Crit Strikes is pretty solid thanks to some great minor traits and No Quarter. Acrobatics on the other hand is a hot mess.
D/D, Shortbow, P/P, S/D have all seen a decline in capability. The trait line changes a year ago gutted a huge portion of thief capability. DareDevil while fun to play is one of the least effective elites as far as combat effectiveness. Call it whining if you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that ANet nerfed this class so hard that it cannot even be considered a decent dueling class which was its original design premise.
Those left playing the thief are mostly +1 with fast travel and generally dislike the play style of other classes so they stay in this class.
You don’t even need to compare it to Vault to see how weak it is. Weakening Charge which costs 3 init outputs roughly the same damage and applies weakness. Hook Strike which isn’t a big damager is a 2s knockdown which is crazy good (when it works).
Steal→Stealth→Hook Strike→Weakening Charge combo is much better than Backstab, has no positional requirements, adds weakness to the target and trips more trait effects such as Pulmonary Impact.
Pistol Whip blows right past Backstab and is probably the biggest hitter on the thief costing 5 init and comes with a stun.
Pistol Whip →Steal→Stun combo is the most devastating alpha strike the thief has to my knowledge
(edited by Straegen.2938)
If a person is going to complain, this is the best way possible. Very good analysis that unfortunately will be ignored/unread by those that matter.
If I could rework it, Unhindered Combatant (UC) would be part of the minor trait Physical Supremacy. Then add a new GM trait to replace UC.
As for Staff. The #2 skill is actually the best attack on the weapon. It might not feel like it but it isn’t telegraphed, has solid damage output, adds weakening to targets and is a cheap spamable skill. I never use #3 or #4 and only use #5 when I have full control of the fight.
DareDevil is under-performing from a fight perspective but it is still really fun and very slippery.
Added several more reported bugs.
You have a 70 person roster and out of 70 people only a maximum of 2 are on the same server? That’s mathematically impossible unless a lot are multi-region also and even then it would be incredibly unlucky for that to be the case, lol.
Anyway, if you’re struggling you could always ask people within WvW on your server itself to join your guild temporarily to help with your guild mission. I’m sure you wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to help.
It is pretty easy to have a lot of people on a roster that either don’t play or don’t play WvW.
Roaming powerhouses are currently Mesmers, Chronomancers and Scrappers. Other classes make great fighters but lack mobility/escape.
Zergs… there are so many good group classes to choose right now.
Of the classes you picked, necro with Reaper elite would be my pick in either case. If you are going to be slow might as well be running around in beast mode.
EotM is still important to a good number of players. It is still the fastest way to level elites for players that hate general PvE. It also a place to go where a player can find others to run around with regardless of how poorly their server is doing or how empty it is at that moment.
A few new WvW comfort skills would be appreciated. Looking at you Auto-Loot.
T1 or T2 are pretty hoping during NA prime and can be somewhat dead outside of that time with the exception of some PvD. Unfortunately last time I checked those tiers are locked.
Outnumbered fights almost always required clever use of terrain. In no way was tactical movement limited other than by player creativity or lack thereof. The new map has quite a diversity of terrain with plenty of open space. It is also rather good to have a lack of open space right nearby the objectives since the proximity of siege in objectives was always a source of friction for those players fighting right outside Bay, for example.
If by “good” you mean most of the population dislikes that style and won’t even go to the map, then yeah that diversity of terrain is “good”.
Until players go to the new map, my point stands. Big maps with complex terrain and NPC gimmicks are an antithesis to enjoyable WvW game play for most WvW players.
Actually they are not all connected. For example Mendons Tower can treb exactly 0 other towers/keeps. Also Red Keep in Eternal Can treb SM and the other two can’t. If this was a core map design don’t you think they would have balanced it out a bit?
Mendons can hit Overlook outer wall with ease. The inverse is not true which is why Red cannot easily defend Mendons with counter siege unlike Bravo, Langor, Jerri, Aldons.
As for the SM trebbing from Red Keep, the disadvantage is that Red Keep can be trebbed from SM.
Thief/Daredevil band wagoner to Dragon Hunter, signing in.
I switch back and forth but DH is like driving a tank on the freeway. Every lane is a passing lane regardless of the traffic involved. DareDevil is like riding a rocket powered bicycle on one.
As others noted Rev is fun but DH/Guardian is a fundamental class that has no real equal in terms of its usefulness. The only thing that sucks about the class is that it doesn’t have any good movement abilities. If you can live without those or don’t mind using rune slots to overcome that issue, DH/Guardian is worth the time invested.
Don’t mind thieves, they complain so much instead of actually training against DH. Whining won’t help them tho.
But my bucket is almost full of thieves tears….
I have both DH and DareDevil. In equally skilled hands a DH comes out on top 99 times out of a 100. DH is very powerful and the thief class may be the worst class in the game right now at least in 1v1 fights.
P/P is probably the only weapon set that might deal with DH but I could not cut through the defense with it. I dumped three unloads into a skilled DH hovering in his traps while he laughed. Quite literally soaked up the damage emoting a laugh and I run mostly zerk. He had zero chance of killing me unless I played his trap game but I never found a way through to kill him.
The only successful “trick” I have heard in duels is blinding the hell out of them while spamming DPS and ranging them in between. Unfortunately their traps cannot be blinded and one miss equals a dead thief.
IMO DH should be getting some minor nerfs and thief is just in a sorry state.
Run DH until its inevitable nerf.
Ranger has basically one good ranged attack and one good mobility weapon. Druid certainly is super tanky but cannot hurt anything. DH on the other hand is tanky, cannot be melee’d easily and has some pretty serious DPS in the right circumstances. Its only downside is the need to for runes to speed it up.
thief is still supremely enjoyable.
and potentially infinitely frustrating…
For PvE: Ogre, Rage, Pack, Exuberance, Vampire
For WvW on a zerk build: Exuberance or Scholars
I am a big fan of either Exuberance (health is a good thing on a glassy thief as 15k seems to be the sweet spot between surviving spike and not) or Vampire. Vampire is really great since it kicks in when you need it most.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
An untrained monkey with a horrible build can do 99.9% of the PvE in this game so it really doesn’t matter just play what you like there.
Now if you are taking this into WvW or sPvP… you will probably get destroyed with this build as it is not optimal and will hit like a wet noodle.
Just the fact the opponent can’t crit under this condition makes it totally worth traiting. Plus! weakening strikes makes them do 10% less damage to you. Best trait in that tier, imo.
Depends on the build. Havoc Mastery is pretty impressive. With S/P we run Havoc Mastery since we play the Basilisk Venom->Infitrators Strike->Stone->Pulmonary Impact->Pistol Whip->Steal->Daze->Pulmonary Impact->Mug->Pistol Whip again combo. If they don’t have two stuns break or an Invuln this is a sure fire kill even against hardened opponents before they know what hit them.
If that combo fails to land we reset usually with Infiltrators Return. Gimmicky as hell but works most of the time.
agree with DD trait which i make me move around to the map like crazy
but regarding dmg and finisher its hard atm cause if i vault on the point i risking to get cleavse traps well dmg
i often see the sb working and p/p more than my melee weapons unless its a finishing blowi also like the staff but i need more group support than d/p which got stealth
Thief is always going to struggle with AoE based classes. P/P damage is pretty anemic even with chained unloads but does allow a thief to stay ranged most of a fight which is great against trap builds and mesmers. Gunflame, Rapid Fire, etc tears it up though. Ultimately a thief has to make compromises and has no chance against 1/3 of the builds no matter which weapon set they choose.
As for me, I have been running S/P.
Vault does more damage than backstab and is spamable. The staff auto-attack also does more damage than a dagger. The downside to the staff are the big wind ups that make fighting another player potentially difficult.
In WvW on a decent player, it can be a tough fight… unless you equip S/P which trumps it hard.
Unhindered Combat is fantastic and I believe should have been given when a player chose DareDevil along with the dodge. Then a new GM trait that has an effect after dodge like the other two such as blind.
Bandits Defense while it isn’t class defining is a great utility.
Nightmare runes are actually a nice option for the Death Blossom builds. They stack condi dmg and duration and the 1s fear half the time when hit makes fighting against them a pain. Most hits are evaded but when they land the player cannot setup for the next attack since they are feared off.
That said Krait runes are really hard to beat for bleed builds.
can ppl who do tpvp group play comment on it. it seems like you talk in duel perspective
Paired with shortbow the build traverses distance faster than any class, the Staff has excellent AoE (for a thief) and more usable finishers than other weapon sets.
While it isn’t as potent at holding a point as many other classes it is the best build for that work in the thief class. Thieves do not synergize well with other builds aside from damage output but this is about as close as it gets.
Oddly DareDevil is the best elite to me not from a “destroy my enemy” perspective but from pure enjoyment. I do find DareDevil to be under-performing damage-wise but it is seriously fun. I believe the thief is supposed to be a fun-to-play class. The staff is fun. P/P used to be fun. D/D used to be fun. S/D used to be fun.
It really just needs some tweaks. P/P should have Ricochet on Unload. S/D needs to go back to a pre-nerf state. D/D backstab needs its HeartSeeker un-nerfed. Both D/P and S/P are fine.
I don’t expect the thief to be king of the hill but I do expect it to feel fun to play.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
Here is the one we have been using on/off in WvW. Works really well as it hits like a truck, nice HP pool for a thief and has generous amounts of escape:
If you are in PvE and not worried about conditions/escape as much try this one. It outputs a ton of spam damage and when quickness kicks it tears everything up:
Staff is the highest damaging weapon on the class and the spam attack is potent. The “problem” is that it has a ton of wind up similar to the warrior. Dodge the vaults, watch for Bandits Defense and annihilate the build. S/P tears it apart.
Lol. Not what i was expecting xD
but necro class seems to be interesting as well. Maybe I’ll check it out.
Btw is there anything important i should know about the new changes? Just in case i miss something :-P
Reaper elite on the Necro is a beast. A well played one takes two players to bring it down slowly. Not only is it durable it has some monster burst. Slow travel though.
The thief and DareDevil has been completely slotted into the plus 1 category both in WvW and sPvP. They are fast and slippery but only scrubs and wounded players worry about them. In 1v1 it takes an exceptional player to bring down a decent opponent. Now 2+ of them can blow up a player fast and they are very difficult to catch.
Weakness is very underrated. For thieves that have to be up close and personal, it can be a big part of survival in those close fights.
After a while now looks like Chronomancer and Reaper are clearly the toughest of the new elites.
Reaper may be slow getting places but is a total beast. Chronomancer is ridiculously hard to nail down and when it wants to run even my DareDevil with a shortbow couldn’t keep up. Tack on a ton of stealth and nice burst… ouch.
So what’s the point of the yellow xp if us wvwers don’t benefit from it? I just don’t get it. I guess we’ll have to grind it out in pve to get mastery’s. no wonder wvw is a ghost town.
We used to get an extra skill point for each XP level after 80 which could be used at the mystic forge for crafting.
Prior to the skill point changes, I used those extra points to generate gold which is how I payed for my armor/weapons/consumables in WvW. Now my gold reserve is dwindling fast.
Should remove nodes altogether. If you want to mine, chop trees or pick flowers go to pve
Many (most) WvW players still want to build ascended and legendary gear as well as make food and other consumables. Those nodes help with crafting gear used in WvW.
I regret buying this expansion….disappointment. Anet, the new EA.
While I am disappointed with some of HoT, they didn’t put in a bunch of crappy security code that made the game unplayable. They also didn’t sell HoT then right behind sell two DLC to make HoT playable. ANet has problems but not EA sized problems.
You dont really want to come to T1 right now if you want real fights with real enemies, past 2 weeks most zergs are trading captured keeps with enemies to farm HP scrolls. But if this is the type of WvW you enjoy, sure come join us.
The last week in NA prime has been a lot of big fights over SM. The lag is HORRIBLE but the fights are very real. Our little guild has been enjoying picking off players headed into SM as well as skirmishes. Outside of NA prime… yawn-fest with BG rolling over everything.
I get lag anywhere there is a 2-way zerg fight. I get near unplayable lag when it is a 3-way fight as in skills do not go off or go off randomly.
There is WxP (blue bar) and XP (yellow bar). They both go up but XP after 80 in WvW does nothing as far as I know.
Updated the list. Hopefully I got everything.
Well about half the tiers in WvW currently have at least one server down about 50% from the leader. Something in the system isn’t working well when that scenario repeats itself with the same servers for weeks/months.
If BG opens up again any time soon it will be a crime against competitive game play. T1 is very unbalanced and only a sadist would actively want to go to BG.
I haven’t found a counter to this build in WvW at least playing as a thief. The build applies too much continuous bleed condition to remove and is in full evade 90% of the fight. Even if you can time it and land a hit, often they use Dire so they can easily soak up big hits. As soon as I see it now, I create space and I do not engage.
Boy don’t we all miss the days when thieves could fight a zerg single handedly?
I mean… all these nerfs are so unjustified.
Well if we are going to nerf classes based on some of the best players using them… I think the mesmer would have been nuked into oblivion long ago.
Zerg surfing was (and sometimes still is) possible but required a high amount of skill to pull off reliably. Yishi was (is?) a pretty impressive player and still has some of the best breakdown videos out there.
Yep, lag. Lag kills this class as it relies heavily on precision of the operator.
Shadow Refuge can already do sort of what you are asking with traits in Shadow Arts. Besides the stronger thief builds running right now don’t have SR on their bar and many don’t even use stealth.
I posted this somewhere else but here are the three steps to total thief domination:
Step one: Log the thief out.
Step two: Create Mesmer or Chronomancer.
Step three: Roll most thieves by pounding your nose randomly on keyboard.
Pro Tip: You can use your feet/toes freeing up your face/hands to eat a sandwich while playing a Mesmer and remain just as effective as a skilled thief. Life is hard these days for a thief especially when an untrained monkey with a Mesmer is a formidable opponent.
If we are going to get some pairings, I vote for Daremancer or DragonDevil.
There is several abilities on all classes that go through doors, this is not new and has been around since release. It is not Rev exclusive.
A hammer attack should not fly up through the floor in the Wildcreek lords room and strike a player/siege. Players should not see Ranger arrows flying through walls hitting them on a supply hut. We are not talking about splash damage going through a door or even wall. We are talking about targeted attacks that can hit players in the middle of a tower.
The WvWs just need to learn how to actually play a large scale map, not just zerg around in a blob with no consequence.
Hey users! Learn to use the product we sell so we don’t have to make a product you want to use.
That is just bad marketing advice. When something is designed well, accessible and approachable, users will flock towards it. If most of them recoil at it, it is a failure not a LtP issue.
Thank BG, you had to know that Anet was going to lock down everything remotely populated once they found out Players were going to game the system.
Funny thing is they won. They got a bunch of transfers and now their competition is barred from getting transfers to balance out the fight. BG is going to beat the crap out of the other two servers 20+ hours out of the day for the foreseeable future.
YB currently doesn’t have a T2 sized population and it will likely take weeks for Glicko to roll them down into T2.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.