If you use Lotus Training, your dodges will also apply poison (and bleed/torment/cripple) while in the gas. Consider using Blight instead of Doom sigil on the dagger set since it is an AoE. If you want to max the poison, go with Thorn runes. Spider Venom is also worth consideration on the utility bar.
Piercing would be nice. Ricochet seems slightly silly for pistol. I mean, pistol round bouncing around? Pls.
A bullet ricochet makes more sense than an arrow… just sayin.
WvW is not broken and if you haven’t logged a few hundred (or thousand) hours in it, there is plenty of fresh fun to be had. Log in, go to Eternal Battlegrounds and follow a commander around for a while. If you want to really test your metal, branch out and solo roam around the map flipping camps. Warning… running solo can be a harsh mistress for young’uns.
As for the negative posts, the active WvW population of GW2 is declining. That said, all MMOs lose population as they age particularly PvP portions. Many people on the forums tend to point at game stagnation as a serious problem but ultimately WvW is still a good place to enjoy large scale combat.
Core Mag likes to kill players… everything else is irrelevant.
It was also a direct counter to clone and pet spam which is where I really miss it. I understand they would need to adjust the damage so the DPS isn’t ridiculous.
The advantage of Dare Devil runes is that they give guaranteed crits and allow a build to have a lot of defense both in toughness, vitality and evasion. Try this build:
Switching to D/P pops energy which gives a guaranteed Bound for easy stealth. Vault from stealth using the food, crit and sigil multipliers to jack up the damage hits like a truck. Instant Reflexes is the anti-thief counter measure giving the build at least one rotational miss. Plenty of condi removal and escape for reset.
This is a solid starting point.
Lots of mobility and the the Shadow Trap allows you to quickly port long distances to scout multiple locations. Stealth allows the build to move around large numbers without issue as well as sneaking into towers being attacked. Its damage is respectable particularly hitting wounded players.
1v8….. uhhhh… it is theoretically possible I guess but sounds like bull-kitten. 1v4 is a hard fight and usually has a thief running away. Heck 1v2 with a bunker Tempest and a power Warrior or Guardian is a near impossible fight. Jump on a pack of VOX and tell me I am wrong.
In the dueling community Staff thief typically gets torn a new one 1v1. I haven’t seen one win consistently yet and I duel pretty much every day. I find them ridiculously easy to kill most of the time since Vault has a huge hole in it and only the best are dangerous to good players.
In skirmish teams, they can be muscle but have no overlapping skills to elevate the team. This is why crews like tRex never run them. They are functionally useless in a zerg as are most thieves.
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It is offset by how easy it is to spam Interrupts when a Druid is using it.
I find Vault thieves laughably easy to fight. My favorite is a Bound Staff build gets immobilized and don’t know they can break it with a Staff skill.
Offhand Dagger is a mess and Shortbow is mostly for travel but every other weapon has solid play right now. Dare Devil is pretty much the only must-have for most builds. In that sense the thief is fairly well balanced… against average players.
Against skilled players on both sides, the class under performs. It is pretty weak in duels, has lessor skirmish capability (with stealth group exceptions) and is mostly worthless in a zerg. The class is a cannibalistic vulture in competitive play.
To be “balanced” it needs to be restored to its 1v1, dueling strength in skilled play. To me that means reducing AA damage and improving most initiative based skills across the board. This also means reducing passive defensive skills/traits in the game.
This build can hang in on outnumbered situations and dismantle average players in a straight up fight. Some builds/players will play it to a draw but it is nearly impossible to die with this build outside of screw-ups on the players end. It is virtually immune to all but the strongest of condi application and even then it typically takes 3+ players dropping condi to bring it down.
As an added bonus it keeps Speed up all the time and is constantly dishing out cover condi with Lotus Training. This isn’t my favorite condi thief build but deadly nonetheless. I will also switch out Pain Response for Instant Reflexes when around a bunch of thieves. That change utterly destroys most Shadow thief builds.
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I have xfered a dozen or so times. In almost every case it was to experience new styles and cultures of play as well as new players to fight against. Locking myself to one server and its culture seems too limited.
Some of this thread reminds of people that say they live in the greatest country in the world but have never been to any other countries.
Make it work like Scorpion Wire. That pull has been busted balanced since launch and it is a rather expensive utility not a built in class bonus.
On the subject of griping about DH skills, how about the fences they drop that will always knock a player down or catch them if they try to teleport through or out of them? Teleport out of their bubble, knocked down. Teleport through their maul, caught.
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The defensive sustain on a warrior is very strong and it is definitely true that the class can be both tanky and straight up dangerous in a fight. Whirling Blades has incidentally dropped many a thief.
That said my complaint still lies with Resistance and to a lessor extent Durability and Boon Duration. The percentage damage reduction stacking makes any class that runs it too tanky (Druid, Warrior, Guardian as examples). Resistance should not make any class immune to condition movement effects.
They sort of already did. At least half of the servers are now “root” servers meaning they are servers that other servers link to. These have fairly stable guilds, coverage hours, etc. The other servers have become “float” servers that fill in and change up the matchups. Those servers are for breathing new life into stale matchups.
My only complaint is that merging too many “float” servers together creates kittenterfluck type atmosphere with some very strange coverage and player gaps. IMO the T4 match this week while close wasn’t nearly as much fun as the T1 matches the last couple months that were blow outs more or less.
30+20+10% reduction added = 60% damage reduction
30+20+10% reduction multiplied = 50.4% damage reduction
Multipled: 1.3*1.2*1.1=1.716
Added: 1.3+1.2+1.1=1.5
Multiplied out a player gets an extra 21.6% buff over added multipliers. This is why stacking damage percentage is such a big deal in GW2. Damage modifiers buff the crit modifier significantly along with all other modifiers. IMO there should be no damage or reduction modifiers and any trait, rune, food, etc should directly buff stats. The math becomes simpler and less absurdity from munchkin builds.
To my knowledge reduction or negative multipliers work the same. So Protection and 10% Dmg food are not 43% but rather a combined 46.3% reduction. Add on other multipliers and Protection starts to get absurd.
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Nobody likes falling prey to perma-stun and I believe many of us agree the CC has gotten out of control at least in large scale play. After a discussion with a friend, I am reminded of how some older games managed this state. Basically any time a player received damage, that was a stun break. Stuns only lasted as long as a player wasn’t taking damage.
A change like this would also fixes stability as it is in the game. Just a thought.
My main gripe with the class is that Resistance effects mobility conditions along with Warrior’s Sprint is too much. No class should have a high amount of stun breaks and be immune to immobilize without serious trade offs. Thanks to one minor trait and probably the best heal in the game as well as numerous stun breaks, the class is nearly impossible to pin down.
This is not an issue if they have to build for it but most of the time that level of defensive sustain is a byproduct of their offense.
To be fair, it wasn’t the RvR model that damaged DAoC, is was the abomination known as ToA with its ML’s and Arti’s that did the damage. Even then they were still doing fine, then WoW came into the picture and killed pretty much every MMO on the market.
After a couple years RvR in DAoC was empty most of the day and this was before WoW. Players were already asking for server merges, ways to attract more players and transfers. Sure WoW took a big chunk of its players but ultimately DAoC was an RvR game without serious competition until GW2 came along.
I would also point out that DAoC had a large monthly fee. Even if we consider HoT a must have, it is still cheaper than a few months of DAoC.
Back to my point… if there is an RvR or WvW expert out there it probably is working or has worked on GW2 at some point. CU sounds good until you play it and realize the game is already 15 years old before it is even released.
Get devs with RvR experience and/or knowledge onto the WvW team and develop the mode as needed not according to entirely player driven polls.
That doesn’t really exist beyond the team they already have. Every RvR game out there has (had) the exact same balance and coverage problems (sometimes worse). Some had better lag issues but those were old school static combat engines. Even the vaunted DAoC imploded after the first few years.
Some games like SWToR with a much larger budget had their large scale combat completely fail and never recover. ESO was mostly a balance disaster centered around near endless grinding for months on end (WAY worse than anything in GW2).
I cannot think of a single better WvW or RvR game and that includes the upcoming CU which is a throwback of games built 10+ years ago. If you are looking for an expert, sad to say GW2 has them.
I like the concept of P/D particularly fighting bunker meta but it is a snack for conventional power thieves.
The thief needs some nerfs rolled back but mostly it needs the defensive sustain meta to take an arrow to the knee.
As for play in large and mid-scale WvW, that really isn’t where a thief should excel. What it should be is a 1v1 beast and right now that simply is not the case. It is a high risk class that currently doesn’t excel in 1v1. They have basically made it a small scale pack hunter in WvW.
I was trying somewhat of a “Disrupter” build and was using it with ok results. But I never see it being mentioned here or anywhere: 25secs CD, 3 dazes that proc well with Pulmonary Impact and 10secs added to the skill they interrupt. Am I missing something here? It sounds nice on paper. Necros get BTFO and it can be cruel on team fights.
Not a horrible skill just doesn’t rank as high as Shadow Step, Bandits Defense, couple of Signets, Needle Trap, Imparing Daggers, etc. Even for an interrupt build, I find Head Shot is more than ample for generating enough interrupts.
Lately I’m only really encountering straight power shatter mesmers, and fewer of them. I’m seeing less and less reapers, even thieves are drying up and encountering more and more warriors and rangers/druids.
Bunker in most cases is superior meta right now and is catching on. In particular, strong defensively passive builds with low skill floors have allowed less skillful players to excel.
Thieves are pretty much only good in packs, hitting hurt players and playing against lessor skilled opponents. In a straight fight with solid players on both sides, thieves begin with one foot in the grave or rather one foot ready to sprint.
Basically high defensive sustain is king whether that be Dire based, defensive rotations or passive defense. Condi Chrono takes advantage of all three and its only real weakness is that when pushed defensively it becomes vulnerable. Slow burn the defense and condi bomb the offense then the build has that almost unkillable feel to it.
I’ve been pulled through the gate by Dragonhunter spears quite a few times if they hit me while I’m getting inside. That to not mention when you get pulled, tossed in the air and die from fall damage… Dragonhunter pull have so many bugs.
This. Jeknar beat me to it. If a DH lasso’s you, they can pull you right through that gate.
Any modern MMO created today should embrace single world on top of a grid-style server/network system. If we know anything about humanity, we know that people will always find a way to divide up and try to kill each other. We don’t need “servers” to artificially divide us up… we are very efficient in doing that ourselves. Server’s are an old MMO design that has outlived its usefulness.
For example, Eve Online has the most interesting and involved political and social system of any MMO ever created. While it has multiple “servers” one large cluster is key to it having such a vibrant and long running active warring MMO community. “Server Pride” is not even a thing in that game. Corporate loyalty or disloyalty is first and foremost.
Necros in skirmish are focused because they are flat out dangerous at scale. They are one of the few classes that can drop a terrifying amount of condi and basically annihilate five plus targets at a time. Ask tRex how souped up a skirmish team can be with one or more as an anchor.
Necros in 1v1 are too easily kited to death. Guardians used to have the same problem then HoT and DH fixed that problem. If Necros had the Guardian teleport and leap they would be fearsome.
Percentage modifiers is a poor overly complex design mostly thanks to the multiplicative stacking effect. At the very least percentage modifiers should be additive (as in three 10% modifiers are 30% instead of the current 33%). Better yet have all modifiers (food, traits, etc) effect a stat directly and let that work its way out in the calculators.
I’ll say it again: if this is the only build that you are having problems with, then you’re doing pretty good. If you’re able to kill everything in every build, then you’re build will be nerfed.
Rock, Paper, Scissors should exist in competitive play like this no doubt. However this builds while not straight OP is very defensive, strong offense, no rotational weakness and in a relatively easy to play build. Its just too much combined in one package.
Contrast to the Stun Lock Warrior. Great defensive sustain and strong offense but it has a rotational weakness and requires good timing to play effectively. Its strong meta nature is countered by the need to have a good player driving. Condi Chrono’s skill floor is just too low. Players should have to work to get make a build feel OP.
Not only that but I am getting pulled through gates now.
Has any game ever done sPvP or WvW minions, pets, etc well?
More frequent but small balance and skill adjustments between the large patches. Having fairly long times between balance patches just leads to a lot of disappointment when nothing is tweaked to about 95% of what we see each play session. This last balance patch changed almost nothing… same meta builds with a handful of fairly minor tweaks. We are basically playing the same meta for months on end.
There is absolutely no reason sPvP should drive WvW meta. Make small and constant tweaks to WvW build balance, what works move to sPvP between seasons what doesn’t tweak again.
Sure, you problably won’t kill a good mesmer because he will know what to avoid, but you can just walk away from these.
I think that is the point of the thread. A good condi chrono is nearly impossible to solo kill. Sure there are builds like bunker Tempest, Druid and several Warrior builds that can stand in on it but all of them are basically playing to stalemate. Unlike most other bunker condi classes it doesn’t have an easily exploitable weakness. Misfire on some condi removal and boom, dead. The spike condi from the build is impressive and its defensive and offensive sustain are both solid.
Interestingly hybrid Tempest builds are starting to get that same rep but the skill floor to play them well is significantly higher than Condi Chrono.
Stealth typically follows two forms: setting up a big shot or escaping from one. Rejuvenation doesn’t really fit either of those two narratives. It basically allows a thief to reset a fight a bit faster.
Rending Shade is foiled somewhat easily which is my main complaint. Half the time when it does proc, the boons just pop right back on from Durability/Pack runes or some other passive trait. That said the 5% defensive buff is worth considering on its own particularly for glassier thieves. As I noted earlier it would be a very strong contender if that was 5% more damage since SA already has strong defense.
Cloaked in Shadow is a bit of a hidden gem itself. That blind is great for getting out after delivering a big shot and the stealth from falling is surprisingly easy to proc almost anywhere in WvW. I also routinely used it to trap players into chasing me off a drop off… they take damage and I get a free backstab for their efforts. As a GM trait it is a bit lackluster but given its competition, I would not rule it out. If D/D every gets some love, CiS can be a real winner.
WTF… everyone seems to gripe about condi thief builds even the interrupt based hybrids. Players have always griped about D/P stealth and now Staff?
I hate saying this since it rarely applies, but learn to play. Vault is ridiculously easy to dodge, block, etc and has two frames that allow it to be interrupted. Every other Staff skill is fairly meh.
If a thieves are killing a player consistently in relatively even matches, either that player’s build is weak, they are on a necro or the thief is a flat out better player.
I appreciate the input but at this point I think most of us would be happy if they fixed what they already built and balanced out the game mode more.
With the current system, there is no need for that. You sneeze at a guard and the wp is contested for 3 minutes.
Sneezing requires too much setup. I fart on them as I go by. I always seem to have one in the chamber ready to go.
Stun lock warrior has game right now. Right now it is the only class I find I have no direct counter for aside from avoiding it. Oh and I think you have parked me several times with it if you are the same Sold warrior.
I hear what you are saying but I routinely see my full zerk thief land crit Backstab shots at 1500 or less on Druids, Tempests and Warriors barely scratching them. Mesmers aren’t the only class with seemingly unkillable builds that can dish some damage.
For me any GM trait that requires setup better have a big payoff. 2 boons just isn’t a big payoff to me. Now if the boons were truly stolen as in copied in duration and stacks, that would peak my interest. As it is now we get one stack and base duration regardless of what is stolen. Nabbing a typical warriors might stacks would be a huge game changer.
The S is fine the D is the problem. Read into that what you will.
Might be a thing for EBG towers. Borderland Towers seen to be able to tag you even before you can actually place siege for anything (particulary true for the northern ones).
All the southern towers are easy to hit without popping dots. NWT can be approched from skritt side but not up the switchback. NET is the real bear but it is hit-able from NEC via treb and a cata placed further back on the road. It may be possible to skate by it on the north side without getting marked but I haven’t tested that. All the towers on Desert can be engaged without popping red dots.
Basically if the problem is red-dots ruin a tower take by a small man, that theory is mostly bunk IMO. We routinely do it with a 2-3 man crew in T1. Sure Jerri, Aldons, Veloka, Lang, etc are bears but they always were.
That stun lock warrior build you guys run is lethal. I have started keeping Shadow Step and Bandits Defense up in fights otherwise I have to retreat. That OPP warrior and QQ ranger parked me 3-4 times yesterday.
I kept engaging to get it on video so I could break it down… youch.
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Mag has some very strong WvW focused guilds but none of the good ones are very friendly outside of skilled players. I about had a stroke when Bloodie rezzed me during a fight… and I was playing a thief.
You must in fact use a finisher for anything that has to do with spikes.
They need to change the wiki since it says “Downed enemies struck with this ability are finished.” They are killed just not “finished” in its current state. I think this relates to the skill not using a finisher until a recent patch as well.
When a player is already stealthed, subsequent stealth applications should be reduced by 1s. So a Blinding Powder is still usable while stealthed but will only apply 2s of additional stealth rather than 3s. ICDs are just a horrible mechanic for a thief.
And I agree they should remove the stealth attack ICD at the same time.
That said I really do not see an issue with the ICD on stealth attacks nor with Aegis/blocks dodges and the like. We deal with these in any case as thieves It does require more well thought out attacks but I do not see this as a problem.
Going stealth is typically an expensive proposition for a thief and misses for whatever reason on a stealth attack are costly. Priming RS with BV or using it with a stealth Steal and Bountiful make it better. However on its own that ICD will often see the trait go to waste against a good player that knows to block, dodge, etc a couple seconds after a thief goes stealth.
Hitting from stealth became far more skill and luck based with that ICD and this trait relies on that. Just makes it a had sell for me. Course I find SA to under perform compared to other trait lines these days but that is of course a personal opinion.
The warrior multi-stun builds are difficult enough to fight with Acro, Bandits and Shadow Step. I cannot imagine going in without at least one solid stun breaker on the bar. Whew and no condi-removal… hmmm…
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The thief class is by far the worst class to bring to a zerg. The class really doesn’t offer much to a team. About the only thing it does well in a zerg is finishers but that is hardly worth rolling a thief for.
In skirmish play the thief is really only a strong option around other thieves and mesmers. Other classes have good group stealth and more team synergy.
In duels with good players, most thieves get a beat down. They have no “moves” experienced players have’t seen hundreds of times before and know the counter to all of them. Most of the time a good thief is just a flat out better player that would be more lethal in another class.
The class is a solid roamer and scout. It is also a lot of fun if you like fast paced no mistakes style play. Thieves are cannibals and we are our own most dangerous enemy so prepare to die a lot if you go this route.
In sPvP, it is a relatively poor performer that generally is taken for its decaps and +1 ability. HoT brought other classes that do both nearly as well and with far more team boosts.
PvE, well anything works there except in raids which also isn’t a particularly good place for thieves.
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