I’m still waiting someone to name which condition skill can burst like Decapitate, Gunflame, Backstab, Mindwrack, Coalescence of Ruin, etc. Even with several stacks of burn, the strongest condition atm, I haven’t seen a 12k tick (maybe if I /sleep under a mortar like the people on this forum seen to do). But I’ve been hit with 12k by these skills.
A tRex Necro can drop 30+ stacks of bleed on your head from a small skirmish crew. On multiple occasions I have ticked so hard my ancestors felt it.
In 1v1, Condi Chronos can easily apply 15 stacks of condi on a player. Activate a skill or two and dead. Plus this can all be done behind a bunker build. The only power equivalent are Boon Duration builds which are OP as well.
That’s in a “melting group.” Most skirmishes are uncoordinated. Thieves do better in an uncoordinated skirmish because they are relatively safe, can use smoke fields and shadow refuge to stealth, and they close gaps very well.
In a gvg coordinated group, a thief is less useful. If that group wants to avoid zergs, they need stealth.
Necromancer will be left for dead in a skirmish of pugs as soon as things stop going smoothly.
I think we are getting caught up in nomenclature. I consider skirmish groups to be around 5 players with overlapping builds typically on comms. I have never heard of a “melting group” before.
To me Roaming encompasses +1 fights which the thief does excel.
That sPvP build would fall over dead by a passing Warriors fart in WvW.
If you think it is OP, run it. After that, you can come back here and tell us exactly how difficult it is playing a power thief in the bunker-centric/condi heavy meta.
The dueling crown belongs to Mesmers. Generally speaking, thieves are good for killing far less skilled players, blowing up poor roaming builds and capitalizing on injured players. Straight up fight, they lose or run. Their best modes are scouting and gank… two thieves on comms can be extremely effective.
DH is strong against some thief builds but S/P nukes them easily, particularly trap builds.
The sPvP thing is a non-starter since the WvW builds that “abuse” condi in small scale do not exist in that game mode as players do not have access to munchkin condi gear.
Why power build would need precision and ferocity? Full PvT warrior makes much more damage in wvw that condi because conditions last maybe 1 sec and usually everybody have resistance on whole time.
Ooph this is so wrong it hurts. Power has to cut through armor/toughness and defensive sustain. Condi is completely unaffected by player armor/toughness and ticks through sustain (except Resistance). There are also numerous abilities that apply condi through blocks.
A power build with no crit/ferocity is typically a limp build that has no prayer of beating a dire build in small scale.
The 3 servers alpine BL empty , meanwhile EBG with a queue of 40-50 ppl.
Didn’t people were crying about bringing alpine BL back ? , and now that we have it no one plays on those maps , did the people finally realize that desert BL wasn’t that bad?
BLs have almost always been less populated (GvG era was a bit different). However, the Desert BLs were truly empty of roamers. Getting any crew to leave EBG to defend them was ridiculously difficult. The BLs right now are prime roamer and skirmish territory with zerg flare ups from time to time.
Not sure about the rest but SoS can field zergs on two maps during OCX.
If you move to a heavy OCX server and play during that time, I hope you like PvD.
This is pretty accurate, except Thief is a really strong +1 in skirmishes. I’d probably place Necro at worst in skirmishes, because it can’t stick to a target and it requires a lot of support to shine due to its inability to handle focus fire.
Also, best overall is a power berserker. Everything fears a decent power berserker.
The thief has almost no group synergy making it poor in skirmish. Venoms are they best they have and those got watered down. Take that thief and put them in just about any strong skirmish class and the team just got substantially better. The only time a thief is a good skirmisher is with a stealth group, but that will get spanked by a bunker group every time.
The current meta has a Necro variant in skirmish melting groups with a ridiculous amount of condi. tRex now runs a condi variant and trust me, life sucks when 30+ stacks of bleed and a dozen stacks of every type of condi hits. One step, one activation and dead. I actively avoid them when they are running one in their mix.
Necro on top of Tempest, Guardian/Warrior with Durability runes attached. Put them on comms and it will take a small zerg to bring them down. It gets really scary with two Tempests one being Fresh Air. The stuns, condi bombs and their healing is incredible.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
In small scale, condi dominates. Completely and utterly dominates. The reason is simple, power needs three stats to cut through toughness and defensive sustain while condi needs but one allowing many builds to go full bunker and grind other builds till dead.
My thief runs with 3300 armor and 19k HP and does about as much damage to a player as my power builds. A thief, with more armor than most heavies AND does solid DPS. It was unstoppable before the Plex nerf now it is just plain OP.
Running DD is more than enough to be considerated cheese thief tbh… Too much evasions. Just as other professions elites have a lot of blocks, invulnerabilitys and kitten.
So, like I said on another post: Anything that is HoT based is cheese these days.
Power D/D is a VERY difficult set to run right now. It is without a doubt the most difficult thief set to run. It is fine on a condi-build but not power. It was already weak but the ICD nerf just killed it. Anyone running it now is anything but cheese.
Everything is cheese at this point. Why pick mozarella over cheddar?
There are still several power centered builds that aren’t cheese. For example, S/P without stealth is a solid non-cheese build requiring a good deal of timing to play. Most of the non-Boon Duration power builds require skill to pull off these days.
See, the original statement was saying it wasn’t a trap build. It said nothing else lol. The rest of the stuff involving cheese is just a tangent.
But let’s humor the point.
The build takes every available Trap trait and uses traps. If you cannot see that, there is no hope. We can call it a Medi-Trapper, Trapper-Medi build or Meditation-Trap, mmm-K. Doesn’t matter still cheese.
You can keep parsing the words till you think you are right but my point stands, uses multiple traps and trap traits which makes it CHEESE, glorious CHEESE. Some other portions of the build simply pile on the cheese.
Just a guess but I think you missed the heal was a trap and didn’t pay attention to the trait selection then posted that this wasn’t a trap build. After I pointed out that it is indeed a trap using DH build with all the trap traits, you didn’t want to be wrong and covered by declaring it doesn’t have enough traps to be a trap build. Could be wrong and just my opinion.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
Running two of a thing doesn’t necessarily define the build. That’s like calling a necro that runs flesh golem and flesh wurm a minionmancer. Or a ele that runs ether renewal and lightnig flash a cantrip ele.
I get you don’t want to be wrong but come on. The build runs two active trap skills and two trap traits one of which is a passive trap. Could it be more “trapper”? Sure but it is running enough traps and trap traits along with Durability to be called a cheese build. Add on the passive healing and DR food… yeah total cheese.
I haven’t crashed since the last set of mid-week patches. Could be coincidence but I have played 30+ hours without incident.
A new race, new weapon set for each class, a new trait line for each class and the updated meta will revolve around the new trait lines so we will have to buy to stay competitive.
Oh and at least two large changes that are expected will be watered down or not implemented at all.
And yep most of us still around will buy it.
According to me, the only way to fix the coverage issue is to get rid of the 24/7 aspect of WvW.
This essentially means that you would battle different opponents depending on the time of the day.
Would you be fine with that?
There are plenty of options that have been discussed at length for years about how to handle population imbalances and all of them allow for 24/7 matches.
Scoring in WvW has no relation to rewards and is basically incidental. Changing it won’t change blobbing, population issues, PvD, etc. We can jockey the numbers around all day but it won’t change the fundamental issues effecting the enjoyment of the game.
Look at it this way… changing the score is like repairing an SM outer wall while it is being trebbed. It wastes supply (developer time) and doesn’t fix the problem.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
The OPs build is not a trapper DH.
Look again… it runs two traps and Durability. Not only is it cheese, it is cheese with extra cheese on it.
Best Zerg: Guardian. Has never faltered since release.
Best Skirmish: Bunker Tempest. Tough one but the support from these builds is incredible.
Best Roamer: Dare Devil due to the mobility and stealth. Not the best 1v1 by far.
Best Dueler: Mesmer
Worst Zerg: Thief
Worst Skirmish: Thief
Worst Roaming: Necro… just too slow.
Worst Dueler: Thief or any of the pure bunkers.
OCX players like to PvD rather than spread out and fight each other. Been that way since release.
Thieves haven’t countered mesmers since 2013
It could be worse. At release the Phantasms were so powerful all a Mesmer had to do was drop the Pistol one, stealth and watch everything melt.
The excuse they use on removing Ricochet is pathetic at most. If the bouncing is the problem, then how come Trick Shot (SB #1) still exist?
I think that is what kittened so many of us off. Ricochet could have been modified to always hit one or two other targets or simply pierce. Its removal just seemed pointless. Add on the SB nerfs and the thief is left with no effective AoE damager in a heavy AoE meta.
Acro and EA… I have to run them now due to the very high condi application in roaming. I also run Signet of Agility and Shadow Step… even then against heavy condi application I can still fall. I sometimes get irritated and take Trickster to speed up Withdrawl and get an extra condi off that way.
The other option is to switch to S/P or S/D which is what a lot of thieves are moving towards now.
The block is an instant but the knockdown takes a bit of practice to nail the timing. The same for the elite… both knockdowns seem to have a small delay.
Necros have some solid condi-bomb in 1v1 situations now. I used to barrel in and kite them to death but with that 1200 range I have to watch my condi levels very carefully.
Traps OP right now. (they are instant cast, you can cast your three utility traps at same time with no delay. and can be cast (all three) while stomping)
They also pre-cast them so that they can be instantly cast again. S/P wrecks DH with relative ease but I find most other weapon sets under perform against solid DH players.
Vault is also an evade so I doubt there is to much time gap where the enemy can hit you when you’re using it. Also the AA reflect is also a tool to negate blinding projectile along with sending dmg back to it’s source.
Go duel Staff and see how accurately a player will interrupt, dodge, etc. I can do it about 90% of the time half in the bag. It will also miss 100% of the time trying to land in a blinding field as the hitch happens before it lands. Staff just gets obliterated by good players.
Best way to flip a camp is to find its gathering spot, put everything in one place and spam damage. Either the player is using AA on the group while taking damage or spamming Vault with the occasional misses, stuns, pulls. S/P does not have any of that mess to deal with since it evades the entire time and pops a stun each time.
Try them both on an upgraded camp… I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how efficient PW is and how nice an extra teleport with condi removal can be.
1. Yes. Valk and Zerk mixed is essentially Marauders and far better than pure Zerk IMO.
2. Farm gold and get to 450 crafting in Weaponsmith ASAP. Deldrimor Steel Ingots make daggers and those are time gated at one per day. You can buy the components on the TP but that is very expensive.
3. Yes as medium armor uses Damask and Elonian Squares that can each be made one per day. Unfortunatley medium armor is at a premium right now so it will be very expensive. The price is coming down for the component parts though.
Keep in mind getting to 500 on Armorsmith and Weaponsmith can easily soak up 500g not counting building the weapon itself. I suggest salvaging everything you pick up for a while and selling any of the better Exotics. The other hope is that the RNG kicks in and you get Ascended Armor/Weapon drops.
No, I want Ricochet back given the current meta. What I’m saying is that I understand why they took it out given how squishy everyone was back then.
I misunderstood your intent. I think I got your posts mixed up with someone elses and read the intent incorrectly.
That’s not how it was in game. A lot of times, what shows in the tooltip is not what’s actually happening and wiki records the tooltip. So the tooltip might have shown 900 range, but I know it was 1200 range because I even swap back and forth with my shortbow without any range compensation. I even use P/P against the Claw of Jormag.
I always thought its range was 1050 with Ankle Shots (1200 with the updated to Ricochet), but that was a few years ago so my recollection could be flawed. I can say it was never meant to be a 1200 weapon.
Whether it’s an anomaly or not, I was Unloading at 1200 range, that much is true. They nerfed the Pistol to 900 range and call it an “anomaly” or “bug” that needs to be fixed, just like other nerfs that the Thief received they call “bug”.
They fixed Ankle Shots which dropped the range to 1050 then they removed Ricochet during HoT which left it at 900. I think they inadvertently nerfed the range trying to fix other issues.
Skill, talent, trait…what’s the difference? My point is, P/P relies on the refunded endurance for defense more than other weapon sets.
So blind from Black Powder (Skill#5) doesn’t count? Black Powder was an OK defensive skill untill they nerf it because D/P was abusing it.
Outside of Bound, P/P has little defensive capability. This is fine but that does mean the weapon set needs to hit like a truck. Right now in group situations P/P is both a low DPS weapon set and offers no inherent defensive capability to remain elusive.
Even in duels it greatly under performs because of its lack of or limited defensive capability and how easy it is effectively block it with pets, clones, minions, etc.
Dragonhunters cheese?
Cheese implies an easy class to play that typically has a gimmick mechanic. Trapper DH completely fits this description.
S/P carves through DH like a hot knife through butter. My guild mate runs the combo and DH trap sitters just explode with nary a scratch on him.
Not only the priority but if we steal a boon give us all the stacks as well. Right now boon steal just transfers the boon and not the stacks which. That ins’t theft that is removal.
Scoring isn’t the problem, scoring is the symptom of a problem. They can jack around with how points are calculated all day long but it won’t change population and coverage issues which are the actual problems.
Condi Mesmers have been incredibly strong since release. They had a few months a long ways back where they weren’t completely dominant but for the longest time they have been the best or nearly so dueling and small scale fighting class.
Mesmers in small scale along with Guardians in large scale have essentially dominated GW2 WvW in their respective roles. I guess it is no surprise both are relatively easy to play.
Druids… Rangers were so horrible for so long I kinda feel this is their due.
So long as OCX/SEA players concentrate their play onto a small set of NA servers, 2v1 doesn’t matter. OCX/SEA in NA tend to paper both sides for several hours per day.
ANet should have long ago broken up off hour play so that it was less concentrated on a handful of NA servers.
Because you are SUPPOSED to BE a WORLD first and not transfer often!!!!!!!!!
enough said…
That MIGHT have been TRUE before server LINKING.
Players can find other players they like playing with and join their guild but can get stuck once the servers become unlinked. Servers are really a dumb concept that are impossible to balance at least in every RvR game I have played.
All I know is those fields have my full respect. I have seen zergs crumple trying to fight near them.
I’m going to try Rev, since it appears to have more depth and more active defenses. Which to me sounds more like a thief than the other two tanky types. But the gear I make for the Rev will also be useable on War/Guard so it’s no biggy to try all three at some point.
For now focus on Commander armor with boon duration food and Durability runes. Works for almost every heavy and is ridiculously good for group support.
Condi Mesmer, Bunker *
It’s not that thieves are particularly overpowered. They’re not. It’s just an unfair fight.
The thing with being a thief is that mistakes are not easy to recover from. There aren’t many second chances on that class. These days it feels high risk, low reward… trust me as there was a time when every post in this thread would begin and end with Thief.
If you think running into a thief is difficult as a non-thief… wait till you play a thief. Go in to test the metal of an opponent, jump back from the fight only to get descended upon by other thieves. Thieves are cannibalistic more so than any other class. Thieves kill each other far easier than they can kill just about any other class… and they do so at a good clip.
Dragonhunter IS a cheez build lol.
I really hope the OP was trying to be funny with this post… if not delicious.
What’s this argument got to do with Thief’s P/P?
You have been arguing to keep Ricochet out because you think it is too powerful. You were listing off things it could do back then and I was stating at least one example of professions that can do it now (and better).
You can only compare P/P to other options within the Thief’s profession.
Either Ricochet is a workable trait that isn’t OP in the current meta and that means ALL of the meta or it isn’t. Other thief weapon sets really don’t matter as to whether we should bring back a modified version of this trait. The thief is the only class that doesn’t have access to effective ranged AoE pressure.
lol, a bug? Are you serious? In the beginning, Pistol and Shortbow have 1200 range. With your limited knowledge and experience,
Unload at release:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Unload&oldid=309872
What are you talking about? Pistol had 1200 range. They nerfed it to 900, but added a range increase when traited with Ankle Shot making the total range to 1050. Then they completely removed from Ankle Shot the range increase. There was never a bug that makes Pistol range to 1200 when traited. The only bug was on Ankle Shots giving the +150 range even though they’ve removed it. Now we have Pistol at 900 range even when traited Ankle Shots. The +150 range was never restored.
Ankle Shots never had the +150 listed in the description even though it did add +150 to the distance. Here is the Sept 2015 update to the Wiki which lists this as an “Anomaly”. They removed that “Anomaly” that same month.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Ankle_Shots&oldid=1075849
Ricochet gained +150 in Sept 2014:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Ricochet_(trait)&oldid=880672
For about a year we had 1200 range if we took two traits but that was a bug or rather an “Anomaly”.
P/P used to have defensive abilities — Feline Grace (endurance refund) and a 1s tick of Black Powder. It’s not much, but it still better than what we have now.
Feline was a trait and not a defensive skill. P/P is the only weapon set in the thief line that doesn’t have direct defensive abilities such as mobility, condition removal, stealth, evasion, etc. This is why in my opinion P/P needs more pressure for power builds as it lacks innate defense.
Comparing P/P+Ricochet with other professions, sure it doesn’t look great. However if you compare P/P+Ricochet to P/D and Shortbow, it is far superior. Even now Shortbow is crap in terms of damage output, P/P still exceeds better in that regards. What you feel about P/P+Ricochet really doesn’t reflect the reality of it.
That just means P/D (which also was gutted when Ricochet was removed) and Shortbow (which should have some nerfs reverted) also need love. A different problematic weapon set doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fix or improve another.
However, I spend a decent amount of time just roaming for 1v1s anyway. What matchups do you find you can consistently win (at least 40-50% of the time)?
I am going to assume we are talking decent or better players here since many of us can park less than stellar players running any class/build. Prior to the Plex nerf, no class could consistently beat the cancer I was running. The build was stupid good with a little bit of practice.
Post Plex nerf, I struggle with Boon Duration Warriors, Condi Chrono, Bunker Tempests, power trap DH and some Bunker Druid Builds. Everything else is pretty much meat. Even on the classes I struggle against those typically come up a draw. The cancer is still strong but beatable now.
Even after the Plex nerf, I am still running well over a 100/1 KDR roaming. That rate has more to do with strong cancer and a lower quality of players these days than my skill. Seems most of the great players left the building a while ago.
I know 1v1 is not our role. We’re the most mobile, slipperiest class with insane burst. Our job is to scout, create unfair fights, and secure kills.
The class no longer has insane burst. My FA Tempest hits much harder as does my power Chrono. My Boon Duration Warrior can also one shot most thieves with Eviscerate if a fight lasts long enough for it to wind up the might (all with little fear of a thief actually cutting through the armor).
Remember when a thief going stealth filled a player with dread especially if you were another thief? I actually look forward to seeing a thief land Backstab now cause I know they are probably going to eat a bigger shot or get completely loaded up with condi.
Class has been gutted and sadly some “fixes” offered by a few players on this forum seem to revolve around D/P nerfs or arguments about a weapon set becoming too powerful if ANet were to roll back some changes.
Vault hits 5 targets and the staff AA is stronger, though. I like staff for fighting groups of enemies.
Problem with Staff and Vault is that hitch before it lands which allows those blinding fields, blinding shots, stuns and pulls to completely invalidate a Vault. S/P is simply a faster camp clear on average with very little risk of taking damage during the attack or wasting init. Also it performs better when roaming IMO. Staff is a novelty weapon these days thanks to players realizing how easy it is to interrupt, evade, block, etc its major attack.
The AA’s are now on par since the Staff AA nerf and the Sword buff. Staff rotation does 3.1 every 2.1s. Sword rotation does 2.9 every 1.9s.
I ran both for months and S/P to me is a better weapon set especially for upgraded camps.
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Have you blinded the entire enemy team during team fight while staying at the back line Unloading while standing on Black Powder?
Have you applied burn condition to the entire enemy team during team fight while staying at the back line Unloading while your teammate Ele drops a Ring of Fire?
Have you taken out all turrets, all illusions while staying out of range?
All things I can do on my Chrono right now and more effectively than P/P ever could and I don’t need another classes field to make it happen. The blind “trick” is very heavy. Several classes can do the field trick including Rapid Fire which hits harder than Unload. I don’t even get the turret thing… turret engis sucked. Yes P/P was good against Shatter Mesmers which isn’t a bad thing. PU Mesmers became roaming gods for a while since they had no direct counters.
So tell me this, if it was about the RNG excuse, then why did they also reduced P/P’s range from 1200 to 900? In fact, at one point Ankle Shot makes Pistol range to 1050. Speaking of Ankle Shot, why remove that also?
The 1200 range was a bug and never listed as part of the trait. In the beginning the trait didn’t buff range. The trait was then buffed to have extra range two years after release. The buff stated 150 but they screwed up and it did 300. A year later they reverted and removed the 150 that was really 300. In the next major patch the 150 was restored because it was under performing.
You can drink the cool-aide they are serving if you so choose, but for someone who used P/P from the very beginning knows fully well that the excuses given about P/P are as credible as their excuses for botching Acrobatics (“too much evade” my kitten.
Like many, I served my time on various thief builds in WvW with thousands of hours in WvW mostly on a thief. I duel a lot, I roam a lot and I skirmish a lot. I ran P/P for a good bit of that. I may not be an expert on zergs but in my experience P/P was never a strong dueling weapon, was marginal in skirmish and basically a solid roaming weapon set that offered no defensive abilities and very little utility.
Oddly enough I always felt P/P with Ricochet was a balanced play set that neither felt weak or OP but was very entertaining which is why I was gobsmacked when they removed it for HoT.
They promissed us the red circle when people first complained about the mortars. But we didn’t received them yet.
Also, the mortars are right in the middle of the wall. Any skill with 240 radius can hit it. And pretty much every profession have at least one.
Since the patch, Mortars are still applying fast burning stacks but at least they aren’t “surprise” stacks. While I would still tone down the speed of the stacks a bit, at least we know when we are standing in it and can fully dodge the field now.
Karl said that players want the increased damage and not the RNG bounce. That’s BS and you know it, everyone who uses P/P knows it. The trait gives increased pistol damage at the same time as the bounce and it’s the bounce that makes it great, not the damage.
Devs said it was removed because the RNG made the skill too difficult to balance. They even had to buff it after the trait rework so that its range was extended and it hit more reliably.
I gave you my first hand experience on how I can clear a node full of Eng turrets with my P/P Ricochet+AnkleShot build when it used to have 1200 range. I can destroy the turrets on the back without getting in range of it just by targeting the nearest turret.
I have several builds from other classes that dish AoE damage like no tomorrow. My Tempest FA build is disgusting and will fry an entire upgraded camp in about 5s.
With the current meta, restoring P/P Ricochet+AnkleShot to its former glory would not be as OP as it was back then when practically everyone were too squishy.
Again it was never OP. The skill existed in the game since Pre-Release and nobody was afraid of it. It was openly mocked for a long time as gimmick weapon set inferior to even D/D. Even after they removed it the Thief forum was dumbstruck as to why:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Ricochet-gone/first
I understand how to pull off when I see the block or the distortion. I know how to dodge shatters. However, I still wind-up with super AIDS before I can drop them.
You aren’t missing anything. Ask anyone that duels regularly about how the Thief is performing and how the strong Mesmer builds are performing. The new hybrid condi/power build from Mesmers is just tearing through everything. The old Chrono Condi builds wreck most other classes. Even the SoI zerg builds are dangerous 1v1.
The only real counter you are going to find against a decent or better variant is to gang up on them or move on.
Oh and any Dare Devils not running Escapists against a condi Mesmer is cruising for a beating.
I seriously struggle against Condi-Mesmers as D/P Thief (if they see me coming or have half-way decent reaction speed). There’s nothing critical to dodge/interrupt/blind. It’s insanely survivable/slippery, relentlessly stacks condis on spammable/low-risk skills, and has tons of sustain.
Yes. I believe most of the pro-thief advice in here are for fighting against weaker Mesmers. Run into a decent or better one and this is what you have to deal with. There is no “trick” that I am aware of. I duel against and with these Chrono builds for hours each week and still haven’t found a counter. They are ridiculously good 1v1 and excellent in skirmish. Even the new stealth variants with the Burn buffs have few counters when played decently.
That’s awesome advice and makes good sense. Unfortunately, I refuse to be a part of the condi-spam problem.
:(
Condi spam doesn’t work against Chrono Condi. Their removal is crazy good. Before the Plex nerf my condi thief could only kill them if they made too many mistakes. Post Plex nerf, they are Teflon to condi. The shatter AoE condi removal and AoE heals are extremely strong. I can drop a Boon Duration Warrior running high Resistance up time and still hardly scratch a Chrono Condi.
That alone is enough evidence for ArenaNet to get rid of Ricochet especially when they want P/P to be a high damage single-target weapon set — AoE is given to Shortbow.
Ricochet was removed because of its complex Bounce mechanics not because it was OP. As one dev put it, “too much RNG”. Virtually nobody was complaining about P/P prior to this which is why so many players were confused and kittened when it was removed. It was not then nor would it be now the strongest weapon set for a thief.
Well this is why you go acro. Look I tsarted all my builds using UC I found it that good but have since transitioned into more bounding.
I use don’t stop in the acro line. This is coupled with Withdraw and RFI traited as utilities. This gives me three Immob breaks to use while in the p/p set. Why do I need UC? if I switch to staff I get a built in Immob break.
Going Acro means losing an entire trait line just to get back what UC gives. This means giving up Trickery, Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes all of which are huge DPS increases. Is Bound worth the entire DA line? On power builds IMO, no. I think this trade is worth it for condi builds but not power.
I understand where you are headed but Bound is awkward with a tiny hit radius. UC on the other hand allows P/P to easily kite, not worry about movement condi and boosts defense. As noted it also opens up an entire trait line since Acro becomes redundant.
If they changed Bound to be a forward dodge like Lotus and made it work like a mini-Vault then count me in. Right now though, it is awkward, small attack radius (wiki is wrong) and while somewhat fun still a gimmick.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
If you die as a thief, you’ve over committed and/or failed to evade some stacks.
Problem is if they don’t commit, they cannot win. The heals are too strong to reset or back off. On almost every level the mesmer has the advantage except for running away. Thieves are exceptional at that skill (and I am very guilty of this tactic).
My opinion still stands, if the mesmer is a decent player the thief is at a massive disadvantage. If the mesmer is a very good player, the thief has a tiny chance of actually winning. Best a thief can hope for is a player that doesn’t pace their clones and unloads too much at the beginning. Mesmers that pace themselves are generally a draw at best for most classes.
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