Just for fun, look at your combat log after you get hit by a crit thief. Now compare the dmg the thief did with every other entry in the combat log. Thieves make every other class dmg output look like a joke.
Big numbers thieves are running entirely different builds than perma-stealth thieves and lumping them together in one thread just serves to cloud the issue. People think that it is the same thieves doing all these things when in reality they’re mutually exclusive setups.
That said, most professions can put out similar numbers to thieves if they follow the same engagement protocol – be a glass cannon and burn a bunch of CDs on a squishy target. Professions like warriors can even do more. The problem is low TTK in general, not thieves in specific. On the upside, ANet has already stated they’re going to take a look at toning down some of the more bursty setups contributing to low TTK.
Capping points while is stealth is a broken mecanic period.
This. There’s nothing wrong with permastealth. In a world without stealth caps (like sPvP) permastealth serves no purpose because you’re either standing around being invisible and useless, or actively engaging in combat and thereby exposing yourself to being killed. The only way that permastealth is doing anything useful as-is is because it can allow you to accomplish a non-combat oriented objective (standing in a circle to prevent a cap). Take away stealth capping/contesting and permastealth is no longer an issue.
The puzzles should be removed. Why should people expect to get free stuff in a PVP zone?
Waste of time and waste of a PVP slot for a player not helping his team. There is only one print worth the time of the puzzle and that is the Alpha Golem, everything else is so cheap you can farm up more silver and gold in PVE than it takes to buy the prints you get from the puzzles in the time it takes to run them.
I agree with Pendragon, siege prices should be increased so it is no longer viable to PvE for them.
Signet of Agility, I actually take it more as a condition removal skill than the tiny crit chance boost.
Properly synergized you get way more damage out of activating Signet of Agility than using the passive anyways, even over large timeframes.
Still going to need a video, anyone can make it sound like it works on paper. But in actual practice the veterans know its just not possible. Such an insignificant amount of healing will never save you from a group of enemies, especially when every class can hit you for 2-5k+ sometimes 10k+, Much less knock you down. Much less immobilize and AOE/melee you/corrupt boon you while dagger storming. Also the evade on DB is extremely short, not even half the animation. Also, its not like it heals you on every tick of caltrops or bleed, only when it applies, so thats still very little.
wait… are you sure about the caltrops thing? cuz i’m sure i see my health tick every second just from having stuff standing on my caltrops… or did we get a stealth nerf i didnt notice….
He’s right in that it only works when it applies. You said that the bleed triggers caltrops, which isn’t strictly true. When an enemy stands on caltrops they are “hit” for no damage and then given a bleed + cripple. The damageless hit causes Signet of Malice to heal you, which results in one heal per second per enemy per caltrops field (it is possible to have 3/4 fields on top of eachother). It isn’t really the bleed doing the “hit”, and you won’t get continuously healed as the bleed ticks, only if the enemy continues to stay in your caltrops field for another second and is hit again.
John Lucier’s opinion on caltrops is another clue that he puts himself in situations where enemy movement isn’t predictable or he is otherwise unable to canalize his opponent. Some play styles and situations support ground AE fields, others don’t.
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world drop 78 exotics, you can mostly get it from map completion and mystic forge
So it is a map completion award of the 70-80 zones? Or a Full Tyria map completion? Do I have to be on my thief for it to drop?
Just buy it off the TP. Zone completion rewards are merely random rewards from a large pool and have nothing to do with the profession you’re playing at the time. Full Tyria map completion gets you a component for legendary weapons, but no equipment itself.
I have yet to see anyone however successfully use SoM in wvwvw (successfully as in not melt in something larger then 1v1-1v3) much less without SoS.
SoM is an excellent WvW heal, but you have to adopt a much more offensive playstyle. With SoM, things like shortbow’s poison field become powerful heals, dodges with Uncatchable are a good way to heal up, and Dagger Storm becomes near-invincibility. This means you have to maintain pressure instead of the attack->retreat style that some builds prefer. The important thing to remember is that, in a pinch, SoM has fairly good active healing for an escape.
SoS is great for travel if you aren’t traited for perma-swiftness, but I’d switch it out when preparing for actual combat if you can, it doesn’t pull its weight. Because of this, I encourage people to not put it in their listed builds. It is assumed that you’re going to slot it in for travel, might as well list what you’re actually using for combat.
heh, you again.
1. SoS does pull it weight, you are still moving faster in combat.
2. If you are going for perma swiftness you are losing big time on other things
3. SoM does jack in wvwvw. At most you will get 100-150 per heal out of it, even an arrow cart will out damage your SoM even with Assassin’s reward. SoM might become useful in wvwvw if we get a 1200 range weapon so you can just sit back without being in everyones range or at least at the edge of it. Why waste a healing slot on a 90 second cooldown elite, that is the jist of it’s worth. There is no way in heck SoM can ever be compared to the sheer target drop of HiS, much less the heal AND cond removal. I would even take Withdraw over SoM any day, especially when coupled with Roll for init1. Only if SoS’ bonus is what is allowing you to dictate range. That depends on your target’s movement speed, their desired range in relation to yours, and who is crippling who. It doesn’t do nothing, but I’d still assert it doesn’t pull its weight, although that is somewhat build dependent.
2. Depends on your existing build. If you’re already taking Acrobatics and Thrill of the Crime then perma-swiftness isn’t particularly hard to do.
3. SoM’s base cooldown is only 15 seconds, and it can be traited to be lower and is the lowest CD heal and lowest CD signet available to thieves, excellent synergy with on-activation effects and hardly equivalent to “a 90 second cooldown elite”. An arrow cart will outdamage every healing ability, but SoM allows decent passive healing while still having activated healing on par with the other two heals. SoM has its place in WvW, just like the other two healing abilities, but it caters much more to an AE-heavy offensive play style than the other two.
I am going to have to agree with Teerwik here. It does not sound like you play thief and are just looking at the wiki. Until you can show a video of you successfully using SoM in wvwvw, it is not possible. Successfully does not mean against afk players either.
Btw, an arrow cart will not out damage HiS, maybe a ballista but not a cart
HiS is usable a whole twice a minute, it isn’t hard for anything to outdamage that. The key to effective use of SoM is maintaining consistent high hit volume. If you’re pulling 2 hits/second on average, SoM is going to surpass the other heals just in passive effectiveness vs. their active. Obviously you’re not going to maintain a constant 2/second, but the periods where you’re pulling >5/second make up for it.
Perhaps your issue is in the situations you consider an ability effective. SoM is not well suited to engaging larger numbers, garnering attention, and being used as an escape tool. SoM is well suited to allowing you to remain in a prolonged fight. If your play style and build don’t support anything other than jumping in, bursting, and getting out (many thieves’ choose to do little else), SoM is not for you.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
I have yet to see anyone however successfully use SoM in wvwvw (successfully as in not melt in something larger then 1v1-1v3) much less without SoS.
SoM is an excellent WvW heal, but you have to adopt a much more offensive playstyle. With SoM, things like shortbow’s poison field become powerful heals, dodges with Uncatchable are a good way to heal up, and Dagger Storm becomes near-invincibility. This means you have to maintain pressure instead of the attack->retreat style that some builds prefer. The important thing to remember is that, in a pinch, SoM has fairly good active healing for an escape.
SoS is great for travel if you aren’t traited for perma-swiftness, but I’d switch it out when preparing for actual combat if you can, it doesn’t pull its weight. Because of this, I encourage people to not put it in their listed builds. It is assumed that you’re going to slot it in for travel, might as well list what you’re actually using for combat.
heh, you again.
1. SoS does pull it weight, you are still moving faster in combat.
2. If you are going for perma swiftness you are losing big time on other things
3. SoM does jack in wvwvw. At most you will get 100-150 per heal out of it, even an arrow cart will out damage your SoM even with Assassin’s reward. SoM might become useful in wvwvw if we get a 1200 range weapon so you can just sit back without being in everyones range or at least at the edge of it. Why waste a healing slot on a 90 second cooldown elite, that is the jist of it’s worth. There is no way in heck SoM can ever be compared to the sheer target drop of HiS, much less the heal AND cond removal. I would even take Withdraw over SoM any day, especially when coupled with Roll for init
1. Only if SoS’ bonus is what is allowing you to dictate range. That depends on your target’s movement speed, their desired range in relation to yours, and who is crippling who. It doesn’t do nothing, but I’d still assert it doesn’t pull its weight, although that is somewhat build dependent.
2. Depends on your existing build. If you’re already taking Acrobatics and Thrill of the Crime then perma-swiftness isn’t particularly hard to do.
3. SoM’s base cooldown is only 15 seconds, and it can be traited to be lower and is the lowest CD heal and lowest CD signet available to thieves, excellent synergy with on-activation effects and hardly equivalent to “a 90 second cooldown elite”. An arrow cart will outdamage every healing ability, but SoM allows decent passive healing while still having activated healing on par with the other two heals. SoM has its place in WvW, just like the other two healing abilities, but it caters much more to an AE-heavy offensive play style than the other two.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
I have yet to see anyone however successfully use SoM in wvwvw (successfully as in not melt in something larger then 1v1-1v3) much less without SoS.
SoM is an excellent WvW heal, but you have to adopt a much more offensive playstyle. With SoM, things like shortbow’s poison field become powerful heals, dodges with Uncatchable are a good way to heal up, and Dagger Storm becomes near-invincibility. This means you have to maintain pressure instead of the attack->retreat style that some builds prefer. The important thing to remember is that, in a pinch, SoM has fairly good active healing for an escape.
SoS is great for travel if you aren’t traited for perma-swiftness, but I’d switch it out when preparing for actual combat if you can, it doesn’t pull its weight. Because of this, I encourage people to not put it in their listed builds. It is assumed that you’re going to slot it in for travel, might as well list what you’re actually using for combat.
I enter WvW and sPVP with P/P and destroy people. 3 unloads generally kill 1 person at 900 range. If I pop haste I can do that in half the time. nothing is broken with P/P it is working as intended.
Unload is one of the most avoidable thief skills while having mediocre DPS. If you’re killing people with Unload spam, they’re bad.
The difference is that Headshot and Black Powder are useful in ways not just concerned with putting out maximum damage, whereas Body Shot is an ability specifically meant to increase total damage but fails to do so in most situations.
Headshot is already quite powerful as-is and it would be risky to decrease the initiative on it. I favor giving it a 100 % crit rate to allow some unique synergy with crit procs.
Black Powder is incredibly powerful as well, moreso in PvE than PvP, but the pulsing AE blind field is very strong in the right hands. If anything, I’d like to see the skill changed to be applied on the target’s location instead of the thief’s.
2 add a lot of vulnerability
you can use it 4 times and keep 15-20 vulnerability on your target.
I think you’re the first person I’ve heard actually say something nice about Body Shot. The thing is that Body Shot has such low DPS itself you need a solid amount of other people attacking your target for those vulnerability stacks to pay for themselves. So lets go through it:
Solo – Body shot is a terrible idea, you’re doing half the damage of your auto attack, even if it stacked to 25 vulnerability it wouldn’t pay for the time spent using it, let alone the initiative.
Duo – Same deal, unless your buddy has way better offense than you do.
Trio – Very unlikely that the investment is worthwhile here. You’re still burning all of your initiative to boost two people’s damage by (at the very best) 20 % while lowering yours by (at least) half. Assuming each of you is contributing evenly to damage, you’re boosting 66 % of the group’s damage by 20 % (not realistic, more like 10 %), and reducing 33 % of the group’s damage by 50 %. Net loss of 3 percent~ of the group’s damage. More of a loss if you are outdamaging your group mates normally (not uncommon as a thief).
4-man group – This is probably your break even point, using Body Shot will probably leave the total damage output of your group the same.
5-man group – Here’s what you’ll be running dungeons with, and probably your best opportunity to make Body Shot shine. If you spam it right before your group mates use some high-damage abilities it may be a worthwhile investment. If any of your group mates are stacking their (probably easier to apply) vulnerability, Body Shot is again useless.
5-10 – Large potential for Body Shot here on champion and boss mobs, but it all goes down the drain if someone else is stacking vulnerability.
>10 – Your mobs of players only really seen in DEs. If your target is dying fast, vulnerability isn’t a worthwhile investment, if your target is dying slowly it’ll be 25-stacked without you using your expensive (in time/init) vulnerability skill.
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Signet of Agility is incredible when you’re synergized towards it. The passive is useful and works well with any crit-centric build, but the active is amazing. On-demand 100 % endurance when coupled with Acrobatics can mean a triple-dodge with all the invulnerability, might stacks , and caltrops that entails, the fact that it removes conditions for you and nearby allies is just icing on the cake.
In a perfect-world Signet+Acrobatics+Uncatchable+Food setup with Signet of Malice, activating SoA could do the following: Grant 11 stacks of might (385 power and condition damage), give 2 initiative, grant 6 seconds of swiftness (more with duration boosters), give you three dodges, drop 3 caltrop fields on 5 enemies resulting in 6500~ HP healed from Signet of Malice and 12,000-24,000 damage in bleeds plus long-term cripple, and remove conditions from you and your allies. Every 24 seconds. Now obviously few people run a build this specific, and there’s rarely a giant mob of enemies to dodge through repeatedly, but this is an example of how wildly a utility skill’s power can grow given the right situation.
SoA has probably become my favorite thief utility, it just has so much going for it synergy-wise that it seems relatively mediocre until you use it to set off a chain reaction of effects from your traits and skills.
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You’re definitely synergizing heavily towards Death Blossom spam. My only suggestion would be to make the build slightly less gimmicky by only going 20 acrobatics, putting those 10 points into Deadly Arts for +10 % more condition duration, +33 % poison duration, and weaken-on-poison (the power will boost your LDBs a bit as well). After that since you’re no longer gaining initiative on swap and have a good amount of poison synergy use D/D + SB.
This results in a bit more powerful death blossoms with less spamability but way more malleability since you’ve got a shortbow swap instead of D/D. It’ll also make your steals poison longer and apply weakness. You won’t be entirely shut down when LDB isn’t a viable solution to whatever situation you’ve encountered.
Having a Hard time trying to decide on what runes/sigils to use for my d/d setup
Torn between These for sigils:
-Double +5% crit
-Double Lifesteal
-Double Fire (aoe proc 5 sec icd)
-Double Air (single proc 5 sec icd)And for Runes and Crests Cant decide whether to go:
-x6 Crests of Soldier (120power, 84vit 84 toughness)
-x6 Crests of Rabid (120power, 84 precision, 84 condition)
-x6 Runes of Mesmer (and use sword/dagger for the nice 2.66second daze and precision / power)
-x6 Runes of Eagle (for the precision and crit dmg and dmg while -50 hp)
-x6 Runes of Vamprism (might be cool using those and x2 sigils of blood + malice healing skill)
-x6 Runes of the Thief (for Precision, Condition dmg, and +10% positional dmg)
-x6 Runes of Rata Sum (Precision +15% posion duration and 50% chance to proc radiation field)
-x6 Runes of Rage (mad crit dmg)
-x6 Runes of Infiltrator (50 precision 10% dmg to -50% or under hp foes, and Cloak at 10% hp proc)
-x6 Runes of Air for (10% crit dmg, bonus swiftness perks, and 20% chance to cause lightning strike when hit)
-x6 Runes of Scholar for 165 power, +8% crit dmg and +10% dmg when hp is above 90% (for that first initial combo)Just Can’t decide, I can see All these being useful in certain situations on my Thief.
I’m leaning toward using the Lifesteal or Flat +crit on weapons, and then using either scholar, infil, thief, or vamprism for the armor, but its still SOO hard to decide.What do my fellow thieves think about the above choices. (Stick to these, I defiantly do not want to use the other options)
Thank you Very Much
(Edit: main consideration is what would be best suited for WvW small scale fights, like 10v10 or so, thanks)
1. Proc sigils don’t “stack” well. They share a cooldown, so while two of them will double your chance to proc, they won’t double the number of procs you get over a given timeframe. Using two isn’t 100 % useless, but you don’t get nearly the full benefit of it. Sigil of Rage is particularly bad paired with another proc sigil, since it’ll lock out your other sigil for its full 45s CD each time.
2. Last I checked, +5 % crit and +5 % damage sigils don’t stack either.
3. Rage runes are only going to be particularly effective on the condition that you have multiple sources of Fury and good boon duration. This means heavy Acrobatics, the Fury-on-steal trait from trickery, and likely being a Charr thief that can self-fury with the racial. With this very specific setup, I’d say give it a try.
4. Vampirism doesn’t pair particularly well with the things you’ve listed. At best you have to get hit fairly often to consistently use the 15s CD life steal proc, and the other life steal is only really viable if you’ve got a spammable healing skill. Since the most spammable thief healing skill is also the one that you don’t want to be activating if you’re trying to steal life with your hits (Signet of Malice), Vampirism is a very poor choice overall for thieves.
The other rune sets you have listed aren’t bad choices, depending on build. I’d also suggest Hoelbrak for any build centered around Might, Divinity for all-around stat points, and Pack for group situations.
Whats the word on Superior Sigils of Strength? 30% chance on crit to gain might for 10 seconds sounds kinda awesome for double daggers. (especially if you got a Critical Haste proc)
Anyone tested those out?
I use a Superior Sigil of Strength on one of my swords, it works very well since I’m already using Acrobatics and a rune set bonus to increase my might duration. It is a good sigil as long as you’ve got a high crit rate and decent might duration, but “Critical Haste” and D/D have almost nothing to do with it. If anything, D/D has a lower hit volume than most weapon sets, and Critical Haste doesn’t synergize particularly well with Sigil of Strength. You need to understand that it is a solid sigil, but not for any of the reasons you’ve listed.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
You want diversity? What if you actually focused weapon sets to achieve goals correctly?
We’ve clearly got vastly different philosophies when it comes to this. Your way is certainly viable, and is used in most MMOs, while GW2’s current solution is a bit innovative.
The fact stands, however, that the current setup is both viable and effective at nurturing build and role diversity while allowing players to be effective at a number of playstyles. Revamping how traits/skills/stats interact to create several streamlined and obvious role-based builds would work, as most other games have shown in the past, but is it what is best for the game?
I don’t understand why there is such a strong desire to “streamline” weapon sets into particular stat combinations. GW2 has done remarkably well by not making weapon/itemization design that cut-and-dry and it pays off in build diversity. I’m all for stuff like making backstab more appealing to more builds, but there’s no reason to cut down build diversity by narrowing weapon functionality.
3. DON’T GO BERSERKER GEAR! I don’t know why some people split gear stats. Carrion armor is all you need to bust out huge damage at the same time have nice defense.
With the caveat that you’re specifically giving him advice for D/D, I agree. Berserker gear in PvE is a great idea with a sword, shortbow, and even some pistol setups, but with D/D investing into condition damage and synergizing LDB is a good solution.
1. Can prevent capping while in stealth – If a thief deliberately spec’s for this I dont see much of a problem. You see, If a thief is doing this, they are literally rendering themselves useless to do anything but this. They can’t attack. They can’t defend. They just sit there repeating the same combo until they are caught or the other team gives up. You think its an exploit? Maybe, but no more of an exploit than mesmer’s being able to portal people through walls so they don’t have to take down a gate. Its a tactic. Learn to deal.
The fact that GW2 lacks a mechanic for multiple people to contribute to the capture of a point is already pretty weak, but being able to prevent a capture via a single enemy in stealth is just salt in the wound. This should change, it isn’t particularly good for WvW or the game as a whole.
If it is crit based, with the scaling of Crit damage, no matter what he is going to be doing burst with the hardest hitting attack in the weaponset.
You seem to have a flawed perception of what “burst” means. “Burst” damage is inherently unsustainable, essentially sacrificing sustainable potential to pack more damage into a given (short) timeframe. A full crit/power thief using sword auto attacks and doing >10K per chain may be doing a lot of DPS, but it isn’t a “burst” setup. Conversely, a full defensive stat thief popping utility Haste and spamming something like Unload is going to do less DPS in that same timeframe, but is actually utilizing a “burst” tactic.
Thief is not a PVE class, we are almost useless in dungeons compared to every other class, except ranger. (but they are getting spirits fixed and major buffs.)
Can I get some honest advice instead of melodrama please?
No from Daecollo, no.
Give sword mainhand a try, open-world PvE is honestly most efficient when fighting multiple mobs and using AE weapons. Aside from that, focus on avoiding NPC damage via movement. You’ll find that simply holding the right mouse button and strafing around enemies will allow you to avoid the vast majority of damage. Try practicing 1v1 against something like a moa until you can kill it without taking any damage.
Thieves are great in PvE, but you do have to stay mobile. Always being on the move plays to the strengths of thieves just like taking hits directly plays to the strengths of professions with more innate durability.
Actually, you don’t have to go burst, condition, or a balance between both. What ever happened to pure damage based DPS builds like the one’s that many people run with S/D? For example, I run a 0/30/20/20/0 build which has no “burst” to speak of, and no condition damage either. It’s a balanced DPS build which, quite frankly, would be ridiculouslyly OP with “Assassin Training”.
I can’t tell if this a troll or a joke. There is no pure dps build on a thief not involving crit or cond , period.
He’s pointing out that you can run a power/crit build without necessarily using a burst play style. Burst is not synonymous with power-based damage, afterall.
But I’m worried about PVE… Will this spec provide enough damage in dungeons?
As a rule bleeds generally perform well in dungeons with the caveat that you have to coordinate with other bleed-users in your group. If there’s so many bleed users that you’re hitting the 25 stack cap, you’re not getting the fullest out of it.
Thanks guys.
My main problem is with cloak and dagger. Entering combat from a distance (steal is not always up) prevents me from entering stealth soon enough and apply bleeds as fast as i want to.
You can either use a closer utility to get yourself in melee range faster or a stealth utility to stealth at a range and close as you use your first sneak attack.
I don’t feel these tools are powerful enough to justify a 32s CD in a build that is based around it.
32s is hella long time in 5-8 seconds fights …
So don’t base your build around it? Trickery has a lot going for it aside from Steal. I take Trickery mostly for Uncatchable and more initiative.
If you want to argue that Steal CD reduction is not as powerful as +10 to a stat I think you may have a better point, but starting with the false assumption that everything must revolve around steal and then claiming that steal is underpowered (via long CD) doesn’t make any sense.
Trait lines are not builds, builds are a combination of a play style and a trait/gear/skill setup. Simply putting 30 points into a tree and picking some traits doesn’t mean it meshes with a play style.
I still have 5 points in deadly arts as i dont want my conditions dropping off my targets too quickly, but im not entirely sure if its worth it.
The thing about condition duration is that damage conditions only actually do damage on a full second. If you cripple someone for 2.8 seconds instead of 2, they’re going to be crippled for 2.8 seconds. If you bleed someone for 2.8 seconds you’re not going to do any more damage than a 2 second bleed would’ve done because you’ll only get two ticks of damage out of it. So for condition duration on damaging conditions you’re better off pumping it high or not at all.
I’d also recommend power of inertia (acrobatics) + uncatchable (trickery). Might stacking is a great way to boost condition damage and Uncatchable will give you free bleed stacks simultaneously. It synergizes well since you need to be close range to C&D anyways. Assassin’s Reward offers more control over your healing than Pain Response, since PR will often trigger when you don’t want it to.
Your utilities could use a rework too, Caltrops is amazing with a condition damage heavy build, and both Signet of Shadows and Blinding Powder leave something to be desired. I know you want to get into stealth often for Sneak Attacks, but that is what C&D is for. Signet of Malice as a heal also might be worth looking into, depending on how many hits you’re getting off.
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That’s where burst is just conceptionally better than DoTs even if it is less stronger in a straight-up fight.
Which is why straight up comparing two situationally useful setups and trying to say “one is better than the other” in all cases is useless.
It’s just a move that requires finesse and practice.
I’d really like to believe this, because I don’t mind an ability with some depth that takes some investment to really shine. Infiltrator’s Arrow is a good example of this, an ability that works well being used casually but is incredible once you’re mastered it. But the fact of the matter is that FS’ propensity to rip control of your character works against it being a skill-heavy ability and decreases the degree to which you can affect it with “finesse and practice”.
Stealth stomps is fine.
Stealth ress is fine.
Stealth camp cap prevent should be fixed.
Pretty much this. Stealth stomps/rez are not hard to counter and create a good skill dynamic. Stealth camp capture is bad and should function in WvW like it does in sPvP (stealthed characters do nothing as far as capture or defend).
Siege Defense? Stealth into the zerg and drop caltrops and pick off a few folks here and there. Shortbow 4 and the bleeds from Cluster Bomb are pretty nice as well..
This is pretty effective, TBH. Take Signet of Malice, Signet of Agility, Caltrops and Uncatchable at minimum. If there’s a big mob of enemies on the gate dodge through it, drop caltrops, drop poison (if SB), or LDB (if D/D), then alternate dodge and LDB to keep decent evasive uptime and bring in hit volume to heal. You should be able to dodge 6-8 times depending on traits. Dagger Storm while you regain some endurance, you’ll be vulnerable to a direct attack but people will have to slog through all your caltrops and counteract the massive healing you’ll be pulling from Signet of Malice, not to mention at this time you’ve probably got the attention of some ranged enemies so you’re adding all those reflected shots to your healing. When Dagger Storm is done, burn your endurance/initiative again, drop caltrops if they’re back up, and go back through the gate.
It sounds impossible, but you’re running >80 % invincibility from evasion except under dagger storm, and should be pulling in thousands of HP/sec in healing, depending on traits. You won’t leave a trail of dead bodies by putting >10 bleeds on everyone, but you’ll force people to move back and burn their condition removal
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Poison, yeah, I should’ve threw more fields down…I would imagine the ele just curing it off and getting out of the field ASAP though.
This, right here. This is a shift in momentum. If he has to use a combo or skill to achieve condition removal he has begun to play reactively. If he has to move out of a field you’re achieving control over his movement. Forcing him to expend resources and become reactive is how you’re going to create the opening you need to seal the deal, not running around and letting him build momentum while you try not to die.
The weakness of stealth is that it lets the enemy think ahead to “what do I need to do to prepare for when the fight starts again” instead of keeping them in the here-and-now or (ideally) a move behind you.
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And btw that is how the thief class is defined in the gaming world…a single target high damage class with low health that is able to hit hard and run/hide.
Cool? GW2 has gone to great lengths to deny traditional class tropes and you’re going to bring it all back to “Well in this other game there was also a class called this so it should work this way”. Thieves have the potential to excellently fill roles beyond “high damage against a single target”, denying that is defeatist and a statement of immalleability concerning your profession. Everyone has a right to pursue their preferred play style to the best of their ability, but the second that becomes “change the game because my play style is the only way to play” it becomes selfish.
People keep parroting this stuff, and people keep being wrong.
No people keep on ‘parroting’ this stuff because it’s true. Certain professions fill roles better than others, are you denying that?
Certain builds fill certain roles better, certain professions have better options for certain builds. “You can create a good burst ambush thief” is a very different statement than “Thieves are made for X” and is equivalent to telling engineers that because they can drop healing packs that is their class’ intended functional identity. Ultimately, those with an extremely narrow view of how a thief “should” be played are more harmful to the profession and community than any amount of random people saying “nerf X, it is overpowered”.
Just a simple tip that most other thieves do not know.(from a dualwield dagger view):
Cloak and dagger is a wonderful skill! use it everytime you are going to finish a downed player, since nobody sees you nobody will try to interupt you.
While this is true, it is only true because many players are really really bad at reacting to stealth. The proper counter is for those guys standing around to just auto-attack the air above their downed buddy, killing the thief in a couple seconds (and before a finisher gets close to being complete, unless hasted).
. I can solo a supply point in WvW on ele (that’s 4 vets 2 are ranged both ranged mobs blind). I once saw a thief run in an try to burn down the Guild champion solo. He seemed to be doing ok but all his dps was on one mob with avoiding dps from the others using blinds, stealth, etc. The way I saw it yes he can do what I can do but his aoe is weak (compared to other classes) and hes taking more risk. I Saw a guardian do it pull out a great sword and do basically what I would do without the kiting.
For a thief
Simple Mode: Gather all the mobs into a ball, drop caltrops, use dagger storm. Everything will be dead.
Boring Mode: Walk in circles shooting shortbow.
Fun Mode: Grab a sword and dodge through the group auto-attacking.
You watched a bad thief, or at least one not well-equipped for the situation he jumped into.
both sides of the spectrum
Reducing all thieves into exactly two viable camps is the same problem that the overarching idea has. There isn’t any “both sides of the spectrum”, there are a wealth of viable thief builds, and changes should strive to preserve and nurture that growth, not compartmentalize thieves into increasingly smaller viable courses of action.
If a thief fight somone head on, if they are decent they will outlast any thieves.
With his build, yes. You can build a thief to be sustainably powerful, but the best option for him in a non-duel situation would likely have been to disengage and re-engage when the elementalist didn’t have six boons and a lock on his location.
You might want to evaluate whether having an entire utility slot permanently sitting there doing nothing but giving you speed slower than his perma-swiftness is a utility slot well spent. You’re already running swiftness-on-dodge and you seem to be using a lot of range and the occasional immobilize, are you really getting the most out of SoS or is it habit?
You also spent a good amount of time using shortbow without really trying to stack poison up on him. Poison is a good counter to his constant heals.
Stealth is really nice when there’s a chance the opponent might lose focus on you. You didn’t take any heal-on-stealth though, so all it really means in this duel is that he gets a few seconds to stack up boons (really easy for combo field spamming elementalists) while you’re not doing anything productive.
Overall, he is just keeping the momentum for most of the fight, always putting on more boons while occasionally putting conditions on you while you try to position for that perfect opportunity that never comes. You aren’t tanky enough to survive his AEs long enough to put him down in melee and not enough of a threat at a range to harm him with his heals up.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
My main is a guardian, however my alt is a level 80 thief. I believe the nerfs are all uncalled for. The thief job is supposed to deliver high burst damage. Possibly the highest in the game as it does in other mmos. It is a very vulnrable class with one of the lowest hp pools in the game and if u get only a few hits on you – you are done for. Furthermore, the thief class is setup as primarily a single target class.
People keep parroting this stuff, and people keep being wrong. Most of those things (thieves are a burst class, thieves are a single target class) are playstyle choices that have nothing to do with the profession. You choose to play that way, the profession doesn’t force you, there are tons of viable ways to play a thief that don’t involve trying to instantly close on and kill single targets.
I want to see a back stab change because back stab is a boring ability with very little potential for synergy. I look forward to the day that back stab is a more viable match for more combos and situations with more depth and a higher skill cap. Achieving such low TTK is an issue for PvP as a whole, and one they’re seeking to rectify.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Of course, as others mentioned, an easy fix would be for stealthed players not to count for adding to/stopping the control, just like in spvp. Outside this one purpose, I don’t think this will be too much of a problem.
You’re probably the 3rd or 4th person in this thread to mention this, but I’m going to quote it for effect. There’s nothing wrong with permastealth, it leaves the thief functionally useless for most purposes. The only actual useful role it holds is solely due to a poor decision (or mistake) on ANet’s part to allow a single stealthed person to stop supply camp capture.
a backstab nerf will kill a lot of good (but not OP) builds…
A properly instituted backstab “nerf” will create a bunch of builds while degrading the effectiveness of builds specifically meant to reduce TTK to 2-3 seconds.
with FS, you get about a second of evade without drawbacks.
You’re putting quite a lot of stock in FS’ evade. If it was half as good and reliable as you believe, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
1. The second hit is just like a sword autoattack which deals more damage after the evade.
Wouldn’t that be nice, but you’ve got it mixed up. The majority of the damage from the skill comes from the harder to land second hit. The initial strike is the one that has sword autoattack-level damage.
They can:
Reduce the initiative cost
-or-
Make the skill track better
-or-
Make the skill do more damage
-or
Make the skill evade better
-or-
Make the skill better at stripping boons (2 boons stripped, or 1 stolen instead of stripped)
…but as it stands the skill is mediocre at fulfilling any of these functions and, as a result of trying to do too many things at once, is less effective for doing anything.
You’re right that you can use it to force an evade to get out of Hundred Blades or something, but you could just as easily IF or dodge out, even without bringing movement utilities.
Flanking Strike is a somewhat unique skill, and useful, but just because it isn’t completely useless does not make it balanced.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Cheers for the builds and quick replies, think its just a bad match up of rock, paper, scissors for me.
Neat thing is that countering a build like this isn’t so much in some kind of rock/paper/scissors stat determination that is pretty much made before you engage, but all about reading stealth. The best thing you can do, instead of tinkering with your build, is figure out how to read stealth better.
The skills you describe are leaping death blossom (overhead leap that evades attacks, strikes 3 times and applies bleeds) and Cloak and Dagger, he strikes you and it stealths him. Condition removals and any interrupts to prevent the restealth is all I can really advise for you.
Depending on what he was seeing with “jumping around” he might’ve also been seeing Heartseeker or even Infiltrator’s Strike (with S/D). The lower damage and the thief staying at >50 % HP along with the heavy stealth means he was probably deep into the Shadow Arts tree.
More than anything, your most effective counter is going to be reading your opponent’s movements and attacking them while in stealth. Not just randomspamming AEs, actually tracking and hitting them while stealthed. The important thing to remember about all these “get benefits from stealth” traits is that the encourage staying stealth. If you’re not doing anything to threaten the thief while they’re stealthed, all those benefits are awesome freebies. If you’re hunting the thief then you’re turning their stealth into a liability by forcing them to choose between keeping those fancy benefits while stealthed and having actual combat uptime against you.
Many people see, say, a 30 second fight in which the thief was stealthed for 20 seconds as unfair, but in actuality that thief is sacrificing two-thirds of their actual viable uptime for hitting you while there’s absolutely no downside to you at least spamming auto attacks for that time period. Exploit the heck out of that weakness.
Lokheit gives a good summary of P/P. If you want a more dynamic setup that still utilizes lots of pistol shots you might consider P/D which has some great synergy with condition damage and a sort of mini-unload style ability with the C&D→Sneak Attack combo.
Thief seems just… really really boring for PvE. 99% of the time you are just spamming cluster bomb or pistol whip over and over.
Simply leveling one was painful for me, I can’t imagine trying to do something like a HotW boss without falling asleep as a thief.
Try a more active build like S/D with acrobatics or even LDB dagger. These can be equally effective vs. groups of mobs, but rely a bit more on positioning and dodging.
See here for an explanation about why I believe you’re mistaken on the +5 % damage sigils at least. The +critical chance sigils likely function the same way, but aren’t as simple to test.