If, for instance, thieves got access to shield or focus that had #4/5 skills and used the empty-hand skills for #3, I’d be all over trying to tune up the empty-hand skills to make them viable.
EinzelgangerA bunch of stuff
In conclusion:
1. Power-based damage is really skillful, you know you’re pro when you’re stackin’ that power/prec/critdamage unlike those skill-less condition dudes.
2. Using terrible auto attack bleeds and then not standing there dying like a man is an exploit and is super effective at killing people.
3. Using stealth is an exploit, creating range is an exploit, especially with a ranged weapon.
4. I’ve got no idea what Sneak Attack is.
5. Super rational, super skillful thiefguy here, just helpfully informing you all about the dangers of Vital Shot.
Try looking at Repeater and tell me that it doesn’t need a damage boost. Being a skill that requires no offhand, it really sucks when you factor in all that you lost to be able to use it, and it is not just the final two skills on your bar.
I’m all for trying to tune up all three of the X/empty #3 skills if they implement some way to have offhand stats or even skills with them. If not, they’re not worth the man-hours to try and make viable when they’re only ever going to be used during the first half hour of a new thieves’ life.
Whats the big problem? The relic are only used to buy infusion and a backpack.
They’re also used to buy gifts that are used to upgrade current ascended gear, and will likely be used to upgrade future ascended gear. It is also extremely likely that more ascended gear will be added to the fractal vendors in the future.
I can see why people are hesitant to shell out relics, as they’ll probably be more useful as time goes on.
what i don’t understand is WHY would any1 spend 20g+, 50 skill points to get an additional +5 to a certain stat!? This is the stupidest (if that’s even a word lol) upgrade the whole game has… +5 to a stat LOLOLOLOLOL
Because that is how high-end stat progression works in MMOs.
See: Raiding highest tier content for a tiny stat upgrade.
See: EVE officer modules worth literally thousands of times more than slightly worse stuff.
See: TSW dungeon running dozens of times for a percentage point or two upgrade.
There can only be one “the best thing to put in this slot” for any given situation, and given that there are people running around with thousands of gold and nothing to spend it on, there’s basically no reasonable limit on what people will shell out to max out.
Same goes for “toy” type items that are limited quantity. They might not be worth anything to you, but to someone with maxed-out stats, hundreds of times the wealth you have, and nothing else to spend it on, things literally become priceless.
Dont forget toughness is also very weak, 1000 tougness is only like 30% less damage taken from physical attacks. On the other hand 1000 precision would raise your crit chance from 4% (what I have with full soldier build) to over 50%.
46 % more critical chance = 23 % extra damage~ at base crit damage. So toughness already wins that fight.
unless your a competitive server in the top three tiers whats the point of WvWvW?
I agree, WvW is only worth it if you’re near the top because if you win at tier 1 you get awesome rewards.
Wait, there’s no rewards for anyone winning, regardless of tier?
Oh.
You’d get more consistency and durability by dropping the “spam SoM active” synergy and using Caltrops + Dodge Caltrops to heal thousands of HP against zergs. And get rid of Signet of Shadows.
Your stats say you want to be able to stand and fight, but your signet traits say you want to burn a bunch of signets for a few seconds of might.
You also went really deep Shadow Arts with exactly one way to stealth: Shadow Refuge.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
And cluster bomb is a mediocre ability in open WvW
And in “open WvW”, thieves have the best range manipulation in the game. A new 1200 range weapon is not necessary for WvW. It probably wouldn’t break anything, and would give thieves a lazy option, but it isn’t necessary. What shouldn’t happen, however, is thieves getting a huge damage long-range weapon like the “sniper” rifle that keeps getting clamored for. If a full 1200 range weapon happens for thieves, it is likely to be substantially less effective than the tactics we have now, but easier to use.
Pistol Whip: Pistol whip is easily the strongest skill we have when you take into account both damage per initiative used, overall damage and the fact that it can hit 3 enemies within sword range for full damage.
However it’s clearly outshined on single bosses by sword auto attack which is much safer, simply because it doesn’t root you.
It is outshined in most situations by sword auto attack, since auto does more DPS, is initiative free, and applies conditions. PW, on the other hand, gets stun, evasion, and hit volume (more hits, less overall damage) in return for these downsides.
How can I integrate steal into a Pistol-focused playstyle?
I chose to try Thief because it was one of the only two classes that can use Pistols as a Main Hand Weapon, and I already tried Engineer for a bit.
Run P/D, take stealth-on-steal for free sneak attacks + closers for C&D as soon as revealed wears off.
I’ll give it a shot. Having a lot of fun with Pistol/Pistol thus far. though I hear it is like utterly useless at high levels, or whatever.
Not utterly useless, it could just use some help, as the devs have now acknowledged.
How can I integrate steal into a Pistol-focused playstyle?
I chose to try Thief because it was one of the only two classes that can use Pistols as a Main Hand Weapon, and I already tried Engineer for a bit.
Run P/D, take stealth-on-steal for free sneak attacks + closers for C&D as soon as revealed wears off.
your using haste in PvE? wouldn’t a party helping utility skill like shadow refuge be more useful? It’s BARELY increasing your DPS…
From what I understand, using Haste in a Pistol Whip build is not only for the increase in DPS, but for situational healing via Signet of Malice. You can heal yourself for 1000’s and 1000’s of health in the 4 second duration. Even more if you use lifesteal food, Sigil of Blood, Shadow Refuge … the list goes on and on.
Pretty old thread here, but the main problem I have with spamming PW in this case is the only really synergistic thing the OP took with PW was Signet of Malice. The whole point of PW spam is hit volume giving you a lot more procs, otherwise you might as well use the OP’s suggested synergies (signet synergy, dodge synergy) with auto attack for more DPS/conditions/mobility.
We are looking into this. I actually think P/P has a lot of utility. Blind field, daze, vuln stacking. However damage is a bit low. We are making some headway here in the12/14 build so be patient for one more week.
Jon
Looking forward to it. I think it is important to remember that blind field and daze aren’t P/P utility though, they’re /P utility. The initiative system means that utility-heavy skills aren’t worked into a regular rotation but used completely situationally as an intentional trade of damage for utility. As a result, even if these (pistol offhand) utility skills are good on their own, they don’t make P/P good, they just make it that much more obvious that one should use S/P or D/P over P/P, since both of those sets utilize the pistol off-hand better than P/P does.
In short, the key to fixing P/P is going to be mostly in the first three skills, make Pistol mainhand viable and pistol offhand will follow on its own.
Vuln stacking belongs to the pistol main hand, but, again, the initiative system means the thief is consciously gutting their own DPS output by a large percentage in order to boost groupmates’. In theory, this means if the thief boosts 4 other people’s damage by 15 % then the thief easily makes up for losing 50 % of their damage. In practice, most thieves are well above the group average for damage output, making the sacrifice of personal damage in return for group damage a losing proposition for the group.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Thanx Tulisin, although can you be more specific with high synergized build?
If you’re running 30 Acrobatics and 40 % Might duration from runes while using both power and condition based damage, Might lasts forever and it might be worth dual stacking Might procs. Same with running dual bleed procs if you’ve got a ton of condition damage/duration. Dual life steal procs could be worthwhile on some kind of dedicated HP-leech build with a ton of +Healing. Point is that, while you don’t get the full effect out of using two, some builds work well enough with a given proc to make it worth it anyways.
It also depends on your hit volume and crit rate. If you’re running 70 % crit chance and spamming AEs, you’re going to be on that proc cooldown almost as soon as it comes up, regardless of whether it is 30 % or 51 % chance.
They technically stack proc chance, but they all share cooldowns. If you’re incredibly Might-focused, running two of them will give you a 51 % chance to proc instead of a 30 %, but you’ll still be only able to accrue 1 stack every cooldown. It can be worth it with a highly synergized build, otherwise I recommend 1 proc + something like 5 % damage or 5 % crit chance.
Also the reason you should never pair Sigil of Rage with another proc sigil.
I agree completely with you; however, I’ve seen all but 1 PoI taken by TC over the past week across the borderlands I needed (yaks bend). However, you have to be on at the right time, and if it happens once a week, good luck!
Aside from the fact that you can swap servers if you really want to get those points, bighaben is right. OP would get a lot more sympathy if the server he is on wasn’t consistently taking over large swaths of the map and holding first place for weeks.
Have you ever heard of EVE Online? SOAK tanks have had their place right along-side mitigation in most games.
Ignoring the fact that EVE is an exception to the rule: soak tanking in EVE is either used to give you enough time to escape a fight you don’t really want to be in (EHP stacking on capitals and other stuff), or to bait an enemy into sticking around long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Even in one of the only games you actually see them in, they’re a really poor solution to taking damage over any length of time, especially if someone is burning cap to repair you.
I have asked on here about how to deal with stealth thieves before and all people said was “use AoE”.
They’re wrong, spamming AEs is a decent way to deter a thief, but a terrible way to kill one. Either read their stealth and track/kill them, or accept that if they’re heavily survivability specced and have way more mobility than you it isn’t the stealth that is keeping them alive, it is the fact that you can’t catch them. Thieves can’t retain the ability to effectively defeat (not just occasionally down) multiple people while having heavy mobility/survivability, so they’re either killable or not a big worry.
Remove Mug and replace the trait with making your shortbow 1200 range single target for the 1 ability and cluster bomb. Kill two birds with one stone.
Cluster Bomb is already 1200 range. Maybe people don’t know this?
I feel p/p is fine after extensively using it in pve / wvw / dungeons. The bleed effect on the auto adds good consistent dps (if you consistently keep up the 5 stack) and the range allows for a more reckless glass cannon build. I ran 25/30/0/0/15 putting points in 5% pistol and dual ability damage. Quickness + unload and the fact you arent avoiding mob agro as much makes for a very high sustain damage as well as burst with minimal risk. And with the vulnerabilty 10 stack from body shot and the near perma blind availble due to the combo field you have above average group utility.
I think that depends on your definition of “good consistent DPS”. Vital Shot is the worst DPS of any thief auto attack (sans single-target shortbow) by a good margin, but it lets you stay at a safe range and doesn’t burn any initiative.
Unload isn’t “very high sustain damage”, it is definitely good burst with Quickness, but any ability is good burst with quickness. Body shot is debatable as to what it brings to the group unless you’re running a support-heavy build. So we’re back at P/P being low damage, medium utility (or vice versa, due to initiative reliance), high survivability.
This thread is such propaganda against Thieves.
You wanna criticize the class, the only thing to mention is Heartseeker. And I can understand hating on other things like Steal or Cloak & Dagger, if you’re a bad player/scrub.
But saying they HEAL too much?
You just hit a whole new level of bad.
What the heck are you talking about? This is just an information post about the different ways a Thief can heal … no where did I mention that they heal too much, only that the option to take additional healing methods were possible. There have been posts in the past on these forums, and others from people asking about how to make their thieves more durable, so I compiled some information about different ways we can heal.
That’s not the way you present it, and you know it.
Could’ve fooled me, I don’t see any evidence of complaint in the OP. This thread is no more a “thieves are overpowered!” statement than the thread that breaks down thief skills by damage per initiative. Perhaps you feel that thief heals are overpowered (dunno why anyone would) and are projecting?
Aside from dragon boss fights, 900 vs 1200 range has made absolutely no difference in everything I’ve done so far
And I’d like to point out that you get three or four times the loot on most dragon boss fights if you ignore the dragon and kill adds. On Claw of Jormag in particular, I haven’t even attacked the dragon once in the last >10 runs.
I’m not opposed to a new ranged weapon for thieves, but it is pretty low on my priority list. I’d like to see current weapon sets tuned up (particularly P/P) and torch introduced as an off-hand weapon long before another two-handed ranged weapon.
But we’re talking about P/P so what’s your point?
Point is saying that P/P is good because of Headshot is like saying that Dagger/EmptyHand is good because of Heartseeker. They’re good skills, but they’re better with every other weapon combo but that one.
I’m a big fan of Divinity, but I got my set when they were 2g~ a pop. Probably not worth the investment right now unless you’re looking at building a third/fourth exotic set and have the extra money. The key to utilizing Divinity effectively is to make sure you’re using every stat, though. Crit/Power/Precision/Toughness/Vitality are easy, you use those pretty naturally. If you’re not using heals or condition damage a good amount of the time, though, you’re not really getting the full benefit of Divinity runes. S/D doesn’t have any damaging conditions, for instance, so it may not be a good choice unless you’re running something like dodge/utility caltrops.
puts you where you dont want to be when using ranged weapons, which is what a thief uses 90% of the time in dungeons.
While I agree that Steal could use an option that doesn’t close range, you must be playing with a vastly different set of thieves than I am. Most thieves I group with in dungeons are damage-focused and use melee weapons.
Technically, the Thief class skill isn’t just F1. It’s F1 + the whole Initiative system.
This. Comparing Steal straight-up to something like the necromancer profession mechanic would be like comparing necro dagger auto attack to thief dagger auto attack and ignoring the rest of the profession.
Professions need to be evaluated as a whole. Steal works well with the thief profession, it is powerful and useful, and it scales well with traits. The only thing Steal is really lacking is synergy with utility/weapon skills.
The problem with Signet of Malice is that when you run out of initiative, you are in great danger.
Hide in Shadows, otherwise, heals more and let you run out of battle for a while.
Hide in Shadows actually heals for less over time when you factor in the much shorter CD on SoM. You’re right that HiS is excellent for a break from a fight though, due to stealth and condition removal. People often overlook that SoM has a very short CD (even shorter traited) and if you’re not actively engaging something that the best choice is to activate it (again, bonus points if you’re sig traited). I’m a big fan of how well the thief heals are balanced. SoM is my favorite, but all three are situationally very good depending on your build.
I think some people are missing the point the OP is getting at, though. Realistically, there’s little use for stacking a bunch of healing power and all of these healing effects, but integrating these semi-passive heal effects is how you build a sturdy thief that is able to stay in combat as opposed to one focused on jumping in, getting a kill, and jumping out. They’re different play styles, and many thieves overlook the idea that it is entirely possible to mix it up in the melee long-term if you’re pulling in enough healing. I don’t run a bunch of Cleric/Apothecary gear, but benefiting from several of these heals is one of the reasons I choose to run things like Triforge Pendant, Divinity Runes, and all-stat ascended rings.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Bolt is actually one of the best looking one-hander legendaries and looks awesome with thief sword skills. Of those two, however, I agree that Incinerator is often too small (depending on race) to really get the shiny legendary effect. If you like The Dreamer, go for it, that one is all about whether you’re on board with the appeal of that particular effect.
D/P
To be fair, this one has an excellent, if expensive, way to stealth, to the point where it is one of the main ways to non-combat permastealth.
15% Critical Chance for Sword would be a very NICE trait, because it lets us drop things for other things…
Too nice, 15 % is huge. Other +crit chance traits range from 5 to 7 %. 10 % would be the upper end of reasonable for a crit chance trait boost.
……
Guardian
Main-hand
Right-Hand Strength – Critical-hit chance with one-handed weapons is increased by 15%.Warrior
Main-hand
Blademaster – Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword by 10%.Warriors/Guardians have similar traits, and warriors have adrenaline criticals as well which adds up to 10%+9% Extra Critical Chance.
You can’t cross-compare profession traits like that without taking the whole profession into account. 15 % is way over the top for thieves in comparison to the other available traits.
Not really, I’ve played three classes already and the combinations are actually quite balanced.
You can’t speak to how well another 15 % crit bonus on thieves would work because it doesn’t exist. How well a given bonus works on one profession does not translate directly to how it’ll affect a different profession.
15% Critical Chance for Sword would be a very NICE trait, because it lets us drop things for other things…
Too nice, 15 % is huge. Other +crit chance traits range from 5 to 7 %. 10 % would be the upper end of reasonable for a crit chance trait boost.
……
Guardian
Main-hand
Right-Hand Strength – Critical-hit chance with one-handed weapons is increased by 15%.Warrior
Main-hand
Blademaster – Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword by 10%.Warriors/Guardians have similar traits, and warriors have adrenaline criticals as well which adds up to 10%+9% Extra Critical Chance.
You can’t cross-compare profession traits like that without taking the whole profession into account. 15 % is way over the top for thieves in comparison to the other available traits.
15% Critical Chance for Sword would be a very NICE trait, because it lets us drop things for other things…
Too nice, 15 % is huge. Other +crit chance traits range from 5 to 7 %. 10 % would be the upper end of reasonable for a crit chance trait boost.
If what you call aoe damage on thief sword auto and pw?
Sorry, but even cluster bomb outperforms that.
Not over a non-burst timeframe, and only against 4/5 targets. Sword AE is viable and powerful, even with a three target cap.
Swapping to short-bow to catch them we can’t dps enough to kill them. If you use d/d to chase you won’t have the time to build init or swap back before they are off to the races again. The only way to down them is with a thieves guild and a lucky scorp wire pulls but they always should have outs.
I’ve had good success chasing D/D elementalists with Infiltrator’s Strike, especially if you can follow it with a cripple.
Fractals all the way man. Forget any other dungeon unless someone knows something I dont. Fractals have the best reward per effort ratio in the game + chance to get Ascended gear after lvl 10.
Once you’ve got the ascended gear you want, I’d look towards some of the other dungeons simply because you can easily convert their tokens into ectos.
If you don’t have two ascended rings and a backpiece with stats you like, though, fractals all the way.
Dungeons are made for 80 lvl teams wearing exotics, fully traited, etc.
This isn’t true, but they are balanced with level 80s in mind. This means that when you’re doing them in blues/greens near the minimum level for them (in CM’s case in the low 40s), that dungeon is as hard as it will ever be.
This is necessary because if dungeons were balanced to be easier at their minimum (midlevel + blues), then people running them at their maximum (80+exotics) could literally AFK+auto attack through everything.
People just aren’t used to running a dungeon for the first time and it being at max difficulty because most games start you off with easy dungeons and the difficult ones are only tackled at max gear/level. This is why there was a bunch of backlash on release from the first people tacking AC and finding it surprisingly difficult at 35 with blue gear. Now, of course, you can find threads on the forums proclaiming dungeons as a whole to be trivial and wanting new challenges.
Just stick with it OP, CM will never be as difficult again as it was for you now, GW2 has you start at the top of the difficulty scale and go down as you get better gear.
By far I can dodge, but I can’t dodge everything when I run out endurance and same goes with agony (no anti-agony items as of yet). Can anyone recommend a build for thieves to run better in Fractals with still a good damage and same goes a little bit of a bonus in HP and what traits and gear should I get.
I’d like to point out that getting more defensive stats isn’t going to help you with agony, since it is % based. Your best answer is to out-heal it, especially since it’ll be doing very low damage thanks to your low HP. Ideally, of course, getting some agony resistance will make it much less of an issue.
As for a build, if you want to maintain your glass cannon and dodging is your issue, Acrobatics will give you more access to dodges.
i don’t understand why anybody is comparing them to the damage output of melee weapons.
try bringing caltrops *on dodge. or initiative on crit, unload is almost sure to proc it, sometimes twice. also consider it’s the fastest way to proc signet of malice when you only have one target.
Because in most situations melee weapons are a viable option.
And PW is significantly better for procing Signet of Malice or anything benefiting from hit volume in general, even against one target. Against multiple targets, it isn’t even comparable. The only thing unique to Unload is the ability to create rapid combo attacks by using it through a combo field.
DoggieHeadshot is also an awesome interrupt on certain annoying enemies/bosses.
Yeah, but you don’t need to use P/P to get Headshot.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Irrespective of agony, vitality builds suffer because of the fixed rather than percentage based #6 heal ability. Of course, some classes have additional means to heal as well.
This was demonstrated by simple math in previous posts, and highlights an obvious fundamental flaw in the game.
This is how raw HP vs. defense works in most games, though. Raw HP provides spike/DoT protection, whereas defense (armor derived from toughness in GW2) provides more constant mitigation and acts as a multiplier for heal effectiveness.
There aren’t many MMOs I can think of where going high-HP low-mitigation was a good idea unless there were lots of mitigation-ignoring attacks.
You can also combine Acrobatics and Trickery to get swiftness on dodge + swiftness/vigor on steal and maintain perma-swiftness that way.
GW2 is not WoW. there are too many people that want GW2 to play just like WoW, you see it in their posts (this class=this build only, or you’ll be kicked)
GW2 isn’t WoW, but it is a game and an MMO. Mechanically, some ways of doing things are more effective than others. You’re right that no one can force you to not have fun by choosing how you play, but by the same token, you can’t force others to accept you regardless of how you play. Some people have fun by trying to maximize group effectiveness, something that is necessarily going to require everyone to work together and utilize their tools as effectively as possible. If your play style doesn’t suit them, they can find another group mate, but it is equally important to remember that if their play style doesn’t suit yours you can find another group that does.
The only person who can ruin your fun is you, by choosing to play with people who have drastically different philosophies and goals when it comes to how they play.
(1.) Reduce Fractals to 3 levels, easy, normal, and hard. Easy would be level 1 as is for leveling alts and new players to get gear and experience in a fun dungeon. Normal would require an 80+ character and be the difficulty of 10 without agony. Hard should be level 20 with agony, only getting easier when more agony resist is required. With this model a Very Hard could be added down the road as more ascension gear is released.
If they want to preserve current functionality, just require each level to be completed 10 times to advance to the next. The problem with the way Fractals work is that each level is individually gated and fractures the community, but significant risk/reward changes only really happen when entering a new tier (1-9, 10-19, etc.) Gating content is a viable mechanic to check progression, but only when there is actual progression to check.
Pw damage no longer justifies the areas it falls short to auto-attack or other weapon combinations.
It’d be more accurate to say that PW is now situationally useful, as opposed to a tool fit for any situation. PW still has unique attributes (like superior hit volume) that make it worth using, but it shouldn’t be constantly spammed for best effect, especially since auto attack is superior DPS.
Tulisin was right about what i was trying to say, but this thread has one fact wrong thus rendering the whole ecuation irrelevant, my Unloads are not worth 3,000 dmg, at least on fractals 10+ bosses im dealing 8,000+
so yeah, im dealing more dps than a d/d thief (ON BOSSES)
Permanent Unload spam (very hard to attain without heavy synergy) is significantly less DPS than just using dagger auto attacks, add in the fact that daggers can actually burst beyond auto attacks and it isn’t even close unless P/P is maintaining significantly more uptime.
I do contribute in groups as I do switch between p/p and sb, I use shadow refuge to help downed players. I may not have the DPS of a warrior but I help by staying alive long enough to help others who need it. I fail to see how that is not contributing. I only play pve so the style works for me. The only time I will be doing wvw is to get my map comp.
It isn’t a question of “contributing or not” as much as “are you reaching your potential”. Someone using Pistol/Nothing and spamming auto attack is contributing, but they could be contributing more, same with most applications of P/P. Again, though, there’s always room for improvement, and you could do a lot worse than P/P.
And sorry, I cannot think of place in 80-areas (outside maybe troll farm) where ALONE you can better farm with aoe than with single targets
It is fairly easy to pull and kill 3-7 mobs at a time in Orr, Frostgorge, or non-karka areas of Southsun Cove. I prefer Orr, simply because mob density is high enough to maintain these large pulls, but certain areas of Frostgorge are also suitable (Path of Starry Skies, for instance, has tons of level 80 Icebrood).
If killing >3 mobs at a time is an issue, it might be because your preferred playstyle uses a weapon that isn’t conducive to AE combat.
I can run around with full zerk gear and 3 signets as p/p in cove/cs. Most of mobs are vital shot + 1 or 2 unloads. And you are not forced to take damage. I WAS running bs. I WAS runnning all kinds of sword builds. Nothing gave me as much mobs/time during solo play with an added benefit of actually not even needing to concern very low surviveability
Sounds like you’re specifically choosing to engage one mob at a time as a play style choice. In that situation, P/P fares better. But specifically limiting yourself to not using AE damage and then declaring it not very useful doesn’t make much sense.
Also, spamming Unload on small karka will just result in them spamming their own version back at you, which does conditions and hits much harder. Spamming unload at large karka and hoping it dies before it gets to you will just result in death.
just to clear something out, dps means damage over time, so chaining unload all day long from safety does more dps than a hit n’ run burst build (against bosses)
been using p/p since beta and im usually the group’s biggest dps
I love it when people use abbreviations without knowing what they mean:
DPS = Damage per Second (used when describing your damage during an event or during a part of an event)
DoT = Damage over Time (used to describe bleed like affects typically)
He’s right, you’re just referring to different things.
DPS = Damage Per Second (Damage/Seconds) = Damage Over a Timeframe. It is a metric that specifically details damage over a timeframe (1 second), or more likely an average over a large number of seconds, as opposed to total per-fight damage or something like Damage Per Minute. It is a comparative damage metric that has nothing to do with attack type, Conditions do DPS, power-based damage does DPS, etc.
DoT = Damage Over Time = Refers to abilities that deal a set amount of damage over a timeframe, usually without additional action after being applied. This is an attack type, not a metric. In GW2, this most specifically refers to conditions. You don’t say “I did 1,000 DOT” you say “My DOT does 100 DPS over 10 seconds”
The definition of the former is extremely important because people often just use DPS as a catch-all term for damage output, which it is not. To make a reasonable damage comparison, you have to first establish a timeframe within which DPS is being measured. For a one-second timeframe, for instance, you may be able to do 20,000 DPS, but that isn’t very useful for comparison.
So Bassman was attempting to make the assertion that P/P has better DPS over an actual real-life timeframe (a couple-minute boss fight) due to higher uptime. He was (correctly) challenging the idea of DPS as a catch-all term for offensive power, implying that backstab builds, for instance, were not good DPS compared to the high-uptime DPS of P/P. He is wrong about this specific instance, P/P has bad DPS as well as poor relative burst capability, but he’s right about how DPS works.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)