Guild Wars 2

Ugruk.4069:

Dagger 5 and stomp?

no. wont work. only in 1 v1 will that work. even in 2v2 3v3 you will prolly die stomping. there is nothing more squishy than this build. put it this way…. at 100% hp and u have your opponent downed…it would take several seconds for him to down u if u didnt move. no if there were several players….u will def die. the incidental dmg alone is enough.

hence why this build is never ran by anyon.e

steps:

1) never use it defensively
2) use it only in condition build
3) dont use it in pvp

whys?

1) aftercast is so slow that if u were spamming them you would have a 1/4s evade every 1.75 seconds. not going to help much if at all.

2) its not quite as reliable in control as FS LS so you cant maneuver like you want as easily anyway.

3) its sub par dmg and has 3 bleeds, 2 of which usually hit

this wont get nerfs. the build has no chance of even stomping in a 4v4 :P not as is anyway.

Jrunyon.3012:

Travlane.5948:

actually i think interceptor is onto something here. in gw1 we had special skills we could build up. maybe they could do that in this class
thieves could steal gold by working up the skill. takes a long time of course like gw1 asuran or norn skills etc. would put a new dynamic into game. w

It would also come with a new gold sink upon getting caught stealing; Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence!

mmm interesting. should be a separate f2 steal then. for money only. starts at 50 50. get caught u pay 50s-1g. get away with it you steal 50s-1g. 10m cooldown for pvp. 180s cooldown pve but less money.

that would be fun. everyone loves to gamble.

i think the true problem is anet isnt letting us stay strong in our niche. we dont have a strong roll in team play which is 99% of this game. they should let thieves enjoy totally owning on 1v1 scenarios. not make them godly. just kinda like they were before. 8 months ago. before mug nerf. there were good but still didnt change much.

NinjaEd.3946:

Travlane.5948:

NinjaEd.3946:

Cynz.9437:

NinjaEd.3946:

Why give a profession undeniable pathetic condition effects and say all classes can fill the same roles.

Can a guardian tank a boss? Yes by taking and recovering damage as well as blocking.

Can a thief tank a boss? Yes, by evasion and blind.

Do they achieve the same goal? Yes but by different means.

Now put thief in your equation and tell me what you see. That’s the problem I have.

actually thief can’t tank a boss due to 10% effectivety of blind and you can evade so much

If they have feline grace + d/x they can evade all the time on bosses. They hit rather slow and are easily spotted.

u get 20% endurance back every dodge. that = evading all the time? yyyyyyyyyyah. idk about that.

15 endurance from dodge, 10 from dagger aa which takes hardly 2s to cycle through. Unless the boss is on some frenzy you can dodge enough. Dodging all the time in pve is the equivalent of ranger soloing champs. Its pve, things are mostly a walk in the park, 1 dodge every 3-4 seconds from a heavy hit is imo dodging all the time. Put vigor and they shouldn’t dip below 25% endurance.

Anyways this isnt about tanking pve bosses, its about power of condi thief.

Idk if comparing sword conditions from a warrior to pistol conditions from thief works because one is ranged and one is melee. Death blossom applies 3 10s bleeds(melee) its just its soo easy to avoid that only fools use it for anything but a whirl/dodge. I think ranger sb and warrior lb would be better comparisons and in both, thief p/d falls short imo. But yeah warrior s/s conditions are ridiculous.

i have to dissagree. only a fool uses Deathblossom to dodge. 1/4 s evade on a 1.25s skill. 80% of that skill u are open to dmg and cant stop it no matter whatu do. DB is a horrible skill. they at some point changedthe aftercast so you cant chain it i noticed too.

actually i think interceptor is onto something here. in gw1 we had special skills we could build up. maybe they could do that in this class
thieves could steal gold by working up the skill. takes a long time of course like gw1 asuran or norn skills etc. would put a new dynamic into game. w

i wouldnt mind a 5% chance at 1g

love that build. its good for a laugh to take some stress off once in a while. annoying running back from all the deaths tho. ranger thief thief upscale upscale thief upscale all zerk. still SO FUN to watch!

ty for the smiles!

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

u claimed thief was easier. its on you.

Nope. The original ridiculous assertion came from you:

Travlane.5948:

well tell me this. is there ANY other way you can go melee without dodging every second to stay alive? mm?

guardian can sit there in PVE and take on 7-8 enemys with just auto attack alone and neverhave to hit a heal button. thief can only do that with 1 enemy at a time.

are you SUUUUUUUUUUURE black powder shot is OP? really?!

Whether it’s ridiculous because of the restrictions instituted or the assumptions made, is an exercise for the reader, but you threw the grenade.

me: guardian does it with ease compare to thief.

you: no way dude!

me: if u dont think so video it and ill make one on guardian showing you how slow you are.

You: you first.

soyou counter my challenge with the same challenge? lol yyyyyyyyyyyah. well played. so since i asked first bc u claimed it was redic. u have to prove it. especially when my claim is pretty well known.

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

u show me a thief doing 10 mobs same time….. without using a corner to group them. ill show u a guard doing the same ones easy and so much faster. itll be embarassing.

… no scope, 180 degrees, upside-side down, Final Destination.

Nope. You show us a video of you failing to kill 10 mobs at once with Thief, and we can pick apart the various mistakes you make in the process, repeating until you’re able to succeed. It’ll be both fun and educational for everyone involved.

Funnily enough, I have actually done this vs. Dredge in the lower-level Fractals to carry a bad group of PUGs. Blinds would have been no good (obviously), so SoM-tanking with backflips and Stability saved the day.

u claimed thief was easier. its on you.

Maugetarr.6823:

One thing that you can do well is finish players with the thief. Have your group call target on whatever they need disabled/distracted/dead and it becomes your job to get it done. One thing though is that there is such a thing as too much survivability on the thief. If you don’t do enough damage, you can’t push people onto the defensive mode which you then take advantage of. A lack of pressure can get you killed just as much as a lack of defense.

Thief is a great class to start with even though it lacks some of the group utility of other classes because you’ll have to learn when/what to dodge and when you do make an alt, you’ll know how to deal with thieves.

Glhf.

should clarify this. thief can finish in small scale combat only. large scale = death.

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

say it thief can handle 10 mobs as easily as guardian. ill wait.

Handle as easily and probably even kill them faster. D/D condition thieves in open world PvE are pretty silly, with all the bleed/stealth/evasion available. I realize that doesn’t jive with your idea of D/D as backstab-only, but such is reality.

u show me a thief doing 10 mobs same time….. without using a corner to group them. ill show u a guard doing the same ones easy and so much faster. itll be embarassing.

id be careful with unload. id increase the speed and add a lil small bonus on it. unload plus SoM is a really nice thing. i pair these 2 with ricochet and i have an amazing time in fractals. its prolly the best build in my opinion. 8-10k per 1st target and thousands extrafor ricochet dmg for nearbye targets which means hugeheals for thief. unload is the one skill that does decent dmg. although a bit slow. ricochet works nicely with head shot too. can stun up to 4 people. dont 4get to keep traits in mind. nice suggestions otherwise.

Interceptor.2653:

Auesis.7301:

I think you should probably not emphasise a mistype. I’ve done that a few times even with 5k hours on my Thief. These things happen. People are human.

Don’t rag on him too much for it; he’s wrong, and thus doesn’t have much else to do except mock a midnight mis-type from someone who’s been in Elementalist mode all day. Grenth forbid that he admit that D/D Thieves can handle packs of mobs easily.

say it thief can handle 10 mobs as easily as guardian. ill wait.

Emi.4152:

Nema Tode.5637:

*D/D on the other hand can also easily win against D/P by simply being patient. Most likely any user of D/P will at some point use heartseeker to stealth, and that is the D/D user’s window. The D/D user can simply CnD when the D/Per heartseeks, and it will hit them as long as the D/Per was locked onto the D/D user. In a less likely case though, the D/P user might detarget the opponent to heartseek, sacrificing the damage of the heartseeker in return for safety and/or chaining. If that happens, then the D/D user just needs to predict the movements of the D/Per. A D/Per will always try to backstab the opponent, and in most cases as quickly as possible. That being said, it is more than likely that the said D/Per will located behind the D/D user, so he/she can just CnD behind themselves.

D/D thief here! i have a question… how do you handle the projectile blind from black powder? if you cnd right after they heartseeker stealth towards you (if they target you) your cnd will miss due to the projectile blind no?

Personally i’ve always had problems with D/P thieves, especially the semi tanky ones. If you get hit by the ranged blind you would have to auto attack them once to get rid of the blind and then cnding right after… which is abit of a challenge while they are in stealth. Are there alternatives other than to outplay them into the ground?

Please don’t say something like “just dodge the bullet!”. The best way i’ve found so far is to burst them into silliness before they can even black power but that only works against the glassy ones. Otherwise i find myself burning my utility stealths and HiS shortly after they stealth and try to BS them that way but that involves two silly thieves in stealth wildly trying to whack each other… :x

-Emi

u can auto attack if u project where theyland and u will see blind drop. then dodge forward and immediately turn with CND> …. lands most of the time as they are chasing u for backstab…. they only have a couple of seconds so if u dodge roll forward after AA’ing then you creat more gap of him behind you.

also if u see a thief stop….. SR or BPS is coming. Sleight of hand is your best friend here. learn it well.

Auesis.7301:

Travlane.5948:

Interceptor.2653:

^ Death Blossom and Cantrips with Signet of Malice. Give us a difficult one.

caltrops* i think u mean. play thief much? or is that some kind of sarcasm i havent heard yet?

anyway no that wont do it. maybe against 10 hammer risen that attack every 4s each. but u get 2 of each. 2 necro 2 ele 2 thief 2 hammer etc etc you will be taking too much dmg.

and nobody runs SOM with dagger/dagger unless they are putting a whole build around it. d/d is 98% of the time run for burst/spike dmg.

so after you waste 4-5 death blossoms then what? how will u finish the few you actually hit? and then how would u do the first hits on the other 5 or 6 u havent touched yet? did you plan on using scorp wire on all 10 and bringing them in like a GS guardian skill 5 binding blade? nah that would take about 110seconds exactly if u were quick quick quick.

so basically the example u gave was interesting but no. even if it DID work….guardian would have used 0 utils. well maybe 1? and only weapon attacks with no heal. thief would have to use EVERYTHING including dodges, evades, 7-8x as many attacks, lots of heal, and take about 2-3x longer bc he cant group them up.

interesting tho that you think a thief can do it as easily as a guard. id ask u to make a video but nobody on here ever does. ill make one but not until somebody else backs up what they say.

maybe they will learn how to combo with CANTRIPS ;0

I think you should probably not emphasise a mistype. I’ve done that a few times even with 5k hours on my Thief. These things happen. People are human.

May I ask, do you even have or play a Guardian to any serious extent, and how often do you think outside the box?

For one thing, Guardians are not all-powerful gods that can afk every encounter and put down amazing DPS in the process like you seem to think. Perhaps you’ve been WvWing against Cleric Guardians too much, but those guys are going absolutely nowhere against mobs any time soon.

Second, you do not need an AoE pull to stack some mobs together. You can just walk around a piece of terrain and et voila, everything has now ventured in to one place. Lower DPS than a Guardian just because of a lack of AoE pulling is absolute nonsense and you know it. At least, I hope so. Heck, you don’t even need terrain, you can just utilise positioning to manipulate chasing mobs such that they are closer together.

Sometimes, if I’m not running full Berserker 25/30/0/0/15 in PvE, I will have accidentally carried over my WvW build after forgetting to change it, which has full Shadow Arts investment. This alone is more than enough to annihilate packs of Risen without any problems at all. SoM condition builds aren’t even necessary.

Thief is one of the better classes for PvE. If you play it right, it’s easily one of the most survivable while also being insanely deadly. People need to stop looking at Soldier classes and screaming DEY DO EVERYTIN BETUR AMG.

On topic, I don’t think BP is necessarily overpowered. It’s only amazingly effective against D/D Thieves because Cloak and Dagger is the bread and butter of how they play and large amount of Blind heavily detriments that playstyle.

95% is on my thief. prolly 350-400 hours on guardian. well enough but not a master by any means. i can tpvp with him very well but i wouldnt call my guard for a 1v1 battle as im not THAT amazing w/ him.

point isnt that guards are gods. point is u dont have to play one well to get by. u can press 1. go take a bio break. come back and the veteran will be dead. lol. many other class can do this too…. maybe not to that extent but still. and its only PVE so its not like theay re that easy in WVW/PVP although still MUCH easier than a thief. point is a thief has less room to wiggle. guard can afford 7 or so more mistakes if not alot more in a fight than a thief without having been downed for it. THAT was the point. not that they are gods are going to win every even fight….but they dont have to really try to do well/survive where as a thief has to at all times. which makes thief harder to play and also easier to make look like a horrible class and people say No ty i dont want any thieves in this experienced dungeon/fractals speed run. thats what i meant. ive seen people say cantrips before and this player too so :P not a 1 time thing. wasnt a mistype. caltrips. cantrops. those are :P peace out guys

panicbutton.1053:

d/d is viable in pve… not quite the same for wvw/pvp though.

I always liked watching Mandrakes videos when it came to death blossom and soloing champions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7dtZGnlMdE

true true. dont even have to see the vid. but its a condi build right. over 1 year of playing ive NEVER seen a d/d condi build in dungeon or organized play. only open pve.

Interceptor.2653:

^ Death Blossom and Cantrips with Signet of Malice. Give us a difficult one.

caltrops* i think u mean. play thief much? or is that some kind of sarcasm i havent heard yet?

anyway no that wont do it. maybe against 10 hammer risen that attack every 4s each. but u get 2 of each. 2 necro 2 ele 2 thief 2 hammer etc etc you will be taking too much dmg.

and nobody runs SOM with dagger/dagger unless they are putting a whole build around it. d/d is 98% of the time run for burst/spike dmg.

so after you waste 4-5 death blossoms then what? how will u finish the few you actually hit? and then how would u do the first hits on the other 5 or 6 u havent touched yet? did you plan on using scorp wire on all 10 and bringing them in like a GS guardian skill 5 binding blade? nah that would take about 110seconds exactly if u were quick quick quick.

so basically the example u gave was interesting but no. even if it DID work….guardian would have used 0 utils. well maybe 1? and only weapon attacks with no heal. thief would have to use EVERYTHING including dodges, evades, 7-8x as many attacks, lots of heal, and take about 2-3x longer bc he cant group them up.

interesting tho that you think a thief can do it as easily as a guard. id ask u to make a video but nobody on here ever does. ill make one but not until somebody else backs up what they say.

BPS is fine the way it is. people need to stick to PVE if they cant handle it. i always suggest to people to play thief. just make one to lvl 80…. and quit it. even delete it. atleast then they know what to expect how to play and counterplay etc.

maybe they will learn how to combo with CANTRIPS ;0

Spyder.9713:

and yes I get 15k consistently on my thief running 10/30/30/0/0 and I cant remember the last time I died in a dungeon run and I am always in the top of the damage charts, don’t get me wrong I agree with u that bad thieves give us a bad name not just in grp settings but period, it is because its the glimmer class that any noob thinks they can just roll and dominate with till they realize it requires a lot more tactics and thinking they bargained for, I have always played assassin/ thief since paper d&d and yes im that old lol, my reason is because I find them one of the more difficult classes to play, most of the time as an assassin u are alone that is the life of an assassin, unlike other classes where u are almost always in a party unless u are asking to die lol so that being said as a thief u have to use ur brain because if u screw up u usually don’t have the buddies to come running to ur rescue… I just saying that it isn’t builds that ruin us, its the person sitting in front of the monitor, d/d works fine in dungeons if you know how to play, yes it isn’t ideal for every situation but that is why they have weapon swaps, some areas yes I switch to my short bow to aoe support the grp but I do just as much damage when im hitting 5-6k on cluster bombs on multiple target and not to mention the aoe poison/weakness if u know how to use combo fields…

maybe u mean AC? or something? mediocre lvl? try lvl 50 fractals? tpvp? i like how u pick out the corniest of the examples and say you 15k backstab. again even in pve thats rare. like i said ive hit 62.4k and its rare. if u play all modes equally between fractals/dungeons/wvw/tpvp/spvp you will only break 10k backstabs about 1-2% of the time u try. im sure you only play low lvl trash….but in higher lvl dungeons u are not doing that. perhaps you run with p/d off hand to build up 25 stacks of vulnerability and 25 might from 2 guards and 25 bloodlust you farmed to make it look cool on your screen lol. either way. even if u hit 25k backstabs. ur still not outdamaging sword. excluding bosses. even bosses tho its close.

again try to look past the d/d vs s/p thing . IT WAS A KITTEN EXAMPLE! that means not the main point. wow. tunnel vision cmon. its about being as productive as you can be or as productive as other classes in 1 of 5 team spots.

@ clumsy…. again…ill say it a 3rd or 4th time. half the problem is anet. the way they built thief. they just down alot bc they cant afford a mistake. not only that certain builds wont produce like another class can or other thief builds. and you cant deny the “no thieves plz” groups. they are out there. even the ones that dont say it usually kick you before you even ping your gear or build. has nothing to do with personal relations. its a thief thing. so u can disagree with me bc u like to disagree with me. and thats just bc ur a top 4 in here already…. yes u know. but you always do that without anyfacts or suggestions. why do u think parties do that? in lvl 49 (nobody runs 50s due to bug … yes bug.) i am usually the last person standing during party wipes and always actively attacking as i dont run stealth in my build. so its not like thief cant be productive. they can be a neccessity if played right yet….people kick them in 2 secs of entering a party…even a party which only has 2 people in it already.

bps is best in pve…. but its totally fair. if u dont think its fair go take 10 risen mobs at same time with guardian. then take on 10 with d/d thief. tell me how much fun you have bye

Woaden.9425:

Dee Jay.2460:

Black Powder also hard-counters pretty much all Thief builds that rely on Cloak and Dagger if you don’t allow them to cloak of NPCs or critters. I know there are a few tricks to get past Black Powder but they require immaculate timing and cooldowns.

Travlane.5948:

so CND does like 5x more dmg atleast and costs 50% less init. yet you say BPS bypasses the need for CND even tho CND is not a prereq to enter stealth.

Trav I believe what he is saying is that in a thief vs thief fight, Black Powder counters the ability for the opposing thief to C&D.

it doesnt. unless its a new thief.

NinjaEd.3946:

Cynz.9437:

NinjaEd.3946:

Why give a profession undeniable pathetic condition effects and say all classes can fill the same roles.

Can a guardian tank a boss? Yes by taking and recovering damage as well as blocking.

Can a thief tank a boss? Yes, by evasion and blind.

Do they achieve the same goal? Yes but by different means.

Now put thief in your equation and tell me what you see. That’s the problem I have.

actually thief can’t tank a boss due to 10% effectivety of blind and you can evade so much

If they have feline grace + d/x they can evade all the time on bosses. They hit rather slow and are easily spotted.

u get 20% endurance back every dodge. that = evading all the time? yyyyyyyyyyah. idk about that.

also… you say it hard counters the need to enter stealth with CND?

CND is NOT…thats right its NOT a pre requisite to enter stealth.

lets take a look.

CND
6 init
good dmg
vulnerabilty
enter stealth 3 secs

BPS + HS
6 init + 3 init = 9 init
3 secs of blind field
Few hundred dmg (BPS)
HS usually misses but only hits 1k maybe (not using this combo when opp HP low)

so CND does like 5x more dmg atleast and costs 50% less init. yet you say BPS bypasses the need for CND even tho CND is not a prereq to enter stealth.

stealth is entered in a few diff ways.

1) utility
2) CND
3)trait
4)Blind field + blast finisher/leap finisher

see how CND is only 1 of those? its not the main one or base mechanic.

well tell me this. is there ANY other way you can go melee without dodging every second to stay alive? mm?

guardian can sit there in PVE and take on 7-8 enemys with just auto attack alone and neverhave to hit a heal button. thief can only do that with 1 enemy at a time.

are you SUUUUUUUUUUURE black powder shot is OP? really?!

" you are NOT the main hero in PVP"

i never thought of putting it like that.

well played.

this truly SHOULD hit most of the QQers pretty hard. . . even tho they will shirk it off or pretend it doesnt apply to them.

Spyder.9713:

lol love it u can only back stab a boss for 6k?? hahaha I get 15 on full valk gear and no stacks of blood lust

actually i have a video of backstabbing for over 62k on a warrior.

anyway since we are done bragging and chest thumping…plz re read. i said the average backstab is around 6k. that means NOT running 25 30 0 0 15 bc its not really goign to survive in many dungeons. see thats the typical thinking im talking about in bad thieves. ooh ugh ahghooogah! me hit big number. rawrgruh! lol cmon its about total dmg and sustained dmg at same time. cant do that with d/d. set up stealth… backstab for 10k 6k or 12k whatever….then try again in 5-7 seconds “if” u havent been using init for anyting other than CND BS CND BS. you are not helping a group running a dungeon fractal etc going d/d. you can be replaced by a ranger that would outproduced d/d just with spirits alone. production = helping the group thru dmg, healing, buffs, conditions, skip trash, etc etc. the only thing d/d can do is dmg. period. cant even sustain hiself.

anyway my OP wasnt about dagger vs sword. its about brining appropriate builds/gear for each need. we are so fragile that we need to bring what is exactly correct or it really shows. if a guardian brings clerics or brings soldiers armor….ur not ever going to notice the difference on yoru character unless u see the enemies hp going a lil faster or slower. even that is barely noticeable if at all. with at thief its immediately apparent tho. hence why appropriation is of immense importance.

plz people on this thread. take off tunnel vision. look at the picture im trying to paint. Thief hate. trying to stop some of it by asking thieves to bring the right buidls for the job.

Interceptor.2653:

Please. The people who kick Thieves out of their parties, are probably not the same people who will understand the nuances of Thief damage. You’re ranting at the wrong people for the wrong reason.

i said half the reason is bad builds…the other half is anet. is that not appropriate? i think it is.

and you are right about other people not understanding. but when they see…

thief downed thief downed thief downed

or

we went with 2 thieves in this speed run rather than 2 warriors and its taking somuch longer…i dont get it. must be the thieves.

generally they are right about these situation. d/d has no survival and only good dmg when group is on a boss. im not saying not bring it…all im saying is have a stack weapon ready too.

crafting with craft booster

or

map completions

long range is way overlooked too. i bring it 75% of the time i put points into trickery. gets me out of tight spots. helps me run past things. ooc. and gap close in pvp/wvw while giving me a total suprised enemy that wasnt ready for 1500 range gap closer to melee range and LOTs of quick dmg. its soo good right now in pvp/wvw etc bc nobody runs it so nobody is ready for that 1500 instant gap closer.

the whole point of this thread was to make thieves bring appropriate weaponsets and builds to missions, dungeons, fractals, zergs, wvw, tpvp, spvp and etc etc. we are so pidgeonholed that when we dont have much wiggle room and when we dont produce like other classes we get branded. I, and WE for that matter, am/are sick of seeing “no thieves” groups and “heavies only” which usually means non thief/ranger more often than not. in reality a good thief (usually 1 atleast) makes a group run faster and smoother in most dungeons as you can skip trash mobs and perma blind the harder annoying types…or scorp pulling…. or soloing hard parts and etc. be that as it may thieves are usually shunned from high lvl / functioning groups.

TheGuy.3568:

Travlane.5948:

TheGuy.3568:

Swimfan.8014:

TheGuy.3568:

The only time i think DD isn’t good in a dungeon is when you are forced to stack and cant position yourself behind the boss. As far as trash goes S/P is better but SB its even better then that. Honestly just bring what you need. In most cases DD is fine, and truly if you get the perfect storm of might and vulnerability with a zerk build you will be near the top of the boards.

How do you effectivly build up might as a thief? I mean is there a combo-field or are you stacking by traits?

No when in organized party play the might get stacked for you essentially though we can easily contribute with a shortbow. What i mean was when you get 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vulnerability our DPS spikes with A DD build. The thing to remember is that in group play you are a group. getting supported with might stacks pushes our dps and the parties clear time. You do not need to stack it yourself you just need a competent group to do it for you.

d/d entire build will never ever outdmg a s/p build unless its a boss. period. auto attack only on sword beats entire d/d build. :P

thief BS is 5-6500 on average. can go higher maybe 8k if u have a decent d/d build /armor . if u are any higher ur gonna die…alot. even if its 10-12k its stillno comparison. even with 6k HS .

thief sword attack is like 2800 2800 4800 and repeats. so in a stack in a dungeon it goes 8400 8400 14400. even if you HS 3x in the same amount of time…u would be nowhere close to the dmg. 31,200 dmg from sword in 3 seconds. that would be 3 heartseekers at 10,400 dmg each. and less of a chance for rally revive.

even if u dont count multiple targets. single target dmg is only a bit more on d/d.

then u consider defense and utility for party…dagger brings nothing. its a boss weapon and farming weapon only when ur solo.

LTR

TheGuy.3568:
The only time i think DD isn’t good in a dungeon is when you are forced to stack and cant position yourself behind the boss. As far as trash goes S/P is better but SB its even better then that. Honestly just bring what you need. In most cases DD is fine, and truly if you get the perfect storm of might and vulnerability with a zerk build you will be near the top of the boards.

most of dungeons u are facing multiple enemies. and they are usually clumped up. and yes i thought i read IS good but it says ISNT good. i misread it.

99% of dungeons is "trash"mobs. there are only usually 2-3 bosses and semi bosses in each path/map.

d/d is a single target set. rarely do you fight single targets. the dmg is only about 30% of the problem, even as big of a gap as there is from sword over dagger….. its utility that it brings to group too. dagger brings none.

DeceiverX.8361:

Hence why I mentioned permastealth. The out-of-stealth attack is effectively a hasted unload in itself and applies bleeding.

It’s not so much particularly overpowered damage-wise as it is simply difficult to deal with. They force torment on you and apply constant pressure from movement and stealth with high attack rate and overall extremely solid condition application.

As I said, it’s not so much an issue with the build or class as it is sigil of torment leading to just a little bit too much condition application in the form of torment, for running away becomes dangerous and tricky as they can apply ranged pressure, and running towards them is often hopeless due to the ease of combined dodges, blinds, and applications of stealth.

Like I said, I could see complaints about decent players running that build. I’m not calling it OP or totally unfair as simply the understanding of its annoyance factor. Otherwise, I don’t see why anyone should be complaining about thieves.

so we should nerf mesmers too then. since they hide while stealthed and deal torment/confusion/bleeding/poison AND burning. all while stealthed and no reveal. :P doubt that sigil is a problem when mesmers do that. focus on mesmers and if they get nerfed then come back to sigil.

Clumsy.6257:

How are yall coming up with such ridiculously low backstab numbers? It can hit for over 40k -.-

with ambient creature.

or when target is naked with 25 stacks of vulnerability and u packing 25 bloodlust and 25 might with a signet build while using 10% night sigil and 30 30 0 0 10 setup and scholar runes etc etc so on and so forth.

i can PW for 40k too if u count perfect conditions or noob targets.

TheGuy.3568:

Swimfan.8014:

TheGuy.3568:

The only time i think DD isn’t good in a dungeon is when you are forced to stack and cant position yourself behind the boss. As far as trash goes S/P is better but SB its even better then that. Honestly just bring what you need. In most cases DD is fine, and truly if you get the perfect storm of might and vulnerability with a zerk build you will be near the top of the boards.

How do you effectivly build up might as a thief? I mean is there a combo-field or are you stacking by traits?

No when in organized party play the might get stacked for you essentially though we can easily contribute with a shortbow. What i mean was when you get 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vulnerability our DPS spikes with A DD build. The thing to remember is that in group play you are a group. getting supported with might stacks pushes our dps and the parties clear time. You do not need to stack it yourself you just need a competent group to do it for you.

d/d entire build will never ever outdmg a s/p build unless its a boss. period. auto attack only on sword beats entire d/d build. :P

thief BS is 5-6500 on average. can go higher maybe 8k if u have a decent d/d build /armor . if u are any higher ur gonna die…alot. even if its 10-12k its stillno comparison. even with 6k HS .

thief sword attack is like 2800 2800 4800 and repeats. so in a stack in a dungeon it goes 8400 8400 14400. even if you HS 3x in the same amount of time…u would be nowhere close to the dmg. 31,200 dmg from sword in 3 seconds. that would be 3 heartseekers at 10,400 dmg each. and less of a chance for rally revive.

even if u dont count multiple targets. single target dmg is only a bit more on d/d.

then u consider defense and utility for party…dagger brings nothing. its a boss weapon and farming weapon only when ur solo.

Mixchimmer.7230:

Travlane.5948:

its pretty obvious why its bad. and yes its ok to bring out d/d for solo bosses. thats never an issue.

I don’t particularly agree on a few points you’ve made.

Dagger Backstabs can go as high as 15k if you’re full Zerker spec’ed and you get the perfect storm of might/vuln. Throw in a 7k C&D crit and that’s a lot of damage — especially especially repeated every 3 seconds indefinitely. I have no idea where this “2% of the groups damage” idea comes from. I would wager if there was some sort of DPS meter — in most situations D/D thieves would be close to the top.

I don’t have any hard numbers on sword, but I know the last hit in the chain can go up to 6 or 7k (maybe higher) if you’re spec’d properly and also get proper might/vuln. So it does do decent damage, but D/D doesn’t just out-do it in single target DPS — it demolishes it in single target DPS. Also note-worthy, is the full auto-attack chain for Dagger takes less time to complete than the Sword chain.

It certainly has its merits, and you definitely bring up a good point with the cleave. My personal preference is much more for D/D for single target DPS and SB for AoE damage though. The cleave requires mobs to be somewhat close to eachother and has a 3 target max where SB has a 5 target max (with clusterbomb) and a bigger AoE range. I would argue too that clusterbomb spam provides more DPS than the sword auto — it’s not sustainable, but most stuff dies by the time you run out of initiative anyways, so it’s almost always a non-issue.

You also mention there’s no ability that adds to your survivability. I personally find that this is just blatantly false. Well timed C&D’s to drop aggro or to chain stealth off of mobs helps a lot. Wild strike — the second strike in Dagger’s chain — adds 10 endurance. Might not seem like much but that 10 endurance makes a huge difference if you know the right time to dodge as you’re really able to keep your endurance up. Also — if you’re really good with timing, Death Blossom can be used as an emergency evade.

So the way I see it — SB is superior for AoE, and D/D is very superior for single target DPS — so if you’re going for the best DPS / fastest clears, D/D and SB are the way to go. Again, I don’t have numbers on this — this is just my opinion and the logic behind it.

I used S/D at launch for the longest time with a daze/AoE blind spam build and it was a lot of fun. I even switched to a more DPS-ey S/D build. Once I made the switch to D/D — I realized how significantly faster everything died, both in the groups I was in and in solo and I just couldn’t resist. And please don’t say I made the switch because I was doing S/D wrong or something like that. These discussions around balance and meta can get heated sometimes and that’s not my intent — and replies like that are simply not constructive.

At any rate — that’s my take on it.

only gonna respond with 3 thigns here.

sword pistol =

1) long evade
2) condi removal
3) best defense with AOE perma blind
4) 1 swing of sword = more than any backstab can do ( multiple enemies etc)
5) stuns 2 diff skills
6)immobs target + weakness + blinds + cripples + daze (tactical strike)
7) burst skill 6-12k easy dpeending on armor/build

Dagger Dagger = (ps nobody runs full zerk with this…10.8k hp is death with no def)

1) no defense
2) adds bleeds + poison + cripple + vulnerability
3) 5-6500 backstabs and almsot same with HS if under 25% hp. ONE TARGET.

aside from the obvious lopsided abilitys in the pros list above….. cons can be done but nto important yet. d/d cannot sit there in a stack and do dmg. it has to dodge and heal and reset and ect etc etc. s/p sits in there and just digsin and keeps dmging. its uncommon to slightyly occaisonal that they have to back out and heal. the sword set will sit there and keep dmging where the dagger needs breaks every few secs.

single target dmg goes to dagger. total dmg goes to sword. so if ur not on a boss….in a dungeon its not a good idea to run dagger. i mean if ur just a casual party lolligagging thru the path then yeah run whatever. if its organized and expreienced and lvl 80s ….then u should act like it. MOST groups that run pro/speed/experienced/zerk would not like to see dagger thieves as main hand. offhand its ok but then again bow is best offhand in my opinion but thats another thing.

either way the true point is do whats best for the group. dont just say…seeing a big number on ONE target looks cool even tho its not really productive. so many groups say “no thieves plz”. its horrendous.

half the problem is the way most ofthem play. the other half is anet …the way they set us up.

p/p condi isnt that bad. u get hit with the first pistol shot then dodge the rest and they are out of everythign and defensless. boom dead. gg.

DeceiverX.8361:

I don’t understand why D/D is “bad” in dungeons.

I don’t recall ever not killing a trash mob in more than two hits, or needing that spike for elites.

I don’t recall ever fighting in a party where I haven’t definitively dealt the most damage or downed overly-frequently (aside from other thieves)

I think you’re mistaking D/D with heartspam noobs, which also includes D/P. In which case you should simply give people real advice and tell them not to bother with HS spamming if the mob is over 25% health.

Actually, real advice is to tell people never to HS spam for DPS. You can achieve better numbers with other weapon sets and different builds, or simply just autoing from behind maximizing stabs, and conserving initiative is critical for survival, seeing as one should require an instant fight reset (stealth) if they’re actually doing real damage to the point where they are the top damage dealer in the party, thus increasing aggro threat.

The only support thief I know is venomshare or x/d blind spam. Otherwise, you’re not doing much support work. To declare D/D as not being useful for a party is saying anyone not building support isn’t being useful. Frankly, I think the ability to clear non-elite trash within one second, and supplying over 40% of the overall damage dealt to a given boss alone is quite beneficial for a lot of groups, especially when dungeoning, for so many people demand speed runs.

I think you’re blaming a weapon set as an excuse for either being called useless as d/d by some other people, or seeing a bad d/d thief. I’ve never been declined a party because someone assumed I would HS spam trash mobs lol. The only time I’ve been denied was joining/filling AC when there was no ele.

1) dagger maxes out around 6500 in a dungeon with backstab. sword does 6-12k to ALL enemies. with its swing.

2) dagger has no defensive utility. pistol has blackpowder shot and sword has a long evade.

3)dagger has no way of keeping you alive with a nice heal when attacking like sword or pistol canpaired with SOM.

4) when a thief uses dagger in a stack and a bunch of enemies come closing in…. its basically a 4 man team and the thief does about 2% of the total group dmg rather than its share around 20%+.

its pretty obvious why its bad. and yes its ok to bring out d/d for solo bosses. thats never an issue.

Cynz.9437:

Travlane.5948:

many thieves out there give us bad names. im talking about group play.

there are many dos/donts of team play. make sure your build is appropriate for team play when u are doing a guild run, dungeon, or wvw and tpvp.

for instance. d/d is not good for fractals and dungeons. if u wanna slip them on for a boss sure thats cool. dont stack with a group on a corner/pill are start heartseekering etc. we thieves have enough of a hard time getting groups without this happening. a small part of this problem lies on anet for how they build us and mostly the players for choosing silly builds that dont help.

most important of all:

if a group says Exp/PRO and zerk only lvl 80s full gear ping SPEED run etc etc. . . dont lie or fake or say whatever ill do what i want. its rude to the group makers. ty.

d/d is actually pretty good on some bosses, like bloomhunger for instance or entire cof p1/p2/p3

i have yet to see a thief spamming heartseeker when pulled a mob to the corner

latest problem is not thief issue, but player mentality

:) plz read or re read.

i said d/d is bad in dungeons. unless u wanna whip it out for bosses which is ok.

i said dont give thieves a bad name. this means that its the player not the class.

:P

Incurafy.6329:

Splatter Paw.7238:

If i recall shortbow was NEVER nerfed so i dont know how we would nerf it “more”. Second why should it be nerfed? Cause some people abuse its evade? Other class’s can maintain 100% vigor without trying and dodge to there happiest desires and its a issue that was can spam a backward evade 3 maybe 4 times (at what point were out of ini and sitting ducks) So i disagree, besides haven’t we eatin the bat of nerfs enough the last 6 months?

Trickshot is no longer heatseeking and clusterbomb damage was reduced and it’s range was reduced to 900 from 1200.

MAJOR nerfs on a VERY mediocre weapon. it was balanced. mediocre dmg. mediocre flight speed. high dmg on cluster 4500-5k but 2-4 sec flight time. skills 3 4 5 have no dmg or extremely low dmg but offer cripple/evade/poison/blind. not a very flashy weapon but gives utitlity options in combat. gap creater, poison field, gap closer, CC with cripple and bleeds.

its best thing was heat seeking auto and 1200 range. losing both of those almost make SB not worth taking at all. if dagger or pistol or sword were betting in zergs(problem isthief not being able to get in melee range while so many aoe/people around) then SB would never be used ever.

the point is….. this….

Most QQer asking for nerfs against thieves say we get too much utility in a skill or too much stealth or too much this or that. but in reality … if we dont play PERFECT we die. we cant afford mistakes. our ONLY safety net is shadow refuge and its not guaranteed. we still take dmg . we can be pushed out orkilled…. etc etc.

BUT classes like warrior/guardian/ele etc etc….they proc protection and aegis and defy pain and invul and 5 secs of blocks at a time….ON TOP OF all this defense that is passive like high hp high defense high toughness ….. 25% hp no bleeds 75% hp proc protection etc. etc .etc.

there is no way….(granted the 2 thieves were good) they should have lost that 2v1. even when it was 2v2 the 2 theives were 100% hp and a lil low on init but 1 of the heavies were at under 25%….. ONE of the heavies should have died even if the thieves lost. but with allthat passive defense and help anet gives them….they make up for bad play by anets gifts.

many thieves out there give us bad names. im talking about group play.

there are many dos/donts of team play. make sure your build is appropriate for team play when u are doing a guild run, dungeon, or wvw and tpvp.

for instance. d/d is not good for fractals and dungeons. if u wanna slip them on for a boss sure thats cool. dont stack with a group on a corner/pill are start heartseekering etc. we thieves have enough of a hard time getting groups without this happening. a small part of this problem lies on anet for how they build us and mostly the players for choosing silly builds that dont help.

most important of all:

if a group says Exp/PRO and zerk only lvl 80s full gear ping SPEED run etc etc. . . dont lie or fake or say whatever ill do what i want. its rude to the group makers. ty.

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

Zero Day.2594:

frans.8092:

Niels.5396:

… it pains me to see people playing thief that evade endlessly. …

What are they doing when they are evading?

they’re evading his attacks… duh… preventing him from getting a kill !

thief cant do dmg while evading tho…. not sure how the advantage is so good its “OP”. its like stealth.

funny how nobody has ever complained about SB 3 or evades since day 1 beta….yet finally that stealth perma is nerfed…its onto the next thing.

The key thing here is: preventing him from getting a kill. That’s the issue…

what do you mean? you think it should be a nerf? or youthink he is just whining L2P issue?

L2P mainly.

(Can’t say more because I might get an infraction. It’s not directed at OP either, more like QQ in general…)

i agree. if u look at other classes. how many times can they pop aegis? block? invuln? almost full protection uptime?

could u imagine if thief had full protection uptime? non thieves are crippled by anet bc they go thru the game just taking on 5-8 mobs at the sametime and never have to press evade or heal. then they have it innately ingrained into their minds and wonder why thieves SEEM so OP. its bc they never have to evade.

dungeons. Fractals. PVE. farming. and about 95% of the time you are in wvw….many classes never have to really worry about their HP. that is the true problem.

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

Zero Day.2594:

frans.8092:

Niels.5396:

… it pains me to see people playing thief that evade endlessly. …

What are they doing when they are evading?

they’re evading his attacks… duh… preventing him from getting a kill !

thief cant do dmg while evading tho…. not sure how the advantage is so good its “OP”. its like stealth.

funny how nobody has ever complained about SB 3 or evades since day 1 beta….yet finally that stealth perma is nerfed…its onto the next thing.

The key thing here is: preventing him from getting a kill. That’s the issue…

what do you mean? you think it should be a nerf? or youthink he is just whining L2P issue?

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

eww no. u forget…just like i said above. stealth cannot be changed til our base HP is moved up and some more defensive boons are added. without stealth…we need those. period. and i consider 10 sec revealed having no stealth.

Yeah, essentially, he’s manipulating stealth so we don’t depend on it… but he’s leaving all of what you mentioned out…

And if and when those things do get addressed, stealth will take a nerf most likely.

without changing anything as far as a nerf is conscerned ….we should be in middle HP range not bottom. that alone would make us more balanced and atleast let us play in zergs a LITTLE bit…not even a lot. we die in 2-3 secs right now…another 3500 hp is basically giving us 1 more hit. not too powerful but enough to give us time to do somethign in a zerg/group/guild etc. would be ncie to be able to play in large groups and actually be productive…. not just 1 1 1 1 with sb and occaisonal 4 etc.

Zero Day.2594:

frans.8092:

Niels.5396:

… it pains me to see people playing thief that evade endlessly. …

What are they doing when they are evading?

they’re evading his attacks… duh… preventing him from getting a kill !

thief cant do dmg while evading tho…. not sure how the advantage is so good its “OP”. its like stealth.

funny how nobody has ever complained about SB 3 or evades since day 1 beta….yet finally that stealth perma is nerfed…its onto the next thing.

Cynz.9437:

Travlane.5948:

where is this coming from all the sudden. it feels like people just wanna QQ about thief. not ONCE have i read one complaint about this since beta. now theres 2 posts in a row. cmon .

it is because anet keeps nerfing the class and after dec 10 many rerolled something else

so very few that still play thief are usually pretty decent at their class and can easily beat average joe with his eternity… it is pretty common that people rather assume that something is broken than admit that they simply need to l2p

kitten kitten i beat those hardcore lv 50 fractal bosses, i finished all arah pathes!!! how dare this thief not fight toe to toe like true man and not die to my heroic hands!

even on wvw forums there were posts where they called thief class dishonorable… just /facepalm

eww no. u forget…just like i said above. stealth cannot be changed til our base HP is moved up and some more defensive boons are added. without stealth…we need those. period. and i consider 10 sec revealed having no stealth.

@OP….. you have no idea how thieves work.

thieves die in 2-3 secs MAX if caught in any cc. yet you are proposing 10 sec revealed. nice. totally gonna work. (sarcasm)

Spyder.9713:

another place where anet messed up, armor… armor types should affect endurance after all that is why a thief wears leather armor so they can b more mobile?? yet a heavy armor class can have just as much mobility (if not more), dodginess and still benefit from the protection heavy armor provides, they need to make it more costly for heavies to dodge/move around

only thing we have more than guardians is feline grace. lol…. that said…. overall they have more vigor…..so we end up with slightly more after all is said and done with endurance. sickening but anet doesnt play thief