former avid GW1 GvG player (who, btw, can’t stand at all how players in GW2 can call a minizerg TDM 20vs20 “GvG”…), I can pinpoint some other serious issues regarding observer mode and the huge difference in it between GW1 and GW2.

First, and most important, reason: the pace of the game. GW1 was a lot slower than GW2 overall, and for that exact reason required a higher skill cap to play well as a team (i.e.: just remember what teams like War Machine/Last Pride could and were able to do, regardless of build). But, as an observer, you could follow, due to that slower pace, the match in a meaningful way, understanding positioning, skill usage and even team play.

Second, skills/game mechanics/tooltips were crystalline clear. No hidden mechanics, no useless wow-esque high numbers, skill descriptions were clear and straightforward, no random skill/traits effects. This helped a lot in both playing and watching a match and almost fully understand it: “that player is now using skill X, which does Y, in the Y moment, I get why he/she did that”.

Both previous reasons lead to a greater understanding of how team builds worked: balanced, spike, condispam, hexspam, split teams.

Oh, and let’s not forget the skill casting bar – it helped too in observer mode, even though it was (clearly) a lot more useful while playing the game.

And, as a final added bonus, you could even watch your OWN games, just to try to find what went incredibily wrong in the last match. Some people used it to grieve and for name-calling to their own team mates, but good players used it in a much more meaningful and useful way: to learn from each player mistakes and to learn how to be better as a team (for example, if the mistake lied in a bad decision by the team leader or by poor execution of a good decision, etc.).

TheFamster.7806:

anet forgot to close this thread

Win!

MightyMicah.7451:

Hmm. Well in that case, in accordance with proper algebraic equations and mmo mentality,…CnD needs buff!!!

And thus we now know that you, as the OP, should L2P!

Yeah, but I wasn’t going into the old discussion about which “build” overall got buffed by the change, I was referring just to ini regen with trickery line or without it.

I didn’t delete my thief at the time, but indeed I quit before that patch, and came back a couple weeks ago after 8 months of not playing at all.

It’s really sad to see that things haven’t changed much thou, especially on the forum where we can still read random rants and whines made by players who, after all this time, haven’t still understood how thief is played and its inherent mechanics, thinking that it’s just a facerotflstomp class.

Zacchary.6183:

It wasn’t over the top even before Dec 10th when they decided to nerf the profession by 33%. Everyone who didn’t play thief thought it was over the top because spamming.

This.

The changes to initiative regen nerfed the regen of trickery specced thieves, it’s a known and proven fact. They gave a little boost to all the others, but overall it was clearly a nerf.

vincecontix.1264:

Its better than a completely unavoidable skill. We also need to consider the buffs to rangers lb.The knock back and rapid fire channels and follow a thief even after stealthing.

Lots of thiefs have already experienced the heavy damage from rapid fire after stealthing its gonna worse after patch.

Come on, a ground target reveal is unavoidable more than it will be the new Sic’Em/Analyze.

You put shadow refuge on the ground, Analyze/Sic’em GT on it, gg. It’d render THE must have skill for 95%+ of thief builds completely useless, with no counter. At least, as it is now you can see before entering stealth that you have the Revealed debuff up for 6 seconds (and you need to be not stealthed to apply it).

The GT one would pull thieves out of stealth after they entered it, so it’d be much worse.

vincecontix.1264:

At the very lest Anet should allow it to be dodged or make reveal skills ground targeting.

With gt think what would happen vs Shadow Refuge.

Nocta.5274:

Weird, I for sure remember a time where Infiltrator arrow range was nerfed somehow.

I think you’re referring to the (not sure if intended by Anet) dodge-after-shadowstepping nerf, before we could perfectly use Infi Arrow AND dodge as soon as ported, now if we try to do that we dodge but we remain in place where we port.

IA has always been a 900 range skill since beta.

NinjaEd.3946:

Doubt its a bug. The duration of stealth it grants if you manage to stay in it is rather high. Not complaining, just saying it has a counter because of that. A really, really easy counter….

Imo it’s a bug. Just think about other pulsing areas in the game, like Healing Rain or Healing Spring: if you get out of the aoe before the pulses are over, you don’t lose the regen buff.

It doesn’t even make any sense to state “every pulse you gain 3s stealth” and then to be revealed if you stay inside for just 1-2 pulses and then get out.

unlucky.9285:

I mean they already gave you <…> too many ways to clear conditions -.-..

Magische Boek.2530:

all the times ive seen this happen lol.

anyway, why does SR apply revealed when you exit it to soon? it should just give you less stealth time.

Bug. Never addressed. Never will be.

TheBandicoot.5294:

So, to write on topic – those skill changes don´t pose that much of a direct nerf to me. Sure, they are portable hard-counters, and even S/D acrobatics will use CnD from time to time (those who just spam #3 will not, of course, but that ain´t proper thieves, THOSE are the perma evade noobs to accuse!). The only problem i have with those is the fact they´re instacast. I strongly dislike anything being instacast, because the only way to see such skills coming is a lucky dodge / blind / block. But i will survive even those changes, the same way i have survived the previous changes, right?

Not only this imo. This is a hard-counter to a whole trait line of our class, it’d be very similar if we could get access to a skill, insta-cast, that would render the F skills of other players unavailable for 2-3 seconds. It’s just plain dumb.

Some things on top of my mind, especially catered to WvW players but nonetheless useful in PvE too:

- A special Satchel which occupy just 1 slot in the inventory, in which a player can store a full equipment set (armor, trinkets, weapons) and with the right click + equip swap all the equipment that the player is wearing at the moment with the one inside the satchel. Since WvW players usually bring with themselves at least 2 equipment sets (for example, one useful when roaming and the other one when zerging), this item would be a nice addition.

- Full retrait/equipment change, a player can buy single slots in which to store a complete setup (traits + equipment) that can be changed as fast as two clicks of the mouse. The equipment must be in the inventory ofc, and ckittene the equipment inside a Satchel if the player has one.

- Permanent sigils/rune on items. For a charge, you can add another sigil/rune on a piece of equipment which can be used forever. For example, on my weapon I can equip first a sigil of Fire, then buy the gem store unlock, use it on the weapon, and then add another sigil, for example a sigil of Bloodlust. After that, I can switch freely on that weapon between Fire and Bloodlust.

These ideas stem from the fact that WvW players are the ones most “obsessed” (in a positive way) with build performance, and a lot less interested in skins, which, as pointed out by other people in this same thread, usually can’t be fully appreciated since most players lowers the settings to get the most fps out of the game.

I’m sure other things useful with build change comfort can be thought, without resorting to the pay-to-win mentality.

I know but I don’t plan to put a bloodlust sigil on any underwater weapons.

I’m almost done equipping the toon to play WvW with this build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPxwJ8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfk+2EA-TVSBABWqOAN7PQpKPmpE8KlLRcKAwSJFe6DA4IAQKABVGB-w

Pretty straightforward S/D-SB Acro/Trickery thief, but I’m torn when I have to decide which sigil to apply to the S/D set to complement the Sigil of Fire.

Bloodlust is a nice addition when capped, roughly +10% on damage (since I have 2488 Power), but it has the obvious downside that I lose the stacks when downed (and when getting into water).

Force is a straightforward +5% to dmg always up, so less dmg but always available.

And last possible chance is the Air one, I don’t know the base Skill coefficient of the sigil damage so I can’t really compare it (and it never crits).

Which one would you choose, and why?

Thanks for the feedback.

When you could melt people down with PW + Haste?

How did you manage to change the cursor color to blue? It’s a life saver!

RLHawk.3290:

I also have the key but not the chest.

For those who think they key disappeared, I’d just say to double/triple check. I thought mine was gone for a bit before I found it. Search your inventory/bank for “Season” to help find it, and remember that it’s probably on whatever character you were playing when you got it.

I already did that. Twice. On all my 8 toons, and with both banks (personal/guild). Nothing. The key just vanished. So I wonder if I’m really the only one or someone else “lost” the key after the Dec 10 patch.

After the “Increase from 2 to 2 ini regen”, there’s another little clue that they don’t want thieves around anymore. Look at the picture and smile (or cry, or shout, or whatever).

New stealth will be “hide behind gifts, no more invisibility”.

:D

Am I the only who not only didn’t receive the chest yet, but had the Season 1 key disappear from my inventory?

I’d like to know if this happened to someone else, in the meantime I’ll open a ticket with the support (but I have a very bad feeling that they’ll not resolve my issue)…

The difference with an exotic in stat bonuses is really low.

However, the armor rating of every piece is 5% higher than the corresponding exotic piece (same diff. as exo-asc weapons).

So, on average, I’d say we should get a +3% on overall armor rating (depending on how much tough from bonuses/traits we have).

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

I’m sorry, but I don’t find your reasoning for the nerf to IS/SR valid.

Regarding #1: you do not nerf the only other generic Sword MH skill, apart from autoattack, in order to address a problem related to a specific set, namely S/D. This is a bad approach to the problem, you gave to the thief specific dual skills based on the combination of MH/OH, so if the problem lies in a specific build with a particular dual skill, you should address the problem modifying that particual dual skill. Hitting (more again) S/P with this nerf is completely uncalled for and a bad decision. It just “pidgeonholes” us more than before.

Regarding #2: Why don’t you just add an interrupt when using a teleport skill (or just IS/SR) while stomping? I think you’re fine with using Shadowstep to port-stomp (due to the high CD), then just make Shadow Return to interrupt the stomp if used, so a thief can’t just start stomp -> port back with SR -> use Infi Signet to port back to the stomped player -> stomp him. Even if I don’t see this as a huge problem, not as much as you see it – the player needs to waste Infi Signet (30 secs CD) + 2 ini, I’d say that’s a fair cost in trying to get a more secure stomp.

I may sound harsh, but since my main set has been S/P since beta (and I just loved from first sight this set ), I know how much you nerfed it during this year and a half (to the point of forcing me out of it after the last “stun fix” patch), but never addressed the real problems directly. We had:

- PW + Haste -> the problem was Haste -> you nerfed the damage of PW by a whopping -15%; then you proceeded to nerf quickness for all classes, without reverting the nerf to PW.
- IS/SR -> You removed the stun break capability of Shadow Return (but that was ok, since at least we could port away while CCed), then you proceeded to nerf the range (from 900 to 600). Now you want to “fix” again a problem related to a specific set (S/D) with a change in a skill that impacts a lot more to another set (S/P).

You really need someone on your staff to play constantly a thief to understand all these problems (all the others related to ini regen/traits are quite well explained by other fellow thieves in this same thread ) and with all these past and future modifications it seems you’re just trying to save a flooded ship using a bucket.

Fade.7658:

Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.

So, before we had a 0.5 after cast from stun to the flurry (thus the stun part of PW was totally useless).

Now we’ll get a 0.25s window in which to land the, uhm, maybe first 2 hits of the flurry?

Is this some kind of perverted joke?

Thief class has a lot of problems atm, that’s granted.

But whining when playing thief and thinking that going ranger would be better, it’s a non-sense.

Especially in WvW, rangers are (sadly for them) the easiest class to kill for us thieves, hands down. I’d go as far as saying that Ranger is the worst class at the moment (except obv for the spirit build in tPvP, but that’s a specific single build for point holding and nothing more).

A melee staff would be interesting, similar in use to the DAOC’s Friar class.

But they should fix ASAP the actual available weapons before adding new ones.

Sanduskel.1850:

I don’t see this class as a one trick pony and i reject the assumption that it’s less useful. People still hate this class so we must be doing something productive!

So, what do we REALLY have (especially in WvW, since 90% of the whining about thief stems from that), apart from D/P-D/D-P/D builds?

Effectiveness of Sword main is way below par to Dagger main (backstab + permastealth is the culprit in case of D/P, or backstab + CnD in case of D/D, which still does tons of damage in a very short time frame window while being able with both sets to troll opponents appearing and vanishing into thin air until they die or give up), and P/D is effective in spamming bleeding again due to entering/exiting stealth very frequently.

I play thief since beta, it’s always been my main class, but at least I’m honest enough to understand that in WvW (again, it’s in this “game mode” that we get the most complaints from opponents) we’re one trick ponies (the trick is stealth, stealth, stealth and again stealth) with nothing more to offer if we part from it.

We really have a lot of problems, not only linked to high burst damage with low risk involved, but even in other areas always linked to stealth: what about condition removal capabilities outside of Shadow’s Embrace? Can’t you see that stealth is superior even in this aspect? It’s the best way to cleanse conditions on thief (you can’t cleanse enough conditions spamming IS compared to SE, and being in the meantime protected from direct attacks since you’re in stealth).

yski.7642:

Here we go again..

~16.5k backstabs are doable in real combat scenarios. You could take it even higher with blood lust stacks (I’m too lazy for them) and more ascended gear. Here’s a video, build is in the description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

Why Executioner and not Hidden Killer? It would fit this build a lot better, since you rely mostly on backstab high damage, with full ascended (and zerker) trinkets/weapons, you have 62% crit chance, so better go for HK to land critted backstab, then you have 82% after the backstab almost all the times with Furious Ret.

Burnfall.9573:

Galandil.9641:

Burnfall.9573:

It is allowed since Guild Wars 2 release and Arena.net honors it.

To answer your second question, yes, only thief class can cheat but don’t call them cheater though, cause they will deny it to the end; yes! even to the end to your sudden deaths.

You’re the guy who stated in another thread that thieves can backstab for 12-27k. Why should we ever, even for a tiny amount of time equal to the decaying time of a bottom quark, take you seriously?

“bottom quark” you say?

Do you read anything? because if you did, you also should’ve known that Name Callings and Insults are against The Rules

(I will not report you so next time, restrict yourself from doing so)

And I’m Serious!!

You should learn a little bit more the english language (since I see that you’re not a mother language), in order to understand that I did not call you a bottom quark, the message was quite different.

And I’m serious too.

About the backstab image, that was pre-nerf of Assassin Signet, and no one stated if the target was naked or else. The math is there, use it to your advantage instead of spamming bullkitten on this forum, it’s time better spent in the former case, you could learn a thing or two about the class and how to play against it.

Burnfall.9573:

It is allowed since Guild Wars 2 release and Arena.net honors it.

To answer your second question, yes, only thief class can cheat but don’t call them cheater though, cause they will deny it to the end; yes! even to the end to your sudden deaths.

You’re the guy who stated in another thread that thieves can backstab for 12-27k. Why should we ever, even for a tiny amount of time equal to the decaying time of a bottom quark, take you seriously?

“Thief, War, Necro, Ranger all have their easy-to-play, redic-high-reward OP builds.”

:D

Ironvos.9014:

What is this dargonite you speak of ?
Only needed for ascended weapons?
Good thing those don’t mean a thing is wvw

I think you don’t have a clear idea of the difference.

Apart from stats differences (which are not very high between exotics and ascended), the most important part is/will be the difference in weapon damage/armor rating of every single piece.

Ascended weapons -> +5% weapon damage compared to Exotic weapons (for example, a gs goes from 995-1100 to 1045-1155, +5% dmg, or an sb goes from 905-1000 to 950-1050, again +5%).

Same goes (if you go check the links in game) for the new ascended armors: +5% to armor rating for every single piece.

This means that a full exo geared character will have a “differential” of about 7-8% to a full ascended geared one. And 8% is a HUGE systemic difference.

And people who love only to do WvW should be able to get the same ascended “rewards” as PvE ones, if they play roughly the same overall time.

Karolis.4261:

Im pretty sure thats d/p and its pulsing stealth perk, it allso heals double every 3d tick (dunno if it used before). Its hard to notice it w/o any long conditions but im pretty sure CnD still removes 2x conditions in 4s time.

Huh, no, I tried a simple setup vs the engi npc in the mist, with just 15 in SA and using Blinding Powder I got Vulnerability and Bleeding both removed just 1 second before BP ended. No d/p at all, I had s/p equipped.

ensoriki.5789:

Sword/Pistol was super nerfed.
Pistol whips stun now lasts half as long. It cannot hold anyone which means it struggles far more than ever to get damage

The tooltip always states 1/2 sec for the stun, I tried it and to me it seems that the stun lasts 0.5 secs, did you try it and you counted only 0.25 secs?

@evilapprentice: tnx for the link.

Sceinna.3561:

I just tested again in sPvP standing in middle of caltrops & perma stealthing, 2 conditions every 3s (dunno where that 2nd cure came from tbh :/)

I tried it now to be sure, it seems you’re right, in sPvP we get 1 condition cleansed every 3 seconds of stealth (with 1 condition cured as soon as we enter stealth).

Bug or intended?

Fade.7658:

I just tested Shadow’s Embrace. It removes a condi every time you enter stealth. I haven’t tested the interval portion as of yet.

1 cnd every 10 seconds, it’s stated in the tooltip of the trait.

I agree with you regarding the bad perception of thieves in dungeons: most players are just autoattack/hs spam drones, and aren’t even able to avoid damage while doing that, going down so often that in the end that kind of thief is a liability in the party instead of an help.

But sometimes even other classes don’t help us in helping them: I’ve seen countless times players using #1 downed skill, even after I warned them (at the start of the dng) “hey guys, I’m bringing Shadow Refuge, pls DON’T spam downed #1 when I use it”.

Or the countless times when a LB ranger (kitten them) uses Point Blank Shot while I just start my Pistol Whip. And so on.

Is there people who still cares, after 14 months, about rank?

C’mon guys, rank it’s just a measurement of how much you play sPvP, not how good you play it. And apart from aesthetic rewards, glory doesn’t give anything else.

Ofc this exploit should be fixed, but it should not be one the primary concerns about sPvP atm, there’re a lot more serious issues to be addressed by Anet.

Zumy.6318:

What?

I feel stupid now.

He’s saying that comparing a +100 stat increase depends on the base value to which you’re adding those 100 points.

For example, if you compare a +100 vitality increase to a hp pool of 15000, you’ll have a relative increase of hps of 1/15, or +6.66%. But every hp added from equipment/traits is added to a base of 10805 for us thieves, so that same +100 vit gives an increment of 1000/10805 of 9.25% (since all the other hps come from equipment/traiting) in absolute terms.

Same goes for all the other stats.

The EHP concept would be perfect if the game wasn’t so condition oriented as it is now, since armor doesn’t influence the damage you receive from conditions…

I don’t want to mean that EHP is useless, but that it should be clear that when dealing with conditions, the Armor factor is nil, and all that matters in that case is the hp pool of the condition recipient.

Doomdesire.9365:

Rafahil.2857:

If PW becomes an immobilize it’s not a nerf as long as it lasts long enough for the attack to complete.

You can always modify it to be longer with condition duration

Not if the duration will be the same as the one of the stun (0.5 secs).

However, such alleged modifications would destroy literally the S/P viability, since:

- Cripple on IS, which is a condition already present in the AA sword chain;
- Immobilize on PW, which can be cleansed way more easily AND for a cost of 5 ini instead of 3 of IS;
- From cripple + immo + stun we would go down to just cripple (x2) and immo for sword main.

Or maybe they decided to remove the stun from thief sword #3 to give it to war sword #3, it’d compliment very well the wvw damage of 9k+ of their skill and balance way more the game!

Zacchary.6183:

I think all our problems would eventually be solved if anet played the thief.

Won’t happen, they’re all too busy playing warriors.

crouze.3078:

Using the auto attacks instead of pistol whip will increase your damage because you have more +x% damage bonus for initiative.
You can use pistol whip once when initiative is full or use black powder only to make the trash mobs miss and support the group.

I haven’t seen the video, but this outright it’s not entirely true.

Playing this build requires for sure a good ini management, usually the sequence is this:

- Infi Strike, to go to the pack of mobs/single mob while having an instant and safe retreat;
- PW + Steal → Steal will give back the 3 ini of IS, thus again at 15, and PW will drop ini to 10, and at the end of PW we’ll be at 12.
- PW again, back to 7, end of PW up to 8/9 (not considering the proc of the minor trait that gives back 1 ini 20% on crit)
- After this, autoattack until ini goes back to at least 11.

Full autoattack chain and PW deal roughly the same DPS, but with a high crit chance it’s better to use PW, since we inflicts 1+8 hits instead of just 3 of the auto chain, increasing the chance to crit and thus lowering the variance of our damage.

Since you target this build for PvE primarily (as stated on your other thread), I’ll give you an advice: equip yourself with zerk only gear (including ruby orbs).

I’m running this exact build since months, with one notable exception: Withdraw instead of HiS. Withdraw is way superior in healing to HiS, and you don’t really need the cnd removal of HiS since you can use IS to remove the worst damaging conditions.

Playing with Withdraw though requires more attention to condition managing than HiS, but after a while you get used to it and you’ll never go back.

P.S.: Regarding sigils, you should equip your s/p set with force/fire sigils, and sb with fire. Since you’ll be usually hitting multiple targets with sword and sb, fire it’s a wiser choice instead of air.

You should concentrate more on what he’s actually saying in the interview, instead of trying to diminish his “status” in the actual EU Team Arena leaderboard.

Based on the 2 builds you posted, the avg damage output is higher for the zerker build than the kitten build.

Why? You have to confront the average damage in the long term that you inflict, remembering the base formula of the damage inflicted on every hit.

Power*Wpn Dmg*Skill Coeff./Armor

Now Wpn Dmg, Skill Coeff and Armor are a constant in our case, so the only variable is Power. When you crit, you just multiply that overall damage by 2.59 (base crit dmg of +50% added to you crit dmg of +109% -> +159% -> x2.59).

So, with the zerker build you get:

2457 * 0.5 + 2457 * 0.5 * 2.59 = 4410.315

2457 is the Power, 0.5 in the first addend is the probability to NOT inflict a crit, 0.5 in the second addend is the prob. to inflict a crit, and 2.59 is the multiplier of the crit.

With the kitten build:

2219 * 0.39 + 2219 * 0.61 * 2.59 = 4371.2081

As you can see, the kitten builds gives back a lower average damage than the zerker build.

Ofc in this calculation I haven’t considered the Vuln inflicting trait, which inflicts a stack with a prob. of 0.4*crit chance per hit. With the zerker, it means a prob. of 0.2, with the kitten a prob. of 0.244. Factoring this in the formula is a little bit complicated (due to the fact that Vuln is timed to 10 secs), but since you’re going for a D/P build with Hidden Assassin trait, you’ll get the most of your damage out of backstab, which is a guaranteed crit, so the higher power you have, the most damage you inflict, the increase in precision would be useful just outside the backside “area”.

Edit: in the post, the forum just changed the word “kitten .a” to “kitten” lol.

I agree with you (having played thief since beta weekends) completely.

But the problem is not only lack of build variety. Except for some cases (redic single burst damage of the past for 18k+ with the press of 3 buttons, either with backstab or pistol whip+haste), the thing that irritates me the most is the fact that, contrary to the average perception of this class (from people who are too lazy to understand it, or, better, play it to just see what it does and how), it’s one of the most punitive when not played well.

We have a really low margin of error during a fight, if we screw ini management, or the timing of a shadowstep, or the use of the condition cleanse with basi venom+lyssa, etc., we’re done, whereas a good bunch of other classes have a much higher available margin of error.