Guild Wars 2

Vornollo.5182:

Counter to this build: AoE & Properly timed interrupts. Anyone who knows Vaults Evadeframe will be able to completely shut you down. If that person is also capable of rotating between their close/mid, you’re useless to your team in al ways possible.
This is a fun build to play up until Ruby, after that you’re probably going to need to make better use of the other skills on your toolbar because Vault/Bound spam will get you killed against any decent group of players.

Just because a Thief spec’d for Bound and uses Staff doesn’t necessarily mean that they will spam both. That’s a little short-sighted don’t you think?

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

snip

I’m hardly factoring in Trickery traits “to make DA look good.” If it looks good it’s because it is, and that is my point. I’m being realistic, build vs. build. DA build vs. CS build. Different trait lines work better with different trait options. You wouldn’t say “trait line A can’t compete with trait line B because even though it works better with trait C.1, the build for B uses C.2 so that is what must be taken with it, resulting in a less effective build,” and call is sound reasoning. Besides, give those same trickery traits to the CS build if you want, and you get more fury applications, sure, but those applications will often overlap, and are just as likely to be removed, corrupted and stolen as without the extra few seconds.

Haste is a gimmick, and hard to account for. Revealed training is not a gimmick but also hard to account for when seeking an average value for a simple comparison. Signets of Power I did miss.

If I’m using this build, I would use Bound to position myself to be on the side or back to trigger Haste then use Inf Signet to trigger the 5 stacks of might. This will give me 6s of Fury and 5 stacks of might for 10s. The DPS output of this initial engagement is already high because the Fury buff also gives me additional 250 Ferocity. My next Vault with all these buff will deal so much damage compare to what I’ll get with DA. Using Vault+Bound 3 times and finish off with Impact Strike will guarantee a kill.

I used to spec DA, but I can never get that kind of result with it, albeit I acknowledge that Executioner is very needed against bunkers.

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Impact.2780:

Why 100% and not the likely lower value for both? Because I’m making a point, and CS is stronger the more crit chance it has, so I thought it fitting to give it the advantage in the comparison in an attempt to make my argument stronger when DA still came out on top.

But that’s not true though. DA doesn’t have a 100% fury uptime. Making it 100% actually favors DA.

You’re also missing the Practiced Tolerance conversion in your calculation since with a 68.52% crit chance meaning that CS’s Ferocity is way over 218.5%. (I get 230% at 56% crit chance with 2000 Prec).

In my experience, your numbers are way off — CS brings more damage output than that. Ever since we can no longer get Power from the DA trait line, I dropped it and favored CS.

DA doesn’t grant 100% fury up time alone, no. In fact, it doesn’t grant any. If the builds each ran one trait line only, you’d have a point, but they don’t. The build posted does not run thrill of the crime or bountiful theft. If you’re running DA, you do run thrill of the crime, and I would use bountiful theft. That gives DA 2 sources of 50% fury up-time and potential to steal fury, vs CS’s 1 source of fury and 1 source that extends it. Give consideration to boon removal, corruption, and that some allies may grant it. These combined variables make comparing the true up-time in practice impossible, especially since it’ll be different in different matches. Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that fury up-time will most likely be the same, if not extremely similar – talking 1-2 seconds here – and remember there will be moments where you’re not attacking or landing hits anyway. For CS, those moments are also periods in which fury is not being extended by no quarter.

Then your whole calculation is misleading since you are factoring Trick traits to make DA look good. You’re basically comparing CS vs DA+Trick. :/

Also the fact that the build specs for Signet of Power which gives 5 stacks of might plus the lower CDR for signet is not part of your calculation.

So no, 100% uptime for a simplified comparison instead of say, 80% uptime for both, favours CS, not DA. If you’re still not convinced, remember that CS only grants that extra 250 ferocity while under the effects of fury. So in the realistic scenario where it has periods without fury, it loses 250 of that ferocity I factored in as permanent.

Not necessarily true. If CS has Trick just like DA has Trick, CS will have 100% Fury uptime because of Haste (Flanking Strikes). What’s not fair in your assessment is that you’re giving DA the benefit of Thrill but deny the benefit of Haste from CS. As I mentioned above, the build also have Signet of Power that gives 5 stacks of might to the build, which was not factored in.

I did not miss the precision to ferocity conversion. Without it, critical damage is the same at 187.3%. With it, it is 201.8%, which you can even see in the OP’s screen shot. Add the 250 ferocity next, and it becomes 218.5%. If you have higher than this, you are not using the same build, or are not inside heart of the mists.

Ah, ok makes sense. I was using a Scholar+Beserker that’s why. However, as I mentioned above, there’s more to this build that were not represented in your calculations.

Impact.2780:

Why 100% and not the likely lower value for both? Because I’m making a point, and CS is stronger the more crit chance it has, so I thought it fitting to give it the advantage in the comparison in an attempt to make my argument stronger when DA still came out on top.

But that’s not true though. DA doesn’t have a 100% fury uptime. Making it 100% actually favors DA.

You’re also missing the Practiced Tolerance conversion in your calculation since with a 68.52% crit chance meaning that CS’s Ferocity is way over 218.5%. (I get 230% at 56% crit chance with 2000 Prec).

In my experience, your numbers are way off — CS brings more damage output than that. Ever since we can no longer get Power from the DA trait line, I dropped it and favored CS.

lol, if I would spend that much gems, I’d rather expand my Bank. I have never had any problems swapping items using my bank. 700 gems per slot…hilarious.

Ohoni.6057:

I disagree whole-heartedly. There shouldn’t be any excuse for any given trait line option to be blatantly superior to any other. These decisions should be made during build construction for the style of play desired.

But if Elite specs should not be superior to the default ones then how do you justify the added costs in obtaining them? That’d be like saying that they should raise the level cap to 100 and you have to grind your way up there, but there isn’t actually any stat increases or new abilities available and level 80 characters would be equally as strong in all content.

You’ve literally just described the HoT expansion. lol

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Impact.2780:

Max damage modifier: 1.5307 [DA[above 50% health)], 1.8368 [DA(below 50% health)], 1.5307 [CS(above 50% health)], 1.3915 [CS(below 50% health)]

You might want to recalculate since DA gets a +10% damage modifier regardless of targets health as long as the target has a condition. Thus the Mug damage above 50% health will have a 10% boost since the poison is applied prior to the Mug damage.

I already factored that in.
Exposed Weakness (1.1) * Staff Mastery (1.1) * Bound (1.1) * Lead Attacks (1.15) = 1.5307. The above 50% is with Executioner (1.2) * 1.5307 = 1.8368.

Then how did 1.5307 [CS(above 50% health)] came to be the same as DA with Exposed Weakness?

Spartacus.5243:

Also i have tested the difference in dmg output enough. I see with my own eyes that CS sometimes gives me 10k vault with this build. and with DA max i have seen was 7k

I have noticed this also. Executioner does nothing until their HP drops to 50%, while CS deals expected high damage regardless of the target’s health. My current build is CS+Acro+DD, basically abusing the heck out of Bound and Vault.

Impact.2780:

Max damage modifier: 1.5307 [DA[above 50% health)], 1.8368 [DA(below 50% health)], 1.5307 [CS(above 50% health)], 1.3915 [CS(below 50% health)]

You might want to recalculate since DA gets a +10% damage modifier regardless of targets health as long as the target has a condition. Thus the Mug damage above 50% health will have a 10% boost since the poison is applied prior to the Mug damage.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

luzt.7692:

Zodryn.4216:

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

He’s probably referring to stuff as Banners, Empowered Allies and Assassins presence.
Alacrity pretty much falls in the same category, right now.

I could argue that stealth should be unique to thief, or at least that it should have the most access to it. Then we have mesmer and scrapper…

I wholeheartedly agree with Thieves being the epitome of stealth users, since you know they have a whole trait line dedicated to it should provide better group utility with stealth and all, Mesmers should have some access due to misdirection and thematics of the class, but engineers, Rangers and so on should have none imo.

But yes I was referring to how most classes have a unique way of buffing the party War has banned, Rangers have spirits, Revs have aspects while Chrono only has alacrity they should give all classes a group utility that makes them desirable in their own way that is unique.

Venom share without Venom Aura would be great.

Acrobatics feeds fuel to DD and should only really be used when picking Bound or Lotus Training. Since the Thief doesn’t have anti-CC when using Bound/LT, Hard to Catch and Don’t Stop are must have. If the Thief picked Dash instead, then there’s no need for Acrobatics.

They should also consider lowering some of the weapon skill’s initiative cost.

Shovel Face.4512:

2.) I’ve NEVER used the Acrobatics line anyway.

To me, that’s the reason why it’s getting a rework.

Going down the list of traits;
- Fleet of Shadow – useless, need something new. Just delete this trait.
- Pain Response – useless. It would be better if it triggers a 3s Regen and removes a condition on hit without ICD.
- Feline Grace – should go back to refunding endurance. Even if it requires an evade would be better than this as long as it doesn’t have an ICD.
- Guarded Initiation – useless, need something new.
- Swindler’s Equilibrium – useless. Thief can get a better CDR from Trick without the stupid sword evade requirement and ICD.
- Hard to Catch – lower ICD. 25s would be perfect.
- Upper Hand – remove ICD. The dodge regen is enough of a CD. Increase initiative gain to 2.

So yeah, the trait line needs a lot of work.

Spartacus.5243:

ah dont listen to these sad kents cuz they are ignorant as kitten. as again mentioned only watched 3 mins. so they know nothing. haters gonna hate so just watch my stream brahs. Also Crit strikes is far superior to DA i have compared the dmg output. I also like to replace no quarter with invigorating precision btw.

You only take CS if you’re not taking Trick, otherwise it’s redundant without meaningful effect. DA+Trick or CS+Acro…CS+Trick just don’t work well —- but, it’s your build, your decision.

Tengu.5267:

“Thief

In the recent history of thieves, their damage roles have been largely burst-based due to initiative, while their autoattacks do little to sustain their DPS.

+1 to Karl for finally identifying the role of the Thief.

In addition, initiative often needs to be used defensively, which can take a toll on overall damage output.

Another +1 to Karl for actually recognizing one of the main issues when playing Thief — which means, he had played the profession and experienced the problem first hand.

Our design for this profession tends to lean toward damage, mobility, and evasiveness.

Does this mean that if we use Death Blossom and successfully evaded an attack that we get the initiative cost refunded?

Does this mean P/P will have evasion and mobility in its weapon set skills? (P/P is the only set without evasion nor mobility)

In the first quarter of this year, we’ll be looking to drastically improve thief melee autoattacks until their overall sustained damage when coupled with initiative use is extremely dangerous.

-1 to Karl. Really, only melee auto-attacks? Karl needs to realize that in order to auto-attack is to have something passive that allows an auto-attack. Thief doesn’t have a passive defensive ability that will allow the profession to auto-attack.

So when he said “extremely dangerous” I think he didn’t mean that the auto-attack damage being extremely dangerous, rather the act of auto-attacking is, being that Thief is squishy.

Thief needs to evade to survive.
Evading means no auto-attacks.

He needs to figure this one out because he’s not making any sense.

In addition to the damage improvements, we’ve done a bit of reworking and improvements to the Acrobatics specialization line."

+1 on “rework” rather than “tweak”, thus I can expect some big changes.

AikijinX.6258:

So thieves are forced into a mandatory Trickery, and Daredevil right off the bat. I agree with you, I feel as though 3 evasion bars should be innate, but I also believe if we wanted to increase abit more build variety, shy down on the mandatory trait lines like trickery. We should have the extra 3 or 5 initiative that trickery offers innately. That way we actually can choose freely with out having to worry about the small initiative pool.

There were plenty of discussion about these issues where a lot of things should be base line or innate to Thief. We’re still not sure if the Dev is on the same page seeing that they all went radio silent on us.

I also feel as though the the trait rework has to revert back to how it was before. A player shouldn’t be locked to just 1 trait tree each. Where’s the diversity in that?

The initial idea was that the Elite trait is not something mandatory and can be interchanged with other future Elite traits. However, that goal was lost when they factored in revenues that if the Elite trait is not enough to attract current players, they may not see a huge expansion sale. So in order to make DD more attractive to Thieves is to gut the Core traits and put it into DD.

With the original Feline Grace, Thief practically already have 3 dodges but now Thief can only get it back when the player purchase HoT and use DD. Rather than giving the extra dodge bar to the Thief as a way to improve its survivability in the Core level, they instead gated that survivability behind kitten paywall. Others may argue that this is not the case but it’s plainly obvious to those who enjoyed the original Feline Grace that the Acro was gutted in favor of DD. This, I believe, is where things gets messy.

Now they face a challenge on what would be the next Elite trait for Thief without actually breaking the profession beyond recognition. There is no Thief in DD – what I see is an agile Warrior. DD has no connection to shadowstep, steal (ex. Endurance Thief), and stealth which are the core abilities of Thief which effectively narrowed the options on what build to use. You can practically put DD in Warrior and it will still work.

Many traits in DD should have been in Acro, but ArenaNet has to change the “rule” so there are only 3 choices per tier just so they can justify why these traits were moved into DD. Driven Fortitude, Escapist Absolution and Endurance Thief have Acrobatics written all over them. Havok Mastery and Impacting Disruption could have gone to DA. Weakening Strike could have gone to CS and the extra dodge as innate to Thief. If that would have been the case, Thief would have been a great profession with a lot of build diversity.

AikijinX.6258:

-How do you feel Thief matches up to Daredevil?

Daredevil is a testament to ArenaNet’s hypocrisy. They first gutted Acrobatics based on the reason that Thief evades too much only to give us Staff Daredevil who can dodge/evade 24/7. The extra dodge bar beats Core Thief hands down. I can’t even see myself playing my Thief without the extra bar…that’s how inferior the Core currently is to me.

I’ve seen many Core D/P in unranked who tries to make it work only to be outplayed by a DD because they can break from BV and counter attack with Bandit’s Defense, which is at a lower CD than BV. DD has better mobility than Core since DD can have swiftness 24/7 (Dash+Acro) while Core lost the pre-HoT Feline Grace. Staff skill #5, Vault, deals more damage than Backstab which is both an evade and an AoE without the stealth requirement. Some evidence also shows that Staff’s AA is better than Dagger AA…and the list goes on.

How do you like Daredevil, and do you play it often?

I play DD for the reasons I said above, but I don’t like it one bit only because now there are two mandatory trait lines (DD, Trick) and only leaves one line for something else. The choice between DA, CS, and Acro has not been easy since I personally need both CS and Acro so my choice becomes between DD and Trick and obviously DD wins because of the extra dodge. But it’s not a choice without regret since Trick increases initiative pool, initiative on steal and lowers steal CD that my build also benefits from.

I don’t play Core build anymore and I worry of what kind of future Elite spec can come after DD seeing that the extra dodge is something that the Thief needs regardless of the Elite spec. I think that if ArenaNet make the extra dodge a Thief’s innate ability that players will never play DD unless they want to use Staff and I would be one of those players who won’t be playing DD.

Ohoni.6057:

Just by comparing the “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” to the “PvP” forum is enough to show that non-PvP players are very vocal —- 2000+ pages vs 890+ pages respectively. Then it gets even larger when you add the pages from other non-PvP forums (300+ from FDR and 300+ from HotS for instance).

“People posting outside the PvP forums” are not necessarily “players that aren’t PvP focused.”

Players leaving the game are not necessarily silent casual majority either. The forums simply indicate what players, who visits the forums, are interested in. It’s not an indication of which group the visitor favors.

A lot of people on individual class threads, for example, are very PvP focused and trying to build up their favorite classes as a PvP class. In other threads, it may be less PvPers, but still the “hardcore” style PvEers that want things like raids to be a dominant activity, far and away more rewarding than anything else.

The point is, “hardcore” type players, ones who value skill over fun, and who believe that the most skilled should see far higher success than the lower skilled, have a tendency to dominate the conversations on gaming forums at a far higher rate than their actual value to the game itself, so you should never take “well, the majority of the forums seem to think. . .” as any sort of actual mandate. It’s like polling the convention floor of a political party to see where the nation is thinking.

The individual class threads are categorized as sub-forums only because they are not representative of what players are interested in as a whole. However, in each topic posted, it’s a simple indication that players who visit these forums are more interested in casual topics like “Let’s see some thief pics” than “Post Your Build Thread”. Which is a strong indication that you are wrong to believe that a lot of people in these threads are hardcore or PvP-focused.

You can’t really get much information out of that though. If thousands of people viewed a thread about Thief nerfs, then all you can tell is that those people were interested in the topic (although keep in mind that the “views” recorded are not unique views, at least some of those are the same people viewing the pages multiple times), but you cannot tell whether they agree or disagree with the conclusions inside, only that they were not compelled to respond on the topic. They might have been people thinking “yes, Thieves were nerfed and need to be fixed!” or they might have been people who thought “what do they mean? Thieves are fine.”

That’s exactly my point. The number of views on non-PvP topics shows that players on the forum are less interested with PvP-based topics. Which also prove that your assessment is wrong that only PvP focused or competitive players posts in the forums.

If you cannot tell what the players think by looking at the number of views, how do you then can tell what non-posters are thinking?

LeetSauce.7210:

Tired of dancing around pointless passives? big circles on the ground?? skilless AI just plain annoying ? im here to tell you friends no more.. Blade and Soul on the 19th …Where a thief can be a thief… GW2 has carebare ’d out to hard for any skill to determine outcome… GET YOUR THIEF ON

I played the beta because of the same hype that you’re hyping rightnow but I have to say that I agree that you can be close to Thief there than here in GW2 — however, it’s an Asian game designed for Asian gamer, in other words it comes with Asian designed grindfest. After the beta, I am more inclined to play GW2 even more.

“Thief” has a negative connotation associated with it, much like “politician” and “bureaucrat”, which is mainly viewed as a dishonest profession. The same reason why Robin Hood was never called a “thief” or a “robber” rather a rebel, an outlaw, a reclaimer or a philanthropist.

Can you imagine any hate towards a Philanthropist profession? — even though that’s exactly what the Thief does in GW2.

“Dare devil” is an attempt to rebrand the profession’s negative image.

Ohoni.6057:

You can expect that in any mixed community, for every PvPer complaining about something, there are ten to a hundred times as many non-PvPers who are upset about something, but in no way interact with the forums or other public outlets. When they get upset, they don’t complain about it, but that doesn’t mean that their complaints are not important, because when enough of their complaints pile up, they just quietly quit. This is why forums do not make a representative sample group, you can never say “well more of the forum people think X, so therefore. . . _anything.”_ Even starting a thought that way means that your conclusion will be worthless. Forums have value, but it’s in discussion, in pursuing different ideas and honing them to their best potential, they have absolutely zero value for polling or group-size comparison.

Just by going through the GW2 official forum (this one) is enough proof that your assessments are not true.

Just by comparing the “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” to the “PvP” forum is enough to show that non-PvP players are very vocal —- 2000+ pages vs 890+ pages respectively. Then it gets even larger when you add the pages from other non-PvP forums (300+ from FDR and 300+ from HotS for instance).

Another thing about forums that is invisible to others is the number of hits/visits each page gets in a daily basis and how many searches are conducted on a specific topic. You may not see a lot of post from non-PvP but I can guarantee that ArenaNet has data on how many non-posters are viewing any particular page or topic. For example, there is a post about the nerfs on Thief that garnered hundreds of replies, yet there are thousands of hits/view about it. That is a strong indication on what players are interested about and which topic they care less about. So even if they didn’t post, their complaints are recorded.

Midi.8359:

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.

Just adding my two cents.

You’re looking at it from a wrong angle. In fact, due to the bunker meta, Executioner is even more needed. Taking down low HP target is a waste of Executioner, that I agree. However, when facing a bunker, they can often stay alive below 50% most of the time because some of them 50% of their health is equal to the ‘zerker Thief’s full health bar — thus when they fall below 50%, it’s seems like the Thief is fighting a fully healed target.

As an example, a condition-bunker-Reaper sits at 28k health with 14k health at 50%. That extra 20% damage definitely comes in handy in finishing them off.

Happy New Year everyone. Just got back from hibernation.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Sir Vincent III: Honestly, I think that Thief’s too far gone for anything other than a stem to stern overhall to fix properly. I’d say that the first port of call is to make most of the thematic and mechanics ‘must haves’ baked in -> frees up space in the Traits for fun and diversity -> frees up space in our builds for fun and diversity (eg we ‘masters of speed’ can have +25% movement speed elsewhere than having to sacrifice a utility or runes).

But if we’re going quick and dirty, just to get us back on our feet, then I agree that reducing most skill costs is better than buffing most skills but keeping their costs the same; for all of the reasons that you mention.

All sets should cost roughly about the same, but I don’t agree that they should be made to cost exactly the same; since this would inevitably lead to the uselessly buffing or nerfing of some skills (to fit that arbitrary constraint) that you say that you want to avoid.

If the total cost of the set are within +/- 1 init, then I guess that would be fine. However, I can still see that there will be problems because of the Thief’s static pool of max initiative.

To go back to what I suggested above, grab a pen and bit of paper, and work out what you think P/P and S/P should roughly cost. Be a bit conservative, and the main aim is to reduce Ini costs (rather than buff or make major changes), as you say. [BTW, my arithmetic says that your OP’s S/P cost isn’t right. Should be 18/20?]

(You’re right S/P’s total cost is 20 instead of 21, but I rechecked my source and it gives me 21 — I need to verify this in game)

My quick and dirty, back of the envelope, first approximation gives:-

P/P: 3,5,3,5 (=16). Skill #2 has faster proj speed and slightly longer Immob.

S/P: 2,4,3,5 (=14). IR is often more of a PITA than benefit so it’s free (often PITA = sometimes useful). If there were a way to quickly and easily cancel it, then make it cost 1 Ini, for total = 14/15.

This is exactly what I’m proposing with skill #2 costing 3 with a 2/1 split.

Given S/P’s different role (where being able to keep using defensive skills is more important), I’d be happy for PW to even cost 3, especially if it wasn’t buffed in any way: for 2,3,3,5 = 13 [or13/14 as mentioned above]. That would make it 3 Ini cheaper than my suggested P/P or Daredevil as is… cool, seems about right to me….

If they allow S/P to have a total cost of 13, why not?

My original proposition is to simply fit the weapon set’s total within the 15 initiative pool. But if they can make it even cheaper, it would be the very best decision that gives Thief a lot of combat interactions. With more affordable skills, the Thief will be less inclined to run away, hide, or dodge while waiting for initiatives to recharge.

In addition, Kleptomaniac and Preparedness should be base line. 12 initiative pool may have made sense back in 2012 because of all the initiative traits, but not anymore. Then they can give us something better for Trickery.

I totally agree. When they first published Ghosts of Ascalon, Dougal Keane seems to be the idea for the Thief, however somewhere down the line that didn’t happen.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Sir Vincent III: You’re seeing inconsistency everywhere because you seem to be thinking that those who disagree (including myself) are disagreeing with everything that you wrote, rather than disagreeing with only one single thing.

To be clear, I doubt that most Thief players would disagree that:-

1 A lot of our skills need a rework, which will include cost adjustment, with some of our skills needing to be cheaper.

[This could be in conjunction with other balancing methods like putting more Ini recharge back into traits etc.]

The whole idea of this topic is skill cost reduction rather than init recharge on a trait. The reason is putting initiative traits back will obviously narrow down the Thief’s choices the same problem the Thief have now with Trickery.

2 All skills and sets should cost exactly what they’re worth; iteratively (by which I don’t mean the quarterly balance iteration cycle… iteration not work like that…) comparing costs with other sets will be an important part of achieving that correct costing. Nothing should be happening in a vacuum.

I have made that point already that cost comparison between weapon set is important because the cheapest cost will obviously be the better choice. As of right now, BP is not worth 6 initiative nor does PW. However, there is an argument that because PW is not worth it’s cost that PW should be buffed — which I disagree. Lowering the cost opens up more build diversity rather than giving it a buff.

3 The only disagreement with yourself is with your idea that this should result in all sets costing exactly the same.

Only because we have a static resource thus we need to have a static cost. Choosing a weapon set should not be detrimental to any build. All weapon set should be a viable choice. The only real difference should be based on how the Thief would use each weapon not based on how much they can afford.

IMO, all this would do is add yet another design constraint that would get in the way of us getting the best possible result.

Not necessarily. With a standard weapon cost, it eliminates the need to take Trickery for initiative boost. Any build can appreciate any weapon.

Try it yourself as a thought experiment: You’re now the Thief Dev, working within realistic limits (no major changes to the game’s core mechanics etc). Make each set work optimally, with each skill costing what it’s worth.

Your best result will almost certainly involve some sets being cheaper than others. Eg, S/P should probably be slightly cheaper than P/P; given the roles of those two sets.

Then make each of those sets cost exactly the same, and see what you lose in the process. You’ll inevitably be sub-optimally adding padding and cost to some skills and sub-optimally reducing the effectiveness and cost of others, to match this arbitrary constraint that you’ve unnecessarily added.

Try it for yourself.

The worth of the skill have diminished over time by nerfs and the removal of initiative traits while the cost of the skills practically remained the same. The cost of skills were balanced based on the fact that the Thief has the ability to regain initiatives through crit damage, steal, weapon swap, going in stealth, etc.

However, when most of these traits were removed, the costs on skills are no longer justifiable. The thief instead relies on regen that is hardly a compensation to the loss the profession have suffered. So the first order of business is to standardize the skills cost. Even without changing the effects of each skill, the standard cost is justified as I’ve already explained. PW costing 4 init is very appropriate, for example. Choosing to buff PW so that it’s worth 6 init will have more negative results to the game overall.

DeceiverX.8361:

It shouldn’t be about rotating every skill.

If you want to rotate skills, play an ele. Initiative as a mechanic is designed to let the thief make an instantaneous decision about which skill is best to activate at any given time. Managing this resource is just as much of a factor in determining the skill level of the thief as making these decisions as well. If anything, the disparity between total cost vs maximum initiative is preferable as it makes build strategies have more depth to them. The unfortunate reality is Trickery is simply too good to pass up when making these kinds of decisions, so the depth in builds is reduced.

This is not about rotating skills, rather making each skill available at least once. The decision should be on whether reusing the same skill at the cost of another skill and not about costing the Thief a use of another skill because the Thief used an expensive skill.

So if I choose to spam HS, then the loss of other skills is due to my bad decision. But using PW and BP should not prevent me from using IS or Head Shot only because PW and BP are expensive.

My newly-suggested ES concept focuses on pushing the need away from trickery and letting players choose almost any mixture of trait lines to make an equally-viable build focusing on some feature of the class. I’ve mentioned it in the past and I’ll say it again; there needs to be more overlap between the trait lines to reduce the dependencies we currently have on a lot of them. Daredevil did this for some trait lines, but it also conceptually gutted acrobatics and didn’t cover the base for Trickery, which honestly should have been prioritized for being replaceable or as an alternative.

That’s basically the same direction I am going. By standardizing the skill costs, the loss of the initiative traits we had before will not be as important nor there will be any more dependency on Trickery.

Narcarsis.5739:

We’ll use standard PvP base critical damage as our starting point (Marauder’s Amulet).
Critical damage is at 187.3%

Practiced Tolerance gives us an additional 13.7% critical damage. Adding this with the 10% from Ferocious Strikes and the 7% from Flawless Strikes, and the 16.6% from No Quarter we arrive at an additional 47.3% critical damage – leaving us at 234.6% critical damage. We’ll use an arbitrary number for a Backstab crit (since we’re dealing with percentage modifiers this won’t make a difference for the sake of explanation). Let’s say our backstab is going to hit for 5,000.
On Critical Strikes under perfect conditions we’ll arrive at a critical hit of 11,730 (5,000 * 2.346 = 11,730).

This actually what I have in mind which supports my initial post (I have no idea why I used DX’s formula).

DeceiverX.8361:

If the critical damage at hand was 150%, your math would indicate:

7016 (crit) / .5 = 14032 (non-critical damage) * (.5 + .07 + .1) (stacked modifiers) = 9401

You’d then be mysteriously dealing more damage with lower critical damage and lower damage without critting.

I totally botched that. I realized the same thing after posting it when I tried using lower values like you just did. (back to the drawing board)

However, your formula also deals more damage with lower crit value:

(7016 / 1.94) * (1.94 + .07) * 1.1 (Ferocious Strikes) = 7996.07
(7016/ 1.5) * (1.5 + .07) * 1.1 (Ferocious Strikes) = 8077.755

/shrugs

DeceiverX.8361:

Except it doesn’t. I tested it this morning in-game. The critical strike damage stat is also not affected by it.

Well let’s take a look at one formula you have;

(7016 / 1.94) * (1.94 + .07) * 1.1 (Ferocious Strikes) = 7996.07

We’re off by a large amount of the range between the two. Ferocious Strikes absolutely must be an external modifier.

You arrived at your conclusion only because the Math is wrong.

If you calculate it like this;
(7016/0.94) * (0.94+0.07+0.1) = 8284.85

Which is even closer to your initial range of values.

Ferocious Strikes simply makes the Critical Damage 160% instead of 150%. It doesn’t add 10% to the calculated damage like making 1000 damage 1650 actual crit damage instead of 1600 actual crit damage. 1650 actual crit damage is a result of a wrong calculation.

Loading.4503:

And I think you misunderstood the choice for bounding dodger, it’s not there for the extra damage, but for the access to stealth.

It’s not a misunderstanding since Bound does give +10% damage boost. Whether you choose to use it to gain stealth instead doesn’t really change that fact. You can still Bound followed by Unload for more damage.

In addition, P/P’s sneak attack doesn’t even deal that much damage unless you’re building conditions. Since you’re not building conditions, the value of stealth on P/P is very minimal and BP+Bound is an expensive way to gain stealth – it cost 6 init and an endurance bar.

It is easier to gain stealth using traps and Trapper Runes than using a precious 6 init and endurance to gain stealth. Vampiric is not a good rune anymore anyway — the mist form was the reason why it was popular — now that it’s gone, it’s crap. This is the reason why I have this rune for a very long time ever since my Thief reached level 80. The mist form is great at getting out of jam or after taking a siege damage to the face, but now it’s ruined because of PvP.

P/P doesn’t come with any reliable defense mechanism and the nerf on BP only put the weapon set in a deeper hole. Thus, it is more beneficial to stay mobile and stay in range and in order to accomplish this is to employ Dash instead of Bound. The anti-cc and damage reduction from Dash is something P/P desperately needs. In addition, Dash grants swiftness which is essential in a large map like in WvW.

AsurasRCute.4136:

I’d rather see each set be a coherent set, with a range of skills that properly compliment that set’s role – both in actual game efficacy and thematically – with each skill costing exactly what it’s worth.

That would only make sense if the Thief uses cooldown instead of Initiatives. Other profession’s skills are always available to them if they choose to save it for later. Thief, on the other hand, doesn’t have that luxury since the skills they don’t use or save for later are practically put in cooldown even though they haven’t used it yet. You need to take this into account.

It would likely follow from there that different sets would cost more Ini than others. Eg, it might be that a ranged, spike damage set cost more, since the player has the luxury of distance and being able to disengage/reposition through the fight, where some Ini can recharge while doing so.

This line of thinking is not even consistent simply because Unload and PW have the same initiative cost, yet FS/LS is cheaper that PW. Using your line of thinking, you’d be ok if Staff cost more overall, which I strongly disagree.

But it might make more sense for a tanky, melee set to have a range of mostly cheaper skills, so that they can keep using skills throughout the fight’s duration. Or use the fact that these skills are cheaper to let some Ini recharge before disengaging and switching back to the ranged spike damage set.

Theoretically, that would be great. However, that is practically impossible and the main reason is as I have posted is the limited initiative pool. With expensive skills, Thief is very limited on what they can do. Swapping weapons is not even a good tactical option because the skills on swap will still be disabled when initiatives are depleted.

If ArenaNet refills the Thief’s initiative pool on weapon swap or give each weapon set their own initiative pool, then we wouldn’t even have this discussion. Since that is highly unlikely to happen, the only logical course of action to the make weapon skills cheaper and standard across weapon set. The cost of weapon skills shouldn’t be a deciding factor since that only limits the number of available builds to the Thief.

A big part of the balance problem is the lack of elbow room that the Devs have to make proper changes, however much they might actually want to. What they need is more elbow room, not less like the OP’s suggestion is.

The balance that I’m trying to make is to balance the total cost fo each weapon set that they can finally be viable to use with less punishing result. The Dev have removed a lot of traits that alleviates the Thief’s initiative limitations without any proper compensations. While the weapon sets were designed with these initiative traits, removing these traits warrants reduction in skill cost.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If what’s important is the initiative cost per skill impact, then if the impact is nerfed, the cost needs to go down also. However, you’re implying that the impact is great that the cost needs to also be great. As I have posted, that causes a problem only because the Thief don’t deal with skill cooldown, which where it makes sense — greater impact has higher cooldown, but when it comes to initiatives, that’s not a good thing as I have posted.

You have no idea what contradiction means. Contradiction means asserting two things that cannot be true at the same time.

The contradiction is when you said cross-weapon comparison is isn’t super important, then followed by saying that is it important after all by stating that the weapon could still be underpowered even with cheaper cost — implying that it is underpowered in comparison to other weapon sets. Do you see it now?

Then I replied that the only way to see the difference in impact is to compare them, then compare their cost.

When I say that comparing initiative costs between weapons isn’t good, and that analyzing initiative costs of a skill by itself is good, those aren’t opposing statements.They are both true at the same time.

It is contradicting only because comparing weapon sets is part of the analysis. As an example, the S/P vs Staff/cost vs impact analysis is important only because Thief has to manage Initiatives, not cooldowns.

What you’re confusing is that you’re looking at the impact of the weapon set individually when instead you suppose to look at the impact of 12-15 Initiatives pool.

For 12-15 Inititiaves, how much can a Thief do?
For 12-15 Initiatives, which weapon set has the best value, thus it’s important to compare them.

Likewise, saying that a low impact skill needs a lower cost, and a high impact skill needs a higher cost isn’t a contradiction in any way that could be understood by humanity. In fact, it is the exact opposite of a contradiction. It is consistence.

That’s not necessarily true. Just look at FS/LS, their cost are not justified by their impact. If what you say is true, then LS should cost more however that is not the case. The cost of skills looks beyond their impact and in FS/LS’s case, LS is simply being gated.

The launching point for your whole topic is happenstance, and every direct suggestion you’ve made so far boils down to “This skill isn’t worth what we pay for it”, with a bunch of other things added on to the end. The whole "balance around 15 initiative cost’ is arbitrary. There’s a plenty ways to do something other than that (I.E. raising skill potency, increasing initiative regen from either base or outside sources, increasing base initiative, etc), and there’s plenty of ways to argue against your initial premise (why 15, when thieves start with base 12? Why is higher than 15 insufficient when steal from trickery gives you 17 starting initiative effectively), and the reason why there are plenty of ways is because your initial premise is nothing. It is a number that is convenient in your own mind that you’ve plopped down out of nowhere, and simply declare to be correct with no supporting argument.

That’s a lot of false statements only means that you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

First let’s get this out of the way, stealing from trickery when your initiative is full doesn’t yield 17 initiatives.

Second, the removal of many traits that refunds initiatives (i.e. Infusion, Opportunist) has made every weapon skills of Thief more expensive to use.

The current cost of the weapon skills were balanced around the fact that the Thief will receive initiatives in other ways. By removing the Thief’s ability to regain Initiatives in other ways, the cost on the weapons are no longer justified.

You’re arguing that they are justified without basis nor supporting argument yourself when the facts are showing that it clearly supports mine. Denying the facts is not a way to progress in finding a resolution.

Except that’s not what I"m saying at all. I’m saying that the skill should be worth what we pay for it. That doesn’t mean staff should be more expensive. And for that matter, who cares how much staff pays for its skilled, when S/P is overpriced in a vacuum?

And how exactly do you know that S/P if overpriced?
How do you know that the skills in S/P are not worth what we paid for it?
In a vacuum, S/P is not overpriced at all.

You’re making a lot of false statements that you’re not making any sense.

Loading.4503:

Anyways, was just looking for suggestions, I’m open to anything, just don’t give me p/p is bad this and that because like I said I made this for fun for wvw

Then if it is fun for you, why would it matter what other says about it? Since any suggestions would be based on your personal standard of what fun is.

I find P/P fun also, but I don’t build it the way you do. For instance, even though Bound adds 10% damage, P/P needs Dash, thus I don’t take Bound. It’s more fun, for me, to Dash around and hard to catch rather than dealing more damage and often dying.

Sorel.4870:

That’s dandy and all but… why on reddit? Hell, this is the official forum!

Because what you read in reddit is not official, thus it shouldn’t be believed.

Josh never specifically mention Withdraw’s missing 10% rather he commented that they’re going to have a balance update where this issue may or may not even be implemented. What exactly “addressing” means? It could very well mean, “yes we acknowledge that Withdraw has issue, but we’re not doing anything about it at this time, there we addressed it.”

EDIT: It’s very different than, “we’re taking the necessary actions in making sure that Withdraw gets the 10% as announced back in June”

Sorel.4870:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

A Thief is weak I agree, but more than one, so far not so weak. Thieves are like the Skritts, the more they are the better they perform. One Thief’s damage is easy to mitigate, but if it’s coming from more than one Thief, the target is often overwhelmed rather quickly — in my experience at least. And it can have a negative psychological impact on the target if they go down every time from the same Thieves.

Except that Skritts don’t compete for the same role. One thief can +1 and decap, but it’s so specific that you can’t do that with more than one.

When I played with a fellow Thief, we just gank whoever and it all worked out. As long as we’re attacking the same target, they go down fast. Also, with two of us, one can decap while the other +1, it was beautiful how it all worked out. But of course, I’m not saying that this is always the case since I also had a bad experience with a Thief who knows nothing of what they’re supposed to be doing. Whenever I find an equally or better skilled Thief in my team, I’m actually having fun playing PvP.

Maugetarr.6823:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t play ranked — too much hassle — but I’ve played unranked several times and there are times with one other Thief…no flames and we even won.

I think you only get flamed if you choose a Thief and you don’t know how to play the profession.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I’ve had matches where we lost an I got blamed, and matches where someone said “you know thief is the weakest class right now” before we’d even started playing. Just gotta ignore it.

A Thief is weak I agree, but more than one, so far not so weak. Thieves are like the Skritts, the more they are the better they perform. One Thief’s damage is easy to mitigate, but if it’s coming from more than one Thief, the target is often overwhelmed rather quickly — in my experience at least. And it can have a negative psychological impact on the target if they go down every time from the same Thieves.

evilapprentice.6379:

Yup, here it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xd25d/thief_heal_withdraw_still_missing_10_healing/cy3y2i7

Seriously though, I don’t believe anything unless it comes from Karl since he has a track record, so far, of making reality what he says.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If what’s important is the initiative cost per skill impact, then if the impact is nerfed, the cost needs to go down also. However, you’re implying that the impact is great that the cost needs to also be great. As I have posted, that causes a problem only because the Thief don’t deal with skill cooldown, which where it makes sense — greater impact has higher cooldown, but when it comes to initiatives, that’s not a good thing as I have posted.

While I do agree with many of the individual changes you’ve suggested here, the basis you started with initially is flawed, and creates constraints that need to exist. The issue is better described by saying “Most of our skills are too expensive compared to their overall impact. Either make the skills better or cheaper”.

Obviously the skills will never get better, thus it has to become cheaper. If you compare the overall cost of S/P to the overall cost of Staff, then compare their impact, you’re suggesting that Staff skills need to be more expensive — which is detrimental to the Thief profession — when the total cost of S/P should be cheaper instead.

Krait Rune + Impact Strike is a really good combo that when traited, Impact Strike will be available as soon as Krait goes out of CD.

The Undead Rune is very good also, complements Dire set really well.

One rune that I’m currently experimenting on is Rune of the Berseker, which is pure damage and is really good with Carrion. The main reason I gravitated towards this rune is when I was fighting a Tempest with Diamond Skin traited in PvP. The extra non-condition damage was very effective.

I don’t play ranked — too much hassle — but I’ve played unranked several times and there are times with one other Thief…no flames and we even won.

I think you only get flamed if you choose a Thief and you don’t know how to play the profession.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

If you arent running unhindered, withdraw, or roll, you should have a contingency plan for dealing with reapers.

if not, then that is your builds weakness.

of course, embrace should also clear chill now since it is a “Damaging condition”.

What if when it’s not?

Doggie.3184:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In other words, fix your build.

Yes OP, put a bandaid over what Anet broke for no good reason. Oh wait, the reason was so they could sell it back to us in weaker form for 50 dollars.

Exactly! Fork up the $50 like everybody else. Merry Christmas to Anet!

Stop being a scrub and spec Unhindered Combatant (aka Dash).

If not, bring Withdraw and Roll for Initiatives.

In other words, fix your build.

I just happen to got curious on how much does it cost to run certain weapon set.
(weapon set = total initiative cost)

SB = 17 (3+4+4+6)
D/D = 16
D/P = 17
P/P = 19
P/D = 17
S/D = 19
S/P = 21
ST = 16

So even in our weapon sets there is no balance.

For our maximum Initiative of 12, it is fairly obvious which weapon sets will have a hard time managing Initiatives. With 15 Initiative, some weapon set has fairly low or non-existent cool down — this is why Staff is very appealing. Low cooldown and better damage output than S/P. S/P is just a very expensive set, they need to tone down the cost and improve the damage potential because right now, it’s not even worth running with it.

1) The first thing that needs to happen is to standardize the cost of skills by making all Skill #3 cost only 4. This will help P/P, S/D, and S/P in managing their Initiatives. S/D’s #3 cost will be split to 3/1.

Justifications: Unload currently cost 5 and the damage is not even close to Vault, so to help P/P manage their Initiatives and have some kind of contribution to DPS, its costs need to be lowered. Sure Unload is a ranged damage, but it’s already balanced by being a channeled skill compare to Vault’s instant damage. Pistol Whip has been out of balance and out of whack for the longest time and it needs a better cost at least if its damage will not be improved. Compare to Vault, the initiative cost of PW doesn’t even make sense because PW already had a balancing mechanism of being a channel and it roots, there’s no reason for it to be so expensive. S/D has been nerfed so many times and its cost needs to be toned down because of these nerfs — lowering the cost to 3/1 or 2/2 should be acceptable.

2) Skill #5 cost only 5 Initiatives

Justifications: The Skill #5 cost is to simply standardize the cost of Skill #5 across all weapon sets. Thanks to Vault, CnD and BP at 6 Initiatives cost no longer makes sense. For 5 Initiatives, Vault leaps, evade, and deal a lot of damage while BP is a lackluster AoE blind and CnD is a low damage stealth. Since CnD requires to hit in order to stealth, it is balance in that regards compare to Vault’s evade on activation. Plus the damage of CnD is not even close to Vault thus making CnD a rather unreasonably expensive skill.

3) Skill #2 need to only have a total cost of 3 with a 2/1 split for the Sword #2.

Justifications: It is fairly obvious that Infiltrator Strike is an expensive skill, that if I were to pay that much Initiatives, I’d rather use it on FS/LS or PW. The damage and utility of Sword #2 doesn’t justify the cost. For 5 initiative, I could Vault for more damage and the fact the Sword #2 has been nerfed hard, its cost needs to be standardized with other #2 skills i.e. Weakening Strike. Body shot is crap on what it can do for its cost thus lowering the cost will make its ability reasonable rather than a punishing skill to the set.

There’s really no good reason why each set has more than 1 Initiative difference in total cost, which is one of the many reasons why players tend to gravitate towards a weapon set with low total cost but with big damage output. If we are to only have a maximum of 15 Initiatives, the weapon set’s total cost should not exceed that amount by more than 1 Initiative. The Thief profession should have the ability to use all skills in their weapon set at the initial engagement. As of right now, once a Thief use PW and Black Powder, the other 3 skills are practically disabled compare to other professions that can use their whole bar at initial engagement.

I know that there will be arguments about the reason why certain skills costs that way, but the main point is to standardize the cost of skills relative to the maximum amount of Initiative the Thief gets. Besides, even with this new costs, the Thief will not be overpowered since the current abilities of each skills doesn’t justify their cost in the first place and as I mentioned, they are too expensive. Staff is a really good measuring stick (pun intended) to use to evaluate the other weapon sets. Also with a standardized cost, it can potentially open up other build possibilities rather than being pigeon holed in to one weapon set only because it is cost effective.

The last patch is like opening a gift filled with crumpled newspapers — nothing but newspapers — all the while thinking that the 10% on Withdraw is somewhere inside. It gotta be, right? They can’t be that mean, can they?

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Gray.9041:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s called ’zerker build.

And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.

Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.

I think what OP is saying is that in order to balance the damage/survivability ratio, he’d prefer if our damage went up rather than our survivability.

I don’t think so. He’s very clear that he’s talking about builds which he had fully describe what we’ve already known all along as ’zerker build.

Shovel Face.4512:

In PvP Thief is a tough class to play. So this is for those who want to get into playing Thief or want to play a different play style.

Thieves are squishy. So people think it’s good to add survivabilty to the class whether it’s through traits, runes, amulets, etc. Well I say no to this and instead what you should be doing is adding as much power as you can. I run a full power dps thief with staff. The mindset for my build is basically to kill you before you kill me.

Yeah bad post on my part lol

Anyway yes it’s zerker build but on a thief. The only survivabilty I have is dash but it works really well with a zerker thief. The only reason why I brought this up is because I don’t see many thieves running zerker. its way more effective and if u saw me play u would know what I mean.

Most, if not all, of the players who plays Thief knows about the ’zerker build — it is completely natural for a Thief to gravitate towards this build.

However, after playing for a while where fights usually last long or your target is not taking a lot of damage due to their bunker build, ’zerkers are SoL and they typically die. When this happens more often, it is again natural to gravitate to a build with more survivability, thus abandoning some damage potential in exchange for health, toughness, healing or cleanse.

Nowadays we have a bunker meta that can also deal a lot of damage, so if you engage these players with your paper thin defenses, you will be killed before you kill them. It doesn’t take a lot of damage to kill a ‘zerker, you just have to mitigate their initial damage then they shatter to million tiny pieces. That’s why you’re seeing more Thief build with some kind of survivability.

For now, enjoy your build while it lasts but don’t forget to adapt and make adjustments.

None of those apply to me tho lol

I mean seriously you think I didn’t spend hours perfecting my build?

I’ve been using this build for while now and so far it’s effective even against “bunker builds”

I wasn’t talking about you rather the build. It is not new nor from a different perspective. What I’ve posted is that the angle you’re trying to illustrate has already been seen, explored, built around, tested, and abandoned.

If you can make it work for you then that’s good. Thieves normally take a build and tweak it to their playstyle anyway. Just because it works for you doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for everyone.

Bunkers are a problem especially, in my experience, Mesmers. I’m sorry if it’s hard for me to believe you because experience speaks louder in this case.

Meh.

if it was abandoned then maybe a “revisit” would have been more appropriate. Especially with the new elite specializations.

I agree, but it will require actions from the ArenaNet Balance Team for players to revisit the build. I, just like you, still uses ’zerker ammy even though I know that my survival rate is really low. But I have abandoned my Thief for quite sometime now and have been playing with Reaper because even if I build the Reaper as glass cannon, it has a better survival rate than the Thief.

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Gray.9041:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s called ’zerker build.

And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.

Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.

I think what OP is saying is that in order to balance the damage/survivability ratio, he’d prefer if our damage went up rather than our survivability.

I don’t think so. He’s very clear that he’s talking about builds which he had fully describe what we’ve already known all along as ’zerker build.

Shovel Face.4512:

In PvP Thief is a tough class to play. So this is for those who want to get into playing Thief or want to play a different play style.

Thieves are squishy. So people think it’s good to add survivabilty to the class whether it’s through traits, runes, amulets, etc. Well I say no to this and instead what you should be doing is adding as much power as you can. I run a full power dps thief with staff. The mindset for my build is basically to kill you before you kill me.

Yeah bad post on my part lol

Anyway yes it’s zerker build but on a thief. The only survivabilty I have is dash but it works really well with a zerker thief. The only reason why I brought this up is because I don’t see many thieves running zerker. its way more effective and if u saw me play u would know what I mean.

Most, if not all, of the players who plays Thief knows about the ’zerker build — it is completely natural for a Thief to gravitate towards this build.

However, after playing for a while where fights usually last long or your target is not taking a lot of damage due to their bunker build, ’zerkers are SoL and they typically die. When this happens more often, it is again natural to gravitate to a build with more survivability, thus abandoning some damage potential in exchange for health, toughness, healing or cleanse.

Nowadays we have a bunker meta that can also deal a lot of damage, so if you engage these players with your paper thin defenses, you will be killed before you kill them. It doesn’t take a lot of damage to kill a ‘zerker, you just have to mitigate their initial damage then they shatter to million tiny pieces. That’s why you’re seeing more Thief build with some kind of survivability.

For now, enjoy your build while it lasts but don’t forget to adapt and make adjustments.

None of those apply to me tho lol

I mean seriously you think I didn’t spend hours perfecting my build?

I’ve been using this build for while now and so far it’s effective even against “bunker builds”

I wasn’t talking about you rather the build. It is not new nor from a different perspective. What I’ve posted is that the angle you’re trying to illustrate has already been seen, explored, built around, tested, and abandoned.

If you can make it work for you then that’s good. Thieves normally take a build and tweak it to their playstyle anyway. Just because it works for you doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for everyone.

Bunkers are a problem especially, in my experience, Mesmers. I’m sorry if it’s hard for me to believe you because experience speaks louder in this case.

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s called ’zerker build.

And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.

Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.

Nope. Doesn’t only work against zerker builds. Play a game with me and you’ll see.

I highly doubt you can down my ’zerker Reaper.

Shovel Face.4512:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Gray.9041:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s called ’zerker build.

And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.

Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.

I think what OP is saying is that in order to balance the damage/survivability ratio, he’d prefer if our damage went up rather than our survivability.

I don’t think so. He’s very clear that he’s talking about builds which he had fully describe what we’ve already known all along as ’zerker build.

Shovel Face.4512:

In PvP Thief is a tough class to play. So this is for those who want to get into playing Thief or want to play a different play style.

Thieves are squishy. So people think it’s good to add survivabilty to the class whether it’s through traits, runes, amulets, etc. Well I say no to this and instead what you should be doing is adding as much power as you can. I run a full power dps thief with staff. The mindset for my build is basically to kill you before you kill me.

Yeah bad post on my part lol

Anyway yes it’s zerker build but on a thief. The only survivabilty I have is dash but it works really well with a zerker thief. The only reason why I brought this up is because I don’t see many thieves running zerker. its way more effective and if u saw me play u would know what I mean.

Most, if not all, of the players who plays Thief knows about the ’zerker build — it is completely natural for a Thief to gravitate towards this build.

However, after playing for a while where fights usually last long or your target is not taking a lot of damage due to their bunker build, ’zerkers are SoL and they typically die. When this happens more often, it is again natural to gravitate to a build with more survivability, thus abandoning some damage potential in exchange for health, toughness, healing or cleanse.

Nowadays we have a bunker meta that can also deal a lot of damage, so if you engage these players with your paper thin defenses, you will be killed before you kill them. It doesn’t take a lot of damage to kill a ‘zerker, you just have to mitigate their initial damage then they shatter to million tiny pieces. That’s why you’re seeing more Thief build with some kind of survivability.

For now, enjoy your build while it lasts but don’t forget to adapt and make adjustments.