why would that be the go to answer? Seriously, all it does is avoid the whole issue and topic. Btw, I have 7 lvl 80s and warrior isn’t the one I like the most so that’s why I’m posting here.
Yea! Personally I think it’s stupid my mesmer doesn’t have as big autoattack as warrior, can’t perma stealth and it’s also stupid that I can’t take a flame thower from my pocket!
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Point is, you can’t just steal the class mechanic (here big numbers of warrior) to another class without making that class overpowered.
This is one of the noob friendly features of thief that needs to be fixed.
A working solution would be to have a small cl on all stealth attacks, perhaps 5 seconds. Thief should be all about cunning and careful precision, not ridiculous spam.
It’s amazing how many bad players play this game. If op was a ranger, he would be the type that walks backwards while shooting with autoattack…
Seriously, I did multiple 3v1s and even stomped a few in 1v8 today. I also soloed a tower. I died twice or once (can’t remember) during the whole day…
Just wondering how many other classes can pull off kitten like that.
Of course my opponents weren’t excellent, but still…
Can you give me the play by play on how you solo’d a tower? Sounds awesome!
Well first of all, you must somehow get into the tower. That’s the easy part, just walk in when the door is open.
After that you have to try to hide. This is done by chaining c&d on walls, npcs, gates or whatever you can find, or alternatively by the d/p combo. It is possible that some idiots will find and start to hunt you (they can be suprisingly dedicated..,). Unless you can defeat them, its best just trying to hide and make it appear as if you left the tower. In bigger places such as in keeps or in SM, you can also try to separate them and pick them one by one… It’s really quite funny when they discover the thief has taken down one of them, the hunters :P.
Once the tower is empty, you must defeat the npcs. Personally I run a condition thief so this is done by simply luring one or two out, defeating those by spamming caltrops and sneak attack, and then finally moving to take out the lord. Quite simple, not any differend from fighting a dungeon boss.
ps. I think youtube has several videos on thiefs soloing towers. Those can contain some valuable tricks.
I did multiple 3v1s and even stomped a few in 1v8 today. I also soloed a tower. I died twice or once (can’t remember) during the whole day…
Just wondering how many other classes can pull off kitten like that.
Of course my opponents weren’t excellent, but still. I have so much more experience on my mesmer and could never even imagine doing the same on it.
Thief may be crap in spvp, but in WvW it’s completly broken. The one and only reason thief sucks in spvp is the artificial nerf against it: you can’t capture points while you are in stealth.
Don’t forget projectile combos through ethereal fields w/duelist phantasm. You can stack 15 easy in a very short time if using scepter MH (CI). Then come in with your next big stack using CoF and MW.
Maybe on a practice target. Real players will ofc dodge and avoid most of your attacks.
Maybe not, but the players against who I played were and are excellent. Though I had the edge, it was never trivial to win with my confusion build against an elite sword thief. Basically I won the duel by eventually tricking him into using skills with heavy confusion stacks. Now it’s just not possible: he WILL NOT do a mistake that would get him into any signifigant trouble. The damage is simply not enough.
So, your opponents were excellent, yet you had the edge?
Sounds like balance is restored. You shouldn’t be beating players who are better than you.
The thing is, even if I would play perfectly, I could not win unless he did something stupid. Winning with confusion was all about tricking your opponent into something stupid – now you must trick them into something really, really stupid.
If you have time, we can pull a duel or two in spvp right now. Maybe you can show me how to play condition mesmer.
There is the thought of trying to work with burn/bleed/poison off a staff mesmer… but I’m skeptical that it can get enough bleed stacks to compete with a shortbow ranger.
Any d/p thief will just laugh at your pathetic conditions. :P
Seriously though, if you cannot play through this change and still succeed, were you really that great of a player to begin with?
Maybe not, but the players against who I played were and are excellent. Though I had the edge, it was never trivial to win with my confusion build against an elite sword thief. Basically I won the duel by eventually tricking him into using skills with heavy confusion stacks. Now it’s just not possible. He WILL NOT do a mistake that would get him into trouble. The damage is simply not enough for that… if he ever goes low on hp, he just resets the fight via stealth.
I can perhaps pull a draw, but I cannot win unless he does something very stupid.
It’s not the “condition mesmer” that’s dead … it’s the really easy “confusion mesmer” that is dead. Combine conditions.
The actual condition mesmer is a slow build-up but powerful once built up. As such, it is forced to be survivable. Staff, our best condition weapon, is slow … but x4 it is quite quick on condition per second. Add in 100% bleed per crit on 3 of those hits and you have something.
Think about it.
That 100% bleed can’t be enchanted via condition duration boosters, and is thus quite weak.
Anet disagrees with you, with all of their professional designers and heaps of metrics they have been gathering throughout the life of the game.
Don’t be a fool. :P Do you really think there is some mathematican performing differential calculus on statistics in order to balance the game ? xD
Anet is just trying to please the casual players because thats where the income is. That has nothing to do with what is balanced.
I do it all the time. Generate clones/phantasms and then focus on survival. It’s kinda the core of how the class functions.
That “phantasams and run” tactic only really works against a select number of builds, depending on how much offence you have. If you are weak on offence (not gc), you will be able to score only a tie against the better players. If you are a gc, you will lose to any good thief.
Well, in any case, you would probably be best off with direct damage and forgotting conditions if you go phant spec.
@keylimpi…..u know i think ur right….i think anet has a hard on for warriors……only class that has never really been nerfed hard…..whirl hits me too hard…dear anet….plz do what u do ty.
This is a trick question. Thief is not balanced in WvW.
I used to roam as a mesmer but thief is just… another game. :P
Btw, even if your thief is only lvl 40, if you get the best possible green gear with right runes and trinkets, you can still do fairly well as a p/d thief. At least I could win some 2v1’s when my thief was below 80 and in greens xD.
I accept duel challenges from any confusion mesmer who thinks it’s still viable. Not really to prove a point, but I wanna see how big the difference is as I never found them that hard to fight against. Just whisp me in game, I’m from Gandara. :P
I will probably be shatter mesmer or p/d thief, but we can do more than one duel.
Conditions to possibly pull-off an 11k non-critical dmg Mug;
- Full zerker + Rubies
- At least 30/30/x build
- Based on 2nd screeny – 24 stack of Bloodlust
- Target must have 2500 or less armor rating (not possible against 2600)
I can accept that it’s possible — but that’s not solely Mug’s fault that Mug deals that much damage now is it?
The problem here is this: Anet is creating PvE contents that would require players to deal an insane amount of damage — but — Anet don’t want players to bring that insane amount of damage from PvE to WvW — yet — they refuse to separate the two.
This problem has nothing to do with the profession and definitely nothing to do with Mug.
Either Anet stop creating high-end contents, which PvE players will get bored fast and may leave the game if they haven’t already, or accept the consequences in WvW. Or swallow their pride and separate PvE and WvW.
Why they keep aggravating their player-base is what I don’t understand.
I use Mug in my builds, so I’m upset that it’s getting nerfed; but it needs to be nerfed. I have 2 valkyrie pieces, and I don’t use bloodlust, I use precision stacks. One build was 30/30. In the other picture it was 25/30/0/0/15.
I just want them to add other variables to mug so it’s not rendered useless.
My whole point was/is — Mug is just a scapegoat. Red herring. Straw man. Rumpelstiltskin.
Don’t chase the wild goose or the white rabbit because that’s what Anet wants you to do, so that they don’t have to address the real issue — separating the sheep from the goats.
Potato, lumberyard, sheep, clock, kleenex, microphone, pencil, oranges, and a bowl of air. That’s how much sense you just made to me.
Apparently, you are not familiar with philosophical fallacy that when one is used for you to believe what they want you to believe that your are too naive to identify the falsehood of the statement. It is more apparent coming from someone with marginal level of education to believe an obvious fallacy since they somehow find comfort in their ignorance. If you really believe that Mug is overpowered, there is no remedy to that since that is not ignorance, but stupidity — and knowledge is the cure for ignorance, unfortunately, there in no cure for stupidity.
If you think my last post made no sense, your problem cannot be cured by knowledge.
d/d works much better. You keep CnD, you can apply weakness with 15 DA, you have a higher potential damage output if you need it and the bleeds it applies last a lot longer meaning you don’t need to be in active combat for quite as long + it has a built-in evade. You only lose range.
D/d does not necessarily have more damage:
- d/d has to stay at melee range to hit and can’t generally attack from stealth, which means the enemy has more time to counter against it. It is also very easy for say a shatter mesmer to land a devestating counter attack in such a situation. The evasion is only for 1/4 second. On the other hand, p/d relies on projectiles.
- d/d applies 3 bleeds that last 10 seconds. While this is more raw damage than 5 bleeds for 4 seconds, the longer bleeds are more likely to get removed before their full ticks.
- d/d needs initative to apply bleeds, while p/d can spam them via auto attack.
I think you’re missing the point here, in PvP you can’t hold a point if you’re in stealth and therefore every second that you stealth your enemy is capping the point you’re trying to defend. That’s why people attempt to make bunker Thieves that dodge rather than stealth.
Of course, that makes sense. I only really care for duels with WvW rules.
p/d doesn’t work well for bunkering at all… it has no built-in evade like sb, d/d, s/d and s/p and it has no blinds like x/p. It’s probably the worst set actually. Your only “evade” is a skill that shadowsteps you backwards out of the circle vs melee and is useless vs ranged.
You are just doing it wrong. When specced right, it has lots more defense than d/d:
d/d wastes it’s initative on that useless 1/4 second evade, while p/d saves all of it’s initiative to gain 4 second cloack and can also stay at range. The constant cloacking gives also very good counter against conditions.
Since confusion is currently the only counter in the game for a number of builds that will otherwise become extremely OP, it seems like we need there to be a few other tweaks now that confusion damage is being reduced by 50% in WvW:
1. Increase initiative cost of cloak and dagger to 8. Confusion is currently the best counter to backstab thieves. Hidden killer being nerfed won’t touch these, as most backstab builds don’t use it. Increasing the cost of C&D will force them to be much more careful with their hits and give other classes a chance.
2. Decrease base healing of all Guardian skills by 25%, let healing power bonuses remain the same. Confusion mesmers are also the primary counter for bunker Guardians. This would help to balance Guardians so they have to actually think about their builds a bit.
Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.
Neither of thsose are really needed, guards already have very hard time against shatter specs.
However, I do think that all stealth attacks should have a cool down of maybe 3 seconds to prevent them from being spammed. Like I’ve said before, thief should be about cunning and precision, not about mindless spam.
Scepter actually does much more damage in a power/crit build then a confusion build.
Movement impairing conditions,so it doesn’t even apply to all conditions,just cripple,slow etc.Anyway,i do understand you,but i think they should take a look at All nourishments,since i do think some are just a bit op with the right traits.You also know of the nourishment that does 40% Chance to cause chill on crit at night? Thinks like that…should be removed from wvwv imo.
Lol noob, that food is very weak and very few people use it. It costs like 40c in the market. The 1second random chill just isn’t that useful. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone using it in months.
I might try a few duels and see if it’s viable anymore or not. Btw, do realise that confusion build being able to compete in spvp does not mean that it can compete in WvW. This is because all other builds retain their WvW strength.
You people are just strange… I really like to help people with portal in jps! It’s nice being able to save some work from your friends or even from complete strangers too. In fact, I find a lot more joy from portaling people up than from the actual jumping puzzle.
That blind shot travels quite slowly and can easily dodged. The blind debuff itself can be removed with an auto attack. If he is firing at you close range the thief would not be trying to chain and going for a backstab. If he is trying to chain then stand close to it. I would say most d/p thieves try to chain a bit further away from their target due to high chance of hitting them.
Thats a lots of kitten to do just to counter someone pressing two buttons.
Its one of the easiest conditions to counter! Imob is op, confusion is just misunderstood by so many people who have 1 on auto-loop.
Great job Arenanet, turn this game into even more of a casual mess.
This must be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard, confusion is the hardest condition to deal with. You either don’t attack, or you use a condition clear.
Not attacking just makes the battle last until the mesmer runs away or pinpricks you to death, and any condition can be taken off by a condition clear, the only difference being that with confusion you TAKE DAMAGE when you clear it.
I don’t like this nerf, don’t think it’s necessary or that it’s going to help much at all, but your post was just too ridiculous to leave unaddressed.
Well, If I don’t attack while I have 10 stacks of bleed on me and burning, I die. If I don’t attack while I have 10 stacks of confusion, I’m fine. What’s so hard to understand about that?
It can be for people who don’t know that auto attack can be turned off…
Glamour mesmers are extremely tanky while at the same time dealing extreme amounts of damage. That’s not how thieves function.
Confusion is one of the few viable mesmer builds that works against elite sword + d/x or SB thieves in duels. Though good counter against certain type builds, I never found confusion spec op in duels. I lost to condition thieves, condition rangers, certain type guards and to glassy phant mesmers. I also lost to good enough d/d eles once they learnt to watch their dodges after a few failures.
Oh yea, tanky phant spec might also work against those thieves but who wants to play that crap: it gives you ties 90% of time.
What’s the purpose of WvW? Solo killing players or large scale battles?
If they want to balance the large scale battles, then confusion isn’t where to start from. They should start from fixing their broken match-making system that has sucked since release.
That’s the first thing. After that they should look into boon stacking, blobbing tactics and perhaps the Mesmer skill Veil. But I don’t think they play their own game …
At some point you might then consider tuning down the confusion, that is, the glamour builds as we are balancing for the big fights here. However, that doesn’t mean that they should outright cut half all confusion damage – that’s bad because it affects all builds that use confusion, not only the particular tactic that you want to balance. The correct fix here would be to tune the glamour related traits so that “glamour bombing” would no longer be as powerful. But again, I don’t think they play their own game… Well at least they don’t really seem to care for it.
Glamour mesmers are extremely tanky while at the same time dealing extreme amounts of damage. That’s not how thieves function.
Confusion is one of the few viable mesmer builds that works against elite sword + d/x or SB thieves in duels. Though good counter against certain type builds, I never found confusion spec op in duels. I lost to condition thieves, condition rangers, certain type guards and to glassy phant mesmers. I also lost to good enough d/d eles once they learnt to watch their dodges after a few failures.
Oh yea, tanky phant spec might also work against those thieves but who wants to play that crap: it gives you ties 90% of time.
First show me a decent P/D build that focuses on bleeds or any consistent conditions. Obviously you have no idea how a P/D thief plays. Second, CnD isn’t even in the P/D toolset. (Only exists for dagger OH.) So your description on vs. P/D needs a little work. Good piece of fiction though.
You are confusing p/d with d/p…
Also I find it kind of inconsistent that, for example professions which use retal/confusion will have to deal with the corresponding “sPvP-malus” while others get to play with their full “PvE-efficiency”.
Well said. In fact, retalation and confusion based builds are one of the few ones that sometimes put a fight against my p/d . Another build that can still fight back is d/p thief, but only because they also enjoy that ridiculously op trait called shadow’s embrace.
Confusion reduced to PvP level (50%?) (Link covering Con/Ret)
Retaliation reduced to PvP levels? (Retaliation will be made more obvious)
Ok nerfs. Boring.
Signet improvements – Now add 20 base, + 2 per level (Link covering Signets)
This is a meaningless marginal change. So if you have signet of domination with you, you deal what 15 more damage with confusion? Oh wait, you deal 7 more damage.
Clones no longer aggro enemies you haven’t already aggro’d (Link covering Clones)
Bug fix.
Distortion no longer allows you to hold capture point (Link for rest)
Right? Well then also make it so that guard having aegis can’t hold capture point. These ridiculous hard fixes about not being able to hold capture point only show how bad and weak their pathetic point capturing game is. They should change the fundamental rules of that game before stuffing every crack with chewing gum. It’s obvious it’s not the same team working on gw2 as was on gw1.
Moa cast on the move
Moa nr 5 skill, reduced distance
So they improve the most boring elite skill in the game? kittening yes.
Mantra cast reduced to 2.75 (YES!)
Meh. Mantras still suck, and are still boring as hell.
Bad argument: in mistform = no dps. Doesn’t mean ele should be able to mistform at will. Not to mention that you regen in stealth, gain might and lose conditions. d/p definitely needs a tune down.
Yes, thanks for obeying all the noobs who cried about it. My p/d will be completly broken again now… With this change, even the mesmer nerf doesn’t really bother me.
Another good proof that anet balances for casual noobs. I quess they buy more ridiculous virtual clothes from the item mall.
Yah, condition mesmer is now useless, as is the condition engineer. Whatever, I only play thief nowdays anyway. Simple* to play and more effective in 90% of situations that doesn’t involve a zerg.
To compensate, they definitely should reduce the thief bs damage by half. Not to mention that kittening utterly ridiculous skill called shadow refuge:
1/4 cast time, 10+sec stealth, heals allies, stealths allies, is a dark field, 60sec cool down without traits.
*I often watch Emmerdale while rolling against 2 on my condition thief.
I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard
EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.
guard > gc meser but gc mesmer > guard?
Either you made a typo or are completely contradicting yourself.
I’m talking about spvp because that is what really matters. WvW balance is completely different and there are lot of other factors. Defenses and offense are much greater and certain skills are un-nerfed in wvw but nerfed in spvp.
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Yes that’s a typo. No I don’t play spvp, I could care the less for that abstract point cap crap. If they ever add ra/ta style game, I will probably hop in.
However, I have done a few duels with friends who are from my server in spvp, and yes, it’s extremely difficult to get bunkers down.
My point is that if you say “duels” are about rock paper scissors, then what class counters the bunker guardian? Currently, there isn’t one in spvp.
You are probably right, nowdays I only do duels in WvW where you can’t just face tank everything.
Stealth attacks should have cl of 3 seconds. I’m pretty sure everyone can agree with me here. Spamming 1 like a monkey is just plain kittened. Thief should be about precision and cunning.
I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.
Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.
You’d only bring it down from the top by completely negating any viability of it.
The set itself is far from overpowered anyway; the other options are just that much more terrible.
Nah, having constant access to a smoke field and leap finisher is broken. With c&d you at least need to hit and come up close – quite difficult to achieve against people who know how to dodge. Yet any monkey can just press #5 and then #2. This also can’t be countered by just dodging, you need some sort of ranged interrupt to land right on time – quite difficult for most professions to achieve that.
D/P is by FAR the most gimmicky and noob friendliest build in the game. It may not be the most powerful one, but it’s cheesiness is just beyond belief. Sorta like the backbreaker or caster sin from gw1.
Quite often when roaming solo, I down a target several times during the fight until they finally get defeated due to downed penalty. It’s really quite weird how noobfriendly this game is.
Currently 1 person can res faster than you can stomp without quickness.
I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.
Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.
ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just perma stealth with d/p, run around with sword #2, or just spam c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.
There needs to be a class that can punish bunkers and burst thieves in my opinion should be that class.
That class is there, but it’s not and should not be thief. It’s gc shatter Mesmer.
Well then I ask you this, what is meant to kill guardians? Guardians pretty much can take anything on 1v1. Usually even multiple people can’t kill a guardian…
Right now the bunker classes are supreme. Thief burst is the only thing that can even make them blink. Nerf thief burst, gimmicky or not, and bunkers will rule gw2…
I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard
EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.
ty.