the 2 vs 1 from teldo at waterfall…i spoke to ben (lord nag nag nag) and he said both didnt want to waste their cooldowns since they thought it would be an easy matchup
well i thought i had to bring it up because i saw a s/d thief winning a 1 vs 1 vs warri..vs spirit ranger…vs necro..vs the other thief without loosing even 50% of his hp
BUT
Resume: I was really happy to have this discussion here and I am glad that I did post this thread here and not in the structured pvp section because there I wouldnt have gotten many impressions from thieves.
I am happy that most of you tried to stay obejctive and tell me exactly how they feel about it and actually came up with some interesting ideas that I really appreciate
And I also have to admit that I have tried to be a little bit provocative so I can see who of you guys really stays objective and calm because I was searching for an experienced thief to interview about changes he wants to see in the game/his class
Thanks for everything guys it was a pleasure to discuss with u!
Yesterday i had a fight with Sizer in a 1vs1 server and won as a POWER NEC on a tPvP build ( not even a 1vs1 build).
Ask him, he will confirm ( Capanelle here).
S/D is cheese and i would say super forgiving as a set, but it’s not really THAT impactful and can lose against a good tons of builds ( S/P thief, S/F ele, any necro, well played hambow, engies) OR take too much time in killing it.
Fightning a war is almost always too time consuming, for example.
The strenght of an S/D thief is the capability to overextend while still being able to disangage at will, while facetanking even 3 enemies ( number doesn’t really matter).
Surely not it’s 1vs1 capabilities.
It’s the fact that its GOOD ( not almighty, as you want to make it seem) 1vs1 capabilities ARE ADDED to the best mobility and best disangage capabilities.
personally i left S/D and now play S/P, and i find it way superior in coordinated teams ( altough i do solo q only lol), tough more easily countered and tough needing a lot more skill to be played.
Why are you necroing a thread from 4 months and 2+ patches ago? None of these arguments are even valid anymore.
just getting this out here, A necro is still going to bust your face in with conditions and bunker your kitten with toughness even if you take away dire. they problem isnt dire, its people not utilizing condi clears. they are a second healing skill in this meta
As you should, if people don’t counter it then they should get hurt. On the flip side condi users should get smacked around if they can’t kite properly like every other DPS class.
The changes have to be made in the boss mechanics not the player skills . Until they make it so that you cannot mitigate all damage through dodging then max DPS will always be king.
Honestly if they just made boss attacks non-dodgable that would fix most things right there.
The fact that the devs said on the livestream that they won’t introduce Dire stats to sPvP tells volumes about what they think of the set for WvW. If it’s too strong to introduce it in sPvP it’s even worse in WvW where you can get +40% condi duration food.
Yea they were all laughing about it. It is funny how stupid it is.
Everyone keeps reading this wrong it’s a “10% damage decrease for full zerk”. Not 10% less cri dam % but 10% less overall damage. Damage being the key word here. Crit dam % is not the only thing used to calculate that damage (much less than pow and pre), to account for an overall 10% drop in damage you’d have to lose a lot more than just 10% crit dam%.
It’s just a pain and it doesn’t need to be. The relative value of ferocity to crit dam increase is arbitrary and does not NEED to be a nerf at all. I still do not see this change doing anything positive. Unnecessarily nerfing 70% of your player base already struggling to survive in the condi-bunker meta when you are already hemorrhaging players at a record rate just doesn’t seem like the smartest move ever does it?
The proposed changes to critical damage gear aren’t specifically PvE-focused, but focused rather on the stat weighting of critical damage itself. We’re not aiming to make crit damage unviable, just to bring it closer to other gear sets.
As for the first feature build, there will be other factors coming into play that could very well offset the changes, including reworked runes/sigils, the ability to use sigils in new combinations (including 2 on a two-handed weapon), and the profession balance changes. Just something to keep in mind.
Before you guys “fix” critical damage, why not fix condition damage, which is in a far worse place:
Maximum Stacks prevent it from being too useful against bosses
it’s unbalanced against players as you can just load up on Condi Dmg stat and your other two can be defensive, whereas Power based builds need all three stats to be offensive ones to be effective (Power, Precision, Crit).
The fact that WvW is in a big Condi meta is proof enough that something needs to be fixed here. Condition needs more fixing than Critical Damage.
Maybe you should look up what the word “fact” means, because it doesnt mean what you seem to think it means.
Condition damage-builds do not rely just on 1 stat. This is flat out wrong, an idea spread around by people who either do not know what they are talking about or people who are simply lying.
If this was true then we’d see pure Dire builds drop someone just as fast as a pure berserker. Which doesnt happen, infact a pure Rampager (the glasscannon equivalent for cond. damage) cannot drop someone as fast as a berserker.
Also, this whole “Condition Meta” is a gross exegeration. The vast majority of the builds used in WvW rely on “good old fashion” direct-damage.
And the most problematic builds and balance-offenders are, with one exception that is already staring down the barrel of the nerfgun, all based on dealing direct-damage.
No it doesn’t do as much damage, but you are about 5x as hard to kill due to being able to stack defensive stats. Power builds have to sacrifice for that and sacrifice badly.
This overreacting to Ferocity is so kitten . It amounts to a max of -10% crit dmg if you were running a full set of Zerker gear. Each Zerker piece will have less than -1% crit dmg difference after the conversion. So if you were only running partial Zerker, then it will be less than -10% for you.
Plus, with the sigil and rune changes, it may even out or actually be higher DPS for power builds. Being able to use both sigils of Fire and Air at the same time is a pretty good. And 2 sigils on 2 handers is a big deal too.
Overall, people just like to cry when their is any nerf, even something as miniscule as this. Unfortunately, the whiners sometimes leave the game, and that means less bags for me in the end…
No, actually they said a 10% damage reduction for full zerk and since not all your damage comes from crit dam% (quite a bit less than pow and pre) that means the actual nerf to crit dam % is quite a bit higher than 10%.
I don’t have an issue with condition damage, I have an issue with the survivability that is obtainable while having that damage. Power builds have to sacrifice heavily to obtain high levels of damage, condi-bunkers do not. That has to change.
You don’t really have much choice, you need a majority of your gear to be zerk unless you are going for a condition build. Our survivability does not come from gear but from stealth, evades, and being aware of the situation.
Would be fun for us, but you have to consider they are trying to make fun fights for everyone. The reason people have mini-seizures about stealth is it’s annoying to play against. Most of what you listed, while cool, would be REALLY annoying to fight against, so not likely to happen.
The only thing left is to bring down condition damage
That’s my only real complaint. If they want to slow down combat then ok, but they need to make sure to treat everyone equally instead of just putting a bulls-eye on power builds.
Another thing I just realized is that sustain is getting a pseudo-buff as it will be more important in longer fights.
What makes you think it’s going anywhere? Zerk, even after nerf, will still be the best damage option. Until they change it so doing the most damage is the most efficient path then nothing will change.
10% is too much. 0% would be the right amount, since zerker damage never was a problem.
Condi-bunkers were already king. Now they will be supreme overlords. All hail the condi spam engi-necro-pu mesmer-s/s/lb warrior overlords! May their new rein be benevolent and wise!
To be fair, those specs get nerfed, too.
How exactly? The quoted damage reduction is coming from changes to the crit damage % stat → ferocity on bersker gear (and any other stat set that uses crit%) i.e. all power builds. Condi builds generally don’t use stat sets that have crit% thus no damage nerf.
10% is too much. 0% would be the right amount, since zerker damage never was a problem.
Condi-bunkers were already king. Now they will be supreme overlords. All hail the condi spam engi-necro-pu mesmer-s/s/lb warrior overlords! May their new rein be benevolent and wise!
I’ve said this in other threads but I’ll repeat myself, this change serves NO purpose.
In PvE it’s pointless because defensive stats remain superfluous due to dodging, all this does it slow down already painfully slow encounters. It does nothing to help create any kind of diversity.
In sPvP it does nothing as they mentioned they are keeping crit damage levels equivalent on that side of things.
In WvW it pushes people more into an already heavy condition meta.
It’s an unjustified across the board power build nerf that solves NO problems. If they wanted to slow down damage then they need to address condi spike as well or the whole thing is just BS.
Its not nearly as bad as people think, it just means ppl won’t explode as quickly. I think the only aspect that this will change for thief is wvw roaming where they can exceed 120% crit damage. 10% less damage from 120% crit dmg builds is a lot, but 10% from ~50% in spvp isn’t that big of a drop. Granted for some classes this isn’t opening builds but the crit damage change wasn’t the only one. Besides, they always dropped hint of “good changes” that they couldn’t discuss at the time. Maybe we have good things this time around ^^
I do not think it’s a huge change but that was not the point here. I wanted to know WHY the change was made. I can’t see any point to it beyond an across the board nerf to power builds in an ALREADY heavy condition meta.
Just about the first thing said. They are moving crit damage → ferocity (numerical instead of percent based) which I think is a GOOD change as it can be normalized but they ALSO said at the same time that the overall damage for a fully zerker build would be 10% less. Since they are only making a change to the crit% stat you can infer that that difference is coming from there.
PvE – Does it create more diversity? No, defensive stats are still superfluous due do dodging, it just slows the fights down.
PvP – No effect as they stated they were leaving levels where they were.
WvW – Further pushes people into condition builds.
I just don’t see the point here, what were they trying to fix with this? I understand the crit% -> ferocity change so that they could normalize things but a damage reduction for power builds that already require 3 stats (pow,pre,crit) to be viable? Why?
From a thief perspective rangers are just too easy to stick too. The melee specs can be a bit more tricky but they lack punch. Really they should give bow skills some more positional movement (warps) and up the melee damage done.
Blocks and maybe even evaded attacks should pop revealed. Thieves and mesmers (I play stealth mesmer) need to be penalized for poor play when in stealth. Thieves can continue to attack while in stealth even if the person their fighting is blocking them using scepter block, or gear shield etc. No matter what, attacking should drop you out of stealth.
Blocked and evaded attacks should never break stealth. That would move thieves to a class so weak they may as well go into wvw as a lvl 1 with lvl 1 traits and lvl 1 gear and only auto attack as an ability.
Just put reveal on black powder stealth and that would help level the playing field.
No, fix stealth and make it so at least block breaks stealth, OR removes time from stealth (1 hit halves the remaining duration, 2 blocked hits halves it again, etc). SOME form of penalty for doing poor play and SPAMMING attacks in stealth while a person is doing a block so you get the last hit the moment it comes off. So, FIX stealth. Then at the same time BALANCE the thief accordingly. There are people on these forums who play thief who I think believe that just because they nerf something doesn’t mean they won’t add something to balance. FIX the mechanic that is broken, and BALANCE the class that is currently only “balanced” because they take advantage of a broken mechanic. It was done with confusion with mesmers, and we’re still OK. It was done with portals, and we’re still OK. They buffed other aspects to compensate.
I am not saying they should break thief. But to honestly say a broken mechanic should stay broken because one class is using it a lot to balance themselves is utterly ridiculous. By that logic they should reverse the confusion update and many many others. If they fix stealth, they will NEED to fix thief.
Backstab has POSITIONAL stealth required skill coefficient of 2.40
Guardian has Whirling Wrath skill coefficient of 2.8 (.4×7=2.8)
Mesmer has Blurred Frenzy skill coefficient of 2.37 (8×0.2970=2.3763)
Warrior has Hundred Blades skill coefficient of 5.5 (8×0.55 + last hit 1.1=5.5)
Don’t get me started on condi builds…
Anyone can do insane damage if they walk around with tissue armor. Try it out, see how fun it is.
I think the low-access, long-duration stealth of other games has worked out much better than the frequent-access, short-duration model used in this game.
I would agree with you as far as people complaining is concerned. It’s not overpowered in itself, it’s just annoying to play against and hard to learn how to counter. Once you actually roll a thief and learn the patterns then you can readily defeat them. I can tell if I’m fighting an opponent that has taken the time to learn how stealth works vs the casuals that just flail their weapon and rage.
I think that’s really the problem we are dealing with, the learning curve.
Anet won’t go for it as it would promote anti-social gameplay i.e. “Go away noob”. However the rally mechanic is already doing a good job of that as is, so who knows.
I’ve said this on other threads, it doesn’t need to be stealth. I’d be happy with it just poping Aegis + Regen or something. Might be too hard/unbalancing to make “unbreakable stealth”.
There is no “stealth problem” just lazy players not willing to learn enough about the game to know how to counter it. You can’t pick up a chess rule book and expect to be a master after you finish reading, getting to level 80 just means you’ve earned the right to start to learn how to play.
Having 4 sec reveal in PvP vs 3 sec in WvW means the class plays much differently and just doesn’t end up being fun. That and playing PvP seems like I’m using a cheap version of the character that I spent so many hours investing in, just not what I like doing. If I could play on PvP maps with my PvE character I’d play the hell out of that. I know they really want an e-sport thing to pop up but at the cost of what would be obvious fun for a lot of people? Seems like a rather bad idea to me.
Yes, of course this class can survive more nerfs. It remains the best roaming wvw class, bar none, already.
Its already the least played class. More nerfs of any kind will simply push it further and further into obscurity. Very good players will continue to play it but at some point even most of them will only play it in more limited ways and use it in only limited roles. As someone mention it makes a great harvesting character which deserves a “lol” in that he statement is so sad but true its not funny. Modestly skilled to good players will walk away from it in mass – in fact they already have.
I think the real question is: At what point does working harder than any other class for the same reward stop being “rewarding” and become “foolish”?
I disagree. There are many thieves roaming in wvw, and the map chat is full of venom and hatred against our class. I dont think we have to work harder than any other class in wvw. On demand stealth makes the class quite easy imho. Thieves are without a doubt the most powerful roaming class in wvw, and they do well in zergs if played correctly.
I think I already explained why that is and how little bearing it has on our effectiveness. Thieves are the undisputed kings of WvW roaming, by design I would think. That does not justify our glaring weaknesses in most other aspects of the game.
The nature of the class makes it annoying to fight despite how ineffective it is (see: “run away warrior specs”). It also makes it a lot of fun to play meaning that even though you have to work 3x as hard as some other classes to do the same things the overall satisfaction is greater. What I’m trying to say is that even if they nerf us into oblivion people will still be calling for nerfs because stealth, by it’s very existence, causes some people to have mini-strokes. The flip side is that even when useless people will still play it just because of the fun mechanics.
So yes it will survive. The real question is if areanet balances off of quantitative data or popular opinion.
per·ma·nent
?p?rm?n?nt/
adjective
1. lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely.
“a permanent ban on the dumping of radioactive waste at sea”
in·ter·mit·tent
?int?r?mitnt/
adjective
1. occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady.
“intermittent rain”
Oh I forgot to mention either remove Detonate Cluster or change it so it actually has functionality. Currently there is no scenario in which I would ever use it.
Guy was linking the HEAVY Zojja’s armor and the helm, chest, and shoulders had the same crit damage % as exotic. The LEGS had 4% on them which is a nice bump. He wasn’t able to link gloves or boots so I am unsure if they are bumped or not.
Again this is the HEAVY armor, may be different for medium but it may shake up which slots you end up wanting to swap out for soldier.
I like playing D/D against all classes except running into another Thief running D/P. Since I actually have to land a CnD to stealth it makes the fight a near instant loss due to blind. Any suggestions against D/P beyond just walking away?
So for example, you realize your health is getting low so you go to cloak and dagger an enemy, so you can stealth to get regen, blind, escape, or other things depending on your build.
You just figured out your own problem with this sentence… Why in gods name are you going for a cloak and dagger when you know you are getting very low and you know that last refuge is going to proc. Honestly I have no sympathy for people that die because they don’t understand how to use this trait. I have over 2.5k hours on my thief, mostly in WvW or Spvp and I can count the number of times that this trait has killed me on one hand. And even in those circumstances it was my fault. Either I was playing too recklessly or not paying attention to incoming damage etc. The other hundreds of times it has proc’d it has either saved my life or given me an advantage over my opponent in winning the fight. The only time I can see this trait being an issue is if you play so unbelievably glassy and have so little game awareness that you drop from full health to below 25% in the time it takes you to cast an ability, in which case it isn’t the fault of the trait, it is the fault of your build/gear.
A trait is supposed to help us survive is getting us killed, and it’s somehow our fault. Are you even listening to yourself? This is just bad design, and needs to be fixed.
Actually correction it’s not bad design it’s a BUG. It was coded BEFORE revealed existed so at one point it actually did work as intended.
Seems to me they keep shying away from fixing this as it would require a great deal of work for a proc stealth not to turn into a hinderance so I say forget stealth and have it just apply regen + aegis at 25% life. Simple fix.
just requiring you to be out of combat to res a finished player would be enough and would make a huge difference imo.
+1 to this, if a change has to be made.
I personally don’t have a problem with it but as it seems to be a touchy subject that is getting a lot of player attention, anet might do something and I would hate to see it completely removed. Rezzing your friends after winning a fight should be allowed, in large or small engagements. Also for GvG’s, you should be able to pick up the dead after the match ends.
If you are GvGing in sanctum the spawn point is right there.
And ressing after a fight is what gives zerg’s their power. If stomped players were forced to respawn then no longer would they be able to operate deep in enemy territory with impunity. If you actually had to control area to advance in force you might actually start to see WvW maps working as intended for once.
Well even a small change would help, like stomping being faster then in combat rez, as is 2 people can heal a downed person faster then you can stomp. This makes fighting a group with more then you even harder then it should be.
then add to that you can not rez a fully downed player unless you are out of combat.
rally can be annoying but I find it more frustrating when people rally off mobs during a fight. Players or guards only please.
Rallying off mobs couldn’t have been intended in WvW, I’m sure it’s just a PvE holdover they haven’t had time to fix.
Remove rally.
Remove stomping.
Remove rez from dead in combat.
Or just remove downstate altogether. That would solve everything.
I don’t really mind the downed state, I think it adds a bit of tactics deciding to spend the time mid-fight to stomp or not, but that’s just my preference. Putting a cap on rally or removing rally altogether would be nice too. So many commanders running around untagged for fear of attracting “rally bot” players. The ability to res dead players really does have to be disabled, the current mechanics are just untenable.
Teleport hacks exist, see it on bots all the time blipping between nodes in Orr. I’m surprised this is still possible as you would think the server side check would flag that rather quickly.
I know so many players that have moved on or are on hiatus because of the WvW “zergfest”. This would go a long long way to getting those guys back into the game again.
