Guild Wars 2

5-2-2-2-1 is an obsolete rotation that will leave you with an initiative net loss like it says in the guide. This needs to be updated to reflect this change.

Suggestion:
Pre-cast Blinding Powder (5) → Steal (F1) → HS (2) → Backstab (1)

Funny thing about the leap combo finisher, it only applies at the end of the skill animation, thus you’ll hit with HS before going into stealth, so don’t worry about getting revealed with HS using this combo.

The reason for pre-casting BP before Steal is so it will land next to your target leaving them blinded, then you go on stealth already next to them for a quick BS. Even if they dodge roll, HS will make sure they’re not too far away when you go in stealth.

The build is solid enough that you can practically do what ever you want with it.

Personally, extending the stealth has little value to me. I only go in stealth to access Sneak attack so there’s no reason for me to stay in stealth longer than 3s, so I normally will spec more on Acrobatics than in Shadow Arts.

@OP — Honestly, it has more to do with your build that the Thieve’s build. If you’re easily shut down by blindness, you may want to review your current build.

As for the Thief, if it not P/D then it’s D/P, the only real weapons sets that had a chance in WvW — other sets are situational.

Przemek Pro.1309:

Armor min 2500
Crit chance min 30%
Vitality – i dont know i have a guard stacks on WvW so around 17k total should be fine

Based on this specifications, here’s what I would suggest.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp8pdPx0J8PNxORtdBEADAXnQ35wbtgA-TVzAABnqCxRKPA4IAgkSMdUJgFdB4oFIr9HC4BAQhSwdUXRgTBgbm/IFgFLjA-w

You can tweak it to what ever you want that compliments your play style.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

Sarrs.4831:

The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.

Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.

P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.

He said “power” P/D meaning abusing Sneak Attack because you just buffed its physical damage output. Compare to Unload, Pistol sneak attack is a cheap alternative.

That can’t be what he meant, because that isn’t what Ninja Ed suggested doing. Even if you did buff its physical damage output, though, you’d have to really overdo it for Sneak Attack to rival Unload as a power move.

What other reason to build “power” P/D? Auto-attacking with Vital Shot?

Even if that’s not exactly what he meant, the CnD + Sneak Attack from P/D surpasses Unload damage and it’s more cost efficient in a power build.

The only way for Unload to compete in that scenario is to do what NinjaEd suggested, is to add vulnerability to Unload.

Even then, its doesn’t address one of the main problem of P/P, that is gap creator skill (gapper).

By placing P/P into it’s own 5 skill set, it will allow Anet to add necessary skills to help out P/P users, which can include a gapper skill.

Simply put.

Thieves eats off the crumbs under the table off of the Warrior’s full meal.

Get used to it. You’re lucky if they throw you a bone.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sarrs.4831:

The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.

Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.

P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.

He said “power” P/D meaning abusing Sneak Attack because you just buffed its physical damage output. Compare to Unload, Pistol sneak attack is a cheap alternative.

Auesis.7301:

Trouble is the possible combinations of P/x are in direct competition between direct damage and condition damage specs. The main-hand skills will NEVER work well for both sets.

Exactly!

I have spelled it out to the OP in the Profession Balance forum but he’s just being stubborn and conveniently ignoring other facts.

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Um, that’s good in theory, but ineffective in practice.

If I don’t make it clear that something I’m saying is theoretical or that I’m uncertain, then I either know it for a fact or it is coming from experience. In this particular case, it is experience from the perspective of both classes, since elementalist was my first character and main before my thief. I’m not going to argue for changing one’s entire build to handle one specific class and build that may pose a difficulty, and it’s most likely that the difficulty isn’t with p/d. So I spoke with regard to the most likely weapon combination, being d/p, careful to word it so that if I was wrong in my weapon combination assumption, that it would still read as a direct and helpful response to the question posed.

Applying pressure on an Elementalist using main hand dagger is not a fact, it’s theoretical assuming that the Elementalist won’t try to counter your advances and punish you for being too close. Boon steal via Bountiful Theft is only good every ~20s and that’s hardly applying any pressure since they can replace the stolen boon as soon as you stripped them. If you want to apply pressure you need to use either S/D or P/D since these weapon sets has a track record of applying reliable pressure — Dagger main hand against Elementalist do not.

Sure you can keep them blinded with offhand pistol, but what does that do? It will only prevent them from killing you but you’re not going to be killing them either. Very ineffective strategy and a waste of time.

Also not to mention their new super OP GM trait that they can never be crit while on Earth Att, so all they have to do to counter your backtab is to switch attunement, then you’re SoL.

I highly doubt that you have killed a highly competent D/D Elementalist using D/P, thus you’re post was theoretical, if not, outdated.

Just because you speed up Vital Shot doesn’t necessarily means that Thieves will stop spamming Unload. All this will do is unbalance the weapon set because it no longer punishes the Unload spammers since they can still rely on Vital Shot to do sustain damage.

The end result is a nerf to either Vital Shot’s overall damage or Unload’s damage and more than likely that Unload will take the hit.

Your suggestion is based on a blind faith that Anet will not take damage away from somewhere if Vital Shot is ever sped up. Just look at their track record and you can see that your faith is misplaced.

Vanthian.9267:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Don’t forget that the Vigor is uber useless too.

Quite possibly the dumbest thing I have read on the forums to date. Bravo.

Sarcasm is foreign to you. I understand. :rollseyes:

Einlanzer.1627:

P/P does indeed tend to work better as a hybrid set rather than a full power set like most people try to use it as, but you’re still trading off damage for versatility more than you should have to.

Building around Power at least gives the set reasonable burst potential, which gives it a specific niche, while building in a hybridized way makes it overall more functional but at the expense of just being kinda all-around lackluster in damage pressure. No matter how you dice it, the set is weaker than it should be.

Power build simply doesn’t work. This “burst potential” is neither reasonable nor in existence and you’ll hurt yourself more against Retal spammers on top of you being so much easy to counter since you only do one thing — spam Unload. If Unload doesn’t work, what’s your plan B? That’s why it fails and it fails hard.

You need to get yourself outside of this mindset of spamming Unload to actually see what else you can do with this weapon set.

But if your premise, if your mindset, is to mindlessly spam Unload, then it’s obvious that the P/P weapon set is not for you.

Shockwave.1230:

Neurophen.9738:

Sure. Most GW1 &2, skills have: activation time, after cast and cool down. The cool down and the after cast start after the skill has been cast. This means the maximum number of times that skill can be activated per second is 1 / activation time +max(after cast, cool down)

If the cooldown <= after cast then it simply would make no difference. I’m suggesting more like a 1s CD on skills (not auto attacks) surely that would be a DPS nerf? No because initiative isn’t a limitless pool you can’t just spam them endlessly. I’m suggesting the CDs would be set so that the same number of skill activations and auto attacks would happen over time.

This would in no way be a DPS nerf. Heck if it was I’d be fine increacing the damage on the individual attacks propotionally to compensate.

I hope you agree it’d possible to do this. The benefit would be that interrupts now put skills (not auto attacks) on kitten cool down just like every other class.

Why do this? All it would prevent is people from double tapping skills, which is necessary at times, like when you need to cluster bomb like crazy on rezers.

You don’t need to respond to him anymore since it so obvious he knows nothing about Thieves and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Impact.2780:

Dagger mainhand for good poison up-time. 30 tricks for boon theft and sleight of hand to strip stability and interrupt heal. Pistol offhand for blinds with shadow shot helps with their knockdowns – most D/D eles stick to a rotation of their skills so you can usually tell when it’s coming e.g Air 5 often after Air 4, Earth 4 inside Fire 4. Shadow shot is also a good gap closer because they will chill, cripple and try to fight just out of reach because their range is 300-400. Headshot, again, for interrupting their heal when they don’t have stability. With that, it’s constant pressure to out-damage their healing.

Um, that’s good in theory, but ineffective in practice.

@OP
You need to watch carefully what they’re doing.

If they are constantly switching attunements, it means they are stacking boons — and the best set of weapons against this is S/D + Bountiful Theft (BT) trait.

If they are using a lot of cantrips, you’re not going to beat them unless you are running a condition build using P/D, BT and Bewildering Ambush (BA) traits — this is to punish them for using their cantrips.

Keep in mind that Elementalist wear light armor, meaning they have to rely on their boons to survive — if you can deny them those boons, they’re easy picking. But you have to be mindful of your own survival since their spells can stack a lot of bleed and burning on you — but you’ll learn that given time.

a t s e.9614:

Agreed!!! Bearbows need a buff!!

Not to mention, hyenaduelist!!!

I have not seen someone with so many dogs (hyena1, hyna2, rock dog). :/

NinjaEd.3946:

On p/d that bleed is likely 5-7 or more seconds, so they just need to hit them and a bunch more DoT is tied to it. There is no reason for a condi build to choose p/p over p/d with no access to stealth and without an effective kite ability.

The 4 is for interrupts, which does no good to the p/p other than interrupt and won’t last you long to call it sustain. Same with the #5, it can be easily avoided by standing outside the circle, and it is expensive to throw down to begin with so it helps you in neither melee or ranged. Even if you throw bps down and kite them into it over and over, you really going to aa them to death? Doubt it, or that screams L2P.

I entirely disagree with p/p being a close ranged set, the skills are far to unreliable to use at close range without missing or being canceled, I just dance around thieves that use p/p and keep the harassment up so they can’t hit me reliably.

P/p lacks sufficient ranged damage and sustain. If you’re going to sit on the sideline and “snipe” people, you’d be better off with sb which is AoE and has far more utility in a group. Even single target p/p may hit a little harder but nothing significantly higher than sb. Dagger-> sword has the system down with dagger having high single target and sword having good AoE, sadly pistol-> shortbow doesn’t share that relationship.

Folks, this is a great example someone who had not used P/P efficiently and have no knowledge about its strength. P/P has the flexibility of actually doing something near or far as ranged weapon. Before you replied, you should have read what I have posted above.

Neurophen.9738:

I believe adding very short CDs will do nothing to thieves in the absence of interrupts. Feel free to list the circumstances where this is wrong. I am genuinely curious.

Why don’t you do yourself a favor and make the list yourself?

1) What makes you believe that “adding very short CDs will do nothing to thieves in the absence of interrupts”? Substantiate this “belief”.
2) What are the circumstances where this is “right”? Make a list of the circumstances please.

I am genuinely curious.

If it helps could you please list the encounters/mechanics where making thieves effected by interrupts would hurt them?

What makes you believe that Thieves aren’t affected by interrupts?

There are only 5/10 skills that are tied to initiatives.

Why is this not a problem for other classes (who do get their skills on CD)?

L2R.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If a cooldown skill got interrupted, it only affects that specific skill. When a Thief skill got interrupted, if the initiative is lost, it affects all 4 skills and 4 other skills on all weapon sets.

Why is this not a L2P issue?

Look. Take my advice before you reply.

PLAY. A. THIEF.

Thank you.

Are you able to respond without ad hominims?

Now it’s ad hom for calling you out. Seriously, play a thief first.

If you like skill shots, play an Elementalist and leave the rest of the game as is.

Neurophen.9738:

Sir Vincent, are you aware that interrupting most thief skills does virtually nothing other than cancel the cast? Unlike any other class you can’t put thief abilities on CD (in some instances they do loose initiative but not always).

What’s that had got to do with the topic?

You’re bringing here your shortsightedness mentioning about interrupting Thief’s skills that only applies in a PvP setting. Your limited knowledge of the Thief is unbelievable. Do you even realize what a cooldown will do to Thieves in other settings of the game?

If a cooldown skill got interrupted, it only affects that specific skill. When a Thief skill got interrupted, if the initiative is lost, it affects all 4 skills and 4 other skills on all weapon sets.

Now before you reply to this, let it sink in, or play a Thief for several months.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

BurrTheKing.8571:

My problem with blind-focused Thieves is less the field itself and more the unblockable binds that get applied. Say I’m a Warrior with a shield. I see the BP go down and block the blind shot. They then leap and a blind gets applied through my block. If that blind wasn’t thee I could have positioned myself in such a way as to hit the Thief with something like an Eviscerate or Skull Crack(it’s hard but I’ve done it with Zerker Stance on) but with that last blind I don’t have enough time to clear it and then use the skill. If I evade I don’t have enough time and if I don’t I’ll miss. There’s no room for countering it outside of Zerker Stance being up and I generally save that for the end of the fight because otherwise that smoke bomb they get at the end can save them.

That’s not true at all. There’s a lot of ways to counter blindness without ’zerker stance. Warriors are just so fixed at the utility skill that they ignore the usability of other skills.

For instance, if you have an Axe main-hand, Cyclone Axe can remove the blind if the Thief goes on stealth and they get really close. If they’re not in stealth, you can use Throw Axe to remove blind. Those skills are in fairly low cooldown even without traits.

Like almost all Thief builds the problem is not the focus of the build itself but rather the FREQUENCY of the main mechanic of the build. D/P is basically just using BP + Backstab. While almost every class has a main combo they don’t generally get to use the whole combo multiple times in the span of a minute.

What else do you want them to do in a span of a minute? Other professions have cooldowns as low kitten seconds. What do you think is the frequency of that skill in a minute?

You’re not making any sense.

Even warrior’s combos generally rely on at least one 20-40 second CD skill or utility. You can do smaller versions of the combo in between but you’ll only hit that big combo every now and then.

I hate to break it to you but a Sw/Sw Warrior has a max cooldown of 15 seconds. That’s only one weapon set, I know, but you’re only complaining about one weapon set also, that is D/P.

You’re missing the whole point of what I’m saying. Skills like Evis, Skull Crack, hell EVERY burst skill is highly telegraphed to the point where you might as well be doing a Dragonball Z-style shout when you use them (Eeee—-vviiiisss-ooooorrr—-atttttoooo). In order to beat something like D/P you have to disrupt the leap while they’re in the Black Powder so they either have to use it again or they use another source like SR or their heal. There’s not a whole lot of ways to consistently do that on Warrior because it requires standing in the power in most cases. In addition to that they fire off a blind when they use BP which means that if Zerker Stance isn’t on within a second you have to clear said blind THEN interrupt the leap. If they do leap then they apply ANOTHER blind that you have to cleanse. With Axe/LB I can beat those thieves, but only because of Zerker Stance. Sometimes you get lucky and the Combustive Shot pulses just as you get blinded and the attack goes through but that’s not a guarantee.

If you think that ’zerker stance is the only way to deal with this situation, then I feel sorry for you.

Also, I really, REALLY have to laugh at any Thief that complains about Evis when you can do greater damage WHILE STEALTHED. If you get hit by an Evis that means you either got outplayed or did something wrong.

Then laugh it out. Yes, if a Thief gets hit by Evis, that means you’re either on ’zerker stance or they failed to blind you or they failed to dodge of failed hide in stealth.

Do you get it now? Blind is a counter to Warrior and I don’t believe that it will change any time soon.

No profession has CDs comparable to Thief because…they have none.

Wow, really now. If you’re going to traverse into a dishonest discussion, then I bid you a very nice day.

Einlanzer.1627:

If you’re going to have Initiative, the way it HAS to be designed is that the #1 skill should always be the bread and butter damage source, and the #2 – 5 skills need to offer various utility and/or light supplemental damage that DOES NOT offer huge benefits for spamming. The problem is that the skills just aren’t balanced well for it. They also need to fix the queuing.

Though I agree with what you’re saying, but it’s not for this game.

Initiative is meant to be used to initiate, thus the name, meaning a lead action. If Anet will change the skills to function like what you’re suggesting, then they also need to rename it since it will no longer make sense.

Like others who have posted under this topic, it seems that many of you are not understanding what the goal of having an Initiative as a resource means.

A simple search in the Wiki will help you understand what it’s for and what’s the vision and goal concerning Initiative is all about.

So all these suggestion about having #1 as the min attack and the rest are utility doesn’t coincide with the design intent for the Thieves and all these suggestions of adding cooldown needs to understand that Thief IS NOT Assassin.

Neurophen.9738:

Could you please explain why putting a low cool down on skills (basically the time taken to activate plus after cast) would be so bad? I suspect you can’t but if you can I’m all ears and would happily admit it if you can demonstrate a flaw with my reasoning.

You have not explain why it is good in the first place.

Your reasoning is short sighted and not well thought of without considerations on other parts of the game outside your tunnel vision that is PvP.

You also did not consider that Anet is doing away with splitting PvE and PvP therefore any changes that they do in favor of PvP will greatly affect those who are in PvE and WvW.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

The core of what I want to change is making counterplay viable vs thieves just like it is vs evey other class. Do you disagree with that goal?

It’s so obvious that you don’t play a Thief, or at least spend enough time to play one. So undeniably obvious.

Neurophen.9738:

I do have a theif and I extensively played assassin in gw1. Did you?

So why are you so clueless?

Anyone can claim to have played Assassin and Thief, but your shallow understanding of the professions will always show on your posts.

Have a fun time playing other professions. Thank you.

Anomaly.7612:

I want to capitalize on what a Thief does that other classes don’t do as well so I can benefit a group more and highlight my strengths as a Thief.

Here you go

Neurophen.9738:

Carighan.6758:

Am I alone in thinking Initiative is an interesting mechanic? And I don’t even have a Thief but hey, good for them that they have a global pool of shared cooldowns.

No it’s like energy from GW1.,which was a very interesting mechanic. The difference I’d make is to give all thief skills short CDs as well (even as short as 1-2s) just like Assassins had in GW1. In the absence of interrupts this would make zero difference to Thief DPS but it would have two key side effects:

1. Interrupts would now place thief skills on CD – currently only really heart seeker can be put on CD.
2. It would no longer be possible to spam skills from stealth in order to bypass aegis

I regard this as a bug fix not a nerf. Thief players will disagree, but I think anet will find it much easier to tune the power of various thief skills and they may now be able to buff some of the weaker talents without fear of them becoming too strong.

Seriously though, if you don’t play a Thief and have no idea on how the changes you want to make will affect the Thief’s game play, please keep your suggestion to yourself. Thank you.

BurrTheKing.8571:

My problem with blind-focused Thieves is less the field itself and more the unblockable binds that get applied. Say I’m a Warrior with a shield. I see the BP go down and block the blind shot. They then leap and a blind gets applied through my block. If that blind wasn’t thee I could have positioned myself in such a way as to hit the Thief with something like an Eviscerate or Skull Crack(it’s hard but I’ve done it with Zerker Stance on) but with that last blind I don’t have enough time to clear it and then use the skill. If I evade I don’t have enough time and if I don’t I’ll miss. There’s no room for countering it outside of Zerker Stance being up and I generally save that for the end of the fight because otherwise that smoke bomb they get at the end can save them.

That’s not true at all. There’s a lot of ways to counter blindness without ’zerker stance. Warriors are just so fixed at the utility skill that they ignore the usability of other skills.

For instance, if you have an Axe main-hand, Cyclone Axe can remove the blind if the Thief goes on stealth and they get really close. If they’re not in stealth, you can use Throw Axe to remove blind. Those skills are in fairly low cooldown even without traits.

Like almost all Thief builds the problem is not the focus of the build itself but rather the FREQUENCY of the main mechanic of the build. D/P is basically just using BP + Backstab. While almost every class has a main combo they don’t generally get to use the whole combo multiple times in the span of a minute.

What else do you want them to do in a span of a minute? Other professions have cooldowns as low kitten seconds. What do you think is the frequency of that skill in a minute?

You’re not making any sense.

Even warrior’s combos generally rely on at least one 20-40 second CD skill or utility. You can do smaller versions of the combo in between but you’ll only hit that big combo every now and then.

I hate to break it to you but a Sw/Sw Warrior has a max cooldown of 15 seconds. That’s only one weapon set, I know, but you’re only complaining about one weapon set also, that is D/P.

Dee Jay.2460:

It’s especially problematic when combined with Thieves because you need a successful attack in order to clear the blind effect. And hitting a stealthed target is a matter of luck. Classes that rely almost exclusively on physical melee damage have virtually NO WAY of ever hitting a semi-competent Thief who uses Black Powder and Shadow Shot in a sensible manner. Nada.

This is only problematic in a 1v1, Warrior vs Thief, type of situation and not a problem in general. This is too specific that’s very unlikely to be address.

As we all know, the game is not balanced in a 1v1 fight, therefore, in a more conventional situation, if the Thief blinds you and they hide in stealth, there’s always the enemy Elementalist to target or an friendly Elementalist to clease/heal for you. You get what I mean, right?

Regardless, if the Thief blinds you as a Warrior and they hide in stealth…why are you sticking around? You can bail too and forces the Thief to come out from hiding.

In fact, blindness is very forgiving in this game compare to GW1 blindness where you are blinded for the duration regardless of what you do.

5) It hinders counter-play. The Thief’s attacks are completely un-predictable, outside of just how few options are available to us. If you dodge a Cloak and Dagger or a Headshot, it can just be used again immediately after at the expense of another attack.

Initiative is doing exactly what it’s designed to do, to dominate the first half of any fight. The counter-play happens after the Thief used up all their initiatives and the “now my turn” moment begins. Unfortunately, very few takes advantage of that opportunity and the blame goes to the Thief.

Of course, seasoned Thieves will try to prevent this counter play by using their own counters like blinds, daze, evade, and stealth — but the counter play is there and other profession have successfully countered Thief’s counters to their counter play.

6) It promotes bad play.

You can’t really solve that issue since even the cooldowns promotes bad play. For instance, Balance Stance, ’zerker stance, and “Stand your Ground!” are on a long cooldown but are lame skills that is impossible to interrupt and makes them nigh-invincible.

What’s the counter play on ’zerker stance? None. In GW1, we can break the stances, but not in this game.

These skills also promotes bad play since all the Warrior and Guardian do is mindless use all their weapon skills that is out of cooldown.

The only real option Thieves have in this situation is to escape either by Shadowstep or Stealth.

7) The game was not built around being able to spam attacks.

On the contrary, GW2 was built around being able to spam attacks. Back in beta, all profession follows the GW1 model of having energy and there’s even potions in game that you can use to replenish your resources. Then before open beta, they scrapped the idea and gave everyone cooldown skills except for Thieves.

As for multiple activation of skills like Heartseeker, that has more to do with client-server communication than the actual skill itself. Most MMO solved this issue by introducing global cooldowns to hide the server lag. Perhaps Thieves should have one just to prevent the skill for being over used — however, that will anger a lot of players who play Thief because this is more like a player issue. Over time, after playing Thief many times, I’ve never over used a skill anymore like I used to in the past — just like other seasoned players.

8) Attacks are weak.

I totally disagree. The only reason attacks are weak because many Thieves uses only one skill, like you said, spamming the same skill back to back. But when the skills are used as a combination, the attacks are stronger and meaningful. It is apparent that Thieves rewards the worthy and punishes the unworthy.

Just like in an FPS game, spray-and-pray is weak when using an automatic rifle, but to the seasoned player, that rifle is strong when used properly.

Grimwolf.7163:

1) Here’s a biggie that gets on everyone’s nerves; it lets us spam stealth skills back-to-back.

True, but only up to a certain point. Seasoned Thieves knows that Initiative needs to be managed tactically. Unlike the cooldown skills, Thieves need to make a decision every time on how they’re going to spend their initiative. Cooldowns are for mindless game play while Initiatives always keeps us on our toes. Sure spamming a single skill is easy, just like activating every skill that is out of cooldown, but those rarely wins any fight.

The initiative cost of stealth skill is too great that it’s hardly worth it to use back-to-back and if this is used to troll, then what else can you do? Punish legitimate players so that trolls can no longer troll? We both know that’s a very bad idea.

2) We have far fewer offensive options than other classes.

Not true. You only really run out of offensive options if you fail to manage your initiatives. At maximum possible pool, we have 15 initiatives and for that single pool, our offensive capability can be of any combinations that can be executed every 15s (base init regen). Compare to a cooldown weapon set, once you used your skill combination, you cannot use that combination again for a very long time since a lot of skills have 20s-forty five sec cooldown — locking a skill in cooldown diminishes the offensive option of those weapon skills.

3) Chill does not affect us properly.

I’m not really sure that this is really a problem because Chill still affects our heal, utility, and elite skills. Hindering the Thief’s movement is more devastating for a Thief compare to other professions.

4) Our traits suck.

Valid point. No argument there.

Although I disagree that “1 Initiative every 10 seconds, which is equivalent to a 10% increase in attack frequency” because there’s no Thief skill that costs only 1-initiative. The cheapest weapon skill costs 3-init so basically it’s more like 3.33% increase.

Thank you. Try again.

1x Level 80 Main Character
9x Level 80 Female Bodyguards
1x Level 40 in training
1x 100% map completion (by Main)

Map completion rewards are not that great, not need to do more.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

bobomb.5209:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bobomb.5209:

How about something like this.

“When dual wielding pistols. Casting speed is increased by x%?”

That way P/D remains unchanged as a superior condition weaponset. And P/P allows for quicker attacks=more DPS. And you can calculate the casting speed of the other skills to compensate for the auto attacks increased attack speed.

Not going to work.

The reaction to that change will be the increase in condition damage based P/P builds because obviously, you can apply bleed quicker than in P/D without spending initiatives. The saved initiatives can then be used to spam Daze (headshot), Immobilize, and Blind while stacking a lot of bleed with AA on the target. The result will be obsoleting P/D as the main condition damage weapon set.

Wrong. Because without the offhand dagger Thiefs would no longer have access to spammable, shadowstepping Torment. The trade-off of torment for a few bleeds is a ridiculously bad trade.

What clearly needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed by reducing its aftercast, making it moderately stronger for both P/P and P/D, then Sneak Attack needs to have a portion of its bleed damage converted to direct damage so that it’s at least equally useful if not slightly stronger with P/P since P/D can access it more easily.

Then, Torment doesn’t really need to be touched, nor does Unload. Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other, resulting in a significant buff to the overall functionality of P/P and breaking even for P/D without any (unnecessary) fundamental skill changes or redesigns.

The suggestion of shifting the damage from Vital Shot from bleeding to physical damage will only make things even worst and will prove exactly what I’m talking about. This simple change will shift the usefulness of the main hand pistol from P/D to P/D and your suggestion is the proof of this — you have realized this, yet you refuse to acknowledge the problem it will cause.

That…. is not what I suggested.

If so, then can you clarify what you meant by this?

“Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other…”

How exactly this “rebalance” is to happen if not shifting physical and condition damage from one end to another?

I explicitly stated it in the quoted post. Vital Shot just needs to shoot faster, which would give equal amounts more direct and bleed damage and would be an equal buff for P/P and P/D. Then, Sneak Attack needs to have a portion of its bleed damage converted to direct damage so that it’s balanced for both P/P and P/D. This would be a buff + nerf to P/D that will mostly even out, and a straight buff for P/P.

Yes, I read that, but I was responding to this.

“Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other…”

In order to have “rebalance” around Vital Shot and Sneak Attack is to shift the damage around along the spectrum between physical and condition damage.

Are you telling me that is not what you meant by “rebalanced around each other”?

Nevertheless, this suggestion is short sighted and giving P/P attack speed boost from Vital Shot + more physical damage from Sneak Attack spells out disaster.

I actually got a couple of compliments if winning and not using my Thief;

“whoa. you’re a very good ranger. what are you running?”
“nice guardian build”

but when I own them on my Thief;

“permastealth is for noobs”
“kittening blind bot”

Oh well, life goes on.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

bobomb.5209:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bobomb.5209:

How about something like this.

“When dual wielding pistols. Casting speed is increased by x%?”

That way P/D remains unchanged as a superior condition weaponset. And P/P allows for quicker attacks=more DPS. And you can calculate the casting speed of the other skills to compensate for the auto attacks increased attack speed.

Not going to work.

The reaction to that change will be the increase in condition damage based P/P builds because obviously, you can apply bleed quicker than in P/D without spending initiatives. The saved initiatives can then be used to spam Daze (headshot), Immobilize, and Blind while stacking a lot of bleed with AA on the target. The result will be obsoleting P/D as the main condition damage weapon set.

Wrong. Because without the offhand dagger Thiefs would no longer have access to spammable, shadowstepping Torment. The trade-off of torment for a few bleeds is a ridiculously bad trade.

What clearly needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed by reducing its aftercast, making it moderately stronger for both P/P and P/D, then Sneak Attack needs to have a portion of its bleed damage converted to direct damage so that it’s at least equally useful if not slightly stronger with P/P since P/D can access it more easily.

Then, Torment doesn’t really need to be touched, nor does Unload. Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other, resulting in a significant buff to the overall functionality of P/P and breaking even for P/D without any (unnecessary) fundamental skill changes or redesigns.

The suggestion of shifting the damage from Vital Shot from bleeding to physical damage will only make things even worst and will prove exactly what I’m talking about. This simple change will shift the usefulness of the main hand pistol from P/D to P/D and your suggestion is the proof of this — you have realized this, yet you refuse to acknowledge the problem it will cause.

That…. is not what I suggested.

If so, then can you clarify what you meant by this?

“Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other…”

How exactly this “rebalance” is to happen if not shifting physical and condition damage from one end to another?

Einlanzer.1627:

bobomb.5209:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bobomb.5209:

How about something like this.

“When dual wielding pistols. Casting speed is increased by x%?”

That way P/D remains unchanged as a superior condition weaponset. And P/P allows for quicker attacks=more DPS. And you can calculate the casting speed of the other skills to compensate for the auto attacks increased attack speed.

Not going to work.

The reaction to that change will be the increase in condition damage based P/P builds because obviously, you can apply bleed quicker than in P/D without spending initiatives. The saved initiatives can then be used to spam Daze (headshot), Immobilize, and Blind while stacking a lot of bleed with AA on the target. The result will be obsoleting P/D as the main condition damage weapon set.

Wrong. Because without the offhand dagger Thiefs would no longer have access to spammable, shadowstepping Torment. The trade-off of torment for a few bleeds is a ridiculously bad trade.

What clearly needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed by reducing its aftercast, making it moderately stronger for both P/P and P/D, then Sneak Attack needs to have a portion of its bleed damage converted to direct damage so that it’s at least equally useful if not slightly stronger with P/P since P/D can access it more easily.

Then, Torment doesn’t really need to be touched, nor does Unload. Vital Shot and Sneak Attack are rebalanced around each other, resulting in a significant buff to the overall functionality of P/P and breaking even for P/D without any (unnecessary) fundamental skill changes or redesigns.

We are trying to have it both ways without considering any meaningful considerations to whatever repercussions the increase in speed that Vital Shot will introduce.

We want to discuss a solution, but without careful considerations of the repercussions, we’re only setting ourselves up for future problem.

The best course of action is to solve the problem without creating new problems that we have to deal with in the future.

The suggestion of shifting the damage from Vital Shot from bleeding to physical damage will only make things even worst and will prove exactly what I’m talking about. This simple change will shift the usefulness of the main hand pistol from P/D to P/D and your suggestion is the proof of this — you have realized this, yet you refuse to acknowledge the problem it will cause.

I have shared my concerns and it’s up everyone else to think about this through and through.

P/P is OP because it’s too flexible.

Take a ’zerker build + P/P = golden
Take a condition build + P/P = golden
Take a support build + P/P = golden

No matter what your build is, you can’t go wrong with P/P.

T raw.4658:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The Primary.6371:

All the new grand masters are virtually pathetic, poorly placed or are not even deserving of being grandmaster traits. Not seeing any build diversity for thieves in spvp or pve.

Speak for yourself. RT, RoS and BA GM traits are not what you think they are.

??

Do tell

Not the right place. Refer to the Thief sub-forum.

- When you run away when you see twins and triplets.

Unacceptable! 5-6 minutes loading time from zone to zone. And when I load in, a lot of the textures and graphics are missing let alone the NPCs.

Ugh!

If you want to duel against P/P let me know.

- When you’re wondering why F1 is not teleporting you

If you think a zerg AoE bombardment is laggy now. It will be unplayable for most of us if the game has to determines which finishers belongs to which player. Zerg vs zerg is already laggy as it is.

Playability >>>>> ruining your combo.

I agree with this;

~snip~
Con: Probably the most work of any of the currently proposed solutions without solving the problem for every user.
~snip~

Sparrow.5936:

It says on weapon swap 20% reduction…

That’s exactly what it does. It reduces weapon swap recharge time. It’s good when you have sigils that triggers on weapon swap, like Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Facts:
P/D wants Vital Shot to be condition damage base.
P/P wants Vital Shot to be physical damage base.

Tradeoffs:
P/D sacrifices power to gain more condition damage
P/P sacrifices condition damage to gain more power

Problem:
Simply buffing Vital Shot, even the attack speed, will make P/D less worry about power and P/P less worry about condition damage at a point the neither is better than the other in the power-condition spectrum. This should not be the case.

The trade off between power and condition must remain else one of these weapon sets will become obsolete.

Question:
How do you solve this issue if buffing Vital Shot is a very bad idea?

Solution:
Make Vital Shot exclusive to main hand Pistol (P-only and P/D) and create a new 5-skills set for P/P (and by extension, D/D) with new animations that uses both pistols at all times.

Afterthought:
A lot of people won’t agree with this, but honestly, this is the only solution to the pistol problem for Thieves.

No, it isn’t, and while I wouldn’t personally have a problem with your suggestion, it would require a total rework and would break convention, which I would argue is not necessary.

Vital Shot is underpowered with both P/D and P/P. The reason P/D is generally considered to outperform P/P is due to other factors, the main one being that it gets supplemental damage from various sources that don’t require either Initiative starvation OR standing still, like Caltrops and Sneak Attacks. In effect, P/D lets you apply equal or better damage pressure that’s a.) more passive and b.) doesn’t require you to sacrifice so much utility and mobility.

A straight buff to Vital Shot, say through 20% increased attack speed, would be a boon to both P/D and P/P, but the gains would be more subtle for P/D than for P/P due to the way its damage works. In both cases, they may need to rebalance the #3 skill and possibly the sneak attack, but that is not a good enough reason why it shouldn’t happen.

Look at how much you have to tweak after speeding up Vital Shot, then look at how much you have to tweak by giving P/P its own 5-skills. The difference is, my suggestion is going toward the right direction because the future re-balancing will be a lot easier since if the re-balance is needed for P/D, P/P will be unaffected.

As for breaking convention, the “dual-wield” that is exclusive to Thieves is already breaking convention. No other profession gets a different #3 skill depending on the type of weapons equipped — so I don’t understand the issue you’re trying to raise about that.

Black Teagan.9215:

But they must improve BT too, to make it to a useful trait.
Two boons, for only 5 secs, a range of 240 and this every 35 secs? No way!

If you spec for BT, the CD for Steal is ~30s, so that would be “every 30 sec? Now way!”

Don’t forget that the Vigor is uber useless too.

bobomb.5209:

How about something like this.

“When dual wielding pistols. Casting speed is increased by x%?”

That way P/D remains unchanged as a superior condition weaponset. And P/P allows for quicker attacks=more DPS. And you can calculate the casting speed of the other skills to compensate for the auto attacks increased attack speed.

Not going to work.

The reaction to that change will be the increase in condition damage based P/P builds because obviously, you can apply bleed quicker than in P/D without spending initiatives. The saved initiatives can then be used to spam Daze (headshot), Immobilize, and Blind while stacking a lot of bleed with AA on the target. The result will be obsoleting P/D as the main condition damage weapon set.

Rune of the Wurm is nice if you already have a high Crit Chance.

Condition duration is only good for Weakness, Vulnerable type of condition. When it comes to damaging conditions like Bleeding and Torment, Intensity >>> Duration.

You’re better off with Rune of the Aristocracy (f.k.a. Nobles) from Caudecus.

- When you dodge roll forward to run faster when jogging in a park
- When you’re holding a pen back-handed to write your signature

Facts:
P/D wants Vital Shot to be condition damage base.
P/P wants Vital Shot to be physical damage base.

Tradeoffs:
P/D sacrifices power to gain more condition damage
P/P sacrifices condition damage to gain more power

Problem:
Simply buffing Vital Shot, even the attack speed, will make P/D less worry about power and P/P less worry about condition damage at a point the neither is better than the other in the power-condition spectrum. This should not be the case.

The trade off between power and condition must remain else one of these weapon sets will become obsolete.

Question:
How do you solve this issue if buffing Vital Shot is a very bad idea?

Solution:
Make Vital Shot exclusive to main hand Pistol (P-only and P/D) and create a new 5-skills set for P/P (and by extension, D/D) with new animations that uses both pistols at all times.

Afterthought:
A lot of people won’t agree with this, but honestly, this is the only solution to the pistol problem for Thieves.

The OP is silly. Kraits runes is not that great. Just because you found a combo doesn’t makes it “cheese”. The whole rune set is horrible.