So there are no traits for DP or geared towards DP. If you have to take SA on you D/D build go for CiS and regen on stealth. That’s as good as you’re getting in today’s game. They want you playing DD btw and I’d honestly drop SA for DD.
As for the other lines it is what it is. Anet wants you to buy HoT. All classes are in the exact same state. Buy HoT or don’t compete.
Try playing D/D as strictly a burst spec swooping in finishing foes off and not as some 1vX bruiser dueling spec.
No, all these traits are only of use for D/P.
I can’t take fleet shadow, Srej and CiS – If I’d take hidden thief I’d miss out on ~3-4k from my CnD.
D/D only works with DrD if I’d go condi – I hate condi.
So – you understand: There’s no way I can make my D/D power thief work as everything has been taken out of my reach.
Plus other stuff that’s wrong with D/D – the same is for P/D, they also “need” the traits D/D does but they could make hidden thief work.
And again: I’m a wvw solo roamer – I’m on gunnars which has got more roamers than any other server but still I’m mostly alone. I can’t burst in as a +1 – and I’d like to play this game too – especially since I’ve once been able to – losing stuff is always bad.
forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug forum bug
Avoiding answering doesn’t make the question go away. There are no traits geared towards DP only
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Arts
Hidden thief which is now merged with fleet shadow which I don’t have access to as a D/D thief as HT hampers with my playstyle, SReJ – a D/D doesn’t “need” the ini regen, they “need” CiS.
I can go through all other lines if you want me to – SA happens to be the one I know the best.
And btw: I already answered by saying “read the OP” and I took hidden thief + fleet shadow as an example in the OP. I don’t know what’s wrong with you but you seem to be afraid to read long texts.
ETA: And I did go though all other lines. Most of the other stuff is better suited for S/D or staff (evades), probably also for condi spam D/D. And while reading I came across acro and DrD and really wondered if we can’t just delete acro and merge it with DrD – having two lines which essentially do the same stuff seems a bit stupid. But then no “vanilla” player would be able to play S/D anymore – but are they now? It doesn’t look too good though to block S/D for players without HoT or for those who are still leveling.
I just got 6 camps and hampered with the enemy night capper server upgrading everything to T3 – but I bet I wouldn’t be a top contributor
The idea is nice but it’s really hard to be fair about that.
Azukas: “A lot” not “all”. And it’s not just about offense but also defense – which is what is the breaking point for a lot of builds (described in the OP if you’re confused what I mean).
Maugetarr: I do know that D/P will always be better because it has stealth on demand and shadowstep. Staff might currently be even better in theory, yes, but still thieves are squishy (more or less rightfully so) so being able to escape a situation will always be “better”.
Buffing OH dagger is complicated – S/D doesn’t need blind, doesn’t need shadowstep – so all buffs would be useless to them; it would likely be better if there were traits in according trait lines that let players chose what they want their offhand weapons to do.
I would like dancing dagger to become a scorpion wire and OH dagger blind and unblockable. But I’d be fine if I could chose other traits which lets OH dagger evade when hit and no blind but bleed (or whatever condi) (P/D) – I think I would like this a lot more than if everything was set, like on D/P – and I’d like D/P to be versatile as well – thus I proposed taking utility and putting it into traits – but like I said; we have too few traits to do that.
So all that is left right now is to buff OH dagger which would lead to a more lame game than it already is and still to D/P being more powerful as you can’t put all the utility D/P has onto OH dagger, and we still have the merged traits that don’t suit D/D or P/D.
Edit: Spelling
ETA: So in the end what I think the traitmerge brought wasn’t an easier but more complicated game to balance – If they intended to keep more than 2 weaponsets for each class. We could all roll scrapper and bash each other that would be just as “balanced” and exciting. Even if OH dagger were buffed or most important traits made baseline it would be the same situation: brainless conformed stuff.
I don’t object making traits that everybody takes when taking the line baseline though, like SE for SA or maybe mug for DA.
I’m in favour of this – as long as they’re not another hurdle (which let me trip during a fight like tactivators – I know there’s no fights at spawn but you get my point).
Also people neglect all the DP nerfs over the years as well.
Im well aware of the SD changes (remember that they hard countered me) and just went with his biased statement since he already hung himself
Buffing other sets won’t go without nerfing D/P as currently a lot of traits are merged in a way that only D/P can profit from them. And you can’t take away that they have 2 shadowsteps with traits and weaposet, that it’s easier to play D/P than every other set.
If you make an OH dagger buff that lets you port to your enemy this utility is pretty much wasted for S/D thieves as they already have it on their set.
So: If you put more utility on the other weapons you won’t really satisfy the needs of each set and D/P will still be stronger.
Even if you buff S/D to what it has been D/P will be stronger, even if you buff D/D, D/P will be stronger, probably even P/D but that sets depends a lot on if condis are buffed – oh and on pistol buffs probably – I guess a faster autoattack would buff that set.
It doesn’t work without nerfing D/P in my opinion – especially since the traits are now a mess.
ETA: And the Dagger buff was in April ‘14. It did help me a lot, but I was mostly capping camps at that time – so PvE in WvW. It didn’t make that much difference against other players.
P/D became only viable when power was nerfed with the ferocity patch – the latest patch made us (D/X) more viable not because dagger AA was buffed but because other classes were nerfed.
ETA²: Yes I know that nerfing D/P alone wouldn’t buff other sets. I also know that anet doesn’t have much interest in thief. But I want them to realize that everybody and their mother plays D/P because it’s the only set left viable – and that not because the traits are that good but D/Ps utility. And since it has been the only set (for ~ 1 year) everything is tailored around it = every other set doesn’t have a chance.
I hope you get the point now. Kudos for at least trying to discuss instead of calling me stupid, btw.
Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.
And what should thieves do in the meantime?
Buffing Dagger mainhand and Sword was the easiest way to get thief back on track in PvE and let them apply a bit more pressure during all the invulnerabilities flying around. Still the DPS (including burst) a thief dishes out is less than what most if not all other classes can do.
What you should do is to create a thread on the pvp forums: “Anet your game is absolutely unbalanced, pls fix”.
But: There’s already a lot of threads like that around since at least HoT.
In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy. I’ve had some success with DD/SA/AC setups even still using berserker stats.
The most popular thief builds for PvP and WvW are all damage, damage, damage! There are some fine examples of alternative builds right here on this forum that get the job done without the glaring weakness of paper-thin defenses.
Go put on some tanky condi gear and spec to throw caltrops and poisoned daggers everywhere when you dodge. It’s fun and kittenes all of your enemies off. Thief is good at doing that.
But… if your reflexes are good enough and you choose your targets and timing wisely, you can keep on stabbing the same way you always have. That’s right, without Daredevil. It still works.
Yes, I think in a pvp environement there should always be classes who are unable to defend themselves – makes perfect sense!
Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.
And what should thieves do in the meantime?
Buffing Dagger mainhand and Sword was the easiest way to get thief back on track in PvE and let them apply a bit more pressure during all the invulnerabilities flying around. Still the DPS (including burst) a thief dishes out is less than what most if not all other classes can do.
What you should do is to create a thread on the pvp forums: “Anet your game is absolutely unbalanced, pls fix”.
But: There’s already a lot of threads like that around since at least HoT.
As I said in another thread, if you can’t muster a defense against 20 players, then you deserve to lose. It’s a 24/7 game mode and it’s been a 24/7 game mode since launch. If all you do is play for 3-4 hours and have no coverage the other 20-21 hours, then you absolutely deserve to lose.
Defense on EU at night: 2-3 people and 15-30 enemies who PvD.
ETA: And btw: These servers also have a prime time coverage. They tick with ~100 during that time, granted, but it’s impossible to get back the points they’re getting with their karma trains.
This is just getting really stupid: After June no thief has been able to 1 vs 1 any class and everybody knew. That’s why thieves who wanted to play pvp were reported and/or their team mates refused to play because they had a thief on their team – and you say an 1k damage increase is “over the top and unneccessary”?
I have been infracted for asking someone if he was trolling (that was a genuine question) so I’m not asking it again.
More people were using DP before the death of SD anyways
If you mean the nerf ~1,5 years ago, then no, more people were playing S/D – but I guess that was more because they were tired of D/P, not because S/D was better.
So, yes in this case, if D/P were nerfed significantly thief would likely be dead (except for staff) – if the nerfs came thoughtlessly and without compensation elsewhere – which is to be expected. If not though all that is and will be left is D/P (and staff).
This is not news. This has literally been like this for more than a year. This post title is pure cancer though, I would consider changing it.
Alright informative insertion.
Would “D/P is pure cancer” be better?
D/p is arguably the best all around set thief has and this is coming from somebody who almost exclusively runs s/d. If you want to talk about cancer, talk about the condi evade spam death blossom build.
ETA: I agree though, lets fix wvw before thinking of server merge. I guess my server is the only thing that makes me play wvw from time to time. If I were forced to play on a different/megaserver I’d quit instantly. Not out of principle but because I know that I wouldn’t have fun.
Surely you cannot be arguing that the AA buff is justified when you just stated that the entire problem with the game is that damage is too high?
Did I ever say it was justified? No – just that it shouldn’t be a problem to you as every class hits out equal if not bigger damage.
If you are not here to address the idea under discussion, then why are you here? Either agree with my point that buffing AA was a bad move or disagree with it and provide supporting arguments, but kindly take your personal offense toward my interest in a fairly balanced game elsewhere.
It’s a waste of everyone’s time to read the L2P drivel that this thread has turned into, and if we as players ever hope for Anet Developers to take our discussions in the forums seriously then the toxicity has to stop and intelligent study and well-articulated opinion must become the norm.
I could go to every other class’ forums and create a thread just like you did.
I’m telling you that your complains are unjustified.
thief has been left out of the powercreep in june and is now “on par” damage wise with the other powercrept classes – how can that be unfair?
Do I like the powercreep – no, I don’t – but I don’t see why thief should remain a free lootbag while every other class does more damage.
Scrapper is completely OP.
I found yesterday that I’ve been running around with essentially 1,5 traitlines (one was of absolutely no use for me as it needed critical chance to trigger (rifle line)) and i’m mostly valk. The other is scrapper which I only had half.
So, I solo capped camps without the need to heal, I ran around on Deso small scale and ganked people, with that build. Oh and I don’t even have sigils on my hammer. So whenever you lose to a scrapper… it’s ok. Whenever you win against one; jump his body. But to the thief who killed me: Yes ,I really should L2P – Running around for hours in wvw before realizing that one is using only 1,5 traitlines is the best proof.
Nizio Nightblade.8109
You overestimate the “passives flying around in wvw”.
Something in anets metrics is wrong that’s why the overall damage in wvw is a lot higher than in pvp, but otherwise it’s mostly more or less the same.
food buffs and sharpening stones and w/e power stacks make wvw more loopsided and easier for a thief to gank then any other class because now they’re backstab hits for 8-10k with bask venom and they’re criting for a full AA chain at 6-7k. with a 2k steal with applied poison. I can understand the complaining when it comes to wvw about gank thiefs but wvw really is mess up when it comes to balance as a whole.
Even if you don’t have all of that your damage is higher than in pvp.
ETA: And everybody runs around with food – it’s suicide if you don’t – so it’s not just thieves ganking around.
Nizio Nightblade.8109
You overestimate the “passives flying around in wvw”.
Something in anets metrics is wrong that’s why the overall damage in wvw is a lot higher than in pvp, but otherwise it’s mostly more or less the same.
My point is: Thief is still one of the weakest classes out there, so if you’re dying to AA you’re doing things wrong.
ETA: I said it half a year ago – the longer the brainless meta would stay around the more people get used to it and think this is how the game is supposed to be. So, people might be surprised that thief has gone from a lootbag to a lootbag with legs.
I killed a mesmer today with 3 hits (one while he was stealthed apparently, just got a lootbag and didn’t see a body) – seems as if their passives got nerfed a bit but he didn’t notice yet.
So yes, if you ask me: the game is still out of control balance wise but thief is the least of your problems.
This isn’t a “QQ I died” thread. This is a thread from the perspective of both the thief and the thiefed. It’s about more than AA. I would encourage you to go back and read my original post. The AA buff trivializes initiative management, which is what defines the thief profession. The AA buff trivializes thieves.
Are you running Panic Strike? Just keep flailing your auto-attack around where you saw that Mesmer stealth. Congrats, you just won the fight!
CS, SA, T with CiS instead of SRej, D/D – I’m the weakest thief possible.
All I read was complaining and no knowledge of the class/the game.
Mesmer sees thief first: thief dead. Pre patch: Thief sees mesmer fist: Thief dead, post patch: Thief sees mesmer first: Mesmer dead.
All classes have got utility to prevent being locked and bursted down (which a mesmer can do better btw).
So sorry, my point still stands: You have no point.
If you want to have one then you should look at the state of the game as a whole – It’s burst all around and has been since June. The Bunker Meta was kind of a lie and just possible with certain classes and their passives.
My point is: Thief is still one of the weakest classes out there, so if you’re dying to AA you’re doing things wrong.
ETA: I said it half a year ago – the longer the brainless meta would stay around the more people get used to it and think this is how the game is supposed to be. So, people might be surprised that thief has gone from a lootbag to a lootbag with legs.
I killed a mesmer today with 3 hits (one while he was stealthed apparently, just got a lootbag and didn’t see a body) – seems as if their passives got nerfed a bit but he didn’t notice yet.
So yes, if you ask me: the game is still out of control balance wise but thief is the least of your problems.
Would you believe me if it was convenient for your side of the argument?
Being a “dynomite” thief who sits on the toilet while playing pvp and dying to autoattack sounds like a good story. But none of it is believeable.
So my point is: you’re making all of this up – how have I taken any side of an argument?
I’m well aware forward speed is faster. Turn with your mouse. Stop clicking your skills like you probably do too.
I do “click” skills, but only when I’m taking a dump and winning PvP via remote control with my phone’s touch screen. Get on my level, you condescending twit.
Stop QQing and go back to ur ez mode ranger forum that require no skills to play.
If u actually think thief is op, go and roll thief and see how bad u are going to get rekt
and u will never say thief is op again.
I have a thief. I have to warm up a bit before I can stay alive, but even pre-buff could kill just about anyone without much effort after shaking the rust off. I once moved my ascended gear over to my thief and spent a day ganking people in WvW. It was fun for a while, and then it just got kinda boring because with ascended + food buff, nobody could counter except other thieves that got lucky. The tankier the enemy, the harder it is to win but not impossible if you have the patience. Thief scales differently in sPvP, but it’s still very powerful there except against bunkers which were too prevalent because they countered everything.
I’ve played both power and condi builds of every class, and play 3-4 characters on a daily basis. I am not just a ranger. I understand a bigger picture than the view from behind a longbow.
I am also not the only one in this thread, nor the forums as a whole, who recognizes the problem with buffing thief personal damage instead of providing them the group utility that they need to have instead. See this other thread.
I don’t believe you., otherwise you shouldn’t have problems to kill a thief on any other class.
And just for the record: I don’t want group utility – I don’t want to be pressed into the trinity, all this “support” nonsense annoys me. But yes, most of us acknowledge that buffing thief’s melee AA only helps that much – mostly because it’s pretty impossible to kill good players with AA.
Not so sure about this. A friend of mine just started thief (mains ranger – ~30K AP – he’s been around for a bit) and he seems to like it.. which is really weird as he’s the typical ranger = immobile, slow and a bit kitten y.
ETA: And before someone complains: I started as a ranger main as well and also have been “the typical” ranger back then, cause why should I dodge, right?
They made one mistake: Not having devs in wvw as players. So they lost touch, have no idea what the last 2 years of balance did to the game mode and what it needs. And yes, by now it’s pretty much too late.
I don’t get why on earth they didn’t even fix the broken WPs by now – but alas, it’s just been 3 months.
A ranger who complains about AA of a thief – really makes sense as rangers absolutely have no weapons like a LB or ever evading GS and S/D to evade auto attacks.
@Jana
you can’t force people to stop playing just because they enjoy pvo or pve or whatever they play in wvw , they paid for it same as you. so tell me why the things you want matters more then those players who plays at your night time?
I’m on EU. 3 timezones and nightcappers. Servers who lose every fight during prime and even every of their T3 structures as they don’t even know how to defend shouldn’t come in second (I have been on 2 nightcapping servers – it was very boring).
ETA: I get that real night capping Karmatrains probably aren’t that “visible” on NA – but very much on EU. So if you say “there is no such thing” you probably mean “on NA”. I have no idea how to solve this for NA but for EU the approach of PPT scaling depending on how many of your server are online during that time would be rather smart and it would also probably buff smaller servers in general. But then again I have to think some more about it – maybe it could be exploited or favour the smaller server too much.
so you are kinda shutting a server entirely for a match up because they want to do ppt instead of fight during prime time. giving them no chance to recover points at all.
You’re right, we have no designated game mode for that yet. I’m thinking of something like PvS – Players vs Sandcastles. But those who rather want to sit in their Castles won’t be too happy with that as the Karma Shoevellers will take more Castles than they can – so we need yet another game mode PvO – Players vs Outdoors in which you can buy guild upgrades that let you send npc caravans to other sandcastles.
On EB every second pair of unprotected dolyaks coming from golanta will die.
Since the dolyak speed increase last week, they don’t get killed by mobs anymore, because they just outrun them.
Ja, I thought of that as well – haven’t spend too much time in wvw lately so I didn’t observe what the speed change brought. So yes, it might be that no one needs to escort dollies anymore.
Here comes an idea (anet will like it) : Dolly Traps for badges and silver to slow them down.
Someone proposed having PPT measured by players online on each side and I think that’s a pretty good idea, better than a set time.
I do care about PPT as I don’t really want to fight my ex server (the whispers are annoying when we do). Plus “losing” every week is kind of disapointing. So, it is hard to really “fight for a reason”. I can enjoy the fights and be laid back about the PPT, but in the end that’s one of the plenty reasons I don’t really play wvw anymore as all efforts are wasted anyway – I can be there, I can be elsewhere, I can be afk – it doesn’t really change anything as in the end we’ll lose everything to a few night cappers anyway (not always but mostly).
ETA: But like I said: One of the many reasons. I probably wouldn’t bother if not everything else was broken.
I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a word
I did test blind and condi remove today (although I already knew) by running into a wvw camp (the vets basically spam blind). I might try it with my necro. But what do venoms have to do with that?
As was already mentioned, you’re just wrong. Blind is a condition, can be removed like any other condition.
Then try it, please.
I’ve been playing this game since open beta, and I’ve cleared blind with condition removals more times than I could possibly count. You’re obviously testing wrong.
I capped ~15k camps, 10k of it solo – I have never been able to remove the blind.
Probably because you’ve been standing in the pulsing blind field the scouts drop. It’s invisible, but acts like the black powder smoke field.
I was indeed wrong, for whatever reason – I taunted scouts yesterday and wasn’t able to get the blind off with withdraw (trickster traited so one unspecified condition will be removed) but I didn’t get it off. Tried it just now again and I was able to remove it. So no idea what went wrong yesterday. But yes, these scouts are really annoying – and the fields sometimes hard to see – maybe I did stand in a field yesterday.
I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a word
I did test blind and condi remove today (although I already knew) by running into a wvw camp (the vets basically spam blind). I might try it with my necro. But what do venoms have to do with that?
As was already mentioned, you’re just wrong. Blind is a condition, can be removed like any other condition.
Then try it, please.
I’ve been playing this game since open beta, and I’ve cleared blind with condition removals more times than I could possibly count. You’re obviously testing wrong.
I capped ~15k camps, 10k of it solo – I have never been able to remove the blind.
I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a word
I did test blind and condi remove today (although I already knew) by running into a wvw camp (the vets basically spam blind). I might try it with my necro. But what do venoms have to do with that?
As was already mentioned, you’re just wrong. Blind is a condition, can be removed like any other condition.
It doesn’t really have to do with this topic, but I think there should be enaugh mobs on the roads to kill unprotected dollyaks, forcing servers to guard them if they want upgrades.
This would be a useful kind of PvE on the maps.
On EB every second pair of unprotected dolyaks coming from golanta will die.
I once came to that camp, someone ran away from the camp, came past a yak that was just being killed off and wrote “ordered fat yaks golanta” – good job! Those coming from other camps on EB are also n danger but Gol is the worst. So: we already have that and had for the past 3 years. (People still didn’t care though – so please no more PvE).
The sooner you realize the truth the easier it will be. When speaking of “balance”, WvW is irrelevant.
On a side note, that first traitline is just as useful for a hammer build as it is a rifle build. Just sayin………
I don’t think so – but you can give wvw a shot yourself. We don’t run braindead after a commander, btw – against popular belief.
“the first traitline is just as useful for a hammerbuild as it’s a rifle build” – umm.. what do you want to tell me with that?
None of the traits in it made sense with my hammer, especially since my critchance isn’t that high as I run valk with knight and some random condition trinkets.
Just sayin…. …..
I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a word
I did test blind and condi remove today (although I already knew) by running into a wvw camp (the vets basically spam blind). I might try it with my necro. But what do venoms have to do with that?
Blind clears for free on transfers. Idk on Generosity, but all necro transfers clear blind for free (so basically transfers are blind immune).
So, that means if Necros transfer conditions the blind is gone. Does the transfer count as an attack? Seems as if this a special case. And I think if you’ve got Sigil of Generosity equipped your attack will still miss, thus the sigil has no chance to proc anyway.
This was just a 100 camp, with both yaks in though, still: I have no clue how to play engi, I just know how to blast my waterfield (which I didn’t need in that case). I die 1 vs 1 but can run small scale perfectly fine.
So no, Engi doesn’t seem OP to me. Everybody should be fine with a random build and half an Elite, no?!
ETA: Just had a look at the traits and they’re beyond random as this is still my Rifle build. So the first traitline is of absolutely no use to me. I’m basically killing players and wvw NPCs with 1,5 traitlines. Splendid.
@ Sir Vincent :
If they get the initative elsewhere they don’t have to trait in trickery as I guess this might be one of the main arguments they’re taking it.
I understand mesmer stealth and I like veil, also that all of us are stealthed (important in wvw) – but all trappers, mesmers and engis became stealth abusers and don’t have anything tied to it – so they should have it restricted by either very long cooldowns or.. traits so that they have to sacrifice stuff for being in stealth. Also I don’t want to be stealthed by random people in the worst possible moment and truth beingt told: most players don’t understand stealth.
The balance in this game is still really off, so it’s hard to tell whether or not heavies should always be revealed. Right now heavy classes are dealing way too much damage (again; speaking from a wvw point of view).
@ Sir Vincent :
Ok, got it. I’m a bit multitasking right now – might take a bit here and there until I really get some points.
Extra initative because of P/P? The problem is that this would buff D/P yet again.
I want no other class to have stealth, actually – It’s so annoying to be stealthed by player x, then y, then z when you’re about to CnD. Also the only argument for revealed is the stealth of other classes and/but they aren’t build around stealth. I will never understand why they made these design choices.
I don’t think that either should be spammable. I guess pvp is a different field than wvw – but the damage in wvw is that high since June that playing that mode is no fun anymore. But yes, you have a point, due to the initative we can spam everything anyway and it makes no sense that vault hits harder than BS and is spammable.
. So the first traitline is of absolutely no use to me. I’m basically killing players and wvw NPCs with 1,5 traitlines. Splendid.