Guild Wars 2

Sanduskel.1850:

Cain.6507:

Just reroll. I did so, and now bring the pain. Stun locking people is so much easier, and they complain a lot less due the fact they can see me. Never mind stun locking and tons of CC are a much cheaper mechanic. How many stun breaker do you roll? Not enough. Have a few friends, bring em, I will smash them too…. And kill enough and surive long enough for my friends to show up.

Thieves were balanced a while ago, and have since grown weaker but the QQ has only increased. Nerfed and nerfed again, I just gave up on my favorite class. Not because I hard to work harder, which I do on my thief, not because I had to rebuild over and over again, which I have, but because bads will cry when they lose to classes like thief because they can’t admit they were out played.

Funny thing, on my warrior, I never lose to thieves. I enjoy the bags they drop, and it is even better when I get to kill two at a time. But bad players are not the issue, stealth is, of course…

Thieves weren’t nerfed that hard. perma stealth is still very easy. I find the class very easy.

Please don’t confuse “the class” with “one build”.

I’ve made a post here outlining their probable changes. You guys get too worried.

Cain.6507:

Just reroll. I did so, and now bring the pain. Stun locking people is so much easier, and they complain a lot less due the fact they can see me. Never mind stun locking and tons of CC are a much cheaper mechanic. How many stun breaker do you roll? Not enough. Have a few friends, bring em, I will smash them too…. And kill enough and surive long enough for my friends to show up.

Thieves were balanced a while ago, and have since grown weaker but the QQ has only increased. Nerfed and nerfed again, I just gave up on my favorite class. Not because I hard to work harder, which I do on my thief, not because I had to rebuild over and over again, which I have, but because bads will cry when they lose to classes like thief because they can’t admit they were out played.

Funny thing, on my warrior, I never lose to thieves. I enjoy the bags they drop, and it is even better when I get to kill two at a time. But bad players are not the issue, stealth is, of course…

Blind field and perma weakness seem to do the trick against your kind, however I don’t play stealth like the rest of my kin. I like to be in your face and request that you send all tears to my P.O. box. Warriors are too easy to predict, and Asura seem to think that they need to be in my face to do anything, in which case I blind field you, strip your stability and proceed to stun lock you

Have a taste of your own medicine.

/offtopicalittle

NornBearPig.9814:

Has any MMO actually done the invisibility mechanic right?

No. Never. They’re always OP or UP. Honestly though, I think from a PvP standpoint, thieves are the most balanced class right now. Warriors, necros, mesmers, and guardians are all a bit too powerful and need more build variety. The only weapon set that thieves don’t really use in PvP is P/P, and even that sees action in high ranked tPvP fights on occasion, with success. Think of it like a S/D ele. Kind of gimmicky, but it’s an option that doesn’t weigh your team down.

Guys, stop worrying. In PvP and WvW, conditions reign supreme. They wouldn’t make a huge change to critical damage simply to balance PvE in a PvP-oriented game. The most likely option is that they’ll add a “critical cap” throttle to bosses, increasing the viability of all options in PvE rather than simply nerfing zerk specs across the board. This will average the times any party of any comp will speed run a dungeon, and not kill any viability in PvP/WvW (except VS keep lords – which face it, go down way too quickly).

The other option is improve it’s scaling with power, increasing it’s viability against conditions in PvP/WvW, but making the “zerk meta” of PvE even worse.

A combination of the two would be the best option, IMO.

My thief stats include berserker armor, magi/zerk weapons, celestial/valk/knight/cleric trinkets. If zerk is nerfed, I think I can adapt. Not to say I’m for it in any way, but don’t think they would outright nerf zerk, especially on an individual level. They’ll either make it on par with conditions in PvP, or add a “critical cap” to boss monsters in PvE that would throttle the amount of damage done by a group, making all armor types a viable option for any type of PvE.

Presto.4701:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Umm… Haste was nerfed in speed by 50% a year ago…

But your 1k unloads are probably from people dodging.

Wasnt from dodging, I noticed it in fractals when I sometimes use haste on bosses, I watch every hit count up to 1k (most of them still critting but doing like 200dmg) and then as soon as haste ends, it goes back to normal and I do 10k+ its really bizarre.
If it was a silent “fix” they demolished it rofl, skill is useless now :/

There’s an Instability that’s essentially permanent weakness. This is probably the cause. I can achieve 10k unloads in PvP with haste.

Sanduskel.1850:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Quells.2498:

Some players just freak out when a Thief goes Stealth. Relax and play smart or you’ll continue to have a problem regardless of what, if anything, Anet changes.

Players really freak out when a thief doesn’t go stealth!

Agreed, especially when we evade and evade.

Our evading ability got nerfed to the point where it takes 30 trait points to maintain pseudo perma vigor. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, and evade thieves sacrifice the utility of stealth in order to gain said survivability out of it.

Where did you hear we were getting nerfs? Also: watch the dev livestream of the balance team on Friday. They’ll be talking about a runes/sigil rework and changes to Critical Damage that will be very important to most thieves. My prediction is it will be buffed to be on par with conditions, balancing out the meta and making burst strong again.

Quells.2498:

Some players just freak out when a Thief goes Stealth. Relax and play smart or you’ll continue to have a problem regardless of what, if anything, Anet changes.

Players really freak out when a thief doesn’t go stealth!

Are non-stealth thief builds an intended feature of the class, and if so, will changes be made to traits like Assassin’s Reward to improve their viability against conditions and overall sustain to be on par with stealth builds?

I realize that ele mobility has been nerfed to “nothingness”, but has anyone tried using a FGS scouting build using Air’s superspeed, which when activated before FGS 3 boosts you (approximately) 3x the distance it normally would? I feed like a X/D build with this could be very successful at roaming, due to its ability to instantly reset a fight or escape if things start heading south.

WolfiKurisu.6894:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Hello, Chris.

Either I know you and have forgot, or you’re cool enough to know something that my other friends do not

In other news, thanks to the answers =) I always seem to get awesome feedback on whatever I need, which is nice.

Haha, look at your screenshot – it gives your root directory which has your first name after users. I always like doing that to people. It makes them go “wtfpsychic?” x3

Hello, Chris.

Umm… Haste was nerfed in speed by 50% a year ago…

But your 1k unloads are probably from people dodging.

The best type of armor is the one that fits your build. Don’t listen to the “ZERKER OR BURST HURDEEHURHUR” people, please.

Sanduskel.1850:

Scizzor.8137:

Sanduskel.1850:

Very few thieves dare admit how opd stealth is. I can admit it because I am not uber skilled at games like these, yet I find my thief laughbly easy in wvw versus other classes.

Are you that baddie guardian on SoR who complains in WvW everyday when you lose to a thief? lol

No. I play thieves and other classes. My thief doesn’t lose to other thieves, lol

Please. Fight me. I’d like to record it for the thief forum if that’s okay too.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmiP3ey8E+5EB3ji60m6p4rltTBWlPA-jUyAIOBRaBI5BgCBlHLiGb1sIas6Zioa1Nm5uIa1CBsYNA-w

This build right here ^

Spam 3, regen everything, stealth, dodge for ’trops, activate big ’trops for more passive regen for each enemy standing within, rinse and repeat in desired order.

It’s a simple build for a simple thief. Hint: he has no stun breaks. Was he a male human thief on FA?

The build doesn’t do a lot of burst. It’s heavy conditions, though, and when you stack 25 bleeds on someone they go down pretty fast.

I’m not usually one to advocate major buffs or nerfs.. But a cooldown reduction at the least would be amazing.

You should have been here at launch. It was a mess, and we did have a new matchup every day.

Sanduskel.1850:

Very few thieves dare admit how opd stealth is. I can admit it because I am not uber skilled at games like these, yet I find my thief laughbly easy in wvw versus other classes.

Hey there, I play a stealthless S/P thief. You may have seen me roaming around on GoM. I’ll be the first to admit how much of a crutch Stealth is, hence why I don’t use it and rather rely on dodges, positioning, and playing extremely aggressively against other thieves who seem to be the hard counter to anything that uses no stealth. I enjoy a good challenge, and 1v5’s are much more satisfying when I’m running no stealth than when I decide to run D/D or D/P and faceroll, which takes no individual skill. There are no breaks when running non-stealth, and while I can gain 3 seconds of stealth by swapping to shortbow and putting a blast finisher in my black powder, it’s only enough for a quick escape or repositioning with a 10 second CD on my melee set, in which case using shortbow in 1vX situations isn’t as lucrative as melee, and I’m forced to kite until weapon swap comes down. Needless to say, if I want stealth with my build, I have to work for it, and it has consequences. I believe every thief should have to make this choice.

Domey.9804:

25/30/0/0/15 s/p is a one trick pony. kill one and escape or get killed.
its not a roaming spec. when you roam with thief you want to be able to fight evrything, even outnumbered, try that vs half decent players with that built.

That’s because that’s a standard PvE build with PvE in mind. I run the following build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmSO3dS6E/5Eh3jyOWzqVgmdP4q81KA-j0DBYfREREgaAiWGgQAM5pIaslhFRjVNDRVLoqkYaXQ6XwmeQ2eAGfLrWKAsFGB-w

Their “I have to use it no matter what” longbow knockback that they all use without regard to where you have an enemy positioned or the AoE at his feet. I’ll be stun locking a warrior after I’ve stripped his stability and they’ll use that gods-be-kitten ed knockback, often letting him escape near-death. BE SMART. ONLY USE THE SKILL TO INTERRUPT ENEMY STOMPS OR PROTECT YOUR ALLIES.

I popped my birthday boost as a thief, joined the karma train, equipped signet of malice and dagger storm, swapped to shortbow and spammed 1. Gained 60 ranks in 1/3 of that time.

It may surprise, but not all of us play mainhand dagger with offhand pistol for WvW or the competitive PvP scene. Nerfing BP simply due to D/P being frustrating to play against would also hurt Sword/Pistol builds, as the blinds are one of our only defenses aside from dodging and interrupts. As with most thief issues people have, L2P. Nerfing the thief even further isn’t going to make us any more viable. I’m actually quite content with our place in the meta, and although we aren’t at the top, we’re still about number 5 out of 8 if you want to rate our performance in PvP, which isn’t necessarily bad. Classes like warrior, necro, guardian and mesmer are all much more powerful, and all precede thieves. All of the aforementioned classes need nerfs to some extent. As of now, I believe that thief is the most balanced of any class as far as sPvP goes.

Back on topic, Black Powder is fairly balanced right now, and does not need any changes. The point of nerfing perma stealth wasn’t to stop it from happening, it was to stop thieves using perma stealth to have the ability to immediately come out of stealth with their initiative, health, and everything recharged. Now, D/P at least requires some initiative management. Perma stealth is no longer necessarily a bad thing, although infuriating to play against, I must admit.

And as far as having a blind field that’s “OP”, try out Smoke Screen and kite your enemy back and forth through it. It’s also much, much larger of a field than Black Powder and blocks projectiles, which Black Powder does not. BP also requires 6 initiative to use, making it hurt when an enemy actually knows how to deal with it and swaps to ranged to kite until it’s gone.

LordByron.8369:

Renny.6571:

Thieves are just as mobile as Warriors. Stop complaining.

nerf both…..
Give them same treatment as ele….

Someone’s bitter.

Arganthium.5638:

If you position yourself just correctly you can still melee opponents standing in a BP field.

Except when a warrior puts on Berserker’s Stance and stands in it with you with his hammer out and decides to say hi.

Sanduskel.1850:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Actually Sanduskel, there are quite a few that allow restealthing in combat. However it’s usually 2 skills, each on very hefty cooldowns (30 seconds or more) that last for maybe 3-4 seconds.

Those games also have hard counters to stealth, and if you attack from stealth you are reveals for a much longer period.

You haven’t played DAoC, where stealth that you couldn’t pop back into was the real problem. A player could be around indefinitely without breaking stealth until they came into combat, in which case hundreds of people would stay in a choke point, in stealth, just farming players trying to pass through. If you think thieves are bad in WvW, go try out DAoC and tell me where your god is.

Well, what’s your play style? What kind of thief do you want to be?

I’ll see if I have a build for you when you answer me those two questions.

Come to Gate of Madness! We do each temple every night after reset, preceded or followed by Tequatl in part of our world event chain!

I’m thoroughly enjoying this push to make the thief forums a better place. Keep it up guys!

EDIT: My god it’s hard not to sound sarcastic on this forum. I’m serious. Keep it up.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Dakarius.3284:

This skill is an elite skill that stuns for 1.5 seconds on a 45 second cd with a 1 second cast time. It also doesn’t stack with other stuns. The problem is it doesn’t measure up to other stuns let alone other elites.

Examples of better stuns:
-Signet of Domination (3 second stun, 45 second cd, 1200 range, is a signet, 1/4 second cast)
-Magic bullet (2 second stun, other effects on bounce, combo finisher, 900 range, 25 second cd)
-Static field (2 second stun, 40 second cd, 1200 range, combo field)
-Earthshaker(1-2 second stun based upon adrenaline, 600 range, 3/4 second cast, 10 second cd)
-skull crack(1-3 second stun, 10 second cd)
-Whirling strike(1-2 second stun, 10 second cd)

Basilisk venom was fine as an elite when it was unbreakable, but as it is now, it’s meh as a stun and lacklustre as an elite (this is important as it’s thief’s only underwater elite).

I suggest either increasing the duration to 3 seconds, or reducing the cd to around 25-30 seconds.

i disagree completely. It’s an elite skill which extremely blows out every other one in terms of CD. kitten cd is amazing. the stun is at a good level, 1.5 isnt too little nor is it too high.
And i see almost every thief use it. Why buff something already widely used? so people can never use daggerstorm ever again? or thieves guild?

I use it when roaming because it’s the best option, not because it’s good. Most thieves rotate their elites between situations. Just because it’s widely used doesn’t make it viable, it simply makes it the least kittenty of anything. Thieves Guild is OP in 1v1 situations, but has no place in any other application, while Dagger Storm is great for soloing camps and pairs well with signet of malice for zerg fights. Basilisk Venom is just the “go to” option when not a) dueling or b) capping a camp or in a zerg fight, which is a lot. I guarantee that if BV got any buff, it’s usage for the same situations would neither increase or decrease, and neither would the other two options. Hell, occasionally I even take the human elite Reaper of Grenth over Basilisk Venom, since you can upkeep permanent chilled and stack up to 40 seconds of poisoned, a far greater effect than a 1.5 second stun that I only ever use over Pistol Whip because it’s off cooldown and I could use a second or so to gather my surroundings before deciding my next move. Most fights don’t last long enough to need it twice, anyway. So the cooldown point is moot.

/rant

As a non-stealth thief, I would be very happy with these changes…

>.>
<.<

Nick.6972:

I rather pay 30$/month for Everquest Next.

I wouldn’t make your expectations too high. SOE hasn’t been doing well with their games or business models in the last 6 years.

Ayochak.8293:

I’m using a 0/0/20/30/20, mixed equipment (Apothecary / Settler / Dire), with some cheap Shaman jewellery to get around 18k health.
A lot of toughness is good but imo after a while some vitality is better than even more toughness since it has diminishing returns.

Imho Assassin’s reward is better than Shadow’s rejuvenation if you are in a zerg or grouped (or soloing PvE) because you will heal more by spamming Death blossom’s than moving around in stealth. (One use of Death’s Blossom’s will heal more than 1 second of stealth.) For solo WvW or for situations where you can’t use Death blossoms (ex: where you could fall) and will switch to P/D, Shadow’s rejuvenation is probably better as you will want to stealth more often.

Even with with the recent Initiative recovery rate upgrade I keep Quick recovery (+1 intit. per 10s.); along with Rolling for initiative with reuse timer boosted by Trickster that will also apply for the reuse timer of Caltrops which is THE ultimate skill for an healing + condition thief.

Rolling for initiative also fits perfectly in the middle of a Death Blossom + dodges routine spam.

As it been said, Signet of Malice is the best choice of healing skill for this type of build (Caltrops, Death’s blossoms, Uncatchable, Dagger storm).

Also it may not be your favourite style of play but with these builds you can own hordes of mobs in solo PvE.
I was clearing the tower of Nightmare on any level and it was not because of my leet player skills but because that’s the sort of thing a good healing thief build enables you to do.

But toughness has absolutely no diminishing returns when paired with healing power, and in doing so increases your EHP exponentially with the more healing power you have. Vitality actually has diminishing returns when running a healing build, and is meant to be more of a damage sponge than anything, which decreases your survivability over time when your healing skill itself cannot bring you back to full health. This is why berserkers go for vitality over toughness, since most fights won’t last long enough to need to use a healing skill more than once. More tanky builds, which is the direction you should go with condition builds, rely a lot more on toughness over vitality, mixed with healing power to increase its potency. This is why Rabid necros exist over Carrion, since the trait line any condition necro takes has both condition damage and healing power.

It’s a common misconception since most thieves come from a berserker background and rarely do the math to see why people take vitality over toughness, or in what situations stats have diminishing returns. I don’t blame you for believing that vitality is better, but in this situation, I thought I would spread some light on the subject.

When fighting a condition mesmer with conditions applied upon clone death, if a clone shatters during an evade the conditions will still be applied to your character. This makes counter play impossible aside from complete invulnerability to conditions. You cannot apply conditions, then dodge as a clone is about to die due to this, or use a skill with a built in evade to DPS down the clones safely. I don’t know whether or not this is a big or working as intended, but it does make the condition mesmer very possible with the ability to bypass evades and apply conditions.

Anierna.6918:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief PvE meta is S/P, and has been for over a year (since fractals came out). Just thought I’d correct you there.

Even for single-target? -.^ Thought it was dagger 5 > backstab > 1x AA chain > repeat; that’s maximum backstabs since you restealth almost exactly as soon as Revealed disapears. It’s not sustainable for more than about 10 secs if you’re in 25/30/0/0/15, but with a proper group, that’s all you need. If the fight’s gonna last longer than that, you go 30/30/10/0/0 for Infusion of Shadow, which makes that rotation nearly infinitely sustainable.

Of course, you still have sw/p for trash, but on single-target, I’m pretty sure pistol whip is lower DPS than that backstab rotation. Not 100% sure (maybe 95%), but I can test if you like (although someone probably already has). The other thing about pistol whip is that spamming it is even less sustainable than backstabs in 25/30/0/0/15.

EDIT: Took me a moment to realize that you must be trolling. It’s absurd that you’d think s/p was higher DPS than d/d on single-target. I really am tired >.<

I’m not talking about single-targets. Most of PvE is designed around multiple enemies, and taking dagger mainhand for PvE is not only selfish, but severely gimps your team’s overall DPS in dungeons. That being said, most PvE thieves run S/P + D/D for the utility of both. I failed to mention that in my OP.

Anierna.6918:

In PvE, there is a meta build for every class. War is axe + GS. Mes is sw/f + OH sw. Guard is sw/f. Thief is d/d. Ranger is sw/horn. Engi is grenades. And Ele is scepter LH. It’s just how PvE works. The goal is to maximize group dmg, so there will always be one single optimal build that does that. Based on the dungeon, that optimal build may change (eg. redoing mes traits for maximum reflect dmg in Arah), but there will still always be one single optimal build.

In PvP/WvW, each class has more than one option. Ele is the same. There is some extent of build diversity in PvP and WvW for every class. I don’t see your point.

Thief PvE meta is S/P, and has been for over a year (since fractals came out). Just thought I’d correct you there.

OIIIIIO.7825:

For Clarity

Auto attacks are sustained damage because you can continually do them without stopping. To phrase it another way you can use auto attacks for an extended period of time without interruption. While an auto attack may may not be the best damage, by definition auto attacks are sustained damage.

The difference, however, is that Sword has AoE cleave in AA, whereas Dagger is extremely single-target. It’s your job to win the team fights, so it’s a good idea to have some decent AoE cleave. Shortbow works as well, but I find it more a utility in stopping rezzes and AoEing the point to shatter clones and down stealthed opponents.

Arkantos.7460:

I go with the “countdown buff” which removes a condition for every ~5 initiative spent….

But it would greatly decrease build diversity if Assassin Reward would scaling with healing power , because of the fact wvw thiefs would simple Combine Assassin Reward with Shadow Rejuvenation (and also with Patience and Shadow Embrace) to get higher regeneration effects as a warrior.

The “healing trait/lines” (AR , SR) maybe need a special effect, which telling, you can use XI/ SR ins shadow art traitline with stealth (for wvw stealth thiefs)
And XI/AR for non stealth tpvp thiefs (p/p, s/p, sh), you can only increase base heal of AR to 100 on 1 INit. when traits were separated; otherwise more ppl would flame the NEW OP healing power of perma stealthing thiefs .

However, in choosing both they choose to become very tanky, and miss out on damage and condition-based trait lines, which is the point of putting powerful traits into Grandmaster categories. They wouldn’t be able to kill anything, let alone get more than 22% crit chance without any investment into Critical Strikes. That basically becomes a trolling build for WvW, but in PvP a full clerics SA/Acro thief wouldn’t have any place due to stealth lacking the ability to hold a point. Warriors don’t have to invest in 60 trait points and healing gear to have their sustain be considered OP. A thief running the aforementioned is a joke when considering things like how much damage and pressure he’s giving up just for all of that survivability.

I tell people the points you’ve put up there all the time, and some agree, some disagree. If it’s an organized guild that frequents combo fields and GvG, they’ll want thieves. If it’s a zerg who doesn’t know anything but being sheep, they’ll laugh at a thief zerging.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

LOL…. wow. Just looked at the health on that build, Viking. I’m used to playing warrior and necro. Seeing such low health numbers makes me scared :o I do realize though that thief is an in/out kind of class rather than an in-your-face kind. It will take some getting used to.

Thanks for the info so far! I’ll look in the build section for the type you describe Interceptor.

I’ve trolled an entire zerg of 17 NSP at one point on South Camp of our BL, killing 13 in 10 minutes before my zerg arrived to clean the rest up

Signet of Malice is OP against zergs.

I’ve mentioned it in the PvP forums, but I’ll do so here as well: A boon that works against conditions should be added to the game and classes that need them, as Torment was added to the game to buff conditions. If it were either implemented in a way that reduced condition duration by 50% or worked like Retaliation except it damaged the condition applier, I would be a happy camper.

Something needs to be done to change conditions in general. Whether that’s a new boon, or adding condition removal to specs that desperately need it, I trust ANet to balance it correctly.

I think it’s generally accepted within the thief community that, despite its scaling with healing power buff on December 10th, Assassin’s Reward is extremely lackluster for a grandmaster trait.

Due to its placement in Acrobatics, it synergizes well with Trickery builds, which leads to anyone using both lacking both Stealth and Condition Removal. This is an issue in the current meta, and one of the better proposed ideas is to let Assassin’s Reward have a “countdown buff” which removes a condition for every ~5 initiative spent. Being on par with Stealth thieves which have condition removal periodically in stealth, this would allow Assassin’s Reward the viability in a PvP format which most acrobatics builds (aside from one S/D + S/D build that’s fallen out of place) so desperately lack. Non-stealth builds are also actively engaged in combat, and I feel that this change to Assassin’s Reward would do wonders for build diversity for thieves in PvP, who are currently pigeonholed into 3 build archetypes (S/D acrobatics, D/P trickery/Shadow Arts, S/P trickery), none of which dare take Assassin’s Reward due to the lack of survivability you have against condition builds whilst running it.

Thank you for your consideration,
~Glïnt

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmiP3ey8E+5EB3ji60m6p4rltTBWlPA-jUyAIOBRaBI5BgCBlHLiGb1sIas6Zioa1Nm5uIa1CBsYNA-w

Spam 3, dodge a lot, and don’t stray from Caltrops.

Interceptor.2653:

Viking Jorun.5413:

What people fail to realize is that sword AA is very strong, able to maintain permanent crippled and weakness, which will destroy any power spec. Combined with your blind field, you should have no problems taking down warriors. I only find PW more suitable during fights against PU mesmers and necros who swap to staff and kite, so the PW, S2+PW, PW+InfSig, PW+Steal combo will definitely wreck classes of that category.

He was talking about raw damage, not overall utility. The autoattack chain definitely loses in terms of vanilla DPS. Obviously things change a bit when you include secondary factors like conditions, mobility, etc.

P.S.: please take a deep breath, this topic is not worth losing your temper over.

Thanks man. It just gets my goat when people tell me I don’t know kitten, you know?

Dahkeus.8243:

Wait…why are people saying AA does more damage than PW? Unless you’re against a very mobile enemy that’s running out of the PW damage, PW should be doing much more dps than AA alone (especially with the right traits). You can go to a training dummy in the mists and do one time trial with AA alone, then do another where you spam PW to see the difference.

PW used to be about on par with AAs, but with the last two buffs that decreased the aftercast, it is a lot better.

What people fail to realize is that sword AA is very strong, able to maintain permanent crippled and weakness, which will destroy any power spec. Combined with your blind field, you should have no problems taking down warriors. I only find PW more suitable during fights against PU mesmers and necros who swap to staff and kite, so the PW, S2+PW, PW+InfSig, PW+Steal combo will definitely wreck classes of that category.

I’m not going to argue with you people any more. Stick with your stagnant builds that get you nowhere and only act as selfish hotjoin and YOLOQ builds. I run team builds exclusively, and those of you preaching D/P need to get the kitten out. This isn’t your thread, and it was a decent discussion on S/P’s place in the meta. I’d like it to stay there if you can be so humble as to hold your tongues, because many of is actually do know what we’re talking about, and don’t spew information out of our kitten like it’s going out of style.

Thank you. I’ll no longer waste my energy on stupid comments without logic or reason which pull numbers out of nowhere. Let’s get back on topic rather than saying “HUEHUE LOL SP IS 333333 SET U NOOBS”, because you’ve obviously never stepped outside of your comfort zone and don’t take the time to evaluate why certain top tier PvPers use Pistol Whip when they do. Mkay?

/rant

Hype.8032:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Hype.8032:

d/p is superior to s/p but s/p is a lololol press 3 build so you get the obvious types gravitating towards it. Both builds have the same shortbow action but d/p has more reliable spikes and chases better. Then again, it takes more skill.

You’d be completely wrong, and your assumption that sword is for spiking shows your inferior knowledge about the class. Sword is designed as a sustained damage weapon, while dagger is a burst damage weapon, meaning that sword builds are made to stay in the fight and keep pressure, while dagger is a get-in-get-out spike weapon meant to quickly take down already pressured opponents.

Secondly, D/P has far to much reward for its very little risk, while S/P, S/D, and D/D are balanced to the point where a skilled player will shine when using these, and many top-tier PvPers stray from D/P due to its low skill ceiling and inability to hold a point.

D/P in WvW, however, is extremely good due to its high access to stealth on demand without the necessity of an enemy to gain it from, ala CnD. In this facet you would be correct, but this is a PvP discussion. I’m sure you’re trolling by telling experienced players that D/P requires far more skill than S/P, S/D, D/D, and even P/P. It’s laughable, really.

EDIT: Also, anyone running S/P who mindlessly spams 3 is going to die very, very quickly. Maybe you should try something other than your canned D/P build to expand your horizons.

You do realize that shortbow is a better weapon for sustained damage than s/p right? In both d/p and s/p kits you should be using shortbow most the time. You keep the same damage while maintaining more defense. So, what do you want from a switch? Burst is the answer. D/P is the superior set for burst and it’s our highest skill cap weapon along with shortbow. Step away from perma stealthing in wvw and learn more about this class dude!

You sound foolish saying s/p doesn’t revolve around pistol whip… watch magictoker play, that’s his bread and butter and you’ll often see him hit it 3 times in a row with no other skills inbetween. YOUR inferior knowledge betrays you.

Cheers!

Lolwhat? You run D/P, and I run S/P, and you’re telling ME to step away from perma stealth? I think I’ll stop right here, because it’s obvious that you’re trolling as hard as you possibly can. Learn the class. You didn’t play top tier tPvP in something like Team Legacy, dissect the game and learn every inch of its core mechanics. I can provide real numbers for you on why I’m in fact correct, and why you’re blowing smoke out of your kitten trolling. What qualifies you as a professional on the subject? I’d love to see your stream and how you play, because I guarantee if I see one skill click or keyboard turn, you’ve lost all credibility. You’ve kittened me off now. I dare you to try to tell me how “inferior” S/P is and how bad of a player I am, the one who posted both the emerging S/P meta build and the post Dec. 10th D/P trickery build, which you probably run. I know my way around this class, kiddo. Don’t try to pride yourself because you just joined the forums today and made a thief, then come here and insult seasoned players who actually know their kitten.

Hype.8032:

d/p is superior to s/p but s/p is a lololol press 3 build so you get the obvious types gravitating towards it. Both builds have the same shortbow action but d/p has more reliable spikes and chases better. Then again, it takes more skill.

You’d be completely wrong, and your assumption that sword is for spiking shows your inferior knowledge about the class. Sword is designed as a sustained damage weapon, while dagger is a burst damage weapon, meaning that sword builds are made to stay in the fight and keep pressure, while dagger is a get-in-get-out spike weapon meant to quickly take down already pressured opponents.

Secondly, D/P has far to much reward for its very little risk, while S/P, S/D, and D/D are balanced to the point where a skilled player will shine when using these, and many top-tier PvPers stray from D/P due to its low skill ceiling and inability to hold a point.

D/P in WvW, however, is extremely good due to its high access to stealth on demand without the necessity of an enemy to gain it from, ala CnD. In this facet you would be correct, but this is a PvP discussion. I’m sure you’re trolling by telling experienced players that D/P requires far more skill than S/P, S/D, D/D, and even P/P. It’s laughable, really.

EDIT: Also, anyone running S/P who mindlessly spams 3 is going to die very, very quickly. Maybe you should try something other than your canned D/P build to expand your horizons.