Guild Wars 2

Einlanzer.1627:

What people tend to not get is this is more Vital Shot’s fault than anything else’s because it’s not able to carry the set’s DPS the way it needs to to allow you to use your Initiative more flexibly.

Someone get this guy a cookie.

Think about sword auto attacks – its the thief’s staple damage and all skills are utility. Dagger is auto + backstab. Shortbow aint brilliant with the auto, but at least it hits 3 targets and dps is supplemented by clusters (only 3 ini!)

Now imagine trying to rely on pistol mainhand autoattacks like the above. Ridiculous, no? The autos just dont provide the staple damage of other weaponsets, hence the reliance on ini-hungry unload.

OP: The clips you’ve seen where players don’t click target with their mouse are misleading. Fraps and other similar programs give you the option to remove the cursor completely. So these good thieves probably use a combination of tab/click targeting, but you just can’t see it.

There was a nerf a long while ago for the sword sneak attack duration in pvp. That means spvp and tpvp excluding wvw. I cant recall the specifics, but conceivably the spvp daze duration is now too small to be affected overmuch by sigil of paralysation.

Thanks a bunch OP – see what you’ve done?

What have we come to when thieves start nerf thief threads..

@Teamkiller – you make some excellent points, and I agree that LS does appear to be an ability that lacks in counterplay. However you could argue the same for all thief abilities. Due to the ini system, LS / FS / HS etc can all be used more than the average player can dodge/block. Is it good play to spam an ability however? I would suggest not as it makes you easy to anticipate: A thief just used FS, therefore you know he’ll try to come in range to LS you. Don’t bother dodging or blocking – lose your boons like a man and take some damage, but make the thief pay when he comes into range. A good player, knowing the thief is coming in to LS, could take half his HP.

Thieves die quick. Counterplay = just kill the thief.

Yes, S/X offers better survivability than other weaponsets so the thief will last longer, however it also takes far longer for the thief to kill his opponent, therefore the player has more opportunity to kill the thief.

I would wait and see how things pan out. Too early to call either way IMO, though I’ve personally seen nothing that indicates sword is anything other than fine.

Ever heard of a self-fullfilling prophecy?

Sword is fine.

Interesting idea. I have three initial feelings:

First thought: Wow, that would solve everything! So bloody simple too..

Second thought: Mmm, but it doesn’t seem right thematically. Revealed should be the debuff and a thief should get it’s power from the shadows.

Final thought: Even though your proposal would probably make all the qqers feel better about thieves, it’s fundamentally changing nothing except when a thief’s buffs kick in (apart from SR that would be kittenty). Meaning that perhaps it isn’t a thief’s ‘abilities’ that people don’t like, merely the fact that they don’t like them doing things behind their backs.

?

IMO the haters are the ones who don’t have a firm grasp of the class mechanics. More experienced players who know how to counter thieves just don’t seem to carry the same hate. The fact you were in sPVP and on a brand new character, supports this.

runeblade.7514:

I do not consider myself a good thief even though I killed a lot of players. I heartseeker spam a lot because it kills. If a good thief knows better way, I want to learn.

http://www.twitch.tv/loljumper/c/1817891

If you think heartseeker kills, check this twitch vid.

Daecollo.9578:

3. LoLoLoL anyone who uses that in pvp is a joke. Its clunky and stupid. Might as well just stick to using SoS :P

Let me reinforce this part:

“Sounds cr@p but it’s rather good.”

Try it.

I would also love more access to swiftness. I too tire of having signet of shadows permanently on my hotbar. However there are some workarounds.

1. As another said, 50% move speed in stealth. A good alternative for a stealth-heavy build. C/D rabbits n critters in WvW and get the speed buff without entering combat. Confuse your enemies by moving slowly when visible but at an unanticipated speed when they cannot see you.

2. Replace signet of shadows with another utility prior to combat. Clunky. Annoying. But it works.

3. Another poster mentioned this a while ago: Withdraw + centaur runes. Sounds cr@p but it’s rather good. Replace signet of shadows with blinding powder for the instant stealth you lose by dropping hide in shadows and you get the following useful stats:
10sec swiftness on heal
Around 160 power
20% swiftness uptime
Spamming withdraw when it comes up is almost enough for perma swiftness. Add in feline grace and some other key traits and you can stack your swiftness past 20secs.

Running this now and enjoying it immensely.

The change is fine imo. People are forgetting that its a tier 1 trait that gave way more bang for its buck than it should have. 5k+ damage was huge, especially when coupled with bs/hs. Anet mentioned they are considering raising theif base damage if they can no longer burst effectively, so imo its a lot of fuss about nothing. Admittedly the heal is strange since steal is mainly an opener.. :s

lLobo.7960:

A stealthing thief fighting against a heavy condition build needs to stay in stealth all the time to cleanse. This mostly shuts-down the thief if there is constant conditions being applied.
I dont think its OP…

I don’t agree with this at all. A large part of a dagger/x thief’s rotation will be stealth, burst, stealth burst, stealth burst, etc. Forcing the thief to stealth is hardly shutting us down; it’s allowing for the next backstab and a natural part of dagger/x gameplay..

As to shadow’s embrace being op – 2 conditions cleared every stealth is pretty strong. I don’t feel as though dagger/x takes too much advantage of this though as it’s very easy to shutdown cloak and dagger, however dagger/pistol pushes this trait into the realm of overpowered. I don’t believe that this is the fault of shadow’s embrace – it’s the d/p that needs tweaking. This is a pattern that sheds light on d/p’s need for change. With the right build, the AoE blind shuts down melee classes, shadow’s embrace cleansing conditions ‘on call’ shuts cond. classes down hard, easy access to stealth and having the ability to stay in stealth for longer durations if you choose – all this without sacrificing a tremendous deal of damage.

Everytime I see a fellow thief heartseeking through blackpowder over and over I admit I roll my eyes. It’s unarguably effective but it’s just so lame.

I’m not a big fan of ambush because in some situations it works against you – for example, it gives thieves something to c/d off, giving them a huge edge. It also reveals your location when you stealth.

Iavra.8510:

I’d rather see eles and warrior being unable to use portals while under the influence of their downed skill instead of thiefs (and randomly mesmers) being able to portal while downed…

This. Thieves shouldn’t be able to shadowstep into portal while downed. No one should. It’s a whole kittenload of kitten.

And needing scorp wire to make traps effective says a lot. Traps can work, it’s just that other things work better. Much, much better.

No, its a joke cuz he walks into a bar at the beginning :P

So a thief walks into a bar…

“Mate, what’s got you down?” says the bartender, because he’s noticed that the thief is looking very sad.
“I dunno,” sighs the thief. “I just get the feeling that no one really likes me.”
“Why not ask that norn guardian over there in the corner,” says the barman.

So the thief goes up to the norn guardian. “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
“Maybe it’s because you don’t have good support abilities,” the guardian bellows over his pitcher of ale. “I give lots of helpful support and everyone likes me. Why not ask that mesmer over there?”

So the thief wipes the flecks of ale from his face and approaches the mesmer. “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
“I’m sitting right here,” the mesmer croons, beckoning him with a slender finger. “You were speaking to a clone. Maybe no one likes you because you can’t portal people about. I portal people everywhere and they all like me. Why not bother that warrior over there.”

So the thief goes up to the warrior. “Why doesn’t anyone like me,” he asks.
“Hmm,” growls the warrior. Maybe it’s because you don’t charge headfirst into the enemy. I always lead the charge into battle and everyone likes me. Go ask that dev over there before I crush you with my superior damage."

The thief gives one final sigh and approaches the dev.
“Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
The dev puts down his coffee, slides his plate of cookies to the side and looks the thief square in the eye.

“Dude.” He says. “You’re a thief.”

Um…

roll a warrior?

Good one.

I give it a 7/10 and an agreeing nod. You lose three points because of the explanation :P

How about: the class stole my heart before devs stabbed me in the back

There’s a secret ninja server that has been diligently training secret tactics and manoeuvres. They’ve been biding their time, waiting to obliterate all tiers on their imminent journey to T1, victory and honour. No other server knows this secret. Neither of the enemy servers in their current tier even know – they’ve seen whispers perhaps, but nothing more than shadows in the dark…

…while the ninja server waits to strike.

Contiguous.1345:

I quite like it.
You only get the loot if you’re quick and/or you survive the fight. It adds realism.

Sometimes I find myself lying dead surrounded by loot bags – makes me laugh every time.
(If you’re REALLY quick you can WP and run back for them, maybe…)

Ya, I like it for this reason. Also there’s satisfaction to be had in claiming your hard won talons and barbs yourself

Naw, it’s fine the way it is thanks. Sounds like you guys all wanted credit for the capture instead of taking the initiative and intercepting the zombies before they reached the circle.

Ah, it’s so sad. I switched to Dagger/Pistol a few weeks ago as well since the nerf spoiled the flow of off-hand dagger. Post nerf it’s probably the better spec, but the big plus for me is the fact that the combat doesn’t make you feel like you’re trying to dance with two bricks for feet. It’s got a much better feel to it.

This isn’t how you nerf an ability, Anet. You really ham-fisted it up. Just sayin.

Thanks for posting, Boulderbolg. I always enjoy Yishis’ gameplay and commentary.

Thief Strengths:
- Build variety, each with their own inherent strengths and weaknesses
- Burst (GC)
- Movement
- Ability to spam skills (initiative willing)
- Ability to escape hairy situations
- Sustained combat (tanky and/or condition builds)

Thief weaknesses:
- Too many ‘must have’ utilities resulting in inflexibility and poor diversity despite many great build options
- Inherently squishy
- One trick pony (GC)
- Too many builds hinge on a single mechanic/skill (stealth/cloak and dagger) resulting in easy shutdowns from good players
- Very weak in drawn out fights (GC) due to lack of sustain, squishiness and stealth nerf
- Thief ‘roles’ taken by other classes more suited (scout: ele, burst: warrior, harrass: ele etc)
- Poor group support, despite any combination of traits/skills
- Lack of boons
- Lack of cleanses when not traited into stealth

I won’t comment on PvE as I don’t do it, but having said all that, thieves are doing okay. We still operate well solo. We can do all the things a thiefy character should be able to do, such as ninja camps, snipe dolyaks from under people’s noses and take down seige/players behind enemy lines without drawing too much attention. We can also burst key targets and snipe buffs from enemy team. We can generally catch running players and outrun pursuers.

I don’t agree with the 4 second revealed nerf for the same reasons many have mentioned: no culling making stealth less effective already and no solution to back to back cloak and daggers. It was an extremely ham-fisted change that also resulted the spoiling of auto-attack timings. A more elegant and equally effective change would have simply been to give us the 3 second reveal after any stealth ended, as advertised.

Future changes:
Most non-stealth builds need help. The advertised movement buffs would go a long way to doing this, however with our burst pretty good but not amazing or reliable by half, non-stealth thieves need some better ways to sustain in fights. Sword/X is great for this but other builds, especially pistol/pistol, need this in spades. And no, running out of a fight and then back again isn’t what I’d call sustain.

Trap buffs.

Boon removal seems to me to be a thiefy thing to do, but we’re not great at it. One unreliable weapon skill and a 45 second ability is all we have (off the top of my head).

Other than that it’s mostly fixing wonky traits and improving our non-standard utilities.

A good counter to a vit/toughness tank is to use conditions. A p/d bleed build with proper runes (bleed duration) will kill any tank quickly since armour doesn’t affect cond dmg. Continual cond cleansing counters this well, but if your mate was just standing there taking it, I don’t know what to say. Also spamming HS on a target until you have no ini is not a good way to do damage. I can only conclude:

a). You have unrealistic expectations for thief damage
b). You are not very good
c). You’re friends are very good, ie better than you
d). You hate sentences
e). You are drunk

Jax.5261:

The solution to this is simply to practice. Get as much experience you can get against as many good players as you can. Analyse your own play, record it and analyse after if you can’t do it during. Play the thing you’re having trouble with, understand how it works against you and what it has troubles with so that then you can be the one causing the trouble. Study skill animations, SOUNDS, and plan what skills you will use in reaction to their actions.
Maybe it’s your build, even in GW1 running an inferior build could disadvantage you enough to lose. Equipment, etc, I write numerous guides (along with a ton of other people) so you don’t really have the excuse of I didn’t know what equipment/builds to use.

As an example, when a Mesmer tries to burst me (standard shatter) they’re forced to use pistol 5 to even hit me, since sword 3 is easily dodged and I pay attention to the clone that was created with Sword 3. Even blink is easily dodged, I know which mesmer is the real one always due to being able to instantly read behaviour and decide which ones are clones. Just knowing which skills to dodge and how to dodge shatters means you’ve reduced their damage to near 0 or waiting until your stunbreakers are all gone.
But to a player who hadn’t practiced as much they wouldn’t dodge Sword 3 and then suddenly the recharge of that skill seems rediculous, suddenly the shatters which I avoided hit 8k and that’s overpowered.

I can give hundreds of examples to this, obviously to save time I’m not going to (unless you really want me to describe some more). Maybe you guys need a guide on what to do/not do against these classes?
So take a chill pill, learn some kittenzle and take a stroll in tpvp and see how mes/thieves are only optional in almost all teams.

-silven

I’m sorry, but complaining is easier.

6/10 from me. I used to love the duelist set but it’s just too familiar now. Plus Char thieves just don’t look right to me. Nothing personal.

Keep it up BG!

From your pal,
TC

I believe that if you trigger all your venoms at once, your next attack will inflict your enemy with all those conditions, but you will only receive one ‘dose’ of lifesteal. It’s optimal to space out your venoms so that:
1. Your team are close if you have the sharing trait (solid teamwork required for this to work effectively)
2. A new venom is applied after all charges of the last venom have been used up.

Also, the optimal way to play Pistol/Dagger is to stealth with #5 (a melee strike), unload your sneak attack (5 quick shots stacking 5 short bleeds), #1, #1 and repeat beginning with your #5. So it’s 5, 1, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 5 etc

It doesn’t stack with vigor. However you won’t have vigor up all the time and you’ll still get might on every dodge. (35 condition dmg, 35 power).

What’s your crit chance at?

To demonstrate some D/D gameplay. It’s the new meta.

Do you mean that you can lay a trap down twice before it triggers a longer cooldown?
Mmm. Why would you want more of a bad thing? If traps were fixed then this would be way too strong. As traps are now – still, who would use them?

Only thing I can think of is 4x thieves for double ambush trap, thieves guild + venom share.

Wow, those were some clueless enemies.

Let me try to answer a few of those questions:

If you have the trait ‘Leeching Venoms’ and the stats of a typical venom thief (high power, low crit) your damage is fairly evenly split across your lifesteal and your raw physical damage. Lifesteal damage occurs each time you successfully apply a charge of venom on an enemy target and this damage is usually around 320. So if you activate Spider Venom and hit a target 5 times with a #1 attack, you will deal you regular attack damage plus 5×320.

There is no bleed venom, but you can get nice stacks of bleed through pistol auto attack and pistol sneak attack (pistol/dagger) or AoE bleeds with dagger/dagger equipped. Finally equipping Caltrops also applies bleeding in a nice AoE pulse. A thief with a mainhand pistol will easily apply 3x the damage in bleeds as he will physical or poison damage.

I personally wouldn’t run a venom thief unless I was using pistol/dagger or dagger/dagger. Shortbow can be good too, though for poison, not bleeds.

Best thing to do is to try the build in the mists on a few dummies.

Advantages:
1. Innate tankiness through Vitality from gear/stats
2. Good healing through Leeching Venoms and Signet of Malice (I would use this over Hide in Shadows for a heal)
3. Good group support if you share venoms
4. Good sustained damage, especially if there aren’t many other condition damage types in your group

note: I couldn’t open attached build

It’s a risk vs reward thing. Shadow refuge kills thieves just as much as it helps them. The big house pretty much says “AOE here! I’m tryna res a downed guy!” A month ago I would have agreed it was too strong. Now, people have learned to deal with it.

I agree with Beyondthelol on seige damage. If seige damage was so drastically reduced, the enemy would ALWAYS have time to respond in full numbers. This would encourage a single-ultra-zerg-roam-the-map-and crush-your-face kind of playstyle. Fast, coordinated rushes let smaller servers with a cohesive playerbase compete against the larger zombie servers.

However as the game grows, more players are learning to counter Refuge so that often it’s more of a liability. This means its use as an “oh kitten” button is severely limited. If you try to put it down to escape, you get pulled out. If you ensure you are far enough away to use it safely – then you’ve already escaped without needing it.

Refuge is slowly becoming a tool for initiation or safe travel around the map rather than clutch escapes. However it’s the sheer broadness of it’s utility that keeps it on our skillbars.

But then you wouldn’t be able to travel the map at super speed by C/Ding cute little bunnies.

I think that if Fleet Shadows gave ____ duration swiftness then it would need to be in a higher tier. It would be extremely powerful for the sole reason that it would free up the utility slot taken by SoS.

However I am all for more build diversity, so me likey. The fact that it will encourage more stealth spam builds leads me to think that the change would be an unlikely one.

Yep.

Shadow Signet, Shadowstep and Refuge imo aren’t utilities at all, they are actually core abilities. At least that’s how I look at them. The other utilities, they’re the real ones. If I’m sieging for example, I might swap out SoS for scorp wire for it’s situational utility. If I’m approaching a fight I might briefly swap out SoS for blinding powder. If I’m about to solo a camp I’ll trade shadowstep for caltrops, etc etc.

But then I’ll swap straight back again.

So you’re right I think, to say 90% of thieves run these. The exceptions are perhaps the alternate builds that are themselves structured around other abilities:
- venoms + ambush
- assassin’s signet + haste
- spot reserved for when traps become useful
However insta gib and venom share are extreme niche builds that are overshadowed by a more balanced setup containing the above tri-factor utilities.

As much as I love those three utilities, the lack of diversity is boring.

Grimpaw.7493:

Thresher.3049:

…well, except TC, depending on “what” it is you do to them, they might not care if you have their garrison and stand on the walls taunting them in a french accent. But if you killed enough yaks they might well launch some kind of server-wide ‘jihad’ against livestock molesters, in which case we’d all be screwed.

With apologies to Monty Python:
Pot (BG): Your father smelled of alderbérries!
Jayne (TC): What? Free french lessons, sweet!
Pot (BG): I fart ïn your géneral direction!
Coral (TC): I brought cookies! Set up the trebs so we can launch them over the walls!
Nirvii (BG): Uh oh TC trebs going up, stack on me…
Pot (BG): Non! Fetché la yak!
<Yak is hurled at the TCers and crushes a Char loading a sack of cookies into a treb>
Appledainty (TC): They killed a YAK! O.o
Säm (TC): Their souls will roast in hell tonight! Storm the castle!
Coral (TC): It’s just a model.

I literally lol’d. Genius on so many levels

D/P as has already been mentioned.
Blinding powder.
Smoke screen + 3 or 4 clusterbombs or heartseekers give around 10 seconds of stealth. Additionally it’s on a 30 second cd and has the bonus of being useful in zerg warfare.

It looks dodgy to me. I think the biggest giveaway is that the enemy thief is jumping about like he knows he’s trolling you, not even really trying to fight back. Report.

Agadar.4931:

Why would sword/pistol be better than sword/dagger for Signet of Malice? The #5 is relatively useless without the dagger isn’t it? You want to leap through it to get stealth.

S/P is not a stealth build. Pistolwhip connecting with multiple targets works well with signet of malice is all. The AoE blind (pistol offhand #5) has greater utility than just +leap finisher for stealth. It is good for blocking downed skills, blinding melee, protecting teammates etc.

Also, yes stealth is bad for point control, but the OP didnt specify if he does WvW or sPvP.

I wouldn’t invest in healing power as you heals are fairly sufficient as they are. If you want to use Signet of Malice you would be far better off running D/D+caltrops or S/P than S/D.

IMO healing power ratios are too small to worry about the stat.

Welcome.

It’s viable. You would need to make good use of stealth and regen in stealth (30 in shadow arts) to get the most out of it imo. This works well as you get a daze on sneak attack and can win a war of attrition in P/V/T armor, not doing tonnes of damage but denying their heal and wearing them down.

Another option is to run a condition build in Carrion armor. Either a pistol/dagger build using a lot of stealth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F8FcUCoyBQ

or a dagger/dagger + shortbow build doing AoE bleeds and poisons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtUySqxInlI

Finally, you can run a dagger/pistol build in a variety of armors, which is initiative intensive but has the most reliable access to stealth. It also comes with the bonus of downing a playing in stealth immediately ready for the stomp with a well-timed Heartseeker from Black Powder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m3d45T4FZw

As you can probably gather from the above builds, stealth is our major form of survivability. Learn to love it. It’s certainly viable to run with a shortbow/shortbow or sword/pistol without stealth, but I’d strongly argue that you are far more vulnerable this way.

I started as tanky P/D (0/0/30/20/20) and am now playing D/D+SB (0/25/30/15/0). All my WvW builds utilise 30 in shadow arts.

I can’t get your link to work (even copy/pasting) but I get the jist of your build. I like the idea of getting ini back through weapon swap in combination with weapon swap runes. I wouldn’t invest in Shadow Arts though, despite the fact that shortbow damage inexplicably features, as I don’t think it adds much to a build with SR as the only means to enter stealth.

I would go something like this:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckc9VmlvComrvFoax0x0czoqcRb

Basically it’s 10/30/0/30/0

Damage: 30 in Critical Strikes with the fury (I) and Excecutioners (IX)

Survivability: 5% precision as vitality (VI) plus 30 in Acrobatics. Plenty of dodge through Feline Grace plus the combination of Vigorous Recovery (III) and using Withdraw as heal will provide loads of endurance regeneration.

Iniative regen: Quick Pockets on weapon swap. I’d use hydromancer (I think) sigils for 3 seconds of AoE freeze. I was also thinking 25 in Trickery but I don’t like the wasted points on cond. damage.

Vs Conditions: Pain Reponse (VIII) and Shadowstep
Vs ranged: Smoke Screen and Daggerstorm
Vs Melee: kite and dodge
In the zerg: Autoattack+clusterbomb. Smokescreen. Shadowstep+Daggerstorm
To burst: Mug (III) to close the gap + cluster-spam at their feet
To escape: Plenty of swiftness and Inf. Arrow, but also Smokescreen + cluster spam will give you excellent stealth duration on a 30 sec CD

There’s a lot to improve on but there’s also a lot of synergy there. I’d love an extra 5 points in Deadly Arts for AoE Weakenss but you can’t have everything after covering your most important bases I guess.

I also experimented with 5/0/30/20/15 to hit 100% bleed duration. I ended up abandoning it in favour of the extra 50 cond damage and vigor on steal in trickery. This just seems to synergise so tightly with the build, though 2000 posion damage in steal is very nice also, I reasoned that poison was very accessible through shortbow already. As for 100% bleed duration, I didn’t like paying for the top of the range food every half hour since I was saving for other weapon sets :p

I too love the options for thief builds.

Like the thief downed skill cannot teleport him into a tower, vapour form shouldn’t either.

Venom PD was my first ever build. I ran spider venom, signet of shadows, shadow refuge. I changed ages ago however to the 0/0/30/20/20 spec, pretty much before it was known as the PD spec to roll with. I changed venoms to include shadowstep and to be honest I much prefer this setup for the following reasons:
- don’t need to take leeching venoms in shadowarts. There are so many great options here instead
- free up a utility slot. I chose shadowstep for chasing those eles, running from zergs, clutch escapes etc, such a versatile utility, but you could just as easily take caltrops to throw on players manning siege or players trying to res an ally. Blinding powder works too
- more durability
- great access to vigor for excellent dodging (+ more dodgetrops!)

You still have access to poison through shortbow (I prefer this over DD) and you are still capable of, not burst as such, but good spikes of damage. I open with choking gas+cluster at their feet to trigger weakness and put me in combat, switch to PD to trigger geomancy sigil which puts 3 bleeds down, cloak and dagger and immediately unload into them. If you manage this fast enough you sneak attack through your poison field getting some good poison stacks out of it. That’s 8 stacks of bleed, decent poison duration and a good 2000+ raw dmg as an opener. On a squishy with no condition removal (or without the wits to use it) that plus a few autos can almost kill them right there.

However the poster who said that 30/20/20 gives durability and 20/30/20 gives more damage is correct. Just taking leeching venoms gives around 1800 damage from a sneak attack, and this doesn’t include the bleeds, poison damage or the physical damage itself. Add in 1000 damage from mug and 20% condition duration, with the proper runes and food you’ve got a more offensive oriented setup.

For 1v1 I’d still prefer 30/20/20, but only if you keep reapplying poison with shortbow.

A DD thief with shortbow killed my PD thief handily. My disadvantages were I had no shadowstep as I was trying a different loadout, there were no mobs to stealth off. However when he realised I was PD he switched to shortbow and plinked me for 1k per hit. I knew he would out dps my autos so I cloak/dagger stole to him to gain stealth. He cleansed my bleeds off his heal, immobilized out of stealth and bombed me. I had no more blinks, heal was on CD, I couldn’t dodge to him to cloak/dagger as he kept his range well with disabling shot. When I was half health he switched to DD and blew me up using the old tried and true.

I could have beaten him with my normal loadout but he played it very well.

It’s a great group buff in theory, but in practice the buff range is so small that you literally have to run up next to an ally before you press your venom. Realistically you will give max 2-3 players your venoms, but most by far you end up sharing with one other player. Imo it’s best used with a smaller group on vent where you can call them to cluster up on you before a share.

That and you give up a heck of a lot of single player utility and group support that actually works like shadow refuge.