Guild Wars 2

Jana.6831:

The traits were also buffed and it suited D/P best.
I guess with that you’re not confused anymore.

See this is where I would say “YOU’VE JUST ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD” if I was the extravagantly-haired protagonist of an anime focused around card games.

Again this is just being pedantic. Since I think D/P and D/D were equally buffed, and in the end there’s only two D/X weaponsets so you could say one benefiting more than the other is like the flip of a coin. But…

The trait buffs were to Acro/CS/SA. D/P uses none of these. Even the Shadow Shot bugfix was in CS which D/P doesn’t use.

Could say more but that would take away from the point. D/P just doesn’t use Acro/CS/SA. Even D/P off-meta variants stay within the realm of DA/Trick/Daredevil. I didn’t mention how the trait buffs don’t benefit D/P because I didn’t think you’d claim that they did. But they don’t. If anything D/D is more likely to use Acro/CS/SA than D/P is (For condi builds at the very least).

Also was going to respond to the second part of what you read (Gonna go ahead and say you’re right as it probably isn’t that simple. But I just wanted to see the strength of staff considered more). But then saw the post above. Quite frankly you can do whatever you want to SA and I think most D/P people who bought HoT wouldn’t care. I’ve seen a LOT of D/P builds and while they’re all different and have their own situational strengths and weaknesses. I have not seen one that runs SA over DA/Trick/Daredevil (Okay I have seen exactly one, but that was a venomshare build).

Ye most other classes (from my perspective) don’t have more than one or two viable weaponsets. I would say that D/D is still halfway viable, but that’d be talking halfway as halfway from completely useless to meta relevant.

Also you can take that as my assumption if you’d like. You said that the buffs favored D/P. Or more exactly that “guess what set most profited from the buffs – right D/P.” So I went and did an exhaustive cover of every weaponset buff.

My way of thinking was like this since I wasn’t clear enough:
Buffs favored D/P, means buffs favored D/P more than D/D, S/D, Staff, P/P, etc.
But D/P didn’t get any major buffs over D/D (They both share the auto buff).
Thus saying D/P profited the most from these buffs doesn’t make sense.
But one could argue that Dagger mainhand profited more than Staff/Sword/Pistol.

I will say that it seems as if D/P profited more than D/D from the buffs. But that’s only because D/D is unviable at the moment (Or half viable, which to me is the same as unviable. Bunker condi thief is half viable to me. I can win games with it. I can carry games with it. But at the end of the day, I can also do better on other weaponsets). In reality D/D auto’s got the same damage buff D/P auto’s did.

Anyway I’m being pedantic about a really meaningless thing. In the end I think D/D needs buffs or some changes. I don’t think nerfing D/P is the answer because Staff is pretty much on par or with D/P (From my perspective). And nerfing D/P to be worser than Staff just makes everyone go to Staff. Then we’ll have to nerf Staff because it’s the top of the food chain. Then what? After Staff gets nerfed to be worser than D/P we all go to back D/P again?

Or just nerf everything to the level of D/D? (Because if we keep on nerfing D/P and Staff, then S/D or maybe even P/P will rise to the top. Not D/D). But in that case why not just buff D/D in the first place.

Surprised this thread is still alive.

Don’t know if this has already been mentioned. But to put things in context, don’t most classes only have 2-3 viable weaponsets, with one rising above the others?

Following this suggestion, I guess every class should have it’s main weaponset nerfed?

Also replying to the post directly above, with thief only having two offhands the dagger buff would have either benefited D/P or D/D more. With D/P being the more likely candidate for obvious reasons.

Expecting the Sword or Staff buffs to affect D/P or D/D doesn’t make sense. You could argue that dagger mainhand got buffed more than Sword mainhand or Staff, but that’s not the same as arguing that D/P got buffed more than the rest of the weaponsets.

Edit:

Will say though that pistol mainhand got shafted. Although it’s always been shafted and that’s not something I necessarily agree with myself.

reikken.4961:

went to test pulmonary impact

http://i.imgur.com/46UA1vy.png

1 stack of might

https://i.gyazo.com/5bd1dac84c1c67fce7a8413b1f936544.jpg

Zero stacks of might. Had to use scholar runes, zerker amulet, assassin signet activation before pulmonary proc, bounding dodger+10% damage boost, staff master+10% damage boost, and executioner +20% damage boost.

Also this is on a light golem, not heavy.

Yeah agree wit Aidal here. It’s not the thief’s niche.

If you want to be a supportive boon class with decent mobility and offensive power play rev. Not every class has to be an AoE boonlord.

If you’re taking longer to kill things in PvE with a straight buff to dps numbers, I think your problem might not be the balance update. But instead something else between your keyboard and your chair.

Probably should take care of that problem before you head to PvP.

Straegen.2938:

D/P is flat out better most of the time. The only time Staff has an edge is when there are multiple opponents. In solo fights, D/P has no downside and no wasted attack. Staff on the other hand has several weaknesses including the easily exploited Vault interrupt.

I main staff since it is more fun to me but having played a lot of D/P it is obvious how efficient that weapon set is especially against other thieves.

Can’t speak for the current meta. But for the previous meta don’t your own words imply that staff is/was better than D/P?

Last meta was a teamfight/bunker on point fest where ability to drop AoE’s was more important than ability to 1v1. Esp as thief, you probably don’t want to have many solo fights, and the ability to stall on a point was much more valuable than actually winning it.

The 7% dps sacrifice is a personal choice and the combo works without it. I prefer the physical skill CD since it also lowers the CD on the heal I use. Also as far as just listing things goes it also grants 10 endurance on physical skill cast.

If I only used Fist Flurry for this combo then I agree that it’d be a waste of a slot. But for practical purposes I actually rely mostly on allied CC for getting the full combo off. That or just trying for all the hits whenever I know dodges/invulns have been blown. Getting off the full combo is about as hard as getting a full auto combo off (Not saying getting off a full auto combo is easy, but it’s definitely not impossible nor unlikely).

Stunbreaks can be a problem but that problem existed with people running Basilisk Venom. In some ways I’d say this is actually safer since you don’t have to commit to Fist Flurry if they stunbreak after the weapon stow. Of course they could stunbreak mid-Fist Flurry but then you’d likely get off at least 2-3 hits of Fist Flurry which is around Imparing Daggers in terms of DPS (2-3 hits is a 1/5-2/5 second reaction time from the first hit).

Also when I do use this combo it’s usually as an opener/on a medium-high hp target. In other words, scenario’s where Impact Strike will have little use as a kill-secure. Ideally this is something you could do after already using Impact Strike to interrupt a skill for Pulmonary Impact.

lloydst.6985:

Wow a IS grad that cant see the fact that you would need to instance each timezone seperatly for his wishes (btw finished IS in a month all be it not that indept aint hard though)

Or you know… Calculate the time for all timezones to reach the 26th and pick the latest time out of all those times. Or just have a countdown timer…

Kinda with OP here. At the very least having it end on the 26th PST as is standard would be better (IE five more hours).

Also both of you should stop flaunting your degrees. I mean OP did it since you did it first. But really it’s kinda silly. If you see something as impossible because of a previous body of knowledge state what that impossible thing is before you go “dude I have a degree I KNOW I’m right.”

So, was originally planning to make this thread if/when I hit legendary as thief. But unfortunately only was only able to make it into t6 diamond >_<.

Anywho. Dunno if this combo is already well known, but I haven’t seen anyone else use it (Possibly because it’s a bad combo, hopefully that’s not the reason). So I wanted to share it here.

The combo works as follows. Use the first two hits of Impact Strike to knock your opponent midair. Immediately after connecting with Uppercut (2nd hit of Impact Strike). Stow your weapons. Then, while your opponent is midair, cast Fist Flurry. You should be able to get off all the hits of Fist Flurry, and possibly even Palm Strike before your opponent recovers from the knockup. The combo can be timed so that if they’re spamming a skill to use on wakeup you will interrupt that skill with Palm Strike, leading to two stacks of Pulmonary Impact if traited.

I’ve been using this combo with pretty good success. It allows for Impact Strike to be ran with Fist Flurry rather than Basilisk Venom. Also might just be the folks I’ve been paired against, but I think most people don’t expect Fist Flurry after Uppercut. As those in the know will typically expect Uppercut to be followed up by Finishing Blow. Which has a (relatively) huge 1.5s cast-to-attack time.

For those curious, this is the build I’ve been doing/running this combo with: [Link].

I have 20% physical skill CD traited since I use Impact Strike/Fist Flurry and the physical skill heal. Beyond that though, it’s just a standard d/p daredevil build with dash.

I think d/p is kinda better gapcloser wise and for utility as others have mentioned.

Overall though I think a lot of it is just people not having a lot of time to learn staff, but having plenty of experience with d/p as it was/has been king of the hill for quite some time now. This is the case for me at least. I think staff may be better too, but haven’t had the time to learn how to properly use it.

Not much to say that hasn’t already been said in this thread. I just wanted to mention, that in my opinion a lot of it has to deal with powercreep. Pre-HoT if you told me a dodge would remove immobile, chill, and cripple along with giving a 1.5x length dash, I’d say that was broken as heck. But post-HoT with chills/cripple everywhere and most classes just walking immobilize off anyway, I don’t see the problem with bounding dodger as it is. Esp. considering that conceptually most of those dodges should be used rotating to the fight anyway.

Like for instance, having 100% boon uptime used to actually mean something. Nowadays it’s the norm. And even though this isn’t PvP related if you really wanted to having 100% mobile stealth uptime for WvW is easy with trapper runes. Actually, I would say that in the current meta NOT having a 100% boon uptime means you’re either weak or compensating greatly in other areas. In terms of class balance I think the thief might actually be a bit behind as far as boons go (selfishness yada yada).

Also irregardless of my thoughts on powercreep above. I do think the thief will be top tier or at least meta next patch. But tbh I don’t like basing those sorts of things off of previews. If the forum could guess things right based on previews then Scrappers wouldn’t be using Sneak Gyro because thieves wouldn’t be in the meta. Well thieves aren’t in the meta, but Scrappers are still using Sneak Gyro much to my disdain.

Actually haven’t had any HS spam complaints at all for the current patch. Have had a number of we have a thief = gg complaints. But most people seem to be giving the thief a huge amount of slack compared to previous patches. Common perception of the class is that it’s bottom tier I suppose. So nobody has the mind to bm a thief after losing a 1v1.

Never thought spamming heartseeker was cheesy as much as it can be a bad idea. That being said though if I know someone’s blown their dodges/block/invulns I often just spam HS for the execute.

I can see where the worry comes from. Thief would be a middle of the pack to top tier class if it wasn’t for how broken other classes are. A lot of those broken classes are getting nerfs along with amulet changes. Buffing thief on top of those changes is likely just going to make it a top tier class.

Started January and got to t4/t5 diamond as a thief via solo-queue conquest.

Would like to see if I could get to legend but I don’t think I’ll be able to before the season ends.

Where’d they say dagger was getting a 30% dps boost? I thought that was only confirmed for sword.

How else am I going to learn about yolo swaggins’s wet pipe without quick chat.

Anet pls.

Edit: On a more serious note though, I was only thinking of adding this for PvP. So no wet pipes

I think adding quickchat would bring a new level of competitiveness/communication to PvP. What do I mean by quickchat? Implemented in games like TF2 and Runescape. Quickchat is a pre-existing list of commonly used phrases accessible in a tree-like structure.

Sounds a bit wordy. So how about an example. Say you want to tell your teammates 3 enemy members are incoming home. As it is now, you could press enter, move your off hand the mouse, type in “3 inc home,” move your hand back onto your mouse, re-align your keyboard hand, and then continue playing.

Problem: What if a player wants to give their team important game information without taking their hand off their mouse? Given a pug situation where TeamSpeak/Skype/etc is unlikely. How can a player relay game information in action-heavy scenarios, such as when they’re being chased by an enemy player?

Now let’s look at the earlier “3 inc home” example, but with Quickchat. First, the player would press their quickchat hotkey, say ‘X’ for example. Next, a lightweight menu or list of options would pop up:

• 1. Combat
• 2. Enemy Location
• 3. Need help at
• 4. Map specific
• 5. Etc.

We press ‘2’ since we’re trying to send an “Enemy Location” message:

• 1. Incoming
• 2. Enemy Position
• 3. Incoming Class
• 4. Enemy Position and Class

Now we press ‘1’ to select “Incoming,” another menu:

• 1. Home
• 2. Mid.
• 3. Far

Finally, we press ‘1’ again to indicate incoming home, enter ‘3’ as the amount. And Quickchat spits out a “3 inc mid” message. What did we have to do to send this message? After pressing the Quickchat hotkey ‘X,’ we entered the memorizable combination: 2, 1, 1, 3, and hit enter. This combination can be done very quickly, and possibly even in the middle of combat.

For another example. Suppose you were considering going far but changed your mind after seeing a bunker ele there. Rather than stop to type. You can quickly hit: X, 2, 4, 3, 9, and enter to send an “elementalist at far” message (Extra ‘9’ near the end being for elementalist).

Of course there are some problems with this system. It could get abused by spammers/trolls. And it removes part of the human aspect of team communication, which can be seen as a con. Overall I can say this is something I would definitely use if it was in the game, but not sure if it belongs in an MMO like GW2.

Your thoughts?

I like most of your changes. But even if I didn’t, I agree that Trickery is way to mandatory and has been for too long. For the reasons you mentioned, that is the extra initiative and reduced CD on steal.

The player-dense environment in PvP makes Impact Strike more useful in PvP than it is in WvW. Ressing is a bigger problem in PvP, esp with quick resses and whatnot.

I still think from a dueling perspective Impact Strike isn’t bad. It provides extra burst dps on a bursty class, interrupts, and can be traited to have a 32s cd. It is somewhat unreliable though. Sometimes it feels like the skill can be dodged by sidestepping. And getting blinded on Finishing Blow never feels good either.

In the new meta with Basilisk Venom adding unblockable, and nerfs to quickness-ressing it’ll be hard to say if Impact Strike will still be as prevalent. Nerfs to ressing could make Impact Strike all the more of a kill-securer, as it is still definitely possible at the moment to get ressed before Finishing Blow hits. Or things could take a path as blarghhrrkblah mentioned and Impact Strike loses popularity due to ease in stomping.

spartan.9421:

Having a bond with a DOG is alot different than refusing to using a different weaponset because it is your favorite. one is a living creature and the other is something you liked to use and only still use because you’re ignorant!

Yeah man I know. People who get attached to things other than what you’re attached to are just plain stupid right?

Just like people who get attached to their pokemon. Just plain stupid. I released my level 100 Sceptile without a second thought when I was a kid just to prove that point.

…

I’ll miss you Lizard T-T

Pretty sure a nerf to D/P would just result in more staff thieves. D/D and the other loadouts still being the immobile things that they are. Zerker/Marauder/Valkyrie thieves being balanced around D/P or not. If D/P got nerfed something else is going to rise to the top, and zerker/marauder thieves are just going to be balanced based on that instead (Like I said earlier, that thing would likely be staff. Assuming they do balance around one weaponset that is).

Also kitten Jana, 3x legend as D/D thief is nice. Like really nice. Did you get that through solo queue conquest? I’ve been somewhat trying to get to legend through solo queue conquest as a thief only. Started two weeks ago and kinda stuck around mid diamond atm (Been pretty busy so haven’t gotten to play the last few days >_>).

Had people like that before. Literally exact same wording. I just hit whatever, and you guys are ugly so I’ma afk.

Honestly you’re just as likely to get these as the enemy team is. I don’t think matching diamonds with rubys is the problem. I’ve met some really good rubys and some really bad diamonds. Just gotta keep trying your best and hope to climb.

Shroud has a 10s cd so baiting the toggle is somewhat beneficial if possible. Also keep in mind that reaper skllls have pretty high cooldowns and somewhat choreographed animations (thinking of executioner’s scythe and soul spiral in particular) so try to save your dodges for those.

In teamfights they’re definitely easier to burst down compared to druids and chronomancers. I still think reapers are in the tier of classes that you shouldn’t try to 1v1. But haven’t done many duels against reapers tbh so I can’t say.

So, kinda wanted to start an open ended discussion about conditions, boons, and CC effects. Or more generally, Status Effects (List at bottom of link). Not focusing on particular classes and access to those effects. But more so on the effects themselves. Feel free to mention any status effects you find op/weak or otherwise, and we’ll see if we can get some shared opinions around here.

Also if possible try to give some consideration to the whole PvP/PvE/WvW aspect of Status Effects. To start off the discussion I’ve thrown in my thoughts about two conditions below.

Weakness

Weakness is a condition I feel is deceptively strong when applied. Weakness has a 50% chance of not only denying a critical hit, but also reducing that hit’s damage to 50%. For any zerk-based character with ~200% crit damage. This effect results in a ~75% reduction in damage for hits that would have been a critical hit.

I say deceptively strong though since weakness isn’t really a condition that seems like you have to clear it right away. It isn’t killing you so it doesn’t seem like a problem. At the same time with classes that have limited condi clear, wasting condi clear on weakness isn’t really a viable option.

Torment

Torment is a condition I feel is somewhat of a failure design-wise. While nice in PvE as it encourages kiting your enemies (if applicable). In PvP and WvW, I feel as if the 2x damage multiplication on movement, or more realistically lack of 2x damage multiplication while standing still, is meaningless from a counterplay aspect. Compared to confusion which I actively look out for and adapt to. Torment’s only counterplay is to stand still. But standing still to reduce Torment’s damage is almost never a viable/reasonable course of action. Put simply: when I see torment I don’t see a condition I that I can or should actively react to. I see another bleed.

I don’t spend a large time in stealth the way I play. Usually just dodging around as I use signet of agility instead of impairing daggers. I have access to it if I need it though.

I think most of my initiative is spent either on gap-closing, interrupts, or SB hops.

I would focus more on nerfs to other classes than I would buffs to thieves.

Thief is actually quiet strong at the moment if played right. Problem is that other classes are just much stronger. Arguably much much stronger.

In particular I’m hoping to see cooldown nerfs to DH traps, and duration nerfs to protection, weakness, and possibly chill.

Pips lost/won is determined by matchmaking and the final score.

Here you got bodied with a 400+ point difference so I guess, based on the expected outcome of this match, the system made you lose two pips.

There are times where I’ve lost. Then, depending on the score either: gained one pip, lost no pips, lost one pip, or lost two pips. I have never lost two pips on a game where we’ve scored at least 350 pts, and likewise have never won a pip in a game where I lost and got bodied.

As far as matchmaking goes. From what I understand GW2 tries to give you a 50% winrate. That means if you’ve won more than you’ve lost you’ll be paired in matches where you should lose. And likewise if you’ve lost more than you won (IE: MMR tanking).

Using something like this, but with D/P at the moment. It’s a very good build.

You said something about lacking damage. Perhaps switch the runes up? Rune of Rage is definitely not the most optimal setup imo. Scholar would probably do better.

According to the recent Dev thread. Season 2 will rank groups by highest division. Meaning if one Diamond queues up with four Ambers. They’ll be facing five Diamonds.

Considering how groups are already weighed in with the current system. I don’t see how the solo queue experience needs additional rewards for queue’ing up as an individual.

Grats!

Hoping to do something like this myself with thief. Currently made it to ruby through solo queue only. Using a D/P thief atm, although I’ve been switching builds based on what I find more useful. Did a few games of staff thief that seemed to work pretty well.

Kinda curious. What was your end win/loss rate? (Or win/total game rate? Not that the stat matters very much). Also do you think you could’ve made it to diamond to legend through solo queue only? Also why did you chose to run bandit’s defense?

If you’re new to the game, just wait a bit, a balance change should be coming out at the end of the month:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Our next major balance update will be released at the end of January, and after the new year we plan on sharing the high-level details of those changes, giving you an opportunity to provide feedback to our design team.

As far as builds go… This is the build used by Sindrener, a top EU thief: [Link] and this is the build used by Toker, a top NA thief: [Link]. Both focus around roaming around, decapping points that aren’t defended, and utilizing the thief’s high mobility to provide a numbers advantage in fights (Known as +1’ing). Thief in general isn’t good at 1v1’ing so it’s a bit more optimal to use the above playstyle. In particular, with proper use of the shortbow the thief cann cover more vertical distance than any other class: [Link].

As far as the current meta goes… Thief isn’t very good at carrying in solo queue as it is very team dependent. But if you have a team or a few friends to play with, then you should be fine and able to have plenty of fun in unranked or ranked. I can say from personal experience that it’s possible to get to Ruby as a thief in solo queue. But with the tier safety system getting to Ruby is mostly grinding anyway.

If you really like PvP, I highly recommend trying out dueling rooms. Go to the norn labeled PvP Browser in the Heart of the Mist. Talk to him. Then look for any room labeled “1v1” or “1v1 dueling.” Dueling is a fun way to learn and practice matchups/mechanics. Just ask the folks there if they want to duel.

Ye I’ve noticed folks saying this weird “mid and home only” thing too. Usually follow it up with something about unless they zerg mid.

+1 to the above posts (haha +1, that’s what I do as a thief).

Meta is focused around bunkers atm, which take too long to die and just sit on point all day.

Weird how this has broken down into a PvP vs PvE thing.

I have no comment about which is the “path to success” or not. However I do think that, for reasons already mentioned above, PvP imbalance is much easier to notice than PvE balance. Honestly I would like to think that a balanced PvP would be possible without breaking the balance in PvE.

Also Ohoni you keep saying source this and source that. But seeing as how you post on the forums, you must have also seen the number of complaints about PvP balance that go on around here. Most of which, in my opinion, outnumbers PvE balance complaints.

Isn’t moving from GW2 to Blade and Soul like moving to one Anet/NCSoft game to another?

I’ve seen this pop up before, wouldn’t NCSoft actually WANT us to move to Blade and Soul? Now that the majority of us have already bought HoT that is. Idk this sorta suggestion comes up a lot on the forums so I guess I’m wrong somehow here.

Had a person afk because we went for a 3 home 2 far start instead of a 4 mid 1 home start before. Later justifying their actions with: “I just climbed a tier, and can’t be demoted so I can afford the loss.” I personally don’t really care as I plan to go to higher tiers where that statement wouldn’t even be valid. But I can definitely see more folks using that sort of reasoning to troll, and how it could get frustrating.

Honestly though this is Guild Wars, not LoL, Dota, or some other game where you have to be stuck in a room with a “toxic” player for 30+ minutes on end. Assuming you do get paired with some short fused fellow. Then at best they’ll get 3-5 minutes of trashtalking in. Even if it’s directly funneled at you. It’s not that bad when the game ends in such a short amount of time.

Not saying this “toxic” behavior is fine. But really that for this game it’s much less experience-ruining.

Yeah I suppose when it comes to PvE Executioner doesn’t have an alternative (Other than just dropping DA by chance).

I’ve switched to Basilisk Venom and had an easier time using Executioner, even without Bounding Dodger. Still think there’s fights where I go the entire battle getting barely any mileage from the trait, but going to keep using it regardless.

Also picked an answer from above. I think Executioner will be stronger once the popular bunkers get a nerf. Just a small nerf to those bunkers though still wouldn’t make the thief able to do anything other than +1. I don’t think Executioner needs a buff, but I do think it’s in a weird spot with the current meta.

Ah I forgot to mention I run Impact Strike instead of Basilisk Venom. So I don’t have the initial lockdown that Basilisk Venom provides. I think both elites have around the same level of usefulness (Said this before, but still learning the current meta so I might be wrong here). Also as far as my setup goes I run: d/p, DA/Trick/DD, and same skills as you except for roll for initiative though. I think I need to work on keeping up auto’s though and am losing some dps due to that.

@Impact, Said this earlier but I feel like getting them below the 50% mark can be hard even if it’s a 1v2. Most classes when they get that low will start spamming invulns and heals to quickly get back up to the mark. And in the case of a 1v3 or 2v3 where you’re focusing one player, you have to ask if executioner is actually accomplishing anything that wouldn’t get accomplished before. Or in the case that it’s not, you have to ask how much faster does executioner let you accomplish what you already would’ve been able to accomplish anyway.

See, I guess from my view tempests and other bunkers can stay above the 50% mark in a 1v2 with a thief for a majority of the time even after a burst. They might dip below the mark sometimes. But even then can usually heal back up and are definitely above the 50% mark for a majority of the time. Although I don’t run Bounding Dodger so I might be lacking a bit of consistent dps. Also just picked up the game again so I don’t know the tempest’s and other bunker’s rotations perfectly yet.

I know Improvisation gives more utility/defense, and CS gives more crit chance. I did the math on CS with pack runes and found that you get about a +30% crit damage multiplier going 2/2/1, and longer ferocity uptime. Plus there’s the 1.1x damage multiplier from Ferocious Strikes for anyone above 50%. But at the same time with CS you lose the burst/healing from Mug. I think in terms of just damage multipliers CS beats DA, but DA has Mug >_>.

Dunno, jumping between both of them at the moment. Lately have been trying DA with Distracting Daggers over Blinding Powder to get a little bit more dps. Also the additional cd on interrupt seems like it could really screw over a bunker’s rotations.

First off, this is not a nerf/buff discussion thread. Nor a whining thread. I’d like to discuss Executioner as it is, in the current meta. Whatever few days are left of it.

REPEAT: DO NOT SUGGEST BUFFS/NERFS IN THIS THREAD (YET)

Lately I’ve been thinking: Executioner only activates whenever the opponent is below 50% health, and at that time executioner provides a 1.2x damage multiplier. However, this is the bunker meta. Players are rarely below 50% hp even in 1v2 scenarios. With that in mind, is Executioner a noob trab? If a bunker is below 50% it is very likely they’re in a scenario where they’d die irregardless of a thief’s Executioner or not. On the other hand Executioner can help “execute” low hp targets. But this is plus if and only if those low hp targets wouldn’t have died anyway.

Dunno, do you folks feel the same way? If so, what do ya’ll run instead of Executioner? I’ve been thinking of running Improvisation or even dropping DA for Crit Strikes. With the DA drop coming from Panic Strike working on a similar system to Executioner.

Also set this thread in question mode. After we get some comments about Executioner in the bunker meta I’ll choose an answer and we can talk about buffs/nerfs.

Supreme your reply towards Serious Thought was completely canned and has nothing to do with what he said at all. I don’t want to join into this argument. But you literally just classified him into a “1001 thief who tell other to L2P” and then when on to comment on him/her as a person rather than comment on what he/she actually said (IE: Ad hominem).

Like your post is so decoupled from what Serious Thought said that he could have literally been talking about how bunnies reproduce and your response would still been a valid response. He doesn’t even need to mention thieves or L2P in any way for your response to work. Because since you call him a “1001 thief who tell other to L2P” your third sentence: “Seen as you tell others to L2P…” makes sense irregardless of what he says.

Heck your response was so canned and aimed at the person rather than what he/she said that I can use it as a response to my own post:

Midi, you are a “1001 thief who tell other to L2P.” Your response is “just a wall of text, and obviously lack logic.” And, “seen as you tell others to L2P, it must be obvious that you play their own profession better than them…” etc.

Edit: Ninja’d by Serious Thought >_>

Ah, I thought it might have been just knowing when to go in/out. You didn’t seem to have a problem with condi’s due to that from what I watched. But wasn’t sure if that was the case in general or not.

Also just bought HoT (Won’t get to try it right away though, since I stayed up all night for new-years >_>).

I don’t think players actually want to have a winning 1v1 matchup for every class. Just that they feel the need to whine for a class they perceive as weak. And that for some reason or another that whining usually takes the form of 1v1 complaints.

Also I’ve actually watched your stream, and will likely be picking up HoT because I want to try the DD build you run. From my impression the build was strong, and you definitely did the job you set out to do very well. But I’m from my limited viewing and experience with HoT it seems like other classes are able to do the job(s) they set out to do even better. If I had too I guess I would put it as: “This looks like it should be meta, but I don’t think it is because other things are just better at the moment?”

Actually I’m kinda curious how you deal with condi-clear. Because it seems as if your build would have problems with condi’s. Didn’t get to watch enough to see if you do have problems with condi’s though or tell how you dealt with it if you didn’t.

Not answering the question you directly asked. But part of the gloom too comes from the fact that we haven’t really been cared for at all as far as balancing goes.

Still waiting for that promised 10% heal increase for withdraw… If they ever do add that in, it’ll be along with a new internal company policy to never promise any balance changes for the game.

Hijacking this a thread a bit. Could say if that end of January thing is a wishful/reasoned thinking type thing or if the dev’s had made a comment somewhere that they’re looking to release a balancing patch (not necessarily just for thieves, but maybe for everything in general) around the end of January? Haven’t been following the forums/game really as of late.

Also hi Jana. Your name is familiar from when I did frequent the forums.

Ah, the bandit’s defense/Impact Strike was a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Wasn’t sure if the kick after on bandit’s defense would be a problem. I can see shadowstep working to help as a condi clear/stunbreak though. Also actually did use Dagger Storm on the old build for a whirl finisher.

Nice vid. I do think it showcases the build’s playstyle and strengths/weaknesses very well. I think I’d do a bit more dodge spamming/offensive dodges myself but overall the playing was done correctly. Kyhlo is definitely one of the better spots for this build due to the small capture points that can easily be covered with condi fields.

In terms of survivability, I think it may be worth testing DA going 2/2/1 or 2/2/2 instead of getting Acro. Less condi clear and vigor. But mug offers a 2.5k on demand heal that can work better against burst situations (compared to the 10s & 2.4k heal over time of Pain Response). Slotting in Potent Poison with a Sigil of Venom and Sigil of bursting also makes your poison damage go from 215 per tick to 447 (for sb 4 at least). Probably would be good to drop Quick Pockets for Sleight of Hand with those changes though, for lower cd on mug among other things.

Ah forgot about the long evade period on pistol whip. It could be better than s/d considering you get more evade time/initiative (~1.25 evade/5 init on s/p while s/d offers 0.5s evade/4 init).

Feel free to change the build as you see fit. Would recommend trying to keep a healthy amount of condi-clear when experimenting though. Problem with low vit & high toughness builds is that they are pretty susceptible to condi’s (The ability to fullheal and proc Pain Response multiple times helps with this though).

So, a long time ago I tried to come up with a bunker thief build that some of you may have seen. Relying on the high toughness and decent healing power of the settler’s amulet, that build tried to be tanky through the use of Signet of Malice and caltrop/poison field ticks.

Unfortunately that build also relied heavily on stealth for condi clear and regeneration. At the end of the day it couldn’t be an actual bunker due to the fact that one cannot cap while stealthed.

With the new daredevil spec though, I think it’s possible to build a somewhat viable (yet still off-meta) bunker thief. I don’t have HoT so I can’t practice/refine this build myself. But this is what I came up with when trying to theorycraft a daredevil bunker thief:

Weapons: s/d & sb
Trinket: Settler’s ( +1200 Toughness, +900 Healing Power, +900 Condition Damage)
Runes/Sigils: Undead Runes, Leeching/Energy for both weaponsets
Traits: Acro/Trick/Dare (3/3/1, 1/2/1, 3/2/1 – respectively)
Utility Skills: Signet of Malice, Caltrops/Signet of Agility/Bandit’s Defense, Impact Strike
Build Constructor: [Link]

Thoughts:
I already was dropping poison fields often with my old bunker thief build since they can offer up to 5 ticks of SoM. So I took Lotus Training with the idea that one can whirl finish inside their own poison fields for poison bolts (Those bolts plus the daggers give extra SoM ticks aswell). Leeching/Energy Sigils and Quick pockets are meant to encourage weapon switching whenever possible since both weaponsets have decent sustain. Beyond that though this build focuses mostly on dropping caltrops on points and dodging as much as possible. SoM and poison/caltrop fields scale with the number of enemies you’re facing, so theoretically it may be possible to bunker against more than one person for a decent amount of time.

In the end though I haven’t tested this build out myself so I can’t really say how it’ll perform. If any of you folks care to try it out I’d like to know how it goes for you (I’m waiting for HoT to be cheaper or I’d test/refine it myself >_>). On the other hand though, if anyone else is testing out some bunker-ish/non-stealth thief builds that are good at holding points feel free to share/discuss them here. I’m curious if there’s a dodge-spam thief build out there that’s good at holding points.

Check out this vid for a good coverage of sb hopspots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCKHBldKO44