Guild Wars 2

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s a slippery slope argument that is too far from what I’ve posted.

It is no such thing. You support a policy of no nerfs, only buffs. That logical result of that, no matter how long it takes to get there, is power creep. And making monsters get stronger to compensate, is just a nerf to players by another name.

Balance by buffing has been tried. It has failed. Nerfs are unpopular, but they are necessary.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s my point. You take something out of context believing that I am talking about “power creep” when I mentioned “buff.”

Buffs are how power creep happens. If you have a never-nerf policy, that’s the ultimate end result.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You take something out of context […]

Your post is literally right above mine; nobody will be confused. I had a single point to make about one thing that you said, and did so. Power creep matters even in PvE.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In PvE’s point of view, no profession should get nerfed only buffed

Power creep is a thing. Otherwise we’d all have OHKO buttons on our bars, Teq would be easy, and the game would be perfect(ly boring).

Gilburt.9146:

Fair enough, however 3 stacks of confusion (lasting 5 seconds) from auto-attacks and 5 stacks for interrupts (lasting 10 seconds) is still ridiculously good compared to even the useful rune sets.

Hyperbole rejected. The condition duration extenders on Perplexity don’t even work, the +condition damage is no better than similar runes, and Confusion only functions when the target pushes buttons without regard for the situation. Damage which is cut in half in PvP (a mere ~1120 with 8 stacks and 1000 CD).

Scholar’s and Lyssa hold up very well, from both a power and utility/gimmick perspective.

And if they’re using perplexity runes their target will have probably 8-18 stacks of confusion on them at that point.

And you’re out of init (and your Confusion stacks will be dropping off shortly). What are you going to do, autoattack them with your condition build? That’s very nearly possible with S/P, but sort of hilarious with P/P or D/P.

God forbid if they have condi removal, or can give the Confusion back to you (hi Necros), because then you are really kitten out of luck with your one-trick-pony gimmick.

If you think it takes skill to interrupt an auto-attack or another insignificant skill once every several seconds with Headshot, then you are fooling yourself.

Let’s try to have this discussion without you pretending to know what I think. the second you start making guesses about my motivations or judgments, is when I ignore you.

I don’t know who Intercepter is, but you have it precisely backwards.

What should happen: every class nerfed over Thief except Necromancer (needs PvE love) and maaaaybe Elementalist.

What will happen: Thief nerfed over everyone, and justified with some wacky interpretation of a misunderstood mechanic.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Not much, considering I was able to hit high stacks frequently without even equipping weapons…

OK. I’ll just respond to the people who understand what Perplexity runes actually do in real-world situations, then.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Being able to toss out perma-25 stacks on demand was just plain broken.

How much time and what expense of resources do you figure it takes on the part of the Perplexity-using character to hit 25 stacks forever on a target? I’d like to get some sort of idea whether you’re even aware of what this rune set does.

Gilburt.9146:

A source would be nice, but assuming this is true:

The 4th bonus of 3 confusion stacks lasting 5 seconds every 15 seconds is already powerful enough to be the 6th bonus on the rune. And then on top of that you get 5 stacks with a 10 second duration every 30 seconds? Still ridiculously good with any condition spec that has at least 1 or 2 reliable interrupts.

Compared to the kitten-useless release runes, sure. Not compared to the runes that came out once ANet got better with constructing useful sets.

Honestly, if you’re complaining it’s because you can’t mindlessly spam interrupts anymore and get rewarded for it. Good riddance.

A Thief that “mindlessly spams interrupts” is going to run out of init fairly quickly. And if it’s Headshot, they’ll run out of init and also do no damage. Interrupts require and agreement between you and your target.

Lady Minuit.3186:

Here is my new build: http://goo.gl/QyRQTF.
Lot of evades lot of damage.

Thanks for sharing your S/P builds; I was looking for something new that didn’t rely on Perplexity Runes. Had a question about this one: why aren’t you traiting for Fury anywhere? Are you relying on getting it from another source?

Ichishi.9613:

except that you are by far less likely to get a non-guild group as anything other than zerk warrior or, in much rarer cases, guardian or mesmer (just for the quickness)

In other words, fewer invites from people who don’t really understand what they are doing, and are just riding the Warrior wagon. That’s not really a downside.

Proper pick-up groups will generally want a DPS Guardian and an offensive support (like a Thief or a Mesmer) for their team, in a blue sky scenario.

Just want to pile on, and say that Heizero’s dungeon advice is very good. Max damage builds are very tricky to make work, and retaining some flexibility is useful for PUGs. you’ll probably need to adjust it to your own comfort level.

Excalibur.9748:

No. A warrior or guardian is the way to go.

Just stop. Warriors and Guardians are excellent for dungeons, but a good Thief can hang damage-wise and still offer a lot of useful utility. Shadow Refuge, spammable Blast finishers, etc.

I guess that this will help my S/P Perplexity build somewhat, depending on how useful that reduced aftercast really is. My trait spec is 10/0/30/0/30, so the changes to init on crit and Assassin’s Reward won’t really have an impact on me one way or another.

I would have rather had the full 1s on Pistol Whip back, though. Maybe I just will have to live with using Devourer? Meh.

This works. But my solution for Healing Signet Warriors, is just to disengage and find something easier to kill. Doesn’t require changing my gear, so I like it better.

What’s the point? Is this just for blasting doors in a zerg or something?

Seazen.7415:

I never understood why you are always on this forum. Do you just come here and whine cause you don’t know how to play against thieves?

Some people… just like to watch the world Burn(fall).

Coldin.2840:

Main hand swaps between Dagger and Sword, depending what I’m doing.

S/P may be considered a weak spec, but I still enjoy it for general PVE use.

I think that Pistol is a good decision too, then. It really comes down to how often you use your Shortbow, because having a strong ascended in your offhand does help both of your D/P and S/P specs. Nothing wrong with an exotic Berserker’s Shortbow, if all you really employ it for is zerging and finishers, for example.

Youkay.5294:

However, I don’t feel needed as a team member at all (except dishing out damage and looking daaaaamn hot!).

[…]

1) venom utilitiy skills are inferior to other utility skills
2) traiting to maximise the utility of venoms leaves us without very essential traits in shadow arts

Sounds like maybe you aren’t really a team player. Venomshare builds are quite helpful to your party, but require that you make a couple of sacrifices and not be the center of attention. It’s a net win for the group, though.

Nothing but math here. Carrion ascended Shortbow has +188 Condition damage, which is an extra ~9-10 damage per bleed stack, or ~19 damage per poison tick. If your build is mostly power-based anyway, I think I’d rather have the extra +10% crit damage, for Cluster Bomb.

What’s your main hand? Dagger?

Karolis.4261:

Don’t think so. I didnt have a chance yet to get jumped by 17 k backstab and 12 k hs thief by a surprise before i can simply 2 shot him myself by much tankier build then his.

You’re just kidding yourself, here. A Thief can close distance on you without being in target range long enough for you to do anything about it.

I don’t run the same build as the guy that hit the Mesmer for 29k+ damage, but closing 2500+ units and arriving stealthed next to someone, is about as difficult as falling out of bed. Shadowstep, Steal (especially traited with Long Reach), and Infiltrator’s Arrow make it pretty easy.

The tooltip on Shadow’s Embrace is just a typo from the patch on the 15th that reworked tooltips; it still removes a condition every 3 seconds while stealthed. That remains one of our best ways to deal with condition spam.

I don’t know much about S/D builds. You missed the window where S/D was good; they just nerfed your #3 chain last patch to only remove one boon instead of two. I run S/P with Perplexity runes and a Carrion/PVT mix for gear, but it’s nerfed a bit right now due to the stun “fix”. Common Thief builds I tend to see are P/D (condition based), D/D (backstab based), and D/P (Heartseeker Black Powder spamming kittens). Shortbow retains its amazing utility for us.

Warriors are kind of ridiculous, it’s true. I don’t bother fighting them unless I have to (or unless they are uplevels/glass).

What’s wrong with Death Blossom in a Power build? It does actually do Power-based damage, you know. Maybe it’s not strictly as efficient as a dagger between the shoulderblades, but it only costs 4 init and has no stealth or positional prerequisite. And despite the shortcomings of its evasion window, it does have evade frames. Plus you don’t need to spec in condition damage for a bleed to hurt, you know; your level does contribute a non-negligible amount of base damage.

Never understood the tears on this one. We have weapon swaps for a reason, you know.

Yamsandjams.3267:

No, but if you’re a thief with and offhand pistol you can continually head shot people, which is probably one of the most broken things in the game at the moment. Depending on your profession and build you might be able to manage it somewhat (i.e. warrior with stability and condi immunity), but in other cases you simply cannot do anything because your action will be interrupted and you will just damage yourself.

Luckily it’s not much of a contributer in large scale fights, but 1v1 or even organized GvG stuff can really show how lame it is.

Headshot does negligible damage, costs 4 initiative, and requires an agreement between the shooter and the target in order to actually cause an interrupt. Confusion does half damage in PvP, and the on-hit Confusion stacks from Perplexity have an ICD.

In other words, “lolno”. People who understand how this actually works usually aren’t crippled when fighting against it.

Might as well have a real discussion in the midst of this river of tears.

animalmom.1062:

What makes me the most mad is lack of ascended carrion. When will I ever get that?

This used to make me irritated (and is not strictly true anymore: we have Ascended Carrion weapons now), but then I realized I wouldn’t want to wear mono-Carrion in the first place, so it’s not a big kittening deal.

You have a lot of Vitality to be sure, and strong Condition damage, but Carrion is only secondary Power, and you are lacking some ability to absorb damage over time. I use Soldier’s (aka PVT) for trinkets. It’s primary Power (more than Carrion Ascended would give), still gives Vitality, and has a bit of Toughness to go along with it. I feel like you need more muscle for a Perplexity S/P build than normal, because of Pistol Whip.

P/D is fine. A friend of mine uses it with a venomshare build, and it’s pretty effective in a number of situations.

What does burst have to do with initiative regen?

Master of Timespace.2548:

Why not? It’s the truth.

Even if it were the truth (which I don’t grant), that doesn’t excuse the behavior of the poster. I’ve found that people who go over the top instead of being measured about it, generally have less useful things to say, so I don’t pay as much attention to them. If you can’t stay grounded about proclamations of an entire company’s intelligence level, I sure don’t feel like trusting you on game mechanics.

Mathias.9657:

Things are a lot different when you’re a competitive player. Right now, pretty much only viable build for thief in tpvp is venom share which admittedly is pretty good and great support although what if I don’t like that play style or enjoy it?

That’s a choice you made by getting into hyper-competitive play, which by definition risks making a trade-off between what you like, and what’s the most efficient. I have a little bit of sympathy, but not a lot. The story of e-sports is a story of margins and edges, not fun.

It’s unfortunate that my main build S/P took a huge blow because warrior stuns were and still are too OP. ANet has no clue how to balance, and for some reason thief always gets it in the back end whether intentional or not.

I can’t take seriously any post here that claims that “ANet has no clue how to balance” (which is against the rules, FYI), but I’ll assume that you were just caught up in hyperbole.

I am also an S/P Thief. The accidental nerf to Pistol Whip is really annoying, I agree, but ANet appears to have acknowledged that it was a mistake. I’ve been compensating with Devourer’s, Stun sigils, and Infiltrator’s Strike. This is not a solution, but it’s fine as a band-aid.

It’s time to bite the bullet and just main my guardian […]

I’ve got bad news for you: if you are unsatisfied with Thief, it’s unlikely you’ll be satisfied with Guardian, either.

How about me? Not quitting Thief, that’s what. My identity as a player isn’t wrapped up in incremental changes to whatever the latest abuse is. I’ve changed my build a dozen times since I started playing this game in beta. When they nerf what I’m running today, I’ll change it to something else tomorrow.

Brienson.7319:

I don’t know about any venom build revolving around p/p, but I use a SB venomshare build in WvW, with p/p as the secondary set. I don’t switch to it a whole lot, but there definitely is a reason to using p/p with venoms.

Venoms work well with pistols in that unload will quickly proc every hit of a venom from a pretty safe range. Other weapon setups can’t pump out each venom strike as quickly or reliably. If you’re already using SB to spread the venoms around, it’s useful to have p/p to have a way to quickly push them all onto one guy if you need to (while staying at range), since SB can’t do this.

I’d still rather run P/D for this. The same thing you get from Unload, you can get from Sneak Attack. And this allows you to run a condition-based build with venoms, since you’re getting bleeds from your SA, Torment from Shadow Strike, etc.

They are pretty good, although you have to be flexible with your playstyle, and do things that help the party. Shadow Refuge is amazing for a lot of things, and having access to a repeatable Blast Finisher on Shortbow is very handy.

If you’re a D/D condition spammer though, expect to be fairly useless to your group, for example.

Not sure why you’d run P/P instead of P/D for this.

Maugetarr.6823:

At this point what if they just removed the root and made the precast for the pistol hit shorter? If it’s just going to be a skill interrupt instead of a meaningful stun the cast time shouldn’t be any longer than headshot. That seems like it would put the skill back on par with the autoattack.

Then what’s the point of Headshot for S/P, at this point?

FLiP.7680:

I don’t need to quote anything, that’s what i think.

Then say “I think”, so that people know you are just making kitten up as you go along. It’s very provocative to say that something is “supposed” to be a certain way, as that implies that it was the intentions of the designers in the first place. I’d certainly want to see a dev statement if they actually DID say something like that.

Redscope.6215:

Firstly, condi manip doesn’t define the necro. Death Shroud is his mechanic and condi application is his strong point.

DS is defining in that it’s unique, but is really nothing other than an extra health bar and skillset. Necromancers are strong at condition manipulation, it’s what they do best and what actually defines them as a class in terms of what they bring to a group. Conditions are underpowered in PvE (OK for carebear open world, but bad for boss events and dungeons), everything else that Necros bring is either irrelevant or done better by someone else. If you brought your silly heal Necro into any of my groups, I’d kick you so fast your head would spin.

As far as “everything else they do” … all classes can tank, DPS, or support. Some better than others in areas, but your best PvE builds are supportive self-sufficient builds for all classes. The only people looking for a “tank” or a “DPS” class in their group are the bads who can’t stop playing WoW.

Tanking is worthless because of aggro mechanics, but DPS is king. If you aren’t bringing damage, you are a leech. Do as much damage as possible, while providing maximum possible group support and only running enough sustain to keep from getting splattered like roadkill.

If I do that on my Guard or my Thief, I am awesomesauce. If I try that on my Necro, I am a waste of a party slot. Necro doesn’t have the tools or the power.

Necros need PvE help.

Interceptor.2653:

FLiP.7680:

Not all skills are supposed to be good in PvP.

Citation needed.

And as expected, none was given. Don’t waste everyone’s time with baseless assertions, please.

Ryan.8367:

If it goes back to what it was it needs initiative cost increased or else it’ll just be PW spamming all over again with a huge stun.

It’s not a huge stun. Even at the bugged 1s duration it wasn’t OP; hell, it was barely viable at all, and arguably worse than D/P or P/D.

They can keep the 0.5s stun if I get to move during the follow-up slashes. Being locked into place without being able to hold the target in range is what sucks about this change.

FLiP.7680:

Not all skills are supposed to be good in PvP.

Citation needed.

Excalibur.9748:

Devs already said they’re nerfing perplexity, just a matter of when now.

What did they say that were doing with it? Not really a big kitten deal if they just add an ICD to the sixth slot ability.

evilapprentice.6379:

PW was being carried by SoP, and even then it was only mediocre. Without the extra .5s stun, it’s inability to be used effectively against anyone with a tiny bit of experience is finally out in the open. The spec went from UP to unplayable due to this, as Anet originally designed I guess.

It’s still good with Runes of Perplexity, which I use with S/P in WvW and wasn’t nerfed in this latest patch. Headshot is better for the insta-interrupt, but PW actually brings real damage with it.

Honestly, this might just mean that I have to run with Devourer Venom on my bar, to hold people in place for the follow-up strikes. Now that the condition works properly, it’s viable.

Redscope.6215:

Granted his wording could have been read either way […]

In other words, you’re agreeing with me, except you can’t directly admit to it, since that would be backing down after going Tough Guy™ on the forums. I get it, bro. This is serious business.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Would it be fair to say that you were…wait for it… perplexed!? Mwahaha

No.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Redscope.6215:

support/heal necro.

Oh man… This statement might make me start kicking necros on first contact…

We should call it a “leech” Necromancer, because then it has a cute double-meaning that’s technically true.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Look buddy, no one is trying to imply perplexity runes have anything to do with on crit applications. I was simply pointing out that the application of confusion they award without cooldown was not altered. I was not even seriously asking for chill on crit without cooldown. Get a hold of yourself man!

I know what your point was. You failed at expressing it clearly. That’s why I responded with a clarification, just in case someone reading along misunderstood what Perplexity actually does.

Redscope.6215:

If you really think the necro is terrible in PvE you’re not playing a support/heal necro. I’ve got a “Healmancer” right now and he friggin rocks. Yeah condis are a bit lacking in PvE and necros are a condi-heavy utility class. That’s the main problem with this game though, the condis from weapons vs. the condis from utilities. It effects necro the most, but other classes as well.

Necromancer’s class-defining ability — condition manipulation — is lackluster in PvE. Everything else they do is either irrelevant (tanking) or done better by another class.

Someone is not out of their tree for looking at this landscape and coming to the conclusion that Necros got shafted. Because they did. Get shafted.

Redscope.6215:

Possibly learn the game better? The problem is they’re without cooldown on interrupt, not that they’re on interrupt.

Maybe you’ll start running perplexity now that you know this quick little fact.

The problem is that the person I responded to implied something that wasn’t true. There is no ICD on the interrupt portion, but there IS one on the on-hit (fourth level) portion. Are you still with me? The difference here is probably ease of application, and on-crit would be even worse in this regard. Interrupt requires an agreement between you and your target, or you don’t get the effect.

I’ve been running Perplexity on my Thief for about two months now, thanks. That’s why I replied in the first place, lest the ignorance about the runes spread here, due to bad English.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Glacial heart no longer displays cooldown in tooltips. If it were every crit with no cooldown (like perplexity runes that didn’t get fixed BTW) I would love it lol.

Perplexity runes are on-interrupt, not on-crit. Let’s not make up things, here.

Farewell to the fairweather Guardians; we’ll keep the light on for you.

I’m a necro, and this thread is non-stop hilarity for me to read.