Guild Wars 2

No longer looking for Enginneer or Guardian, and most likely Elementalist.

Still looking for Reaper and a damage dealing roamer.

Don’t forget the blocks and random blinds! The finishing blow "stomp" can also miss from blinded!

Don’t feed spectral armour life force.

The First Straw [TFS] is looking for 1 more player to complete our primary roster. They should be competitive and dedicated, aiming for AG and ESL. That requires lots of practice to sync our conquest ideologies i.e. strategy, rotations, and of course both learn and exceed each others’ current limitations.

Our roster currently consists of:
- Daredevil/Revenant
- Scrapper
- Dragonhunter/Elementalist
- Chronomancer
- Scrapper/Revenant
Three of us have experience in ESL and AG in previous teams, but only two of us have competed together so far. This is a new team.

We are looking for a Reaper:
- The Reaper is non-negotiable. We strongly believe they are needed in this new meta by any serious team. The Reaper will be expected to run corruption with signets and be able to apply decent condition pressure to Druids, Tempests and Scrappers. Both Carrion and Celestial will be considered.

Please be available to join us for matches after 7pm EST.

Previous tournament experience is not necessary; we are patient and willing to teach. We do ask that you be skilled at your class with determination to reach a competitive level. This includes map awareness, immediate awareness, map rotations, on-point rotation, peeling and communication.

If interested, please contact me in game via mail or whisper. I always reply, so if I appear not to, I’ll either be AFK or in a match. In such an event, I’d prefer to be sent mail so I can easily see it and not miss it.

Thanks for clicking!

Finally someone makes sense. I’m tired of all these buff thief requests. This nerf is what we need.

Nice job. Very well done. Take a good idea and potentially very useful utility, and offer it with such conditions that no one will use it. No, I’m not being sarcastic. You could be a dev.

If backstab with executioner can crit 10k, it’s vault that needs to be nerfed, not backstab that needs to be buffed.

Edit: And true shot. Nerf that nonsense. I don’t care if it’s a projectile and susceptible to projectile counters. It has the same CD as backstab, does more damage, does full damage regardless of where it hits, and is 1200 range. Yes, it does more damage. It has a coefficient of 2.66 vs. backstab’s 2.4.

messiah.1908:

i will ask again why take DA over CS
you loss improvisation but get perma fury and about 30% – 41% more dmg
so with extra dmg you can take with DD weakening strike and escapist absolution

1) DA has great synergy with Trickery, while CS doesn’t.
2) DA has a damage modifier regardless of health thresholds, Improvisation is good utility, Panic Strikes can secure a kill, and Mug is of course more damage and survivability. CS only offers better damage than DA while a target is above 50%.
3) If you get fury from other sources, the effectiveness of CS is reduced since permanent fury is a large portion of the damage increase it offers.
4) If more damage is what you want, you’ll get it by taking Executioner in DA over Improvisation. Not only will your damage be better than had you taken CS, but your best damage will land on targets under 50% health as opposed to above, helping you down them.

All these tiny little tweaks that no one asked for causing so much inconvenience and frustration. Yet, the little tweaks that everyone asks for, for years - like for example, "FIX AIR IMMOB!" - go ignored.

This happens on every MMO.

No amount of complaints posted or frustration vented over all this time across all MMOs seems to have the desired effect.

They don’t stick to those ideas. I still remember when warrior was meant to be vulnerable or weak vs. conditions, and when players pointed it out, the devs responded by editing the page.

Thief used to be very good in 1v1, even against sustain builds, but now if it tries to be, the 1v1 will simply never end because the thief will be able to keep evading and resetting, but lack sufficient damage to win.

LOL. First 5 seconds slow motion crosses the trap boundary as berserker to tank 8k+ damage. The slow motion didn’t emphasize the strength of DH but the fact you walked into it! Casters were in my head shouting "oh my God what is this engi DOING?"

I don’t know why I kept watching, but I stopped at 1:06 when you used your static shield block vs a pillar, and didn’t try to throw when came around the corner.

Nice start to the day, thank you.

JunioR.3207:

i play bunker guard pvp and im searching for team for esl you can whisp me if you want

I’ve got a team now; we’re 4/5 looking for an elementalist, but might accept a hammer scrapper. If you can play one of those well, let me know. If not, sorry.

Edit: I will mention to them about a bunker guardian though, but understand it won’t have priority.

S/* thief has always been that mobile. You have Infiltrator’s Signet (900), Shadow step (1200), Steal (1200), and Infiltrator’s Arrow (900)+weapon swap. Any one of those followed or preceded by Infiltrator’s Return (1200) is seemingly one shadow step over 2000+ range. The thief just has to do it in the right order such that there is an Infiltrator’s Return spot near or greater than max range away from you.

It’s not teleport or speed hacking. I used to get accused of the same thing when I played S/D all the time in PvP. It just shows the person doesn’t know thief very well. +1 for asking instead of raging and or requesting a thief nerf!

Sandrox.9524:

Impact.2780:

Sandrox.9524:

Impact.2780:

Arlowslol.1974:

Sandrox.9524:

I play DD s/d thief atm and I find it very strong. especially in Stronghold mode when you have alot of space to manuver.

I play this a lot and it is the most useless build.

you just run away ,run away, and run away. if you dont ,you got kill even by SA dp thief.

It’s a missleading build. It’s basically a win-more build. If your team is stronger than the opposing, you will feel as though you’re god mode, nothing can touch you, you’re pushing out great damage. If your team is equal, you will bring less than a d/p thief, will get pressured out of team fights, and have a hard time of the smaller fights when stalked by the other team’s D/P thief. If your team is weaker, you’ll zip about staying alive maybe getting some sneaky decaps and feel like you’re the only good player there.

This is coming from someone who stuck with S/D right up to and a bit beyond the elite specialisations, where I finally had to concede defeat because the vigor changes made my DA/CS/Trick build need Acro, which resulted in having less damage than the easier and less riskier DA/Trick/SA. Unfortunately S/D still doesn’t bring any significant advantages over D/P again. It used to be able to fight longer, therefore out damaging, and with the old CS it had more damage anyway, but now it can’t fight as long, when it does it’s because it’s not dealing damage, and once the fight is lost due to being effectively down half a player, the S/D thief has to run away but can’t get a decap or anything because it doesn’t have enough stealth, and will be followed and out rotated. Although on that last point, in solo queue again, it’s missleading because most there won’t have half a clue. Sometimes they’ll even let you walk right past them to decap.

Im not even sure how you came up with thing that s/d is subpar to d/p. On 1v1 it might be true but this game is not about 1v1 and mobility is the best virtue of a s/d thief and with DD im controling the fights, I pick the one I want and im doing immense dmg to a not bunker-ish builds. We had a match the other day me and my friend we had 250+ score each one while all our teammates had 20 to 50 score we won against pvp guild(although it was on stronghold). d/p might be the better spec to play, but s/d is far from not viable or not remotly close to d/p level. sayin know I will kill, some fights I lose, some fights i give up, some fights I win and I love it.

Sorry I guess. I tend to think more in terms of tournament play and meta comps rather than limited to ranked queue. What I said is true. Taking it and applying it to a different situation that it is intended for doesn’t make it false, it’s just flawed reasoning.

As for saying it’s good because of points and how you felt it went in a particular match, I could say I just had matches vs both S/D and staff thieves and they didn’t stand a chance (I actually just did), but that doesn’t mean anything other than you and or your team is better than that particular individual or team. There are so many complaints of complete fools in queue, anyone can walk all over that sort and then say "it proves my build is amazing!"

Anyway, S/D is subpar to D/P. D/P can interrupt on demand, blind a big hit causing it to miss everyone as opposed to evading it for yourself, and it has stealth, which vs a coordinated and aware team, is very strong for deception. Are you going to push the point or are you just making them think that while going elsewhere achieving an out number while someone wastes time guarding the point. Are you sitting in stealth about to spike someone, or did you pull off? S/D will be seen unless it can both get a cloak and dagger off, and get out of sight within 3 seconds immediately after. And as for superior mobility, with infiltrator’s return, yes. It can be very effective, but it’s not always possible to use it to pull off or get a quick instant decap because of the 15s limit, and it means it’s not close by to instantly port back in if you had to use it early, resulting in less in-fight mobility. Shadow shot can serve for mobility as well, remember, and it comes with higher damage, and a blind. Last but not least, you can help allies escape or gank by going to them, dropping black powder and blinding powder (for a quick escape) and blasting it additionally with cluster bomb (to stack for a gank).

You have almost infinite signet of infiltration. if you know that you dont need to return, just jump before you use the skill. Shadow shot need to be in range and need to hit. 3 sec as DD with the swiftness dash is enough to get from close to mid.

I know d/p is best and much more suitable. but s/d is not far behind and offer other things like boonripping and the best mobility ingame.

You babling about tournaments yet Sizer was s/d and he was on tournaments even though d/p was still the meta. He may stopped playing cuz of all the nerfs, but it doesnt mean this spec is not viable.

My whole point was D/P is superior in response to you saying you don’t know how I arrived at the conclusion of S/D being subpar to it, now you’re arguing again while saying you know D/P is best and more suitable. Why? You just agreed.

Now, why are tournaments from 1 ,2 and 3 metas ago relevant to points raised regarding this new meta? It’s not. However, I guess you missed the part about me maining S/D up until the specialisation changes. That was some time after S/D fell from meta and Sizer got kicked from his team. Yes, S/D WAS meta alongside D/P, then the community decided it was no longer good enough. Since then, some S/D thieves - myself included - tried to make it work. Sizer wasn’t really one of them, since he kept giving up damage going more toward some sort of 1v1 neut-holder which is basically a squishier decap engi that can’t hold vs 2 or 3, and can’t decap with someone on it. Decap engi is bad for a comp; I’m using it to make a point.

Sandrox.9524:

Impact.2780:

Arlowslol.1974:

Sandrox.9524:

I play DD s/d thief atm and I find it very strong. especially in Stronghold mode when you have alot of space to manuver.

I play this a lot and it is the most useless build.

you just run away ,run away, and run away. if you dont ,you got kill even by SA dp thief.

It’s a missleading build. It’s basically a win-more build. If your team is stronger than the opposing, you will feel as though you’re god mode, nothing can touch you, you’re pushing out great damage. If your team is equal, you will bring less than a d/p thief, will get pressured out of team fights, and have a hard time of the smaller fights when stalked by the other team’s D/P thief. If your team is weaker, you’ll zip about staying alive maybe getting some sneaky decaps and feel like you’re the only good player there.

This is coming from someone who stuck with S/D right up to and a bit beyond the elite specialisations, where I finally had to concede defeat because the vigor changes made my DA/CS/Trick build need Acro, which resulted in having less damage than the easier and less riskier DA/Trick/SA. Unfortunately S/D still doesn’t bring any significant advantages over D/P again. It used to be able to fight longer, therefore out damaging, and with the old CS it had more damage anyway, but now it can’t fight as long, when it does it’s because it’s not dealing damage, and once the fight is lost due to being effectively down half a player, the S/D thief has to run away but can’t get a decap or anything because it doesn’t have enough stealth, and will be followed and out rotated. Although on that last point, in solo queue again, it’s missleading because most there won’t have half a clue. Sometimes they’ll even let you walk right past them to decap.

Im not even sure how you came up with thing that s/d is subpar to d/p. On 1v1 it might be true but this game is not about 1v1 and mobility is the best virtue of a s/d thief and with DD im controling the fights, I pick the one I want and im doing immense dmg to a not bunker-ish builds. We had a match the other day me and my friend we had 250+ score each one while all our teammates had 20 to 50 score we won against pvp guild(although it was on stronghold). d/p might be the better spec to play, but s/d is far from not viable or not remotly close to d/p level. sayin know I will kill, some fights I lose, some fights i give up, some fights I win and I love it.

Sorry I guess. I tend to think more in terms of tournament play and meta comps rather than limited to ranked queue. What I said is true. Taking it and applying it to a different situation that it is intended for doesn’t make it false, it’s just flawed reasoning.

As for saying it’s good because of points and how you felt it went in a particular match, I could say I just had matches vs both S/D and staff thieves and they didn’t stand a chance (I actually just did), but that doesn’t mean anything other than you and or your team is better than that particular individual or team. There are so many complaints of complete fools in queue, anyone can walk all over that sort and then say "it proves my build is amazing!"

Anyway, S/D is subpar to D/P. D/P can interrupt on demand, blind a big hit causing it to miss everyone as opposed to evading it for yourself, and it has stealth, which vs a coordinated and aware team, is very strong for deception. Are you going to push the point or are you just making them think that while going elsewhere achieving an out number while someone wastes time guarding the point. Are you sitting in stealth about to spike someone, or did you pull off? S/D will be seen unless it can both get a cloak and dagger off, and get out of sight within 3 seconds immediately after. And as for superior mobility, with infiltrator’s return, yes. It can be very effective, but it’s not always possible to use it to pull off or get a quick instant decap because of the 15s limit, and it means it’s not close by to instantly port back in if you had to use it early, resulting in less in-fight mobility. Shadow shot can serve for mobility as well, remember, and it comes with higher damage, and a blind. Last but not least, you can help allies escape or gank by going to them, dropping black powder and blinding powder (for a quick escape) and blasting it additionally with cluster bomb (to stack for a gank).

Arlowslol.1974:

Sandrox.9524:

I play DD s/d thief atm and I find it very strong. especially in Stronghold mode when you have alot of space to manuver.

I play this a lot and it is the most useless build.

you just run away ,run away, and run away. if you dont ,you got kill even by SA dp thief.

It’s a missleading build. It’s basically a win-more build. If your team is stronger than the opposing, you will feel as though you’re god mode, nothing can touch you, you’re pushing out great damage. If your team is equal, you will bring less than a d/p thief, will get pressured out of team fights, and have a hard time of the smaller fights when stalked by the other team’s D/P thief. If your team is weaker, you’ll zip about staying alive maybe getting some sneaky decaps and feel like you’re the only good player there.

This is coming from someone who stuck with S/D right up to and a bit beyond the elite specialisations, where I finally had to concede defeat because the vigor changes made my DA/CS/Trick build need Acro, which resulted in having less damage than the easier and less riskier DA/Trick/SA. Unfortunately S/D still doesn’t bring any significant advantages over D/P again. It used to be able to fight longer, therefore out damaging, and with the old CS it had more damage anyway, but now it can’t fight as long, when it does it’s because it’s not dealing damage, and once the fight is lost due to being effectively down half a player, the S/D thief has to run away but can’t get a decap or anything because it doesn’t have enough stealth, and will be followed and out rotated. Although on that last point, in solo queue again, it’s missleading because most there won’t have half a clue. Sometimes they’ll even let you walk right past them to decap.

I’ve been running this to good success.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhynYhTw0Jw/ELwEmXa4M0Gm7glwVoWCIAkBA-TZBFABCcEAEvMABPAgFOEAAcCAAA

We’re just going back a few metas and needing to rely on support from allies rather than ourselves. It introduces the need for team more team play and less "every player for themself," which is I think where ANet want PvP to go with Pro Leagues by creating more distinguished roles, even in those which use celestial stats.

The meta is changing. Change with it, or you’ll feel underpowered. In the case of DA/Trick/SA, SA is largely useless wiith the amount of AoE, reveal, cleave and cc on downed players now. DD may look underwhelming and you may feel cheated for not getting any change to the profession mechanic. Mesmers and warriors got a new profession skill, eles got a new feature to each of their’s, guardians got new profession skills, necromancers got a death shroud rework. Engi didn’t get anything new to their profession skills either though, and warrior’s elite specialisation is quite.... lame. In fact I’ve not seen more than 4 warriors in pvp since HoT release. But the reality is, when you factor in the improved support of elementalists and the tankiness of scrappers and reapers, the inability to res now even with SA and the reveal skills, a trait line which gives you some extra survival outside of stealth, synergy, and more damage, is a very nice fit.

I had concerns about daredevil before it was launched, even after trying it in the betas, but the problem was I didn’t have the full picture. With thief, you always have to have an idea of what the other classes can do before you know what to run and how to be effective. It’s the cost of versatility, which is an advantage.

Edit: Lol would you look at that. I’m still forgetting about rangers.
Edit 2: Corrected signet on build.

Bump. Still searching.

BANDAGING NO VALID PATH.

I just had 75% of a match plagued with it. Not going to fix it? Nice. Going to bandage it instead huh? Fine. I DON’T FEEL IT.

- DA is stronger when finishing off targets below 50% vs CS being stronger while the target is above 50%. One works with the idea of thief finishing targets, the other doesn’t. While staff builds do seem to be focusing on sustained damage rather than bursting -50% targets, most people just take DA because it was used over CS in the past, and so they assume it’s always better.
- DA works well with Trickery. If you have Trickery, take DA. If not, take CS.

Headshot is good when it can be used. Trying specifically to use it for damage will yield worse results than playing D/P normally. The only reason to even try to make an interrupt build is distracting daggers setting the cooldown of the interrupted skill by 10 seconds, and it can be used with any weapon combination. So just pick daredevil build you like, pick impacting disruption, and swap something out for distracting daggers. It probably won’t be as effective as the original build though, especially if it’s a D/P build, for if something is desparate to use a skill - likely, healing skill - and it’s easy to interrupt, it will keep trying every 3 seconds and you can just keep interrupting it with headshot inbetween auto attacks, so you can achieve the same thing, and more since you have a different utility and a condi cleanse on evade that will keep you alive longer.

Partly because I was too lazy to switch out of pvp weapons, but D/P and SB worked well. Spam ports to get to the challenge/mission/point location, BlackP+BlindingP/HS to get past concentrated groups and when you don’t know exactly where to go, to allow some time to go slower and look about. When you got to kill something, shadow shot makes it easy, and bounding dodger when you got it makes it easier. For hero points where you got to kill something with not many players around, switch to p/p, improvisation, critical strikes and thieves’ guild.

If you’re just looking for someone to say "yes staff works, here is how to win:" I’d imagine the pvp approach of 5 dodge 5 dodge 5 dodge while melee will suffice in PvE, but once out of initiative/endurance you will need to range for it to regenerate.

Same as adventure runes. It’ll probably go ignored for half a year, then updated to say 50 endurance.

Neither. Deadly Arts, Trickery, Daredevil.
Unless you don’t have HoT, then probably critical strikes since a large part of what SA once brought to a team is negated by ridiculous amounts of cc and cleave from tank builds.

Please. If we’re forced to use it instead of ranked, we should have this option. We should have had the option to begin with anyway.

xXBurningEmberXx.6085:

Headshot is not a hard cc because you could just spam it and obliterate the bar. Also, basilisk venom SHOULD be a cc since it stuns and theres no abusable features… I think its probably either a bug or anet just doesnt like venomshare

Spam it I do, because obliterate the bar, it does!

Also, anything that can be stun-breaked is a hard crowd control effect. That includes daze. Soft effects are movement impairing conditions and… blind might be considered one; I’m not sure.

Wanderer.3248:

It’s been like this for years, It’s fair to assume that it’s working as intended.

There are plenty of things that don’t or weren’t working as intended yet stuck around for months and years. It’s always the way with large pieces of software.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Why do you hate kittens?

Anyway, channeled moves still hitting people in stealth is the intended design, and will not be changed. Stealth isn’t invulnerability, it’s not a failsafe to shield you from all damage.

Maybe, but maybe not. Have the devs ever specified it was intended? After all, they could have made unrelenting assault a channelled ability, or like 100b which just zips about the area of the target hitting whatever is in range. Instead, they identified each individual hit therein to have its own "cast", meaning each hit is calculated as to how it will behave as opposed to each hit behaving the same like for rapid fire. This is what enables the revenant character to follow the target or jump onto nearby foes. This is one of their new techniques in action, and when creating it they specifically chose not to let it track stealthed targets despite sharing similarities with channeled skills. It’s not unreasonable to question whether, with this new code, they might at some balance patch in future, prevent all channeled skills from tracking those in stealth.

It does for me, as does headshot and steal with sleight of hand.

They got rid of them because they summon AI. Yet plenty of builds run with AI on its utility bar, other runes are more toxic, other runes got reworked instead of removed.

The stat combination and 6th bonus made it the best rune for my build as well.

dkayl.6509:

and if you go inv.. your opponen cant know were you put it..

LOL.

If he goes invisible, it means he just placed a trap. Therefore, you know where he put it....

If you want more damage, build for it. Don’t expect ANet to simply make copies of meta trait lines and buff them as a new specialization so you don’t have to change anything, and just get to hit harder. Risk vs. reward. Want more reward? Take some more risk. Changes in build also warrant a change of play style. Don’t try to play like you’re DA/Trick/SA if you’re running Daredevil.

Yes equalise base health!

Overworld.9613:

Also, we get to stack all sorts of extra features onto steal

Which we have to do because it lacks punch as our only profession skill. Every class can beef up their profession skills. We NEED to beef up our only one, and if it misses it’s not just the skill we lose out on, but all the traits we had to grab for it.

Bring back ogre without the pet. Don’t even give it a 4th bonus for all I care, kitten it. I don’t want to run strength and not have the damage modifer before attacking >.>.

This is the one rune that fit right into my D/P daredevil build, and they remove it less than 2 days after I put it together? BS. Why not remove something people actually don’t like and find immensely annoying like say, rune of the nightmare or perplexity. If it’s because of the rock dog summon, then just replace that bonus with ferocity. For God’s sake, the only other rune close is Strength, and that requires might and ideally the ability to stack it, which thieves don’t bloody have. You reworked Vampirism instead of just deleting it right? kitten .

Try playing it the way thief used to be played instead of giving up more and more damage for self survival. There is enough support in the game now to be kept alive by allies when queuing with a team, and before you say you’re solo: the builds used in team queue always end up being used most in solo queue regardless of what they need from allies.

Ground targeted dodge.

It took a while to overcome the despair, but once I did... Thanks for the laugh I guess.

Seriously though, if you were desperate, wouldn’t it make more sense to suggest the damage be dealt at the start of the dodge? Of course this is equally absurd for other reasons, but at least it makes some sense.

Same as it was over a year ago. Focus on offense more than defense, never res, rely on the team’s primary support for survival. DA = offense, Trick = offensive buffs and utility, DD = combination of offense and survival. Damage multiplier stacking runes, so ogre, and with all the damage multipliers in the three lines, force sigil will out perform blood so that’ll be back in. Pairing with mesmer or revenant for coordinated burst.

Protection, rune of scrapper (possibly), trait which reduces incoming damage by 10%, trait to gain additional toughness when struck (stacking buff), and you could also have possibly missed the back and caught him closer to the front on the side.

I highly doubt it’s shadow step. Eles and mesmers do sometimes anticipate both your port, and guess where you’ll go, and use lightning flash or blink to finish, but it’s risky in that the thief might move in another direction or not at all. For thieves shadow step is a much stronger utility and has a longer cool down. I certainly wouldn’t waste it on a guess.

Gmtsai.6349:

Impact.2780:

Necro:
- if playing damage:
--- does not have mobility to go with its damage making it an ineffective roamer, thus it lacks versatility in its role, and its class mechanic shuts it off from healing support
- if playing tanky:
--- does not offer support and therefore recursive support in team fights (which is a huge loss, and is why cele engi replaced cele/soldier warrior a few metas back and took on a similar role)
--- has a class mechanic which shuts itself off from allied healing while active (latter can be worked around in a coordinated team but still an obstacle)
--- does not have a safe stomp unless it gives up another large part of what makes the builds work

This is why it’s not taken in place of a tanky team fighter like a warrior, engi, or ele, but instead of one of the squishy members. In this new meta, all it brings is some cc - which engi can now do as scrapper - tankiness - while other classes have become stronger at supporting meaning said tankiness is not needed - more chill - while the previously referred to "other classes" have also aquired greater condition cleansing - and strong cleave - which is slow to cast such that a black poweder or any blinding field could mitigate.

In short, the buffs to necro are, in light of the buffs to other classes, redundant, and ineffective compared to having a different class on your team in their place.

TLDR; Not OP.

This is a perfect example of how people can’t see the problem of necro, they just list anything that looks not great but in fact you all forget one thing. "Chill"

Chill is the killer of everything in this game, and on top of boon rip, Chill becomes unstoppable, that’s the reason why nerco can shut down someone easily just because of Chill + boon rip.

you can’t TLDR nerco not op by listing these, everything you need to look at is in actual game instead of imagination. But what you were saying is sort of true, which is why I’m saying nerco is the hidden OP class that people just cant understand why it is so broken.

and, nerco is the tankiest dps in this game, that’s an unarguable truth.

Really.

I didn’t imagine this up. It’s what I see, it’s what I reason, and it’s what I reason based on what I see.
I didn’t forget chill. I mentioned it. This just proves you didn’t read what I said. Maybe that is why you said it’s from imagination - because you imagined up something to read instead of actually reading what was there.

Imagination indeed.

Yes, I can TLDR. If someone doesn’t want to read but wants to know the proposed conclusion, they read the TLDR. That’s like saying "you can’t just conclude," which is preposterous because then there’d be no such thing as an argument, debate, or even science.

So what if it’s the tankiest? It’s not as tanky in a team situation. If you have an ele and an engi, the ele supports the engi, and the engi supports the ele. Each heals the other, so the other lives longer, and the longer they live, the more they can heal eachother. Recursive support. This means if you have an ele and a necro, you don’t just lose the support of one member, you lose that and all the recursive support you would have had. In a team game, recursive support creates the most sustain, which equates to greater "tankiness" than one reaper and one support, or two reapers. A reaper also can’t support its squishy allies, resulting in the team as a whole, having less sustain in fights.

Precasting cluster bomb is something I’ve been doing for almost a year, first with S/D and now with D/P. It really is quite an obvious thing to do, yet hardly anyone does it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any other thief do it - especially not as part of a burst combo.

DA/Trick/DD works, but D/P still out shines S/P and can burst much better.

Sounds like you were getting downs - i.e. they are killable - but they got ressed due to a lack of cleave or, perhaps support on your team enabling you to continue to cleave. Composition and or coordination issue.

Also, bunker compositions is already a meta strategy, and has been in the meta for over a year, but just isn’t the most popular because it lacks the versaility to deal with different opposing compositions. The same reason why full damage/1 bunker compositions aren’t used (although they actually haven’t been meta for ages).

Necro:
- if playing damage:
--- does not have mobility to go with its damage making it an ineffective roamer, thus it lacks versatility in its role, and its class mechanic shuts it off from healing support
- if playing tanky:
--- does not offer support and therefore recursive support in team fights (which is a huge loss, and is why cele engi replaced cele/soldier warrior a few metas back and took on a similar role)
--- has a class mechanic which shuts itself off from allied healing while active (latter can be worked around in a coordinated team but still an obstacle)
--- does not have a safe stomp unless it gives up another large part of what makes the builds work

This is why it’s not taken in place of a tanky team fighter like a warrior, engi, or ele, but instead of one of the squishy members. In this new meta, all it brings is some cc - which engi can now do as scrapper - tankiness - while other classes have become stronger at supporting meaning said tankiness is not needed - more chill - while the previously referred to "other classes" have also aquired greater condition cleansing - and strong cleave - which is slow to cast such that a black poweder or any blinding field could mitigate.

In short, the buffs to necro are, in light of the buffs to other classes, redundant, and ineffective compared to having a different class on your team in their place.

TLDR; Not OP.

Hi. I main thief. I can play other classes a bit, and can try to work on another as an alt if needed but the other classes get boring to me after a while, so I’ll only main thief.

I’ve played in AG, ToL3, and 1 Go4 on EU some months ago as a sub for a friend. I’ve had a few teams so far but none stick together too long because only 1-2 are really committed, but I’m still trying so if dedication and determination are things you like, I have them.

I’ve played D/P, S/D, D/P again, and staff looks pretty straight forward but I don’t know that it’ll make meta. I know my roles, rotations, strategies, am all for theory crafting and testing (meaning I won’t instantly dismiss and rage at non-meta builds, and will instead look for the role, versatility, efficiency etc. and form an opinion based on that) and I have a flexible schedule for now.

Contact me if you want a thief in your team, or if you want to form one.

glaphen.5230:

BlackFyer.6415:

k got it, I’ll spam skill 5 on staff while evading all damage and do as much damage as a backstab. Yay back to how i like my teef.

Can’t really spam it since you can only do it once per 5 seconds regen, probably seeing the dodge which has a similar animation but clear differences.

Yeah he must not be top tier after all. The idea of alternating between two buttons instead of spamming one is hard to comprehend, much less perform.

BlackFyer.6415:

Guys spamming skill 2 doesn’t work anymore on my dagger/pistol build. Please help!!! Theifs got nerfed to the ground. Why do i have to press more than 1 button???. This is not fair….

3 still works on S/P.
If you’re top tier though, switch to staff and alternate between 5 and dodge. It’s harder because 2 buttons, but both are evade.

I would see the following:

Make baseline:
- Preparedness (+1)
- Bountiful Theft

Nerf:
- Vault: Reduce damage by 15-20%

Buff:
- Dust Strike creates a smoke field
- Reveal lasts 3 seconds
- Black Powder costs 5 initiative
- Cloak and Dagger costs 5 initiative
- Withdraw: apply the promised and apparently forgotten healing increase

Arguably either I suppose, but in my opinion buffs:
- Debilitating strike evades to the side just within melee range so you don’t have to try and gap close when having to use it while pursuing or pressuring
- Blinding Powder: Remove blast finisher and increase stealth duration granted to 6 seconds.

Although of course, if we’re being extremely optimistic and not trying to reduce it down to what might be possible to see done, I would see us get a second profession skill so we don’t have to keep beefing up Steal. (That being said, I have a feeling Deadly Arts is going to fall from meta).

LuckyDucky.7231:

So when i read "Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage" So what is Thief designed for? If in sPvP he cannot kill any "meta" build, maaaybe he can kill rangers, depending on their builds.
And i know that the game isn’t designed about 1vX and important role of thief is +1ing the fights, but with that, honestly you can have any other class and build to just +1 some fight. And you will probably add more to team than thief does.

Not designed to burst down using direct damage with a tanky amulet. Nothing is. You need significant investment in all three offensive direct damage stats to be able to burst something down from full health. Consequently, building for that enables the tankier builds to really hurt you, and there is an exception to the rule for use of intelligence sigil, but that is why only classes with good utility and mobility are viable running a squishy amulet.

1) +1 isn’t a role. It’s just something thief can do very well for two reasons.
i) Very mobile: gets there fast and before anyone else pulling off.
ii) Stealth: enter stealth, and the enemy doesn’t know if you’re still at that point, going to +1, or going to decap.
2) Thief hasn’t been fulfilling the burst role solo since celestial. There is too much sustain and pressure. And even before then, thief’s bursting down was really only for when the target reached 50% health. Before then he just sat in shortbow. Since celestial, thief meta changed to build for more survivability, and the bursting down of a target from full health became a two person job.

So what you were complaining about was never there. I do agree that a lot of things should have been made baseline for thief - or better, reworked slightly to become part of the profession mechanic - because with the build options and buffs to other classes and other classes’ profession mechanics, it is hard to perform any role as a thief, and classes which deal damage at range, away from the cleave and AoE faceroll of soldier and celestial builds, are becoming more in-line with the pressure of the thief. This is a design flaw, because ranged should never be more rewarding than melee, except perhaps for ranger but even then it should have something to compensate for that, like nerfs to survival utility.

Larcenous Strike should be restored to steal two boons.
Flanking Strike should turn over to Larcenous if it hits a target that blocked the damage.
Black Powder should be restored to blind more frequently.
Steal could be unblockable. Debatable with other buffs.
Shortbow should be 1000 range.
A second profession skill should be added giving access to some traits which should be baseline. Stop adding everything to Steal. Seriously. If it fails half the build is wasted for 21s.

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.