individuals with great skill at the class can appear to be unstoppable, even more so with certain dire based gear builds.
Dire PD handicap thieves are now considered “players of great skill”? Wow.
quote taken fairly out of context, I agree, any player that learned how to play a thief as dire pd handicaps themselves. In turn, they may never reach a level of great class skill potential because they never felt what it was like to be full glass, to carefully pay more attention to positioning and endurance for dodges.
On the other hand, players that have trained in full glass zerk builds have in time strongly developed a blind/evade playstyle. When these individuals get into dire, yes, they can seem unstoppable.
I don’t really understand the critique because this is just an above / average thief roaming around fighting average wvw players ( terrible ).
But is that not the point? As thieves we want to showcase the potential of one skilled player vs several players not quite at the same skill level. (overall showcasing the skill based combat mechanics of gw2)
If I had shadowplay and shared my recorded out numbered fights would I face the same critiques? I personally enjoyed watching the video and guess what, I had the audio on mute so I can greater appreciate the game play. (very few missed cloak and daggers was nice to see)
yea, i think cele staff would be viable. Personally, ive been getting my jollies playing dire/apoth staff with perplexity runes when roaming on my ele.
best advise i can give is to dodge right when you see the thief reopen on you with the pistol sneak attack.
You will negate 4/5 of the sneak attack bleed stacks from just one dodge.
P.S. – your fellow ranger players have giving a lot of misplaced advice, it is apparent to me that none of them actually ever solo roamed in WvW gameplay.
T1 has cross server guilds based on the merits that you are a duelist and actually solo roam. Those have been the only ones ive seen work “kinda” since its based upon mutual respect for a certain type of hard mode playstyle in T1 wvw.
from what ive seen from fellow thief roamers, D/P is the preferred set.
I think the power of the shadow arts line infusion of shadows and the on demand stealth has a lot to do with it. In addition to the really good blind uptime, target gap closers and direct dmg output.
shadow strike and cloak and dagger scale very well with power. Sneak attack not so much, but this is also part of the appeal behind zerk/hybrid p/d, because it does not take a whole lot of condi dmg (600ish+) to put the bleed stacks to work as additional pressure after you hit a 2k+ crit on your shadow strike with no more than 1700-1800ish power.
How I cherish those rage pm moment, especially from fellow thief mains. I got a rather humorous one earlier this week while playing in a practice spvp arena on my carrion build.
It was a rage pm from another thief that died rather quickly to me, following his death the salt was real,…..“u are trash, condi crutch thief,” “learn to crutch, lol”
The irony was he died to a backstab, steal bewildering ambush, shadow shot, heart seeker combo while I was playing in dagger pistol. Only conditions he had was a blind, a poison, and 5 stacks of confusion.
Yea, it is a little shocking that there are certain people either directly or indirectly defending this broken synergy with claims that “it can be hard countered”, “those guys need to l2p”, “that build would be useless in competitive pvp”.
All this reminds me of this southpark episode about sex addiction. Deep down, I’m sure we all know the synergy of this build is OP, but some of us are having so much carefree fun with it that we have to somehow defend it to maintain the joyride into the expansion and beyond.
and lets be honest, you are not going to accomplish that by running around with a group of people in wvw with your zerker meta bursting down actual solo roamers with a single rapid fire contribution.
Like allready mentioned Engineer and Elementalist work better because their abilities are a mix of condition damage and normal damage.
The problem with thief is the initiative.
Being able to spend all your initiative on either condition based skills or power based skills, makes it somewhat less efficient if you go for a celestial build.
Tried different things to make it work. Venoms looked like a good idea first, but then you have way less room for stealth skills.
meh, it works for me currently and despite the removal of might on stealth from the shadow arts trait line in the upcoming expansion, I remain fairly confident this will still work for me post expansion (although it may need tweaking).
Btw, it is not an either/or situation with spending initiative on condition vs power based damages. Pistol/Dagger was developed with the concept of hybrid thief game play in mind, plus venom utilities are not very popular with hybrid wvw gameplay and with good reason.
So please, explain to me, why is it you feel that the class itself is the problem when the build goes from “OP Broken can’t win against it it should be nerfed” in WvW to “Almost completely worthless” in PvP, the only real difference in the 2 specs being their gear/rune/food buff choices?
I specified earlier that I think the biggest problem is dire, but that’s not the only problem.
When it comes down to it, nobody running dire is going to like a nerf on dire stats. However, it may very well come to it down the road into the expansion (i.e. potential of the OP dire revenant, theif, ele, warrior, mesmer, etc), almost in the same manner they nerfed %crit dmg into ferocity for the sake of pve reasons. Unless, anet is hell bent on making condition dmg the new meta for pve purposes post expansion, then we will just have to simply adapt and put up with it.
For wvw gameplay, I do not think the tower/keep wall long range kitten will change very much. Just hang out on the walls, look for scrims that are in your range and burst down low targets.
If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.
I don’t have a problem with thieves using conditions. I just have a problem with the risk/reward of condition thieves currently. I think the biggest problem is dire gear, which just minimizes any risk involved in playing the spec. A very good first step would be removing dire gear.
Other big problems include the way that SA or acro synergize with dire, how steal is a one-button-do-all, and how thieves can stick on targets amazingly well while still applying heavy condition pressure (as opposed to, say, PU mesmer).
I think this will only get worse post-patch, with needle trap on heal and torment on interrupt with no ICD. The torment, especially, is going to be a pre-perplexity-nerf level of broken, especially given how easy it is to interrupt with sleight of hand or pistol 4.
I tend to agree with the OP on this, and this is coming from a one time dire thief fan boy. Dire gear is very strong as it stands, not just for thieves but for all professions.
Frankly, I too have been getting a little sick of seeing dire perplexity thieves in wvw trying to come off as having some sort of playing skill only to be ridiculed by the rest of the duel/roaming wvw community for factually being carried by a broken build synergy.
Take advantage of shadow art’s hidden assassin to stack upto 8 stacks of might via D/P black powder combos prior to opening up the P/D sneak attack rotation. (sneak attack, shadow strike, steal, shadow strike, blinding powder or shadow refuge, sneak attack, weapon switch to D/P, shadow shot, heartseeker/autos). This rotation is a strong burst that works by summing both modest direct damage and condition damages together, along with life leech and sigil of air procs this provides high offensive pressure that will panic even the most skilled and tanky players in wvw.
Also don’t forget the shadow refuge dark field combo with the pistol, the life leech from this combo will add about an extra 1k of dmg and return 1k of health to you. This along with Mug, the life leech procs from the scavenging runes and food buff, in addition to shadow’s rejuvenation is what can make this cele mix or any hybrid build with 6 in SA a pain for others to fight in small scale wvw roaming.
So would something like carrion or celestial be best for optimizing the distraction strikes build over dire or rabid considering the power-based interrupts?
Give it some burning with a blast finisher and a nice explosion animation, some soft CC like chill on the third auto attack, a block/reflect ability with hard CC counter swing on melee like a stun, and a leap.
Honestly, if you were running any kind of a bunk turret build for roaming WvW. You were sort of a laughing stock of the roamer/dueling community. Not that turret build were particular OP, but just very passive offensive/defensive gameplay.
Your correct Gern, it wasn’t entirely constructive. I am frankly getting fed up with a small group of players trying to dictate to the entire playerbase on what requires change or balance based mostly on their lack of playing skill.
All I can say to OP is crymore pls. I love it when people whine about certain builds/profession because they present some sort of challenge to they’re game play. If all you do is complain you will never become a better player at this game and in life for that matter, grow up.
If you are having trouble with something in this game, learn it, practice with it, duel against it offend.
Thought Id throw that guy a bone, I know two guys running this zerk build with pack runes as well and they are having great success in the T1 solo roaming scene.
Simple answer is yes, I am currently playing a celestial/zerk/carrion mix in t1 solo roaming. It is extremely viable and that is with 2/0/6/0/6 and scavenger’s runes, not even the most optimal runes that can be used and it remains strong. I have been frequently out lasting/out playing DIRE p/d d/p krait and perplexity rune thieves out in the field with my current cele mix.
A variant of this zerk build is actually been in use for sometime and it is somewhat popular in T1 roaming, although not as popular as the condition based variant. Yes, the trap and use of S/P as a secondary is subpar for the build. Ideally, you want blinding powder, SR and shadow step along with S/D or D/P as the secondary to P/D to make the most of the steal stun combos.
I play S/P, and I do not see that to be true. However, I do understand how much more useful BP would be to P/P and therefore a stronger overall indirect nerf.
I have not seen any other solutions put fourth other than a shadow meld nerf suggestion without any details. So is the answer again addressing the traits that makes this unbalanced and not the skill combo it’s self?
First off, those of you who know me are aware I main thief. However, I still notice other thieves pulling off extended stealth periods with multiple black powder/heartseekers combos. I have been guilty of it too in order to regen hp back to nearly full and regain the opener on my targets.
However, what risk do we run gaining and maintaining stealth in this manner while regenerating our hp with shadow’s rejuvenation? It is not like cloak and dagger, in which we must land a successful melee hit in order to gain stealth. Landing CnD successfully is much more of a risk and it is not always successful.
Yet we are able to gain stealth with the d/p method with little downside risk, and it can remain repeatable within stealth if traited. I forward that the ability to maintain stealth with this method needs to be curved back further than it was on the previous anti-perma stealth patch attempt. Will increasing black powder to 8 initiative finally resolve this issue once and for all?
How big were his heals and regens? He cleanse a lot of your condi’s? Was he tanky?
I’m not sure how it is on your server or tier, but in T1, Dire/Apoth/Settler’s mix sets with various 6 earth trait builds and perplexity runes are gaining in popularity.
some go 0/0/6/6/2, 0/0/6/4/4, 0/0/6/2/6, 2/0/6/2/4, 2/0/6/6/0 etc etc.
As a theif main, I am actually enjoying the new rapid fire change. One good dodge and I negate like 80% of their burst, than gap close and melt em. Were it used to be I had to double dodge to negate 70% of it, leaving me open for a follow up knock back.
rumor is im also Beyond B.