Guild Wars 2

evilapprentice.6379:

There’s absolutely no reason for us to continue conversing and derailing the thread (my bad on that). You and I have very disparate opinions on what good design is (IMO you have a very off base opinion on what good design is), and will likely never see eye to eye.

I don’t recall having ever given you my opinion on what constitutes good design, but given your penchant for making wild assertions in this thread, I guess it should come as no surprise that you presume to know what I’m thinking about on a topic we haven’t even discussed before.

Acrobatics is one of those weird traitlines where many Adept skills are good enough that you’d consider slotting one into a Master slot. +1 to everyone who mentioned Assassins’ Retreat, which is actually sort of good now after the Dec 10th patch.

There sure are a lot of people here who’ve apparently never had to maintain someone else’s spaghetti kludges. And by a lot, I mean one.

evilapprentice.6379:

stuff

There’s always a need for an asterisk when someone says something that’s strictly true but misleading: HiS and Withdraw have very specific applications when it comes to removing conditions. This isn’t Fact Checker All-stars, where the truth sets you free, this is you making hyperbolic statements and me calling you out on it. None of the Thief healing skills — absent maybe HiS with Embrace synergy — does any sort of omni condition removal, so you’re always going to have to cover the hole with something that’s not actually a healing skill.

Pre-charging your heals has drawbacks certainly, but here’s a list of the other Thief healing skills that can be pre-charged:

If you don’t see anything there, that’s because they don’t exist. Skelk is providing an extra option, here.

Skelk venom does exactly as advertised: the strong base heal and on-hit after-heals make it basically the strongest burst heal available. You don’t need to trait a single thing to get that benefit. But why on earth does something “have” to be useful on its own to be worthwhile? There are a half dozen or more trait synergies with Skelk because it’s both a venom and a healing skill, and some builds will get there entirely by accident. I could take Skelk on my S/P Thief without batting an eyelash.

Shadowstep does have the downside of being a combo skill with a single cooldown for both things. It’s a tradeoff you make. The idea that a venom thief needs to stuff their bar full of venoms to be viable, is abject nonsense. Just because you have venom share or residual doesn’t imply that you’d never put up with the opportunity cost of a non-venom. You can easily give up one or two utility slots — full time or situationally — because of the availability of venoms in the Healing and Elite slots.

It’s silly for a heal to only perform acceptably in 1 very specific spec.

This is basically a compressed version of why it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. You’re asserting that the heal only performs acceptably in a single spec, which requires an extremely specific definition of “acceptably”. What’s the snow globe for this? Your personal experience in ultra-competitive PvP? Give me a break.

evilapprentice.6379:

It doesn’t have built in conditional removal like Withdraw and HiS does, it’s burst healing is reliant on hitting your target (not always in your control due to blocks/immunes/etc). The other heals don’t rely on traits to bolster them into usefulness – they’re good on their own, like Skelk venom should be but isn’t.

Swapping a utility for more condition removal hurts your venom share spec which you invested 4-5 traits into – it’s already down a slot due to the necessity of taking a stun breaker.

There’s nothing wrong with a heal that venom share specs can use. There is a problem with a heal that’s only viable for venom share specs.

My basic problem with your argument is that you make a bunch of assumptions that aren’t really valid.

You say that Skelk doesn’t have built-in condition removal, but neither does Malice, and Withdraw and HiS both have big asterisks next to them: the first removes no damaging conditions whatsoever, and the latter only gets poison/burning/bleeding. Against confusion, torment, vuln, weakness, etc you might as well be running with nothing at all.

The burst healing is reliant on hitting your target, but it DOES burst more healing than any other option available, has easy synergy with Leeching Venoms, and the on-hit heals can be pre-charged. If you want a large amount of healing in a small amount of time, this is a good choice.

The statement “Skelk should be good on its own” is nonsense. Guild Wars is about skill synergy. Why shouldn’t this also apply to heals? Skelk works with either 30 DA or SA. Both at once is particularly good for Skelk, but not strictly necessary to realize benefits.

Shadowstep is both stun breaker and condition removal; a decent choice to cover the weaknesses of a Skelk venom build. Thief specs are all about tradeoffs; there is no build that has zero weak points or shortcomings. You choose what you can live with, and cover the holes as best you can. Skelk is no different in this respect.

evilapprentice.6379:

• I don’t see how Skelk venom was ever going to “Really shake things up” (Paraphrasing) – It’s provably worse (by a wide margin) than our other healing options except in a 30/x/30/x/x venom share spec, and even there it lacks condition removal and does little to bolster sustain for the thief player himself, which is where the sustain is sorely needed. Even if it was a solid heal in Venom share, why add a healing skill that’s only ever effective in one(und only vone!) spec?

What’s wrong with making a heal that venom share specs can use? That’s sort of the point of expanding skill choice in the first place.

Anyway, that’s nonsense regardless. Your hypothetical venom thief has Shadow’s Embrace for condition removal, can swap out a utility for more, and has plenty of access to sustain with Leeching Venoms (plus Shadow’s Rejuvenation when solo). And while Skelk is a worse heal over time than the other options, it’s a pretty good burst heal.

MrAmputatoes.6031:

It waits about a second before its actually cast. Wierd right, I thought it only had a .25s cast time. IR sometimes interrupts skills so that it can cast, and other times its enters a que. It isn’t consistent at all and ANet kinda broke it beyond belief.

I am not experiencing this behavior at all. IR interrupts skills every time that I use it, even on ones with a particularly long animation, like Pistol Whip. Are you actually timing this properly?

Excalibur.9748:

They basically killed this skill I guess. Wish they’d delete it and come up with something new.

I think it’s still useful. The condition removal didn’t go anywhere, it remains a short-range gap closer with an Immobilize, and you can use it for juking and such.

I guess it’s harder to solo shut-down the electric stairs, but I’ll get over it.

Excalibur.9748:

1s cast is cool. i see this headcrack i’ll use it and just eat it …

Dodge it instead. The default mapping is “V”. Use a stunbreaker if you miss the window.

well at least we got hard to catch !!! that’s like a consolation prize or something…

Admittedly, the Hard to Catch change is basically indefensible, as is the trait just on general principle.

Maugetarr.6823:

1) That is not hyperbole

“Not even close” is the hyperbole. That should have been obvious from context, but I’ll be painfully clear about this for you in the future.

2)Phase retreat exists so it’s not an imaginary situation.

Phase retreat is not a Thief skill. The imaginary situation that I was referencing, was the alternate reality where the developers implemented your suggestion. That did not happen. We only have pre-patch #2, and post-patch #2.

[…] not going to help your argument.

This is not a debate.

The hyperbole around here is extremely irritating.

I am also enjoying the new S/P; the change to Pistol Whip was just what the doctor ordered, and I can drop my points in Trickery without constantly running dry on initiative. I’ve been using the altered Sundering Strikes to good effect with the 9-hits of PW. Critical Haste is consistent, now: there’s somethings like an 80% chance that a Pistol Whip is going to get me quickness by the end.

The new Sword #2 is taking some getting used to, but it’s still useful for the things that I generally did with it in the first place.

Underrated change: Practiced Tolerance gave me the green light to drop some of my Valkyrie gear.

Viking Jorun.5413:

It ported you out of your refuge and gave you revealed in doing so. I think you just answered your own question.

He didn’t ask a question. You might want to check the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

Maugetarr.6823:

Not even close though as the stun lasts 3 seconds (more with sigils).

Nonsense. Your hyperbole is rejected. Being able to create space was a big advantage, even if it doesn’t break the stun or stuff the entire duration. You put nothing on cooldown, here. That’s a powerful counter.

Reducing the range or reducing the availability of the window (or both) would have allowed for counterplay without nerfing the evasive capability of the weapon.

I don’t care about imaginary situations. There are only two that exist in reality: Sword #2 pre-patch, and Sword #2 post-patch.

Maugetarr.6823:

To be honest, that feels more like we’ve been dealt with by a used car salesman. They said they were going to nerf our skills by 50% so when they only nerfed it by 33% and 37.5% we felt like we got a deal. We still got handily nerfed.

That’s probably a frame of reference problem. Infinite vigor is a thing that’s bad for the game, and this was an attempt to deal with it. This “used car salesman” business is counter-productive.

If you want to complain, you should direct your laser at Guardians and (especially) Mesmers, who still have easy access to 100% Vigor uptime, and seem to have been completely overlooked with this pass.

DakSevkla.3278:

I mean, they did reverse the Trickster / Flanking Strikes change.

You can’t say they changed nothing at all when they actually did.

They also rolled back some of the Vigor duration nerf. The original drop was 50% to both BT and VR.

It’s got some pretty nice synergy with Lyssa runes, and you don’t even need to trait the reduced recharge because of the ICD.

Even in PvE it has its uses: ignores Defiant, for example.

It’s back, baby!

Excalibur.9748:

Why do you sound so kitten ed?

I give flippant responses to people who make flippant comments. It’s only fair.

Anyways, I use S/P but the “gimmick” is that black powder doesn’t work too well against people who just move out of it, and pistol whip is a stationary skill so once again rely on people to stay still for you.

BP is not the be-all end-all, but it does at least give you control over an area, which isn’t nothing. S/P benefits from anything that holds people in place, like Devourer or Basilisk or maybe even Stun duration sigils after this patch.

A Guild War 2 character build has pros and cons, and many choices involve trade-offs. Film at 11.

Doggie.3184:

I still hate how it roots you in place when you’re swinging. >.< We’re supposed to be a fast~mobile class.

This is fair, but at least we auto-evade during the slashing animation.

Dual.8953:

Because we need to go glass and to stay engaged if we want to kill a warrior with the sword. If we hit and run, the warrior will just shrug off our damage. Hardly fair considering they can wreck us while staying tanky cc machines. We can’t burst warriors to death so we have to go balls to the wall the outsustain them.

I have bad news; you may want to sit down.

Your chosen spec isn’t going to be effective against everything. There are a lot of opponents out there. Some days you are going to be the bird, some days you’ll be the statue. Life sucks, and then you die. Your implied request to be able to handle everything, cannot be accommodated, due to balance considerations. I am sorry.

The nice thing is that Skull Crack is now easier to see coming/avoid, and the CC chain does less damage, so this matchup is not as bad as it used to be for a Sword Thief.

Maugetarr.6823:

A stunbreak every 8 seconds then, huh? The juke would have only prevented 1 or 2 hits if they had reduced the range and would not have even broken the stun. Again this would have put it just on par with mesmers, hardly making us the unequivocal masters of shadowstepping.

A stunbreak every time you want to get out of being smashed in the face by Crack, yes. It’s not the only counter-measure, but it’s the one that most closely reflects what you want Sword #2 to do.

Evading the stun with Sword #2 is nearly as bad as just breaking it.

It was a really lame argument, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean the change to Sword #2 wasn’t warranted. I mean, offhand Pistol basically guarantees a stomps too; they didn’t nerf Black Powder.

Travlane.5948:

actually venoms are trash.

Actually they aren’t. See I can do that, too.

Excalibur.9748:

Well S/P is a gimmicky build depending on who you ask…

Ask who? Someone who doesn’t know what “build” means? S/P is just a weapon set.

^ He acknowledged that it required also using Infiltrator’s, i.e. a utility to accomplish the tele-stomp, but still didn’t like it.

I know, right?

I’m glad that I can use Sword again without a gimmicky build to support it.

Maugetarr.6823:

As I mentioned and you ignored, the new skull crack has a high chance of interrupting this now.

And as I said, that’s what your stun-breaker is for. It’s nonsense for Sword #2 to negate this forever as long as initiative holds out. Why shouldn’t we have to burn a cooldown to get away from the Warrior profession mechanic?

MrAmputatoes.6031:

Except for the fact that venoms still are trash unless traited.

This is patently false. It’s usually not worth taking a whole bar of them, but venoms are situationally useful for a number of non-share builds. Basilisk and Devourer can be nice occasionally for a non-condition S/P build, for example.

And even if it were true, what’s the problem? Trait for venoms if you want to use them.

Why spends 30+ trait points to help lack luster skills instead of training for what can actually help you. Taking venoms over stuns breaks, condition removal, on demand stealth, ect. as well as the need traits to even make the venoms viable is doing nothing but gimping yourself. Instead of traits for might and leeching which does nothing for team utility than increase damage, why not steal/ corrupt boons or transfer a condition? Besides warrior amd guardians stack team might much faster on much shorter CDs and without trait investment.

And this is the real problem: you want to be awesome. That’s cool, there are specs for that. Unfortunately it doesn’t mean that venomshare is garbage, though. There are real-world benefits to giving venoms and utility to five people that are working together.

Travlane.5948:

i used to run venomshare in wvw. didnt like it. defenseless and boring watching with auto attack bow. […] all n all this build isnt worth the play. id rather do d/d and just CND backstab for 16k.

That’s cool, man. Nobody is going to stop you from doing that. FYI, backstab builds are exactly the same effectiveness regardless of whether or not you jump on an internet forum and poop on a build that you don’t enjoy.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

6s IS short. Besides, what’s 40% of 6s? 2s? 8s should be the minimum +40% when traited. You think that you’ll stack “a lot” of Vulnerability but you’ll probably only have max stack of 4-5 stacks…that’s not “a lot” by a long shot.

Other professions got a 5% boost to their damage from this patch without stacking Vulnerability (see Ele’s Fire Magic 25—Burning Rage and Guard’s Radiance X—Powerful Blade).

A duration of 8-9s is a significant portion of a fight, and 4-5% increased damage after one skill is a pretty decent best-case for an Adept trait. Especially since this patch also makes Quickness-on-crit more viable. You can build a Thief with a lot of on-crit abilities.

You’re only fooling yourself if you think that the new Sundering Strike is acceptable.

FYI, I have no problem reporting the post of people who make things personal.

MrAmputatoes.6031:

Venoms last 30 secs with a 45(36 traited) cd. Why cast it mid fight and wait the cd out instead of precasting it? We could use them strategically if they had a lower cd or better effects…. Tut…. Trash unless traited.

Listen, I can’t play your Thief for you. If you want to just roll your face across the number keys and collect loot bags, I’ve heard that Warriors are good.

Meanwhile, the fact that you have a multitude of venom options, can hold them for 30s, that they are all instant-cast except Basilisk, etc…. gives you a lot of options.

Dual.8953:

1)What is the skill for then if not escaping?
2)True 1/4 sec and instant stuns aren’t plentiful, but 1/2 sec stuns are common almost as dangerous and they can lead to even stronger CCs
3)Have you even tried using IR? Pre and post patch? Can you honestly say adding this cast time hasn’t truly removed a large chunk of its applications?

1) Whatever you can make happen. I use it to dodge dangerous moves, and to create space.
2) Name one. Warriors have a 0.75s stun, which you should be able to avoid unless you are on dial-up and/or have slow reaction time. And if either of those things are true, use a proper stun-breaker.
3) Of course it’s removed certain applications: BY DESIGN. On purpose. Why on earth should you be able to juke everything as long as you have initiative? At some point ought not the Sword Thief have some counterplay?

Sincerely,

An IoJ Thief, who just noticed that your server has been pooping on people for months, and has no sympathy for you.

Sounds as though you could use some practice with strategic venom use and/or mixing and matching for situational uses.

Dual.8953:

The thing is, if you’re using IR, it’s in reaction to an incoming attack. This is no longer possible against 1/4 second skills. You’ll attempt to escape coming stun but it’ll hit before you can get away.

That’s not what the skill is for. You have evades and utility skills if you need to dodge something instantly on reaction. Not to mention that what you said isn’t even true: what horrendously dangerous 0.25s skills are you talking about? Most of the truly dangerous moves are 0.75s and are telegraphed.

It was always relevant, people are just selfish by nature and want to be Rambos with huge damage, so sharing didn’t even register on the radar, not even when they upgraded the radius.

Venom share in small group combat is ridiculous. Not only can you share out venoms, but you can share the extra hit from 30 DA, the bonus Might from Venomous Strength, and the life leech from Leeching Venoms. With Skale Venom this is now a lollerskates amount of utility.

Lulz, what on earth are you expecting to interrupt a 0.25 cast time on reaction? Are you fighting Jesus? It’s four times faster than HiS.

Looking forward to this on S/P. Pistol Whip will stack a lot of Vuln now.

The 6s duration is “short” in theory but longer in practice; many of us will have condition duration from other sources, including Deadly Arts. I have 40% increased duration, personally.

I have been planning on switching to S/P full-time in anticipation of this patch (30/30/0/0/10, Lyssa Runes), so I’m looking forward to the new Pistol Whip, which will be paired with the upgraded Sundering Strikes and perhaps Basilisk.

Walker.3056:

I agree if you could after the changes upload some videos of fights using sword/x against lvl 50+ stun wars, would be grt to learn some tips

I play S/P, so I just troll them by fighting inside Black Powder. Blind is pretty devastating. It’s also useful to stuff their skills with Pistol Whip.

This Thief will admit that S/D against Warriors is not great, especially after they nerf Vigor. But the solution is not to have Sword #2 remain broken in order to deal with something else that’s broken. Ever heard of the old lady that swallowed a fly? I’d rather address Warriors and end the cycle. They are making Skull Crack easier to see coming and dodge, that will help.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

I’m seriously can’t understand this. D/D is obviously just infiltrator build with insane dmg backstab and heartseeker to finish.

Yea, DB have evade and it’s useful and nice (even if 4 ini feels to much), but bleeds? For hybrid guys with rampager gear?

It’s useful in that part of the game where you kill non-players. Does decent damage, stacks a lot of bleeds in an AOE, auto-evades. Bleeds still do ~42 damage per stack even when you have no condition damage, true story.

Walker.3056:

Hope u can have a stun break every 5-8 seconds or it wont matter plz share that build

If you need a stunbreak every 5-8 seconds, you might want to just roll another class or avoid Warriors entirely. You’re not supposed to be able to infinitely bail out of your mistakes.

Jrunyon.3012:

We will all enjoy being demolished by warriors in the coming patch. It’s what Anet always wanted for us.

Uhh OK, have fun with that. The rest of us are just going to put a stun-breaker on our Utility bar.

Rym.1469:

I wonder why so many Thieves count Rangers as easiest targets in here when in a mirror thread on Rangers forums most of Rangers list Thieves as one of the easiest to kill, on WvWvW.
Interesting fact, I mostly win with Thieves when roaming in power build. Keeping range and predicting burst may be key in here + timing PBS+ Rapid Fire overkill

Interesting. I agree with the rest of the posters, though: I find Rangers easier to kill than any other class in WvW, except for glass Elementalists caught with their pants down or up-levels of any stripe.

They are probably just bad Rangers, though. Bearbow type.

You just don’t have a great build for dealing with Warriors. Can’t keep Poison on, nothing for conditions, middling power, etc. It’d be another thing if you were partially down the DA line, or had some ability to stick bleeds/torment.

What is your spec?

Poison and constant pressure is required to beat a Warrior, and I usually just skip them because it’s not worth the trouble.

I’m not convinced that Sword is getting nerfed that badly.

Pistol Whip’s follow-up slashes will be 0.25s faster next patch. Sundering Strikes will benefit the 9-hit cleaving PW more than any other skill, ditto for the upgraded Critical Haste. there are nerfs, but those three things are strictly buffs for S/P.

S/D is another thing entirely, but some builds will at least benefit from the increased passive init regen.

The wiki says nothing about a quarter second stun. There’s a three-quarter second wind-up, half second stun, and a 1.25-1.5s evasion window.

Excalibur.9748:

well pistol whip has like 0.25s stun which can be lengthened to 0.5s.

More accurately, Pistol Whip has a 0.5s stun that can be extended to 0.65s with sigils.

The stun is going to be a little bit more useful after Dec 10th, when the aftercast on the first hit is reduced a bit. Eventually they are planning on splitting the skill into two parts, like they did with Larcenous Strike.

Master of Timespace.2548:

You might want to check out his signature. Just saying.

You might want to consider that I did, but consider it an unrealistic situation.

Just saying.

styx.7294:

Address that. Put it in context.

Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s 25 stacks of Confusion on your bar. Once the enemy goes through the effort of stuffing all of your skills, the bomb is armed. If your health drops to 0, you die. What do you do? What do you do?

Confusion isn’t like any of the other conditions. The damage is incredibly spiky (you can take thousands of points of damage during a single second) and with lucky/skilled timing unavoidable.

It’s actually a little bit like Retaliation (which is a boon, I get it, but the flip side of the coin regardless). Anyone who has ever Pistol Whipped a DPS Guardian without paying attention to his/her buff bar can attest to this.

I agree with you about the Haste, but if you’re going to do that, why not go all-in with on-crits for better synergy? Mug is great, but the vuln-on-crit (Sundering Strikes) is getting the ICD removed and proc chance upgraded this coming patch as well.

You can also divert some of your Trickery points into going down to 25 DA: gives you 5% bonus damage on dual skills (your S/D bread and butter), and 10% bonus damage on targets with a condition (i.e., all targets). You’d still be able to maintain Thrill, though you’d lose Bountiful.

EDIT: and I suggest doing the math before switching to Precision. Power is usually a better investment.