Guild Wars 2

fixit.7189:

So thief continues to get ignored. Sigh.

The thief and warrior projects have been terminated. They only remain in the game for backward compatibility.

When you finally land it, you trigger their passive that gives them another boon or does something to you allowing them time to freely apply more boons. Then, when you land steal to remove those passively applied defensive boons, you trigger their passive that gives them more boons, or disables you in return.

We have passively applied cc for landing cc, and more skills are coming in which can negate a killing blow. It’s just a matter of time before killing someone triggers a passive than in turn 1 shots the damage dealer instead, as a fair, balanced means of countering burst via ANet’s apparent definition of active play.

Daredevil: When your class gets out played by the game engine.

I tried Spite/Curses/Reaper yesterday and a bit today, but the problem is life force gen without soul marks and vital persistance. Reaper #2 isn’t as easy to use when you don’t have enough life force generation, but is still strong vs enemy res attempts being a 5 target corrupt. Trying to cover the weaknesses is difficult though. The shout heal grants more survival and some life force, but you give up a corrupt from vampirism signet. Focus also gives more life force generation, and from range making it better than warhorn when lacking sustain, and focus also brings a 3 boon removal which is very nice. You can then take the warhorn adept trait in Spite. You’re not really down a transfer from dropping dagger offhand because you get the passive plague signet from Curses, which also corrupts 2 boons and grants might.

You don’t really notice the loss of dhuumfire due to having a lot more boon-hate to dish out. Still, you lose the passive spectral armour which is another huge loss in life force gen and defense that you need.

Alternatives are to take reduced CD on corruption skills and corrupt boon over signet of the locust, or even corrupt boon without the reduced CD. It’s verry effective and helpful if you drop vampirism signet, but the cooldown does feel like it needs a reduction, and if you take that trait you want to take consume conditions because it also benefits from the CD reduction and brings a lot more healing and condi cleanse. I don’t know if it’d work, I’m not good enough at necro to give it a proper try; I can’t really afford to drop the shout heal because I’m finding I need all the life force I can get without running Soul Reaping. I feel more useful at times but I can’t help feeling like it’s a "win-more" build in solo queue, which is what necro used to be seen as.

They always manage to create positive noise about large balance updates, going on about competition, active play, reward for skill and risk, etc. Yet, they always manage to leave PvP in a state where something incredibly boring and easy to play is highly effective such that it pushes what is considered otherwise "fine" and requiring a degree of skill to play, out of the competitive scene.

I like the combat in this game too much to want to play anything else, but the last few days when I think "I feel like playing some GW2," I log in and.. That’s it pretty much. Back and fourth between the PC and other things, alt tabbing while sat down. I might leave my character logged in for a few hours and only play 2 games. So on a positive note, there’s me getting around to doing other things of interest and or necessity, but on the main note, fix the blasted balance in this game!

nearlight.3064:

hey impact, I’m personally trying to look for solutions to necro’s current problem, which is not having as much of an impactful niche at countering the current meta flavors of the month.

That being said this build is a good start and has some very good ideas, but I don’t think its best per se (though I’m not yet sure of what the best really is yet myself). I’ve used grenth runes with the heal shout myself, and personally I preferred it with wanderer amulet for more duration and better trait synergy (target the weak/crit procs).

Well of corruption is strong for sure, and I’m testing out a build that uses it later tonight, however it wil be celestial since I’m making some more radical weapon/trait choices that aren’t ideal for the setup that full condi needs to thrive.

Hi. Aye it doesn’t work so well. Tested it further against proper team comps and the corruption, while more frequently done, can’t be chained like the signets, so it can’t get rid of resistance when there is a lot of boon support i.e. covering boons. Plus they can also be timed with Chill of Death with Spite. Maybe if Mallyx revenants weren’t a thing, or didn’t have so much resistance and covering boons, the extra survivability and damage from Curses would be viable over the stronger boon-hate of Spite.

I’ve not played necro for... A long time. Yesterday however I found myself playing it in a group, and while admittedly we didn’t have anywhere near an optimal comp, I felt like I just wasn’t putting out enough pressure. I tried the previous meta’s corruption build first so I’d have more corrupts vs. revenants. It worked, but I felt like I lacked direct damage, sustain, and the chill pressure, so I went back to signet corruption - a build obvious to everyone the moment that trait was modified to make signets corrupt. However, I still felt powerless vs quickness resses, and of course experienced necros landed all of their transfers on me, and condi revs were stacking up a load of torment I couldn’t keep off while out-sustaining with resistance.

I never heard of anyone trying Curses since the signet necro became a thing, so I had the idea to try modifying the build to perform the same role - boon corruption and condi transferring - so not exactly what you’re talking about, aiming to see terror buffed. I made this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7YnMbC10gd2A22A0biljBL+G+DLiULhnwsKqnttCAA-TZhHwACOIAh2fAwFA4YZgAPBAA

It gave me a greater and more powerful heal skill with lower and reduced cd for greater synergy with grenth runes, AoE corruption on reaper shroud 2 and well of corruption for countering quickness resses (I drop this as soon as one goes down), and the well also counters reaper shroud #3 of other necros (lol one guy tanked the full well and got like 5 fears!). It has an extra transfer from the passive trait in curses, which gives the edge vs other necros and revenants, you get fury with curses so shroud skills have more pressure, and you get more weakness uptime from curses to nerf endurance regen and direct damage. The endurance nerf works nicely with path of corruption on reaper shroud 2 because the corruption is at the end of the cast and it’s very telegraphed. So it’s a threat now other than just a combo finisher, and with its low 5s cd it can be used twice per shroud so it forces dodges of which they have less, and hits up to 5 foes. Overall, despite the telegraphed reaper shroud 2, it has more corrupts, and I did feel I could do it more often, had more pressure in both condi and direct, more survivability, and and well of corruption is just awesome. The necro vs rev matchup goes more into your favour since the weakness and corruption on shroud 2 spam works to corrupt resistance and the fumble from weakness forces them into shiro for endurance, meaning they then don’t have access to resistance and are left to tank your condis and transfers. I also found it shut down eles very well, and the fury in shroud helped vs diamond skin.

Like I said, I’m far from a good necro so it could be the players I faced when I was on necro weren’t so good, and that this build is subpar. That’s why I came to the necro forum - to see if anything similar had been posted and to seek some opinions!

It’s not that bunker mesmer is overpowered, it’s that it is game breaking. As a support, it has only a few windows inbetween blocks, dodges, skill-evades, and invulnerabilities in which it can be hit, meanwhile it can be supported in turn by its allies, and hit you. It can extend those evades and invulnerabilities to its allies, heal its allies, heal itself, cleanse a lot of condis for itself, is mobile, and can cleanse some condis for allies, in addition to supplying a lot of alacrity and quickness. Its weakness is being able to support its team with condi cleanse, which was where necros and mallyx revenants came in. Until, people realised mallyx didn’t need much condi cleanse support because it had a lot of resistance. Because both builds - mallyx revenant and bunker mesmer - are mobile and have both offensive and defensive support and utility, they didn’t need to have any lackings made up for by any other class or role, allowing them to simply stack twice. Now the team has two of each of these things with no weaknesses. Still, there’s a 5th slot... Swap the revenant’s glint to shiro giving them more self-survivability and mobility, and take a tempest as the 5th to maintain that boon support and boom.

None of these builds are overpowered alone, but they are collectively.

Edit: and this is coming from someone who was still optimistic a week ago that things would once again change resulting from weaknesses here and there. I’m sad to be proven wrong this time. While it’s possibly to compete with other sustain comps because the damage pressure isn’t all that great if you have a means to deal with the condi pressure, it’d still be a stalemate in an match between equally skilled, because no one would be able to kill each other being so dang tanky. That’s another reason 2x bunker mesmer and 2x mallyx is meta over the older bunker sustain compositions - because they have pressure enough to eventually kill anything that is running less than full sustain.

Bump. Looking once again.

Starting to feel like not bothering. Got to T2 Sapphire and since then it’s 1 win +1 pip, 1 win +1 pip, 1 loss -2 pips. Been on T2 for days. That’s not even the most irritating part. It’s that when I lose, it’s because someone decides to be helpful by camping close all match, or ignoring close cap to take beast and also usually have it stolen, or running into outnumbered fights solo to die, preferring to die over rotate out of a lost fight - even when we have the other 2 points - or because I have 2 DH on my team that can’t get onto the point for all the condi pressure making them all but useless. Then, after that so obvious issue, I’m the one that gets flamed either because I decided to speak up about it, apparently making myself a target, or because I play a thief.

Heck, I even just got told I made a match 4v5 for playing a thief when the other team had a thief too. A match where our ranger decided to camp close for the first quarter, go beast after 3 of us wiped mid and I went far, where I downed their thief and had 2 others chase after me, therefore holding 3 on far for a good minute while my guys heroically won close back 4v1, followed by the highlight of our necro engaging a respawned staff thief off point and losing to it 1v1. A close match, but when you lose or even win with that many bad plays, it’s just not fun. Now, of course, losing is worse because on top of all that, you lose pips. Way to go ANet.

Everything is fine. Jeez. People are still testing things (even though the outcome of most of these tests is so obvious). Absurd comps, half-role builds working with other half-role builds to create an incredibility strong combined force, which can’t function when forced to split up by the other team pushing three points and counter-portalling, and being attacked when travelling between points, building comps around an interesting idea which realistically speaking will lack versatility in dealing with different opposing compositions, etc.

Everything is the same, just heightened. Tanks be tankier, support be more supportive, and damage dealers need to take more damage or more support options. People still complain about DPS guards/DH which are not seen in competitive play for a reason. People still cry thief is in a bad spot and needs a buff. People still complain about condi pressure. Actually one thing has changed - the necros are no longer all crying for buffs; the warriors are (a change I am very fine with).

I agree Pulmonary Impact should crit, but was balanced around the fact that it won’t crit, and it deals relatively consistent damage as opposed to if it were weaker but could crit - sometimes it might hit less, and others it might hit higher. If they made it possible to crit, the base damage coefficient would be reduced so it hits somewhere between bound and power block. While it would be a potential buff to power builds because it would have a <your crit chance> chance of dealing more damage, it wouldn’t be as big a difference considering the base reduction, and it would be a nerf to anyone not running a power build because they wouldn’t have precision and ferocity. Not that I like condi builds on thief, but who am I to argue against some build diversity or seek to nerf builds others might enjoy.

Mug should also crit. It might take a slight damage reduction too for it. It would need to be tested.

If I remember correctly, months ago ANet said they would be introducing profession-based MMR, and then some weeks after they supposedly did, said they hadn’t done it yet. Whether they have or not, it is account bound.

If I remember correctly, months ago ANet said they would be introducing profession-based MMR, and then some weeks after they supposedly did, said they hadn’t done it yet. Whether they have or not, it is account bound.

What’s the point in factoring MMR into a league system that has progression via divisions with tiers and is meant to be competitive play with serious leader boards? This whole system would work better removing MMR from the equation. Treat every player as equal level at the start, and match make based on the player’s league position. Leaderboards would also be better then. Let players ability put them where they should be instead of trying to control it with a computer algorithm.

You have it all wrong. They are communicating by their character’s movement and actions. If you can’t understand their plays and follow their lead without them stopping to explain, you are just bad, and may deserve a block + rage whisper after the match.

Such is the logic of most solo queuers.

Hitsuke.5304:

Why? Why should the ini cost be increased? It is quite literally the ONLY decent hitting skill on the Staff. If you want Vault to be nerfed then they can kitten well nerf Heartseeker again then right? I mean why should the D/D or D/P sets get TWO high damaging skills when the Staff only has one... /sarc

Nerf Vault in any way, shape or form and it will make staff COMPLETELY worthless and it’s just about passable as things stand now lol.

It seems to me as though there’s quite a few kitten D/D & D/P thieves on this thread who came up against a Staff thief and got smacked around a bit, then came here to whine. Can’t you scrubs just be happy that we have something that’s finally half decent on one of our weapon sets?

Seriously...

It’s nice that thief can pump out decent AoE damage. But the way it was given is bad. Spam one skill over and over, that does more damage than other skills that are single target, require positioning, are not evades, and require setting up to use? The risk vs. reward is unbalanced there, drastically.

You say with vault nerfed staff would be worthless? Well that’s a problem with staff as a whole, not one skill. One unbalanced or even broken aspect should not justify unbalancing or breaking something else. I hold the same opinion for true shot as well. Pierces up to 3 targets, 4s cool down, hits higher than back stab, 1.2k range. Unbalanced.

And for the poxy record, I have no trouble with staff thieves as D/P. There’s a frame during vault where they can be hit, and if 1v1, I just stealth a couple of times and wait while they blow everything trying to hit me and not get hit themselves, then attack when they’re low on resources, and usually right after stealth wears off so I don’t get reveal.

Shatter mesmers/chronomancers, still.
Most other marauder builds including power druid and warrior.
Reapers in smaller fights.
Anything except tempest and scrapper that is less than 50% health and out of position.

Can stale mate a point vs a bunker mesmer or support druid. Can do for a little while to delay cap vs scrapper for allies to arrive.

Counter pressures anything.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Nocta.5274:

It’s REALLY silly that going up in divisions basically requires win streaks when the GAME itself tries to keep you from getting them.

This is the gist of it. One system actually works against the other.

Even the systems are competing.

E-SPORTS!

I was under the impression from when leagues was announced before HoT, that MMR wouldn’t be a factor in Leagues - that the League system would work independently of MMR, allowing your league position to act as the match making value, thereby making the rating and leaderboards actually, for once, somewhat accurate.

It is disappointing to be hearing otherwise.

My only issue with the steal change is what is hopefully a bug.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Bug-resulting-from-steal-changes/first#post5815977

With the change to steal requiring a target also came a validation check on whether the target was in range. While this sounds nice, it’s either not very well optimised, or bugged.

I use BP+dodge+shadowstep+steal a lot to get onto a point, burst, and get back toward the other fight. Before, this was extremely smooth if you could do it quick enough. Now, if you do it that quick, you get punished with “target out of range,” when you’re clearly in range. The game engine obviously doesn’t use up-to-date information when calculating your position, resulting in an incorrect out of range flag, resulting in the skill not activating when you want it to. It still works if you shadow step instantly as you start the dodge, and wait to use steal mid-way through the dodge, but it is slower and feels horrible by comparison.

I’m sure there’s a bug in there since you are technically within range because a) it worked before, and b) I can see so on my screen. Could we get this fixed?

I felt the visual nerf so much. Running with an aura share ele, I felt so visually under powered. Going to have to buy electo dyes and wacky armour skins now.

It’s also a buff.

In some cases it’s a nerf, denying you access to that swiftness which you might need if it comes down to a decap to win a PvP match, or if you’re running hidden thief and just need the stealth.

Mostly, though, it’s a buff. I lost count how many times I’ve missed steal because I press it a millisecond after my target enters stealth. This patch should prevent steal from going off in such cases, allowing me to use it for its full effect.

Added "Please be available to join us for matches after 7pm EST." To the main post.

Thief:
- Daredevil Dodge: Has a cost of being hit from the back while executing a dodge to balance for the fact that dodge evades all other attacks and Daredevil has an extra endurance bar.

assassin.7895:

Impact.2780:

Because herald is easy, and new. People like easy, and they like new. Last time thief was riskier to play, there were fewer around. Once some new comps come about and thieves adapt some, you’ll see them more in tournaments.

Edit: Also consider this: lots of money involved. Would you then, when everything is new and not all comps have been tested, and the meta is undecided, try to make a more synergistic comp requiring a higher level of communication and coordination for more risk and reward, in order to play something risky and potentially more rewarding, or play something easy to be effective at that can fit in to any new comp you want to try.

Herald is simply better than thief. Try to play full zerker or viper gear on thief, you will probably die. Now try the same with revenant, the damage on herald is much better and the survivability (while being able to do damage on the enemy) is also better. You realize that the current matches are a lot about who wins the fight and not who rotates better?

Can you win a single 1v1 on thief? Many classes have zero trouble agaisnt thief. Druid, scrapper, chrono, herald have vastly better 1v1 capabilities and additionally are able to support the team with their skills.

By the way: In the Go4GW2 monthly (the last), the thief really sucked. That’s why 55 Dragons switched their thief to revenant. Also the greatest and most swagarious thief of all time, Sizer, quit the game, after he got deleted by a team without thieves 500-0 in the Pro League Qualifier(not because the 500-0, but because thief is his class and it doesn’t seem to work at all in this meta)

Also: It’s not only about your own comp, but also about the enemies comp. How do you face scrapper, two revs, druid, tempest?

Herald is better at some things, it is not plain better. Why would I play berserker when I can play marauder? You know revenants use marauder too, right? That being said, I could probably get away with it if I wanted to enough, and was careful enough. If you’re referring to Red Levin, he was running an ineffective build. I disagree about Sizer being the greatest. He started restricting his own role when S/D was still seen as competitive, and soon after it fell from the meta. If you lose 500-0 it’s not because of a single player. Even 4s can get at least some points vs a 5.

Of course it’s about the other team’s comp. What a silly thing, to feel the need to point out! Vs that one in particular you’d either need to match their sustain, or take 2-3 damage dealers. I’d take a strong support, a secondary support, some cc, boon-hate, and 2 damage dealers.

Elyndis.2130:

Ario.8964:

It sounded like this was sarcasm but I can’t be sure. If it was, well done and I appreciate it. If it’s not, then dude your build has some issues we need to talk through cause that’s not even the most mobile spec out there.

It definitely sounds like sarcasm/satire...

And it’s pretty depressing, too. Decapping is fine and all, but I’d rather take a slightly less mobile class that can do combat infinitely better - like, a Herald! There’s a reason those guys were everywhere last Monday.

Because herald is easy, and new. People like easy, and they like new. Last time thief was riskier to play, there were fewer around. Once some new comps come about and thieves adapt some, you’ll see them more in tournaments.

Edit: Also consider this: lots of money involved. Would you then, when everything is new and not all comps have been tested, and the meta is undecided, try to make a more synergistic comp requiring a higher level of communication and coordination for more risk and reward, in order to play something risky and potentially more rewarding, or play something easy to be effective at that can fit in to any new comp you want to try.

Meta builds are always subject to change, else, the meta would never change. Sometimes the "meta builds" aren’t even the meta builds - a variant of what is listed is in fact more commonly used if not used exclusively. So no, you’re not forced to play a meta build, but if you want to be effective in a team, you’ll want to take one and tweak it to suit you and your team, if not simply play it as it is most commonly played.

People experiment and test different builds in different compositions often, and if they find success, and it catches on, it has a chance to become meta. The problem is most players don’t appreciate what makes a build worthy of being in the meta. It’s not about the build itself being good or bad, but how it performs in particular role(s), synergises with other builds, and what it brings to a team that nothing else seeking to fill the same role, can.

Remember meta builds are meta together, not individually. This means one meta build may be awful and weak in a particular comp or in pug queue, but be strong in a team consisting of players running the other meta builds. One build might seem better than one that is considered meta, but when you consider it in a team, it’s not always the same verdict.

Bump.

Reaper spot still open.

Flumek.9043:

The build is very weak and looks like something a begginer would come up with, maybe mixed with pve, since p/p has never been used in pvp.

For builds i would therefore highly recomend metabattle.com.

Also note, thief is currently in its weakest state since launch and is almost not used in tournaments but it is enough for soloq play.

Never ever fight xvx, always run for the decap and or run back for +1. And never xvx.
Example from a mesmer main but think its graphic enough
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/27364498
(first match and 1h00min match)

Worst thief gameplay I’ve seen in a while. As for the build… Running Dash “to run away and decap” is tantamount to running Dash to be bad, and is completely contradicted by running Shadow Refuge with it. “Hey guys! I’m over here!” In a real match the other team players wouldn’t walk away from a vulnerable thief stuck in that small area. They’d nuke it.

Anyone can play an unfamiliar class and or build, fail with it, and blame it, calling it weak.

I’ve never liked specifically building around backstab. That being said, it does get used a lot more with daredevil D/P. With the DA/Trick/SA build, you didn’t try to land it so much; it was more of a "If I need to drop black poweder, I’ll heartseeker out of it before it expires and get a backstab in." Whereas now, it’s faster and less initiative-consuming you use black powder and dodge when needed to gain stealth and a backstab with a 10% damage bonus.

Certainly in PvP, I don’t feel that thief boasts sufficient burst to play hit and run. It needs to pressure as much as it can between bursts.

Squishy.3694:

@Deciever thank you!! I hope I have enough saved up

@Impact what runes/sigils/amulet are you using? I imagine the traits are standard (and you mentioned most of those anyway)

Marauder Amulet
Dagger/Pistol of Air/Blood + Shortbow of Energy and Fire
Runes of the Pack
Deadly Arts: Mug, Panic Strike, Executioner
Trickery: Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand
Daredevil: Havoc Mastery, Escapist’s Absolution, Bounding Dodger
Heal: Withdraw
Utilities: Blinding Powder, Signet of Agility, Shadowstep
Elite: Basilisk Venom

Those ridiculous "punish them for landing a hard cc on me" traits can be avoided by triggering them in advance with headshot or an ally using cc.

I’m not sure on what you mean by "hit and run," since true hit and run is rarely effective and thus rarely done. It’s either spike and pressure, or spike or pressure followed by stealth to avoid getting targeted or directly counter pressured, then resume 3-4s later depending on whether you don’t want reveal.

If I wanted the role of staff thief filled, I’d take a dragonhunter. If I wanted a thief, I’d take D/P.

Using DA/Trick/DD, executioner, bounding dodger and havoc mastery. I get 7-10k backstabs on most squishy builds, including carrion necro, shatter mesmer, and revenants when they don’t have protection up. I think I’ve had a 9k heart seeker before, not sure. I’ve definitely had an 8k.

So I don’t see why you wouldn’t favour Daredevil for the added survival on top of the damage.

Edit: Also this is in PvP without might or consumable buffs; WvW should hit much higher anyway.

Game is up and you can play it if you are already logged in. I restarted the client because whisper wasn’t working, and now... gg.

There are also other, smaller but no less important points of tactic, such as...
...if you have a primary support, trying to force the fight away from the point while they sit on it so they do not take unecessary cleave, and returning when needing the support.
...instantly grouping around a fallen ally to revive - as he falls down, not after
...moving onto the point as you die so your allies can either group around you to res faster, or to allow them to cleave around you to damage any attempts to stomp or to counter cleave the enemy’s cleave. Your death might get your team a down and therefore not make them out numbered and not need to pull out.
...swarming over enemy players as they drop to cleave them out and any attempts at reviving.
...leaving enemy players to bleed out instead of stomping to hold a number advantage longer.
...rotating to secure a snowball rather than a point, and going for the points after once the enemy is in a weak position and needs to regroup.
...rotating to gank respawns instead of waiting for them to regroup.
...communication via drawing and pinging on the map or chatting, if without voice comms.
...trusting mesmer portal plays, and using the portal to over-extend.
...engaging off point, not extending or trying to kill, but to delay their movement onto your capped points.
...stealthing between points so the other team doesn’t know where you’re going.

The list goes on.

Compositions are good if the builds therein have good synergy and role versatility. For example, having a build capable of supporting and bunkering is better than having a build that can only bunker.

You really have 3 types of comp: out sustain, high damage, and inbetween.

Generally, the comp with more sustain plays more points, aiming to deny the other team captures, while the comp with less sustain plays fewer, aiming to focus fire targets down one by one, and simply overwhelm them with spike damage.

There are exceptions such as if the sustain comp has tanky players but lacks support and therefore recursive support; in such cases, splitting up more rather than grouping up, and relying on mobility to focus down the tanks when they are vulnerable is a better approach.

A balanced comp can decide whether to play two or three points based on the other team’s comp. For example, if the other team is all damage, they will play three. If the other team is tanky, they can play two, and if the other team is full on sustain with strong support, they should match the three point split and contest because once such a team has a cap, it’s hard to take it off them.

That’s the easy part. Then comes knowing your matchups, because that has an important part in rotating. For example, if the enemy +1s a 2v1 turning it into a 2v2, but it’s a very unfavourable matchup for you, it might be better to leave it and take a number advantage. Why? The guy that +1’d just spent time not helping his team while travelling, and now he has to travel again while you run to another point, leaving 1 guy to cap the point. If you are mobile, you have a good chance to get there and win the fight before that guy catches up. Another important factor is respawns and being able to estimate enemy rotations. For example, you’ll see many people die far because they decided to push it after wiping the other team, instead of taking the time to recover their cooldowns, and counter rotate the earlier respawns probably looking to contest or decap your close point.

You can’t rotate very well when out numbered on the map, so pulling out of lost fights is always extremely important to do, instead of staying to die. There are no heroic deaths in PvP because you just resapawn 15 seconds later, probably just as an ally died from being out numbered. Pull out before you die. Remember that if it’s your node or neutral, one of them must stay behind to capture it, which either gives you the number advantage or removes their number advantage as you travel to another point. You should also arrive ahead of them because you left first and can drop hard and soft cc behind you, so you’ll have a brief big number advantage at the point you arrive to.

Narcarsis.5739:

Just to clarify and reiterate, I think the people who play Thief are just too used to being considered required and aren’t adapting to the meta. Thief isn’t required to be competitive anymore but that doesn’t mean it’s weak. Utilize what it offers and adapt to other people whether it’s through your build or your play-style (or both).

Pretty much what I say as well. I’ve yet to see a thief on EU run a decent build post HoT, yet they’ve labelled it as bad. I’ve also yet to see a comp suited to a thief; they seem to be more jumping to conclusions that revenant replaces it, everything else shuts it down, and too busy trying new comp styles. Such does not serve to prove something bad, just that it is not best suited to that particular group.

All the advantages a thief brought in the past are still brought. If the new build and playstyle required to continue don’t work for someone, they simply don’t work for that person. They don’t not work at all.

I’m still of the opinion that D/P is better than staff though. I think half the role staff seeks to perform can be done better with another class, so I would rather have it fulfilled by another class that can also bring something else such as sustain, and take a D/P thief that can add to the AoE pressure as well as being able to jump on out of position foes, bring better utility, and stealth travel the map.

Serious Thought.5394:

@Impact-

So you think Thief is IFFY on preparedness baseline, but its totally k for Mesmers to obtain Illusionary Persona?

Firstly, please don’t put words in my mouth. It’s both annoying and a horrible way to argue.
Secondly, that logic is also horrible. Revs and Engis got given reveal skills, so warrior and mesmer should get it too. Thief got block on a utility. Mesmers should have shield 4 as a utility instead. ANet broke X or did wrong to X, so they must break/wrong Y too. etc.

Outsider.6051:

+1!

Maybe throw in more game modes Anet? Deathmath, Capture the Flag, Offense-defense maps, etc. PVP game modes are abundant in other games.

Spirit watch. Make the side nodes perma-capped – one for each team. Put a team’s orb there to be snatched by the other team and carried to their point. Get rid of the orb at the centre, and replace the mid point with a map mechanic. Now Spirit Watch actually fits into a single game mode category, might not be the worst map in the game, and you have a new game mode.

The problem is relativity. Standard D/D ele fit the bill last meta, but now not so much, yet it didn’t change. The other classes did. You can’t know what is OP unless you can see it against all the other meta builds for all the other classes and each combination thereof, and understand how they would synergise and approach enemy splits and rotations.

Pretty much everyone that has cried "OP!" in the past has been one that does not fully appreciate inter-class synergy and strategy at the higher levels, but have the "that’s good, that’s good, and that’s good; throw them together and you have a team," mindset and or, "Match start! Every man for himself! Go go go!" mind set.

People are probably referring to the chrono bunker thing, or the well support. Why is it OP? Because it’s easy and effective in a pug queue, where people don’t work together much less coordinate.

Oh look we have a squishy comp, let’s push and play 3 points; why can’t we cap anything? Oh look we’re out numbered mid but we have sides, let’s die here anyway then complain when the others die because consequently out numbered. Oh look the 2 guys on mid are low health; oh one just went down; we have sides but I can help this -runs in and insta dies-. Oh look the dude just insta died, one is cleaved out and the other just went down; we have sides, but I got dis, I’ma go mid and be hero. Spoiler: he insta dies.

That’s your typical pug match.

This same reason is why most other classes are either OP or UP. Builds like shatter mesmer and thief for example, because with most soloers being marauder, vs a half good comp that has the slightest clue, sticking with the above described level of thought, the other team will likely create a snowball for the entire match during which anything not running a bunch of invuln frames, instead wanting to rely on support, will spent the match out numbered, chased, and ultimately getting wrecked.

Ok kitten it I read it.

1) No.
2) Reveal 3s yes, SR unrevealable no.
3) Preparedness baseline... Maybe. Mug crit again, yes.
4) Instant cast, maybe. Stun break, no.
5) No, lol.
6) Not needed with marauder but would be nice, and, if yes, same treatment for elementalist and guardian. I disagree about the build diversity part though.
7) Can be justified again. Sure. Nice but not needed.
8) Increase base initiative regeneration... Don’t know. Since I don’t know, and it’s not needed, I’ll say no. 6 initiative on weapon swap... Definitely not alongside a base increase, but on it’s own... maybe 3 or 4 initiative on swap, and get rid of quick pockets. 6 is too much. Edit: I meant Upper Hand. Quick Pockets was an old one.
9) No. Such an effect doesn’t make sense to be baseline. It’d have to be an effect of cloak and dagger or stealth itself. Definitely no to the latter.
10) Yes and no... Yes it makes a lot of sense, but we do already have it by gaining 50 endurance on a successful steal. Sure it relies on steal landing, so it isn’t a given, and I do dislike the "all eggs in one basket" thing steal has going on, but at the same time I like that it requires active play to get. Other classes should too have passive stuff changed to provide the bonus when doing something active for it.
11)
- Back stab is fine. Nerf True Shot and Vault instead. Small damage buff to heartseeker, yes.
- Small damage buff to Flanking Strike, yes.
- Not needing to hit a target to turn over to Larcenous Strike... Not sure, each has advantages and disadvantages. I think no.
- Damage buff to CnD... Maybe a little; not sure.
- Cluster Bomb range increase no. Velocity increase slightly only. Damage increase, no.
- Disabling Shot "rubberband" effect removed, hell bloody yes.

Lol. Saw length of post. Thought zzzz probably just wants an "I win" button. First reply confirmed it enough to free my, only slight urge, to read that wall =P.

I don’t know about easier to understand... If you could ask everyone arriving at a point, strategically speaking, why they went there, I bet 90% wouldn’t have a clue.

That being said, I agree that there shouldn’t be a rank requirement to play the mode. We wanted a requirement to play ranked because it was meant to be for more competitive matches, which implies those queuing should have experienced the maps already. Unranked though, should have no rank requirement. We want to get more people into PvP, not make them regret even trying it.

In fact, there’s an idea. Stick the rank 10 requirement on Stronghold to be sure no one new to PvP plays that first, to improve the chance of them not running back to WvW, PvE, or away from the game.

I like this meta. Not even all the builds and combinations have been tried yet, and I like it. Plus, I’m really enjoying thieves not having safety nets from shadow arts and vampirism runes’ mist. It’s much more like the old style which was actually fun. All the invulnerabilities, evade skills, blurs, and blocks (namely revenant’s 2x shield block) do get irritating, but I just work on my timing. For others that aren’t the mobile and bursty type I imagine it’s very frustrating.

I suppose it’s like any meta. There are some things you want to keep and some you want deleted.

+1 is still a strength of thief when you can arrive in stealth or port in from over 2k range for a burst. As for people following you, anyone can. You need to pick your moments, and, try to disengage in stealth without being too obvious that you’re disengaging (unless of course you’re trying to escape, then who cares; as long as you survive). Thief is just as fine as it was 1.5 years ago, with the safety nets from the previous meta removed. Just as it was then, you need good support to make what you bring count.

We do still have high single target burst, and can chase targets down. What we excel at is mobility and deception, and we still have the easiest access to stealth.

Bump.

Got damage roamers to try out but the spot is currently still open.
Still looking for a reaper.

Bump. Edited title and main post.