Guild Wars 2

Yeah, just made me feel a little sick. You’ve got talent though. It does have an epic feel to it.

Don’t worry about Sensotix… I guess he is just taking a break from his nerf cries in the thief forum. I couldn’t watch the video though. Way too disorienting and just wasn’t fun.

My client crashes in medium sized wvw battles and then randomly out of the blue it seems. I spend most of my time in spvp now because at least I can play and enjoy myself there. I experienced a weird inf. sig. moment today kind of similar to what you described but I figured it was just lag. Only happened once.

Point is, it isn’t overpowered so any change for the worse isn’t something non-thieves and thieves will be happy with. After everything is said and done, that’s it. Thieves have mobility and it is balanced. Learn, adapt, improve – that’s the last I’m replying to this. Hopefully it’ll die off like the rest of the complaints in this forum.

Were you top 100 while playing thief? Free tip, inf strike isn’t an excuse for not being able to escape from a s/d thief. After they use it to start the fight (which they should if they want a way out) move away from the original circle. If they want to close the gap they’ll have to return, which will just put them further away and unable to immobilize. I noticed that limitation within the first hour of playing the spec O_o

Another question, if a s/d thief doesn’t have great mobility what is the reason for taking it over another profession? The ability to grab that necro on the ledge is what makes it viable; why else would you want one on your team?

I don’t find it a big deal but I do agree that 4sec in pvp isn’t merited and this is really something that should be consistent for all game types. I just hope they don’t give this to us as compensation for a big nerf to something more important.

Sensotix.4106:

i think the port should just fail when the range is too big

I thought you said it needed to be restricted by LOS and not work on the z axis.
So now you’re changing your opinion about it or are you adding to your nerf cry? Every class can counter s/d if they build for it. A phantasm mesmer still has the advantage against one; you just need to decide it’s important enough to make the swap over. I’m sure you know this, you’re a very good mesmer from what I’ve seen.

Look at a s/d thief as a package and compare it to other professions. It’s already balanced. Popular versions of it only have 12 initiative and inf. striking then returning then striking again like you talk about costs 8 initiative. It still gets wrecked by condi spam too.

Don’t know what else to say really. I don’t want to come off as hostile but this forum has been down right plagued with complaints since day one and it really gets old.

Anyone mind saying what PU stands for? Just coming back to my mes after a long break.

Xsorus.2507:

Hype.8032:

Xsorus.2507:

If you want to see how powerful Stealth is with these abilities tacked onto them, Don’t drop 30 points in Shadow Arts, and run around WvW for a bit.

I don’t run any points in SA…. I kill faster so fights end sooner so I don’t notice the loss of those “powerful” abilities. Trait out stealth and get lower damage or have less sustain but more damage… almost sounds balanced huh?

I like how the ranger trolls came out of the woodwork. I’m surprised I can even read these posts with all the petting zoos running around. We need a dev that actually plays thief, because it is clear that people who don’t main it really don’t know enough to be commenting about the profession.

You’re aware I have a thief right?

Poorly played p/d doesn’t count imo.

Xsorus.2507:

If you want to see how powerful Stealth is with these abilities tacked onto them, Don’t drop 30 points in Shadow Arts, and run around WvW for a bit.

I don’t run any points in SA…. I kill faster so fights end sooner so I don’t notice the loss of those “powerful” abilities. Trait out stealth and get lower damage or have less sustain but more damage… almost sounds balanced huh?

I like how the ranger trolls came out of the woodwork. I’m surprised I can even read these posts with all the petting zoos running around. We need a dev that actually plays thief, because it is clear that people who don’t main it really don’t know enough to be commenting about the profession.

They really do need to sit down and figure out how to fix this class to have it fun to play, and challenging but not overly frustrating to play against. Focus the whole team on it and make the switch. Slowly eroding the class with nerf after nerf is so disheartening for thief players and the amount of complaining from the remaining 86% of the community hasn’t noticeably decreased any.

If stealth is the problem get rid of it completely and build up all the weapons/traits/utilities to support that change. By not fixing the source of the problem they’re just making sure 100% of the community is annoyed.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Fade.7658:

I seriously bet that revealed will last the duration of Sic’ Em, 10 seconds. Wait and see.

Thats the only thing I’m worried about, a reusable 1/3rd of a stealth trap. You thought a 4 second revealed will be deadly? think again

Thief is the last profession I enjoy and I have other draws on my time. It is Anet’s move I suppose.

I’m looking forward to getting the ability to locking elementalists into 1 attunement, locking guards out of virtues, dropping war health by 50%, preventing mesmers from making clones/phantasms, locking necros out of DS, locking engi’s out of kits and toolbelt skills, etc etc etc.

I don’t like sword builds for whatever reason but I tend to agree that their philosophy of small adjustments isn’t being adhered to here. There are several options, remove 2 boons but only 1 is stolen by thief, give 2 boons to thief but only remove 1 from opponent. I think even if they reduce the cost of LS it is too big of a nerf. How exactly is this change supposed to promote diverse gameplay and get away from spamming #3?

Furajir.3815:

P/D as in condi.

It is amazing how often people say p/d and it’s interpreted as d/p. I don’t play p/d anymore but there are a few iterations that all work well. 0/0/30/20/20, 10/0/30/0/30, 5/0/30/20/15 and i’m sure there are more. It’s pretty cheap to change traits so try them all.

In my experience, carrion is the best stat type for p/d and I’d suggest focusing on +bleed duration rather than +condition damage. Others may disagree, it’s a personal preference item. Overall you get a lot more damage from +bleed duration but you’re more susceptible to the opponent cleansing.

I’ll let people who play it currently give you more specifics.
Cheers!

It makes me a sad panda knowing the balance of the profession I like the most is biased by certain people. ((( SADDDD PANDAAAAA

0/30/20/20/0 d/p + sb is pretty versatile for wvw, I’ve used it a lot. You can also keep 10/30/0/0/30 but go with d/p + sb. I run that in both spvp and wvw now. It hits a lot harder but you’ll find yourself running away from uneven odds more frequently.

I’ve never been a fan of swords in wvw. People will run away from you way too often. The gap closer on dagger mainhand and #3 d/p is too valuable.

It sure feels like we’ll be getting protection at some point. Once stealth is nerfed sufficiently (in anet’s eyes). I don’t want it though, I’d prefer we stay hard to pin down, low health but big damage.

The pet needs to flash up like a neon sign saying, “I’m about to ruin your day” so we have a chance to dodge it.

Thieves effectiveness is too closely linked to stealth to be implementing methods of revealing them. I can agree with toning down stealth but it has to come at the same time as compensating buffs. The thief profession does not need nerfed, so please buff some areas to compensate for nerfing stealth.

Personally, now that it seems like half the classes are stealthing somewhat often, I find myself wishing that some visual effect occurred each time they stealth (like blinding powder’s animation) . It’s too hard to tell if a player A) stealthed B ) teleported C) disconnected/left.

Finally, since I’m sure I haven’t convinced you to cancel the sic ‘em revealed change, I’ll request that “enemy induced revealed” be more obvious to the player affected by it. The little icon at the bottom of the screen isn’t obvious enough when you’re not the one controlling if you’re revealed or not. Maybe put a blue boarder around the screen similar to the purple daze one. Or even better, instead of revealing the target, make it so the ranger can see the silhouette of the target the same way allies can. At least in that case a thief can still access stealth based traits/attacks, which are absolutely vital to the class.

Thanks for the patch preview

Maybe I’ll use the gems I got from the 5000 chest and add a few more so I can get another character slot and learn this animation. I’m sure hoping sic ’em is a really obvious animation. After all, a counter to stealth should be counter-able right?

I’m starting to feel like our stealth attacks should be accessible outside of stealth… an enemy induced revealed shouldn’t stop a thief from being able to backstab or tactical strike imo… It is too much to nerf our survivability and damage at the same time.

Sil.4560:

Wow, I just got infracted because I dared to say that I can’t wait until stealth gets more counterplay. Nice bias there.

Abilities that counter stealth is a great idea, get over it.

The ability for thieves to do well without stealth is a great idea. Where’s that patch note? Wait I think I found it: LS removes only 1 boon now… oh wait… that’s not it.

Fungalfoot.7213:

I suspect more classes will be given counters to stealth and that this is just the first taste. Second if we want to count WvWvW traps.

And it’s a very good thing too. As stealth becomes more counterable it will allow thieves ( and mesmers to a lesser extent ) to receive buffs in other areas. Counterplay is a necessity for fun gameplay and should be embraced.

I hope you’re right. I don’t expect any buffs to be this year though… nerf us down then eventually when warriors have been made OP enough we might get some attention. I don’t think Anet realizes how much a lot of our builds rely on stealth. I’m frustrated, we’ll need something like protection procs if this trend continues.

I played a few matches with it and it was a nice change of pace. It felt really weird using soldiers haha. I might use SoM instead of withdraw on this build though. It is harder to get the heal off but it cuts down on retal’s damage and you get more healing/sec + might from traits.

In a 1v1 s/p might have an edge over d/p but assuming a d/p thief needs to be comboing bp+hs to do any damage is a bit off. For the perma stealth builds you’re right but 10/30/0/0/30 d/p really doesn’t (and shouldn’t) use that combo very often. It’s more about autoattacks and blinding/interrupting then.

However, what I was trying to say is that d/p+sb is overall more effective (IMHO), even if it loses in a 1v1 vs s/p.

Again, thanks for the video. I’ll keep playing this a while.

Thanks for the video, I had been wanting to see S/P in action. I’m getting bored with my current builds so I’ll give it a shot.

I didn’t see any evidence to say it’s better than D/P though. I think D/P + SB is still our best kit but I know everyone has their own opinions.

Cheers!

Another option is to just not trait into SA… that’s what I do

Red Falcon.8257:

skillionaire.3574:

Only thing that needs changing imo is the skullcrack from 3 to 2 secs, match it with the earthshaker that’s already 2 sec stun.

How about you slot Stability instead.

Stability is the most fundamental PvP boon, if you run without it you are begging to die.

LF Thief Stability…

Arganthium.5638:

Hype.8032:

I think dancing dagger should move faster and cripple longer to make it worth using. As far as the other suggestions, I don’t use those skills/traits now and I still wouldn’t after those changes. When I look at suggestion threads I’m wanting to find things that will improve our weaker weapon sets.

5s is a pretty good amount of cripple for a skill that you can use over and over again with little cost. I remember using DD yesterday on some practice golems while waiting for a tourney, and I managed to throw a ton of them before initiative started becoming much of a problem.

I do agree with the speed change, or at least a change to the cast so it’s not some big windup skill.

Yeah Arganthium you’re probably right. I think it successfully hits so infrequently that it feels like it doesn’t cripple as long as it should. Heatseeking would be great but a faster animation/dagger speed would still be improvements.

Scorpion wire doesn’t need anything other than it’s coding fixed. If it worked as intended (obstruction anyone?) it’d be amazing. I view pistol as a single target ranged dps option so ricochet doesn’t excite me… finding ways for it have a niche in a thief’s build is something that’s still missing.

Stability on thief would be nice but I don’t see it happening. We still have more ways to secure a stomp than any other class w/o it. Either way, anything to get the devs thinking about how to improve the thief (not buff/nerf… just improve) is something I support.

Anet nerfed thieves damage too much to consistently instagib people anymore. That being said, fast reflexes and high damage can still end fights pretty quickly.

Give these a read.

http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=250
http://intothemists.com/guides/293-sd_heavy_boonsteal_harassment_thief_by_arga

Natronix.9827:

Im full PVT thief including gear and jewelry with thief runes, it still does plenty of dmg if you got some sigils for precision, aslont as u have 35% crit chance with constantly buffing fury your dmg will be almost as good as a zerk thief while being really tanky. Atleast with my playstyle i can make it work while many disagree and prefer full zerk… just my two cents

I have nothing bad to say about your build but I am quite sure it doesn’t do anywhere near the damage that a zerker thief does. Two totally different roles but both can be effective. Everyone has their own preference and for the most part they’re all workable… that’s what makes it fun.

For comparison, I have a bit over 100% crit damage and 60% crit chance with food buffs. Between furious retaliation and thrill of the crime my crit chance is at 80% for most the fight though.

Cheers!

What trait layout would you be using? Helm, legs, and chest are the most efficient place to use PVT gear, that’s where I use it. Everything else is berserker along with divinity runes.

I think dancing dagger should move faster and cripple longer to make it worth using. As far as the other suggestions, I don’t use those skills/traits now and I still wouldn’t after those changes. When I look at suggestion threads I’m wanting to find things that will improve our weaker weapon sets.

Try running 0/30/20/20/0 d/p for a while. You can try 0/30/30/10/0 d/p also if you’re really careful with your initiative; it’s helpful to take some signets and the init on signet use trait. The first build gives you more dodges and initiative regen so it’s pretty forgiving of mistakes. The second build takes advantage of shadow rejuvenation while in stealth, which helps a whole lot with your sustain.

Until you get better get really used to #5->#2. Spend as little time visible as possible. Both those builds give you 100% chance to crit from stealth which is pretty helpful. Since you’re having trouble with damage conditions I’d suggest using hide in shadows and the trait that drops a condition on stealth.. I always use it when I trait into shadow arts.

Thieves have great mobility, if you don’t like how a fight is going switch to shortbow and reset it. Anet didn’t give us health, armor, stability, blocks, or invuln so I think it’s fair to run when necessary.

I don’t think you’ll like it as much as the other builds I mentioned but I run 10/30/0/0/30 in wvw and pvp. You spend less time in stealth and have less defense but kitten it packs a punch. The ability to interrupt heals is addicting.

Hope this helps.

Bud you make it seem like every profession out there is an absolute nightmare! D/p is our most complete weapon set and all the rest of them (besides shortbow I’d say) are lacking.

D/D needs some attention but it still has some uses (pve mainly). Wouldn’t you rather they go off and make p/p a good set to choose? I’d rather take that set out of the trash before I work on d/d…. d/p already gives you much of the same flavor.

Olba.5376:

Hype.8032:

Alkaholic.3875:

Blind, lots of blinds oh and teleports oh and u can apply weakness w/ ur bow right? U can’t eat a 12K evis after skullcrack cause the war used his rage for skullcrack. Thieves, mesmers, and stability guardians are the toughest fights for us…

Good point, it must of been another stun before the eviscerate. The majority of thieves don’t go past 10 points into DA after they nerfed our weakness in that trait line so now you have to combo poison field/cluster bomb to get weakness on shortbow.

Could’ve been a Shield Bash with a Sigil of Paralyzation. Shield Bash into Eviscerate is a rather common thing.

Blind, lots of blinds oh and teleports oh and u can apply weakness w/ ur bow right? U can’t eat a 12K evis after skullcrack cause the war used his rage for skullcrack. Thieves, mesmers, and stability guardians are the toughest fights for us…

Actually, if you take Burst Mastery, you could do a 3 bar Skull Crack, swap to Axe and you’d have 15 strikes (50%) adrenaline right there and then. That hitting up to 12k is rather unlikely though.

Probably a shield bash. The 12k hit was real but it was on my thief in spvp. Zerker amulet and no toughness.

Does berserker stance have an icon appear when it’s activated? It seems like blinds work pretty well except when it’s active.

Alkaholic.3875:

Blind, lots of blinds oh and teleports oh and u can apply weakness w/ ur bow right? U can’t eat a 12K evis after skullcrack cause the war used his rage for skullcrack. Thieves, mesmers, and stability guardians are the toughest fights for us…

Good point, it must of been another stun before the eviscerate. The majority of thieves don’t go past 10 points into DA after they nerfed our weakness in that trait line so now you have to combo poison field/cluster bomb to get weakness on shortbow.

Hey guys! I play thief and unfortunately I haven’t played a warrior past level 15 (just wasn’t for me). I have fought them a lot in spvp though and I feel I understand them pretty well.

Can you give any tips/suggestions on how to take the various mace/shield builds down 1v1 with thief? What thief builds give you the most trouble?

It seems like there are several variations of this build: M/S+GS, M/S+H, and M/S+Axe/X. I gotta say, eating a 12k eviscerate after skullcrack wasn’t fun

Anyways, thanks for any help.

In PvE and dungeons I never feel like I have trouble surviving. I do think I’m forced into range with the shortbow a bit too often and it results in lower dps than another profession could provide though.

WvW has thief still being very strong. Not being forced to stay on a small circle is a big boon for us. Perma stealth and very high mobility makes the thief a very good profession here. Cluster bomb really shouldn’t have been dropped down to 900 range though.

I find your analysis of spvp/tpvp to be accurate. Once a player learns positioning and when to jump into the fray he becomes quite powerful. Sometimes I feel our base hp a bit low in this area though.

From fighting these builds for a few weeks now it sure feels like it is a hard counter to thieves. Stunbreaks can’t keep up and the build I had the most trouble with combo’d a stun with a 12k eviscerate… ouch. In a 1v1 fight it feels as strong as the pre-nerf phantasm mesmer.

I’m not calling for nerfs but it is pretty frustrating. At least the traditionally underpowered professions are getting some time at the top of the food chain. Both warriors and necros.

Running 10/30/0/0/30 d/p gives me a chance at least. Just can’t let them get the jump on you. It’s a dps race at that point. Basilisk venom + steal daze vs stuns and eviscerate or 100blades.

Depends on your build. You can still achieve a 3 second daze in WvW so if that’s your build stick with chain dazing. If you have good initiative regeneration you can use flanking strike/larcenous strike a lot. Don’t just spam 3 though, you’ll run out of init and look noobish at the same time.

Take a look at Jumper’s guide:
http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=250

jkough.7316:

I have played thief in and after beta almost exclusively until now and with upcomming changes to magic find have been wondering the same thing. should i reroll crit or condi.
heres some wisdom i have endured to obtain:

Weapon: Opinion, Survivability, Damage, Utility & Synergy, Bonuses

in the eyes of Spvp/WvW:
P/D: very fun, very survivable(teleports/stealth), low condi, no crit, good synergy
P/P: fun, not survivable, no condi, ok crit, no synergy (needs some DEV love), empties initiative
D/P: fun, survivable(stealth), no condi, good crit, excellent utility & synergy
D/D: kinda fun, survivable(evades), best condi damage(which is low), ok crit, low synergy
S/P: fun, survivable(evades), no condi, ok crit, good utility & synergy, dazes
S/D: meh, survivable(evades), no condi, ok crit, ok utility & synergy, boon stripping
SB: fun, survivable(evades), good condi, good crit, good utility & excellent synergy, combofields

in the eyes of PvE:
P/D: survivable(teleports/stealth), lacking all damage, ok utility & synergy
P/P: survivable(blind), lacking all damage, very low utility & synergy, empties initiative
D/P: survivable(blind/stealth), good crit/no condi, lesser pve utility
D/D: survivable(evades/stealth), ok crit/best-ok condi(aoe), ok utility & synergy
S/P: very survivable(evades/blind), good crit(aoe)/no condi, good utility & synergy, dazes
S/D: survivable(evades/stealth), ok crit(aoe)/no condi, good utility & synergy, npc’s dont need boon stripped
SB: survivable(evades), good all damage(aoe), good utility & excellent synergy, combofields

Survivability is exceptionally important to keep in mind when playing thief. Know what weapons have access to and will limit you to. A direct hit in pve will kill a glass cannon, even more so in pvp.

Good contribution. I think using shortbow as a secondary increasing survivability of all builds by a whole lot. S/D can be a bit more boring but I feel like I’m finally getting good at it and it’s really satisfying feeling strong with it.

I think divinity runes are the best. If they are too expensive you can mix in ruby orbs or the valkyrie orb equivalent if you need more health. Runes of the wurm are another option. It all depends on the gear you have and the traits you picked. 10/30/0/0/30 needs different gear than 0/30/20/20/0 to be optimal.

My personal preference is 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 for dagger/dagger and the 2 distributions from the first paragraph for dagger/pistol. In my experience d/d is better at winning outnumbered fights while d/p is better against the rare competent wvw opponent :P Both can escape bad situations but d/d has a better chance of getting some stomps in that case. I’ve ran a lot of both but in the end I prefer d/p.

One way to keep damage and some survivability is to trait into Hidden Killer. That way you can keep good vitality/toughness (at the expense of having lower crit chance) and still have huge (huge meaning 5-7k) backstabs.

The big 10k+ backstabs are possible but it’s with absolute glass builds (using all cooldowns to buff your damage) against other glass builds. Having good sustained damage with ~7k burst on call is a better option I think.

Sorry TyPin, this kind of response is what we usually reserve for the numerous trolls that come to our forum trying to ruin the class. I don’t think you’re trolling though.

As far as your topic goes, I don’t believe the thief needs any nerfs at this point, and your suggestion is a nerf. Any nerfs to the class should be (imo) accompanied by equal buffs to compensate all builds affected by the nerf.

However, I agree with you that at low levels of skill, the thief is a very difficult enemy. Sometimes I wonder if reduced access to stealth with a compensation of more mobility as well as more damage outside of stealth could be a fix for it. Actually showing where the thief is while stealthed doesn’t feel fair though. As another poster mentioned, it’d be impossible to land a backstab. I also think this suggestion would limit build diversity by allowing the thief an opportunity to “opt-out” of this nerf with 30 trait points. I’ve never been a fan of stacking stealth with black powder but if that got taken away I still think some buffs would be warranted.

The thief is not overpowered. As this game matures, so will the player base (well most of them at least xD). The newbs will either quit for other games or continue improving. We should strive to have classes being equal at all skill levels but if we can’t achieve that they should be balanced for the top tier because that’s all that will be left eventually. That’s my view on it at any rate.

Keep putting more hours into your thief. I think a player really should have several hundred hours into a profession to be qualified to be making balance suggestions.

Doggie.3184:

But I onry haz 15-17k HP as not entirely GC and full GC Warriors are tanky and can do 1200 range backstab damage w/o needing stealth or flanking and 1shot meh. I dun need nerfed our squishyness is enough sacrifice.
Didn’t catch a screen of the 17k crit Kill Shot. :<

I’ve been one-shotted by killshot when I was running a glassy build a few times. Nothing to complain about though, if I would have played better or put on more defense I would have survived. It’s a good lesson for the OP to learn.

They’re both very capable professions. What it comes down to for me is this choice: do you want to be the one doing all the damage or do you like having a sizable amount of your dps coming from clones/phantasms?

Besides that decision, both classes have stealth and can generally disorient opponents when played well. Thieves can chase down enemies (and escape) much better than mesmers… that was big for me.

I have a fully geared thief and mesmer but I haven’t played my mesmer in weeks. It just doesn’t feel as good to me (I’ve seen amazing mesmers but I’m not one of them).

Good luck with your choice and know either way you’ll have a fun character to play.

Edit: my post was from a pvp/wvw perspective. For pve they’re both fun and capable although the mesmer is probably better at it. Shortbow is awesome on thief… if you don’t like it then maybe mesmer might be more fun?

Actually, considering how the damage formula works, if someone with 2,700 armor is getting hit for 15,000, someone with 4,000 armor should be hit for 10,125.

Honestly, as a Warrior, Thieves are the reason I originally went full Soldier armor in WvW. After checking my damage logs in WvW, I realized that they weren’t really doing that much damage to me. Now I’m running Berserker armor with Knight Trinkets and I’m still not getting oneshot.

Am I doing something wrong?

:) I think you’re doing it right! Vitality handles burst better than toughness anyways; your math shows that to some extent. It’ll be costly but you might end up with better stats if you go knight armor and berserker trinkets though. You should end up with similar stats but higher crit damage.

Travlane.5948:

nick go to spvp and duel some with each. get some practice in. your first set is always the hardest to earn.

@HYPE….yeah p/d is called a troll build. thats the generic version. any good version is actually much superior. but as you said if ur running dungeons mostly yeah…rock with 75% zerk 25% valk. basically run valk til you get around 15k hp then the rest should be zerk. thats a generally decent standard to go by.

I think we both agree that both versions can be played and a player can excel using either. Condi thief is far from garbage but I want it to have more condi burst like engineers and necros.

I agree with your advice in this post though. P/D is much better in WvW than dungeons. A lot of the dps is wasted if there is another condition build in the group.

Who was it that made a thread several weeks/months ago trying to figure out the optimal gear for a balanced thief? I liked/agreed the end result but I was too cheap to re-gear for a minor gain. Was it Wish?

Edit: Found it – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first#post2196794

Nick.6972:

Thanks for the replies – So full Zerker gear – all ring / accessories ?

Get enough valk/soldier to have something like 2500 armor and 15k hp. There’s a pretty big +/- from those values based on personal preference though. You can still have over 100% crit damage and a crit chance just below 50% w/o food buffs.

There aren’t any valkyrie ascended items so get the vitality you need on your armor and weapons.

Travlane.5948:

Hype.8032:

Direct damage is superior in nearly everything. Skill floor is lower for condition builds imo. If you think d/p has low damage you’ll absolutely hate condi thieves. D/P+SB with proper gear and traits puts out huge damage. Don’t go full zerker though… valk armor and berserker jewelry is a pretty good split. Tanky guardians are hard for everyone to take down though… just a fact of life.

Be careful about taking the first piece of advice you get here… there’s a lot of questionable stuff going around these forums. Hope this helps.

Well you also have to take the same advice for d/p players too. i mean i mastered d/p myself then moved to p/d as its overall much better. the skill floor SEEMs lower but in reality its roughly the same. so by the standard you said (me) a p/d player shouldnt be able to beat d/p most of the time right? well i do :P. d/p and zerker ISH style builds have a few REALLY big problems, AOE and CC mostly. p/d not so much. also the DPS is the same. d/p hits higher dps on low defense players and p/d condi hits more dps on higher toughness/defensive players. they really balance out especially if they are talented opponents. this is where the advantage is…… armor ignoring dmg and a better overall defense. im not talking about hiding bc i only sit in stealth for 1.5 -2 seconds max during a duel :P theres no need. anyway if you are looking for a build….first you must find your style. i enjoy backstabbing build as far as fun goes… but i run p/d when im serious ….so find what suits you or find/state a goal. you have to do either of those before you make a move in either direction.

I wasn’t referring to you specifically but since you made it about you, I don’t agree with your advice. The OP will be more helpful in a zerg with shortbow and better in small skirmishes with d/p.

P/D is known as a troll build. It’s hard to kill even with a lot of people, but at the same time it won’t be killing any one in the group… so it just trolls them. That build has no burst and it is easily cleansed. Anyone who wants to just run away can typically do so. It is a good 1v1 build when the opponent needs to stick around but how often does that happen in WvW?

I like the play behind p/d (I played it for several months when I didn’t know as much) but it needs more buffs to be a serious build. Does anyone know of a serious Tpvp team with a p/d or d/d death blossom thief on it? I don’t personally know of any.

So in summary, I believe direct damage builds to be far superior for everything the OP wants. It takes longer to get the hang of it since you don’t have as much vitality but it’s worth the time to figure it out. I have direct damage and carrion gear sets but the carrion one is just collecting dust. The only reason I hold on to it is in hope anet buffs condi thief at some point.