Guild Wars 2

Rainu.6871:

Are they bad? No. Are several other classes better? Yes.

I don’t think that has been proven by anything in this thread, but it is heavily dependent on your definition of “better”. A well played thief is the equal of any other well-played profession in several roles, but other professions do have wider options for roles and lower skill floors to effectively execute those roles.

Now, I believe it’d be accurate to say “the average thief is less powerful than the average character”, just because of how thieves scale with player skill. On a purely statistical basis, this means if you’re looking at inviting two people you don’t know, you can safely assume the thief is the weaker choice.

People are just used to most games where the dungeons start off pretty easy and scale up in difficulty as you near endgame. GW2 is the opposite, the first time you do dungeons is probably the hardest they’ll ever be for you, since gear/traits will trivialize them as you progress.

Pirate runes are a good choice for MF, but they also bring Might synergy to the table. If you’re going to use Pirate runes, you might want to invest in Acrobatics and perhap signet synergy from Critical Strikes.

As for MF as a whole, I generally encourage people to go for the “cheap” MF that doesn’t result in a lot of combat stat losses. Runes, allstat gear, and food offer good MF values for less opportunity cost than other choices. If you’re running >100 % MF without a booster, you’re probably losing more combat stats than it is worth.

Mcrocha.3891:

Different scenario: Ranger gets pulled off wall, zerg focuses Ranger, ok no prob pop SoS or Protect Me! Assuming you have those in utilities. Ranger thinks he is safe with 6s of no damage. Ranger gets rooted ok pop SoR once again assuming you have it on your bar, which you probably don’t, this is also assuming you don’t get stunned which is unlikely because you’re getting focused by a Zerg although this could be helped if you have traits or pop RaO, but once again this is assuming you have all of this in your build. Ranger breaks first root only to be rooted once again, watches pet die instantly from Protect Me!, watches health bar disappear, qq, it’s ok though the Ranger only has to wait like 6s for Lick Wounds to be available, miraculously Zerg doesn’t instantly burst down Ranger so he pops lick wounds, Lassie comes over and just stands there, well kitten.

I don’t really care though because A-net seems to be ok with rangers, eng, and necros being assclowns so it’s fine.

If the zerg knows how to use root then the elementalist won’t escape either, really has nothing to do with profession at that point.

krixis.9538:

daecollo try going glass cannon and spam unload. i assure u its not lacking dmg.(as P/P is clearly designed for unload spamming).

Unload spamming is well below melee DPS. Even if you can make the argument that Unload spamming is decent for ranged DPS, you sacrifice utility to use it, whereas most ranged sets can provide their damage simultaneous with utility. The sacrifices required to maintain that DPS would logically mean that P/P would do excellent damage, but it only does mediocre damage.

Bren Ranger.3725:

Do you want 20 acro for survivability or 20 tricks for M0AR Bur$T!?!…

Acrobatics is a powerful offensive traitline too, though. I actually prefer both Acrobatics and Trickery for S/P, instead of Deadly Arts.

Conncept.7638:

Elementalists … are the only ones that can survive getting pulled off the wall and into the crowd below.

That isn’t true. I get that you’re trying to make a case for a balance dynamic here, but elementalists are far from the only profession able to recover from being pulled off a wall.

Fletch.3572:

Trying to figure out whats bad about a signet that passively gives you precision, and actively cures a condition in the group while refilling endurance >< Maybe I’m just that baddie everyone is talking about =|

Signet of Agility is pretty awesome. I’d drink an ocean of saltwater if you’re planning on taking any of this guy’s advice.

Lord Yoshi.6738:

Fix culling and make shadow refuge force the thief to stay in it for the whole duration, none of this 5 seconds of prep for 15 seconds of free stealth anywhere.

Shadow Refuge already forces the thief to stay in it for the entire duration of the utility skill, unless you mean for the entire duration of the stealth granted by the skill.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

“How quickly are you able to put down trash mobs? A big part of thief survivability out in the open world is that things shouldn’t be living longer than a few seconds.”

I am not sure what you mean by a “few” seconds. Against 1-3 melees I take my time and kill them with offhand pistol and on hand sword or pistol skill #1. In this case, it is usually close, black powder, pause until last blind goes down, black powder and they die some time into the second BP or just afterwards. That would put a single melee in the 6-10 second range.

You can use the quote button or [ quote ][ /quote ] tags to quote.

If you’re using pistol #1 to try and down things that could be part of your problem. Sword auto attack should be dropping enemies fast enough that they aren’t particularly dangerous, though, unless you’re using gear with low offensive stats.

Xenth.2408:

Karolis.4261:

Xenth.2408:

I don’t like cannon style feeds but I’ve considered it lately. I’ve considered going bleed build with p/p (and shortbow as secondary for multi-targets) using rampager armor and earth sigils on both pistols.

auto attack from stealth with pistol already stacks decent bleed, followed up with an unload with high crit chance is a lot more bleed stacks. Using food that gives 66% chance to lifesteal on crit and bonus precision helps offset the glass factor quite a bit too.

Just one problem cowboy Unload does not stack bleeds. P/P is nota a viable condition weapon choise. P/D and D/D is.

Hence the earth sigils. Unload stacks plenty of bleed if you have a high crit chance while using earth sigils on both pistols. Attack from stealth = 5 stacks, followed up by two unloads with earth sigils = a lot more in a very short period of time. At least I imagine so. Like I said, I was considering it. I haven’t tried it out yet.

Edit;
Superior Sigil of Earth = 60% on critical: inflict bleeding (5 seconds). So say I have 70% crit chance. From two unloads, I’ll crit an average of 11.2 times. 60% of that is 6.72. Plus the 5 from the original attack from stealth would avearge … only 11 stacks of short duration bleed. Okay maybe not the greatest bleed option. By the time the 2nd unload finishes the first stacks of bleed from initial attack will be about worn off.

…except Superior Sigil of Earth has a cooldown, so you’ll be getting one bleed per Unload at the very most. The wiki says 2 seconds, but I’ve heard it is actually 5, haven’t played with it myself lately. Unload just doesn’t really play nice with condition damage.

PvE is much more straightforward than PvP in most cases, so the more situational utilities don’t see as much use. Repeatedly using your most damage efficient skill is just part of how the thief initiative system works.

It isn’t you, it is how the profession is built, you spam one or two weapon skills and use the other three on a situational basis instead of rotating through all of your cooldowns.

SimpleKingly.5021:

ust curious because I’m about to hit level 80 on my main and when I gear him out I’m going to be rolling a thieve but I like to play far caster.

There are some good shortbow builds … but shortbow’s strengths aren’t really as a long range weapon. Shotgunning it from melee range is a good way to put out good burst AE damage, and you can use it point-blank on combo fields for great utility, but if you’re wanting a long ranged weapon you’re going to find it lacking for most situations.

Rayya.2591:

i assume you use singet of assasin, singet of shadows

Lol

There’s no way a thief could compete with a master signet warrior~

Ichishi.9613:

And I will mention P/P again. Its damage IS NOT LOW. And strongest point of it is VOLUME of hits.

Its damage is lower than most every other weapon setup, so I guess that depends on your definition of low. Its hit volume looks great until you realize that Unload takes forever to fire off and your hit volume drops like a rock the second you can’t sustain the initiative any more. Even if you’re abusing the heck out of no-CD proc consumables it doesn’t make P/P good, and even then, P/P can’t even benefit from Skale Venom as a consumable.

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

Just posting to inform you all that selling dungeon runs its NOT against the rules. People are free to do so. Please, exercise extreme caution to avoid getting scammed.

Thanks for your understanding

Thanks for the official word on this subject.

Doggie.3184:

I don’t understand why all these things are allowed but Bandit Bombs aren’t usable in WvWvW.

Most consumables aren’t allowed in WvW. Many of the most powerful ones have already been disabled.

I love LDoN to death, but it wasn’t build for less than a full group. LDoN was innovative and amazing for its time … but that was 2003, it is an incredibly crude dungeon system by modern standards. GW2 (and all modern MMOs, really) already implement most of the good features that LDoN pioneered.

I mean, the vendor system in LDoN was basically what GW2 has, different currencies per dungeon set that allow you to purchase a different set of equipment from a vendor associated with each dungeon set. I’m not really sure what feature of LDoN you’d like to see implemented, since “scaling down to 2-4 players” wasn’t actually a feature of that expansion.

Regardless of profession you don’t get finishers off in 1v3 unless the 3 are absolutely terrible or you’re burning quickness/stability. It has nothing to do with being a warrior. Winning against multiple enemies means you’re going to have to actually manage your downed opponents instead of trying to finish them one at a time.

Luchifer.8026:

s/p 1st skill is strong btw slow(for a thief) 2nd skill tp to target and back never really used it dont think its usefull 3d skill is death machine if u combine withHaste 4th skill adds 5 stack of vunvrability good doing it before the 3rd skill 5th skill is good with a group cuz every 1 can stand on it and blind the enemy.

d/d 1st skill fast and strong and can poison enemy + stealth u make a backstab which is strong 2nd skill on 30% hp on the enemy death machine 3rd skill do a mini aoe that bleeds and dodgeing while doing this 4th skill throw a dagger with 600 range that jumps to 3 target and criples them very good for pvp 5th skill pretty good dmg hit afterwords u can backstab or run away from combat – i’d say d/d us awesome and dont have any cons

He said S/P, not S/D. But, seriously, Infiltrator’s Strike isn’t good and D/D has no downsides?

S/P

1. - Excellent DPS auto attack that hits three targets and applies conditions.
2. - One of the most powerful thief chasing/movement skills, a spammable shadowstep/immobilize with condition removal on return. Tons of potential for skilled play.
3. - Pistol Whip trades DPS, mobility, and the free cost of auto attack for an evade, interrupt, and hit volume. Not a terrible ability, but not one you want to use for pure damage. Hard to get it to hit in PvP since it roots you. Use it as a situational utility.
4. - Headshot, low-damage interrupt on demand, great utility.
5. - Black Powder, pulsing blind field that offers good utility and combo potential, trivializes a lot of PvE, not as useful in PvP unless you can get your opponent to stand in it.

D/D

1. - Auto attack is about the same DPS as sword’s, but doesn’t hit three targets, a solid auto attack regardless since it applies poison and gives a little endurance.
2. - Heartseeker is the premier “execution” skill and a great mobility tool properly aimed. Its spammability leads some people to try and use it for damage at >50 % HP, which is usually a mistake.
3. - Death Blossom is great for condition builds and evasion. You can build around it entirely if you want to go heavy conditions, but it doesn’t get used as much in a power-based setup unless you need evade/AE.
4. - Dancing Dagger is pretty mediocre since the nerf, completely terrible unless you have at least two targets. With two targets it becomes a situational tool that can be good for cripple and ranged damage in a pinch but is still too expensive.
5. - Cloak and Dagger allows organic stealth, which is great for setting up a backstab, it also functions as a decent damage attack and applies vulnerability.

As opposed to a pro/con list, I’d compare the weapon sets on a few fronts:

Burst damage – Goes to dagger for backstab and Heartseeker. Sword doesn’t really have any burst capability as a whole.
AE damage – Goes to S/P for AE sword strikes.
Survivability – Depends on your build, D/D’s access to organic stealth is very useful with heavy shadow arts, but S/P’s blind field and in-place evade can save the day in some situations.
Control – S/P, for dazes, immobilize, and cripple.
Mobility – S/P, unless you’ve got some incredible Heartseeker skills. Infiltrator’s Strike and cripple on auto go a long way towards being able to dictate range.
PvE – Goes to S/P, blind field is amazing and sword auto attack is great for fighting groups of enemies.
PvP – Depends a lot on the build and situation. D/D is a more common choice because it is easy to go full glass cannon and assassinate people. S/P is arguably more malleable, but probably more difficult to pull off.
Utility – Goes to S/P, the pistol offhand has superior utility skills and the conditions sword applies on auto are quite useful.

Koga.7215:

and what about the thief’s who do not use conditions but use the trait in a PvE dung build as a healing source for some content?

I typically run initiative regen, but there are some bosses (mainly fractals) that the switch is needed and without the extra heals i’m as good as dead in. If it was made to heal when a condition is applied i’d heal on.. very few attacks and be a useless thief on the floor too much in some fights.

There are already enough “bad rep” for theifs from those who are always on the ground and bring very little to a group in PvE, lets not make it worse by potentially messing with a healing method that currently works for both crit and condition builds and make it only viable in a condition build…

What crit-based build are you running that doesn’t apply conditions at a decent rate? I agree that Assassin’s Reward should keep its existing mechanic, but I think the suggested implementation was pretty fair (if a little too powerful), condition application is pretty universal to thieves regardless of build. Only build I can think of that won’t apply conditions commonly is perhaps Unload-spamming P/P, and even that applies a good amount of conditions via procs.

Erebus.7568:

technically NO its diffinately not allowed…

Source? It is using entirely built in mechanics to provide a service that makes the game better. Do you have any basis for believing it isn’t allowed beyond personal distaste?

Rayya.2591:

you might be right, i always keep the agro in my party,

You also don’t understand that GW2’s aggro is not based solely on damage output.

And your simplistic test only shows that volley does more DPS than rifle auto attack, which isn’t at all surprising for a bleed-based auto attack, especially if you’re specced into volley (even with a “tanky” build).

So, here’s an excellent example of a bad warrior that gets by because warriors aren’t punished nearly as harshly for having a poor player.

Rayya.2591:

. my volley hit for 7000 damage on bosses in dungeons , while my Hb from greatsword hit 11000 and is considered top damage skill. that is without any rifle specific build.

This is the same flawed logic that makes people think Unload is a good DPS skill. HB and Volley have long channels, they’re not particularly good DPS. Warriors can do good DPS, but Volley/HB signet warriors are much worse than they think they are.

Good example of why the community thinks they need warriors and guardians though, most people have no idea what they’re doing aside from looking at big numbers.

Caelib.2497:

Finishing moves should be considered a stealth-breaking action. Meaning that as soon as a player clicks “Finish them!” and begins the progress bar, their stealth is removed.

Right now glass cannon builds can down any play in 2 – 3 seconds and have virtually gauranteed finish because they can’t be targeted during a finish with Shadow Sanctuary.

1. No other action or attack works this way.
2. As others noted, stealth finishers are the easiest modified finishers in the game to counter. If the thief is safely using them in anything but 1v1 it isn’t because stealth finishers are awesome, it is because your allies have no idea what to do when presented with them.

Tarvok.4206:

I wonder if ANet would end up opposing this practice on the grounds that the various currencies are not meant to be convertible, and that this, in essence, is a workaround the game’s barriers to such conversions?

Not that I would agree with that, I’m just saying.

You can already convert most currencies by inefficient means. At best they can say “this conversion is too efficient!”

Zid.4196:

What a ridiculous thread. In my many, many hours in WvW I’ve never ever seen even one person (friend or enemy) use skale venom. Most people won’t even bother to buy a peach pie for 3 copper/90 min duration and run without any buffs.

Most people in WvW don’t know what they’re doing in regards to most mechanics, not just buffs. Ignorance doesn’t mean there doesn’t need to attempts at balancing.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

However, ranged attackers will get me even when strafing. Another problem, as I alluded to, is when strafing I pull extras.

Most ranged attacks can still be strafed. That said, target prioritization is important too. You should be using your mobility to quickly close with and kill any exceptionally dangerous foes. If ranged enemies are giving you the most issues, they should be dying before they have a chance to attack many times.

How quickly are you able to put down trash mobs? A big part of thief survivability out in the open world is that things shouldn’t be living longer than a few seconds.

Thrashbarg.9820:

I’d agree that it should be banned, but only to get people to chill out.

It is NOT as powerful as the thief skill, it only applies one stack of vulnerability at max (that I have ever seen) and usually doesn’t even proc at all (very small chance). A venom sharing thief can buff 4 other players as well, resulting in 15 stacks of vuln and over a minute of weakness if focusing on one target. 5 people with this consumable will never hit anything like those numbers..

That isn’t a result of the thief utility, that is a result of trait synergy. Trait synergy can help the consumable too. The most vuln stacks I’ve ever been able to apply at once with only the consumable was 5. I’m pretty sure if I can do 5 stacks at best, a large group of people won’t have a problem sustaining weakness and a few vuln stacks. It does not have an internal cooldown, but it does have a pretty low chance to proc. Unlike the thief skill, it has no appreciable opportunity cost, and it doesn’t require heavy synergy to make it good.

I’d put it on the same level as the consumable kit that lets you drop engineer heals/buffs/condition removal.

ASP.8093:

I mean, what other condition builds are there? (Even bad ones?) Seems like thieves don’t really have a lot of options on this front. I’m willing to be proven wrong.

Close-range shortbow shotgunning is very effective in any kind of target rich environment, and not bad against a single target. Just like the other condition builds, it works very well with Acrobatics and Trickery.

Daecollo.9578:

stof.9341:

I don’t think caltrops need to be made even stronger in the healing department :p

People still stand on them? LOL

Even if they stood in all of them the healing would be almost as much as a warrior shout heal. (14 × 69 × 2?)

Per target, up to 5 targets, from one utility that does a bunch of other good stuff. Yeah. Not to mention there’s dodge-trops too, which are even cheaper.

Assassin’s Reward is a good mechanic. If it is too weak then the power/scaling on it should be tweaked. It is pretty much the only thief mechanic ATM that rewards initiative dumping with something, which is a pretty neat dynamic.

muscarine.5136:

All in all i’m not wasting my breath on this anymore, honestly i really don’t even care to prove you guys you’re way underastimating p/p, as long as i’m having results with it myself.

You can have results without it being a good weapon set. There’s nothing wrong with using P/P, and I respect anyone who does it because they enjoy the style of it or because they want the safety of range.

The only problem is proclaiming that it has competitive damage or utility. It doesn’t, that is what you trade away so you can stay at range and have an easier time surviving.

In the context of this thread, a bad P/P thief is going to make thieves look less bad to the community than a bad thief with another weapon set, simply because they’ll spend less time on the ground. To that end, I actively encourage those who don’t think they can survive with a more powerful build to pursue P/P in group situations. I’ll take someone impotently chaining Vital Shot and Unload into a target and staying alive a whole fight over a D/D thief that goes down after each back stab any day.

You only become Revealed when you “break” stealth by landing a hit on something while stealthed, not when stealth just wears off due to duration. The trade-off is that if you’re letting stealth end on its own you aren’t getting a from-stealth attack.

muscarine.5136:

i win my duels against s/p d/d p/d thieves

I’ve won duels with S/nothing to prove it was possible. That doesn’t mean S/nothing is a great weapon set, it means you’re significantly better than your opponent. If you can make P/P work, then you can make another weapon set work much better. Good on you for fighting with a handicap, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a handicap.

muscarine.5136:

I’m not losing first strikes benefit, only the first 1 or 2 shots from unload are done below 6 initiative. I’m not sacrificing damage for initiative, opportunist and quick recovery do the job perfectly, i’m just not spamming two unloads in a row like a d/d thief wouldn’t spam 2 C&D in a row, on the other hand i have a way better hit volume and can proc 2 opportunists per unload.
I’m running with agility sig, shadow refuge and shadowstep, i don’t think it’s that marginal ?
With a good sequence i use headshot every 2 vital shots and sometimes 3 if unlucky with the initiative procs.
I’m running with 30 acrobatics and i find many people overestimate the power of deadly arts when you can get almost as much from fluid strikes while maintaining a better survivability, positionning and initiative management.

I was a d/d GC sin since the release spending 99% of my time in HotM, i eventually grow bored of d/d burst and this is when i made my own p/p build, i know this set is so unpopular people won’t believe it’s any good, but it’s actually even better and more versatile than d/d, in my opinion.

There’s an opportunity cost in taking Quick Recovery, a trait you need to sustain your play style that other play styles don’t require. If you aren’t spamming Unload, as you say, then your DPS is far below most builds. Constant Unload spam is marginally worse than most builds, the second you start using Vital Shot you’re way behind. The idea of “every 2 to 3 vital shots” itself means that you aren’t even really in a DPS role anymore, you’re playing support. With this particular implementation of P/P you’re sacrificing tons of DPS but can at least use Headshot. However, D/P or S/P could sustain much much higher DPS and use Headshot far more often.

This is a common misconception, 900 range is not much like we all know (look at how many people asking for 1200 range) we aren’t long range with p/p, mid range at best but actually close range in most situations, range is absolutely not the only advantage with p/p, you benefit from range against opponents you know have a death area around them (players or mobs), except this you have the awesome and so incredibely underestimated BP, acrobatics mobility, proper use of shadowtep and such.
You are indeed losing dps compared to a melee build but with much better area control : you are still as effective from point blank to 900m range.

The problem is that P/P is one of the worst builds for dictating range and mobility. Damage can be applied over a wider range, but you sacrifice both the damage and the ability to easily change ranges for that asset. It is one of P/P’s few assets, but you’re trading effectiveness in every area for it.

That is something i urge you to test, p/p is certainly less bursty, but by no means lacks in the dps department.

Having tested it extensively: Unload does less DPS at every timeframe than either of the melee auto attacks. Dagger also has the option to burst, while sword has AE and useful condition application. Bursty, sustained, whatever, if an ability has less DPS it has less DPS than auto attack it is never going to catch up.

I’m sorry but you are only extending over your misconception of this weapon set, you don’t sacrifice group utility, and as for personnal dps i’m not losing anything more than a d/d sin who’s actually bringing some group utility too.
I have less burst, slightly less short term dps, better sustained dps, better versatility, and in my opinion, better group support.

You have less burst, less sustained DPS, less versatility (more initiative reliant DPS), and less ability to dictate range. All of your group support comes from sources that would be better used in the hands of a different weapon set.

For bonus points, you can’t benefit from Skale Venom consumables, a great source of utility that pistol attacks can’t use.

muscarine.5136:

and no it’s not bad at using these skills,

It is the worst of any build that uses pistol off-hand at using pistol off-hand. Subjectively, you might still believe it to be “good”, but objectively it is still the worst way to use those abilities. Both other /P sets deal more damage using less initiative, allowing more initiative to be available to use the expensive /P utility skills. Both other /P sets operate at a range that makes BP more usefuf. Both other /P sets have more mobility than P/P, allowing them to dictate the proper range for the /P skills.

It is like saying “Wearing level 70 exotics instead of 80 exotics is good, you’re still effective”. They’re straight-up worse, regardless of how effective you are with them you’d be more effective in 80 exotics.

orchid.4726:

Krato.4729:

For those of you who don’t think this is a significant boost by using it, you are sorely mistaken. When organised guild raids of 25 people collide, a single player will likely find himself with 20 stacks of vulnerability and prolonged weakness, mostly attributed to this consumable. That’s a 20% increase to incoming damage, which is a fight turner. Any guild not using this will find themselves severely disadvantaged.

I would rather fights are decided due to skill, co-ordination and sensible build creation, not some PvE clickable.

Maybe but that was not the point. Like food, oil, it gives you a significant boost. But it is not unfair, because anybody can access to it, like food and oil.

Food and oil/sharpening stones are two slots that can be filled but one thing each. Any food used incurs an opportunity cost in that you can’t use a different food. If Skale Venom took the spot of food or oil, it’d have a certifiable opportunity cost.

It doesn’t, though, consumables stack with everything. Skale venom is arguably more powerful than some of the other consumables that’ve been removed from WvW, and certainly cheaper. It isn’t the imbalance that is the problem as much as the power creep with no opportunity cost.

Where do you draw the line? Can we agree that some consumables need to be barred from WvW?

If we cannot agree on that, then everyone can be significantly more powerful by dropping money into consumables on a regular basis. This will fracture the community and create ill will towards those unwilling to spend money on consumables, since they’ll be significantly weaker combat assets.

If we can agree on that, all it really comes down to is power level. Skale Venom is pretty powerful, so I’d say it belongs on the banned side of the fence.

Oozo.7856:

Running away is not a loss. That is not how good elems and thieves view it. They consider it buying time, regaining health, and seeing if they have thinned out or created a seperation in some of the people chasing them so they can turn on them.

By that same logic, dying and then running back from a waypoint was just “testing their defenses” for the true attack that is totally gonna win.

No, running away means losing the fight. You can start another fight with what you learned, but that first fight has been lost. It doesn’t matter how someone views it personally, that is what it is.

Oozo.7856:

Which is more likely to win or escape a 1v5?

The problem is that “win or escape” is not equivalent to “win or draw”, it is equivalent to “win or lose”. Running off is a loss. So you can use this to argue that some professions die less, but not that they lose less.

Sil.4560:

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOUR MOBILITY IS SUPERIOR OR NOT IF THE ENEMY LITERALLY CANNOT SEE YOU OR DIRECTLY TARGET YOU AS THE RESULT OF CULLING INTERACTING WITH AN INVISIBILITY MECHANIC; YOU DO NOT NEED TO OUTRUN AN ENEMY THAT CANNOT BEGIN TO FOLLOW YOU

It matters a lot. I can track down and kill targets I can’t see. I can’t track down and kill targets I can’t catch. Culling doesn’t prevent damage any more than stealth does (actually less, since you can target a culled opponent).

Dual.8953:

Why do people come to WvW looking for a fair fight? I find things like this item interesting, gives you a reason to experiment with these odd karma rewards. (I wish the taser glove actually did something)

The rule needs to be consistently applied. This isn’t some kind of gimmicky environmental weapon, this is a passive benefit that can offer a lot of synergy for zero opportunity cost.

Wethospu.6437:

It’s this little thing called skill-based rewards. Is that really so lost idea nowadays?

Skill is just an input multiplier. Unless you’re selecting a tiny subset of skills, generally a skilled player will attain things faster than an unskilled player regardless of whether they’re doing it by hand or buying it. I say “faster” because, really, everything is just a varying time investment.

If dungeon titles are skill based rewards then so is everything else in the game, they just require different levels of input and therefore benefit differently from skill.

Troponin.4081:

I had read here on the forums that info on Caltrops, and when I started using it, it really does appear to be hitting more than 5 enemies. I will test it furhter though, but I was pulling 10+ enemies at one point and I am sure they were all bleeding from my caltrops alone.

Yes, you can bleed 10+ enemies at a time with it. It can apply bleed to up to 5 enemies every time it ticks, and the bleeds last at least 4 seconds. That isn’t the same as not having a target cap though, it’d be crazy broken without a target cap.

stof.9341:

The description isn’t wrong, it’s just somewhat ambiguous the way it’s written.

Yeah, “Refill endurance and cure a condition for each nearby ally” could mean:

-It only applies the effects to you, and it scales via having more friends nearby.
-One of the two benefits applies to you, possibly scaling as above, while the others apply to your allies.
-Both effects apply to your allies and neither apply to you.

What it actually does it apply both effects to both you and your nearby allies. “For each nearby ally” isn’t a statement of scaling, but a statement of who it targets.

Just a very poorly written description.

muscarine.5136:

I didn’t say i had problems, i said sometimes it can be hard which is sorta different, spamming headshot and BP “when available” is actually always available if properly used, support sharing is precisely the same as your regular d/d thief, nothing forces me 900m away from the fights, and i am also able to swtich to shortbow for proper aoe and weakness spam, you know.

Also, did you know you can drop BP where the action is, especially on stationnary mobs while creating a smoke field all my ranged teammates can use ?
Did you know i can use unload every 2 seconds for 5k to 9k damage depending on crits which i would hardly call pepper ?

It would take way too long to defend the advantages of using p/p, i’m fine with you sticking to your favorite weapon sets anyway.

…Anyway…

It might take “too long” to defend P/P, but I’m going to ask you to do it anyways, because I have a few problems with this build philosophy you’ve put out.

1. If your utility skills are always available then you’re dumping a lot of traits and/or skills into the initiative regen required to spam Unload while constantly staying at high initiative. This means you’re likely losing the First Strikes bonus and some other damage/utility to support having enough initiative for your damage source with enough banked for utility-on-demand. Even best case scenario and you do have that utility on demand without sacrificing damage, you still can’t spam Headshot like a more initiative-efficient build could.

2. If “nothing forces you 900m from the fights”, why are you using a weapon set whose only advantage over other weapons is being able to stay at range? P/P’s tiny area of expertise is doing what it does from range, if you’re not at range then the only reason to use it has gone out the window.

3. Unload does less damage than melee-based builds can do with less resources and effort. “Pepper” is subjective, but Unload does objectively less DPS than most thief DPS skills. In that light, while you may feel your numbers are relatively big, whatever they are they’d be bigger if you weren’t using Unload for mediocre DPS.

There is a viable reason to use P/P: When you don’t feel confident in your ability to survive via evasion and want to trade group utility and personal DPS for the personal safety of range. There is nothing wrong with that, anyone who uses, say, Valkyrie accessories instead of Berserker gear is making the same choice. I have all kinds of respect for people who use P/P for the right reasons, but you can’t proclaim that it is equally effective.

muscarine.5136:

The first black powder shot blinds your target at a 900m range, then you have a smoke combo field you can 20% with unload or 100% with body shot / headshot, it’s not that melee really.

The thing about “P/P utility” is this:
Yes, there are utility skills on the bar, but they’re #4/5, the pistol off-hand, which nobody debates is a bad set of skills, but…

1. You don’t need to take P/P to use the pistol off-hand.
2. P/P is the worst weapon set at effectively using that off-hand. Its operational range is not ideal for Black Powder, and P/P eats initiative to do any sort of reasonable damage, leaving little left to burn at will on utility.

So it isn’t really an argument in favor of P/P as much as it is an argument in favor of using AnythingElse/P because P/P is bad at using those utility skills.

NightyNight.1823:

Well genius , D/D GC IS the most efficient build available to Thief If played well

No, it really isn’t.

NightyNight.1823:

Thief is about damage dealing , no one does it better

This isn’t true either, it is an excelllent role to excel at, but the profession isn’t “about” it.

PowerCat.5738:

Everyone could use the ash legion spy kit.
Everyone could use the fire elemental powder.
Everyone could use the ogre whistle.
Everyone could use the experimental teleportation gun.

What was your point again?

This.

Regardless of what people are saying, this consumable is pretty useful in the right hands, leagues better than the thief skill that it shares a name with. Yes, everyone can use it, but policy in the past (see above) has been to remove these items from WvW so a situation is not created where everyone is reliant on them. A player burning consumables is several times stronger than one who isn’t. I don’t think most people (ANet included) want a situation wherein you can pay 1g/hr~ for a large personal boost.

Musty.3148:

While I understand the thought process behind not allowing names to be seen

I don’t. This is a bad idea in every single MMO it has been implemented in. It doesn’t prevent spying by anyone who has any actual desire to do so, and the only other commonly cited reason is to protect everyone’s feelings from trash talk. The loss in community and dynamic gameplay to common restriction is tragic.

Iehova.9518:

If people would pay me 20g to get 60 tokens and an achievement they don’t deserve

How’d you arrive at the conclusion that they “don’t deserve” it? They put in the time/effort to make the money to buy it at market value. Under that logic nobody “deserves” any gear or loot unless they get it as a drop or craft it themselves out of materials they harvested by hand.