(edited by apharma.3741)
- Getting a good interrupt with a thief means reading the animations, learning the other class mechanics. Shouldn’t that work be rewarded ? Punishing a necro spamming AA on scepter is a side effect. d/p thief is more or less not allowed to AA in a team fight because of AOE spam and squishiness. Is it a bad design to have an inverse mirror situation for other classes ?
This thread continually takes me back. These arguments. This one for example is the exact same one that came up because of how thieves SPAM their AA for massive damage an no ill effect. The problem? Power Block on Mesmer was being used to counter that with interrupt damage and putting the spam on CD. Tsk Tsk.
Of course we all know that interrupts are largely useless against thieves unlike everybody else. Why? So much insta cast, insta teleport, engaging from LoS, not to mention stealth etc etc.
It’s hilarious to see thieves now trying to defend their kitten against people telling them this exact same thing is out of hand.
Thieves, forever broken as kitten.
FYI: Headshot is the least of a thieves interrupt capabilities. Arguably it’s one of their worst XD
I believe it was the cool down increase part that was removed from auto attacks and it wasn’t just thieves that were affected or complained. I’m pretty sure you can proc the damage part of power block and weakness from autos. Having said that power blocks damage needs power, precision and ferocity while I’d only requires power to do similar damage.
True, the damage is still there. But the arguments in this thread are the same. The true difference is (wait for it, it’s the same kitten since release!) Thief initiative system, skill spam, Steal feature overloading, their unique mechanics! (insta cast, teleport, mobility, bla bla bla)
Yeah I get what you’re saying, there just isn’t that much of a cost to using headshot, it costs 4s of a thieves time. When a mesmer uses their interrupts to get damage there is a safe period afterwards where they have no way to proc the trait or it’s tied to something with its own inbuilt counterplay, casting a mantra.
This just isn’t really there to the same extent on thief as the cost is so low compared to 25-40s cool downs that a mesmer has on these skills or they’re on weapon sets that lower a mesmers in combat abilities. Yes I know they technically have sword offhand but I can count on a fingerless hand the number of times I’ve seen that used or been effective in any way. The thief has to give up what? The choice of condi cleanse on dodge and that’s it, good thing they’re immune to all soft CC then!
When A thief uses ANY skill that costs Initiative he is compromising all of the other skills that cost initiative. That is unlike a skill going on cooldown which only closes down that skill. If a Thief uses 3 headshots and only triggers one interrupt he has done some 3k in damage for the cost of 12 INI.
He now can not use black powder and HS to stealth> He has no more ini to do an unload.
That thief is now expending dodges or breaking off combat so as to get his ini back . THAT is the cost of spamming a skill.
This ini system has another cost that is not as spplicable to other classes and that in the selection of utility traits. There a reason a theif can not load up on venoms, just as example or is hard pressed to load up purely on offensive utilities and that in part that same ini system. Due to the fact that expending INI to attack indirectly affects all other INI type skills by lowering the ability to use them a thief will need to ensure he has utilities that are purely defensive.
On My warrior because I have a 3 second block just off shield as xample as a last ditch defense , i am not as needful of a defensive utility on 6-10. The theif that is using ini off to spam headshots had better have these in his utilities or he will be dead quick.
Yes the INI system gives the advanatge of using a skill multiple times in a row , but that comes with a cost that no other profession with cooldown pays.
That’s the difference between being good at resource management and being bad at it though. Any person can blow all their CCs and get nothing out of it, especially mesmer and then what? To other classes they usually had 1 maybe 2 defences left as their offense takes the place of defence but a thief only has to wait for ini to regen, good thing they have 3 dodges and some extremely low cool downs on skills too.
One of the best ways thief does damage is with auto attack too so the only time they have to use other skills is to either disengage or chase leaving plenty of room to use headshot to interrupt any skill with a cast.
Know your limits, if you can’t beat a player in a fight be where they aren’t. You may find you can beat every other player on the enemy team instead so just go do that. It will get harder when you go against people who know how to rotate as the DH will try to be a thorn in your side but you should be able to avoid fighting it.
Other than that, get some friends and duel them on classes you have trouble against. Learn your limits and when you need to leave because you only have X cool downs left to make sure you aren’t getting +1.
- Getting a good interrupt with a thief means reading the animations, learning the other class mechanics. Shouldn’t that work be rewarded ? Punishing a necro spamming AA on scepter is a side effect. d/p thief is more or less not allowed to AA in a team fight because of AOE spam and squishiness. Is it a bad design to have an inverse mirror situation for other classes ?
This thread continually takes me back. These arguments. This one for example is the exact same one that came up because of how thieves SPAM their AA for massive damage an no ill effect. The problem? Power Block on Mesmer was being used to counter that with interrupt damage and putting the spam on CD. Tsk Tsk.
Of course we all know that interrupts are largely useless against thieves unlike everybody else. Why? So much insta cast, insta teleport, engaging from LoS, not to mention stealth etc etc.
It’s hilarious to see thieves now trying to defend their kitten against people telling them this exact same thing is out of hand.
Thieves, forever broken as kitten.
FYI: Headshot is the least of a thieves interrupt capabilities. Arguably it’s one of their worst XD
I believe it was the cool down increase part that was removed from auto attacks and it wasn’t just thieves that were affected or complained. I’m pretty sure you can proc the damage part of power block and weakness from autos. Having said that power blocks damage needs power, precision and ferocity while I’d only requires power to do similar damage.
True, the damage is still there. But the arguments in this thread are the same. The true difference is (wait for it, it’s the same kitten since release!) Thief initiative system, skill spam, Steal feature overloading, their unique mechanics! (insta cast, teleport, mobility, bla bla bla)
Yeah I get what you’re saying, there just isn’t that much of a cost to using headshot, it costs 4s of a thieves time. When a mesmer uses their interrupts to get damage there is a safe period afterwards where they have no way to proc the trait or it’s tied to something with its own inbuilt counterplay, casting a mantra.
This just isn’t really there to the same extent on thief as the cost is so low compared to 25-40s cool downs that a mesmer has on these skills or they’re on weapon sets that lower a mesmers in combat abilities. Yes I know they technically have sword offhand but I can count on a fingerless hand the number of times I’ve seen that used or been effective in any way. The thief has to give up what? The choice of condi cleanse on dodge and that’s it, good thing they’re immune to all soft CC then!
- Getting a good interrupt with a thief means reading the animations, learning the other class mechanics. Shouldn’t that work be rewarded ? Punishing a necro spamming AA on scepter is a side effect. d/p thief is more or less not allowed to AA in a team fight because of AOE spam and squishiness. Is it a bad design to have an inverse mirror situation for other classes ?
This thread continually takes me back. These arguments. This one for example is the exact same one that came up because of how thieves SPAM their AA for massive damage an no ill effect. The problem? Power Block on Mesmer was being used to counter that with interrupt damage and putting the spam on CD. Tsk Tsk.
Of course we all know that interrupts are largely useless against thieves unlike everybody else. Why? So much insta cast, insta teleport, engaging from LoS, not to mention stealth etc etc.
It’s hilarious to see thieves now trying to defend their kitten against people telling them this exact same thing is out of hand.
Thieves, forever broken as kitten.
FYI: Headshot is the least of a thieves interrupt capabilities. Arguably it’s one of their worst XD
I believe it was the cool down increase part that was removed from auto attacks and it wasn’t just thieves that were affected or complained. I’m pretty sure you can proc the damage part of power block and weakness from autos. Having said that power blocks damage needs power, precision and ferocity while I’d only requires power to do similar damage.
You know, if the top of NA wasn’t full of smurf accounts those people you’re beating in gold 1 easily would be gold 3 most likely. This means you would have more consistent games in your rating bracket as the entire system is distributing the rating between players properly.
What happens when you have a bunch of alt accounts taking up 4 or 5 spots on the higher end is they’re effectively taking rating off other players to stay there. It comes down to the way the system takes more rating away for a loss than you get for a win unless you play really well. The more smurfs the less places and people there are playing at the same time at the higher end for you to gain rating off and the high the chance of going down.
A good example would be the top ESL players, each one is sitting on a high win ratio so chances are if you ever fought them you would lose and thus lose rating. We’re going to use just 5 and assume they have 5 smurfs each, this means when a smurf is getting to the top you will fight it and you will lose. This pushes you down and them up, they do this 5 times which means there are 25 accounts you will always lose to and because they can’t play at the same time they act as a rating storage.
Take away the smurfs and suddenly there’s 20 more people playing at the same times for those 5 ESL players to take rating off and for you to do the same as people will move to fill in the ratings gaps.
I just used ESL players as an example of people who are most likely the top or near the top of player skill and people you’re not likely to beat often. In no way is it an accusation.
Fresh air is horrible for the game. It is huge instant spikes with no visual tell and the burst is instant. It should not be viable.
This is only noticable if you run a berzerker amulet, which is not practical in higher tiers. Bad design? probably but the fact that the damage is instant and fresh air ele is still not considered meta says something IMO.
On a light golem air attunement hits for about 1.4k on critical, I’d hardly call it huge instant damage spike, even throwing in lightning strike you only add 2.1k onto that. So people are complaining about 3.5k hits in marauder…..
Other classes do more damage than that with auto attacks using defensive amulets. and that’s our “burst” on a DPS amulet, haha!
Our unavoidable and massive damage I’ve heard people call it, biggest joke on the PvP forum is thieves complaining about that.
Sadly FA isn’t likely to be viable for a long time as other classes either do it better, do way more fast damage or are much more mobile to withdraw. Pulmonary Impact doesn’t help either when attacks have fairly long casts on scepter.
It’s worth mentioning that Signet of Inspiration now gives a flat duration (though is affected by boon duration) of all the boons you have on you and traited you are on a 18s CD with alacrity and you have the traited version too in inspiration.
With 96% boon duration you share if you have the boons:
Quickness 6s
Resistance 4s
Stability 10s
Aegis 20s
Fury 10s
Might 40s
Protection 6s
Regeneration 10s
Retaliation 10s
Swiftness 10s
Vigor 10s
This really helps keep up 100% protection, vigor, swiftness and fury from rangers in some of the harder bosses like Matthias.
I don’t think anyone would ever claim that open world core Tyria PvE is “hard”. Mesmers simply clear trash slower than other classes, and thus progress slower than other classes is all. We are one of the few classes that don’t have the +25% movement speed signet so moving around the map is more of a chore as well (though signet of inspiration somewhat makes up for that).
I think that’s what he was refering to as “The quickness signet” as I can’t think of any other that give quickness without an interrupt on core.
@OP
Many classes clear open world mobs VERY quickly especially while levelling. Your personal damage is about (or was before the 100% damage increase to blurred frenzy) 50% of what other classes do on their autos and other abilities.
I’d argue you’d be better off with a greatsword as a secondary weapon and using mirror blade at close range, mindwrack when the clone is out and bursting down a mob, then switch to sword/sword to finish them off or summon the illusionary berserker to kill it and walk away.
I can run around as a staff ele and kill most things with 3 auto attacks, 1-2 on my lvl 80 full ascended and lava font and meteor shower allows me to kill packs of enemies in a few seconds. A mesmer cannot do these things very well.
This argument about mobilty, duh…thief!!! The whole point is not to be ‘caught’ theving/stealing/burglary and when they do they either get screwed over and have to flee (failed) or get caught and screwed over and die (failed again) it’s not the players fault that they have no any other choice but to port away. Will you just stand there and let your self get killed?
To be fair I think it’s just poor design from ANet about thief tbh. Would have been better to just straight up call it assassin but shift more of the balance away from mobility and more to an excellent 1v1 class that scales poorly with numbers.
They could even rename the resource from initiative to energy….
WvW is more team than anything tbh
I second this, get some friends together and do some team roaming in WvW. Some friends and I have just put together a group for it and we were farming GH on their border against twice our numbers on the first time we tried out the team comp.
The only issue is cheese is VERY mature in WvW and there’s always a good chance someone will call in the motherblob to remove you from where you are.
The only way to guarantee you will not see AR again, whether be paired with or against is to move to EU.
If you move to say Baruch Bay you’ll be playing with hundreds of people from your time zone, all PvDing the night away….
…don’t expect them to speak a word of English though.
In all seriousness if you have weird times of play and REALLY want to never see AR again EU is a serious thought.
@apharma.3741: assuming same skill level and everyone running meta, i am pretty sure double thief team is more at disadvantage than double mes or double necro comp. You may win some fights but thief is simply not capable of holding point and points win games.
Killing enemy players also wins games, one thief does the meta DP build, the other runs a more on point damage build like acro staff. You can’t assume both thieves run the meta because they’re then both playing the same role. You only need 1 person for that role especially with a thief and it’s insane mobility.
Double thief isn’t bad, double +1 decap role is not good.
Why jump the extra loops to buy Flax Fibers with Badges of Honor, craft Flax Fibers into Linen Supply Sacks, craft Linen Supply Sacks into Bags of Energy, craft Bags of Energy into Schematics, put Schematics into Assembly Device?
because it’s more interesting & holistic.
if you just put the objects that Flax Fiber is required to create on the vendor directly, you immediately tank the prices of not just Flax Fiber but all the other items required to create your wvw upgrades.
it gives casuals a reason to care about badges of honor because they can spend their badges on flax fibers.Memories of Battle and Shards of Glory are not needed for PvE. They are for crafting legendary weapons only. You get the same stats from ascended gear. I don’t play PvE, but I am pretty sure PvE is fully self-sufficient when it comes to acquiring ascended gear.
Upgrades (Flax Fibers) are used in WvW as part of the daily warfare. They are more that just some cosmetic touch.
i’ve acknowledged that in the part of my message you’ve pruned, and you haven’t directly countered the point that these materials link the economies across the three distinct game modes
ignore the scale for a moment, ignore HOW IMPORTANT it is; is it important to HAVE those links between the three game modes?
To me the extra loops are just that. I wouldn’t mind so much if crafting was even remotely interesting – it’s just labour.
For the economic links… There are no items PvE players need from WvW to do their daily business. The money flow is from WvW to PvE only.
I don’t see the importance. Why do you feel it is absolutely necessary for WvW players to feed gold to PvE farmers? How would PvE players feel if they had to buy consumables, repair kits or such from WvW players?
You’re making the rather false assumption that PvE players spend all their time harvesting flax and enjoying it. Most PvE players might harvest a node when it is right on or next to the path they’re taking to get somewhere.
If WvW players harvested the nodes in WvW whenever they flip or defend an objective you might find you get as much as any regular PvE player. I know flax farm spots exist however there’s very little preventing WvW players parking their alts there and harvesting it before popping into WvW or cycling through them after WvW.
Don’t get me wrong flax fibres should drop more in general and the same could be said about maguuma lillies and freshwater pearls. Adding a node that gives a fibre to all towers would help solve some imbalances and adding a maguuma node to all keeps that drops a T6 gemstone from HoT would also help.
So according to the wiki on damage calculation we can express damage equation as the following:
Damage = ((Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient) * (Positive multipliers)) / (Armor * Negative multipliers)
So to check the math with first your build Justine. We assume it crits as with roiling mists you’ll be at 93% chance to crit and that it’s the final hit on CoR, for Elder focus we assume 6 boons as a minimum, full bloodlust and 10 might. We will also use the rather tanky “glass” armour of 2118 with no other defences.
CoR = ((1100*3177*2.25) x (1.07*1.07*1.05*1.05*1.50*1.20*(1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02)*2.24))/2118 = 21,276 with CR, 14,185 without CR.
Blaquefyres has left out a lot of multipliers for some reason, there’s either no force or strength rune multiplier nor assassin’s determination, a major multiplier in itself. Blaquefyres is however correct in assassin’s presence being a 10% multiplier and correctly applied it to the ferocity multiplier. I’m guessing the 1.01 is a typo as I can’t really see any reason it should be there unless compensating for ascended however it is much better to use the mean value of an ascended hammer 1100
Now for the other build. We assume a crit though roiling mists takes it only up to 67.5% chance and the same might and bloodlust as before with same armour target and boons.
CoR = ((1100*2981*2.25) x (1.07*1.07*1.10*1.20*(1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02)*2.486))/2118 = 14,659 and no CR so no need to stack that.
To be honest there’s not much between them outside of CR however Blackfyres build has a lot more toughness and the conditional 10% modifier of scholar may not always be there unlike strength. Then there’s the difference of crit chance, Justine’s build will crit 9/10 for insane damage no matter what, Blackfyres will only crit 2/3 times so you might get lucky and escape with just losing half your health.
It’s also worth noting both builds do make complete sense, adding toughness and funnelling it to ferocity both helps boost damage and allows for easier upkeep of scholar buff. The other build being glassy takes a reliable 5% modifier with strength.
You both might think why do the math again, surely we’ve already done that?
Well, tbh I wanted to test my suspicions on Windows 10 calculator and how it doesn’t do calculations with brackets properly. If you just copy pasta them into it you get a different answer than to doing the multipliers all separately, it’s not wildly different but it’s enough that I no longer trust it.
Edit: Forgot about hardening persistance adding to ferocity and the no doubt guardians adding toughness. I will adjust the value of ferocity to account for an average of +350 toughness = 35 more ferocity (1.6% more damage). Made about 100 damage difference.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Fresh air is horrible for the game. It is huge instant spikes with no visual tell and the burst is instant. It should not be viable.
This is only noticable if you run a berzerker amulet, which is not practical in higher tiers. Bad design? probably but the fact that the damage is instant and fresh air ele is still not considered meta says something IMO.
On a light golem air attunement hits for about 1.4k on critical, I’d hardly call it huge instant damage spike, even throwing in lightning strike you only add 2.1k onto that. So people are complaining about 3.5k hits in marauder…..
While they’re at it, they can look at freshwater pearl prices and maguuma lilies…
But let’s keep it short: to all this necros/mes and co complainers, answer me this question. How do you explain, assuming thief is OP, that stacking necros is viable, stacking mes is viable, but having more than 1 thief on a team results in a loss in most cases? I am struggling with contradiction here.
I face palm when I see double mes and one doesn’t change because a lot of people suck at mes. In fact if you saw the streams with Helseth climbing out of Bronze it was when he had another mes that he was more likely to lose.
2 necros with no support is just as bad but only shine when they have someone supporting them enough to get those corrupts off. Think about it, necro will annihilate scrapper, ele, dragon hunter and generally can help deal with wars and druids too because of corrupts. With no support necro will be in serious trouble without deathshroud.
Double thief isn’t a bad comp, it’s certainly not an auto loss. The problem is a lot of thieves are not half as good as they think, the same issue with a lot of mesmers. It’s one of the reasons I don’t play mesmer on ranked, I know I’m not capable of playing at a good level while rotating and using portal to its maximum effectiveness.
Except a lot of the PvE people have expressed concerns with class balance and in particular HoT elite specs.
A lot of classes can output enough healing to make raids easy but why is druid the only healer you really see? The unique buffs, quite frankly it’s beyond broken in its role.
Can other classes stack 25 might? Sure, eles can keep nice might uptime and other classes can but nothing comes close to the ease of warrior + unique buffs.
Core condi ranger is one of the highest dps specs in the game. Engi doesn’t even use scrapper in PvE.
Warrior’s might gen is purely coming from core traits. Druid is the alpha healer because of spotter and SnR both of which are core.
It’s not just because of spotter and SnR, like I say they give out anything from a 9-25% damage buff while healing, no other healer spec can touch it or do close to the total level of buffing a druid offers while healing. They also offer some very substantial constant healing ticks many wouldn’t be able to do
Warrior also pumps out a lot of CC with berserker as well as having a flat out damage buff and it does enough damage to have an impact, about 15-20k compared to the other buffers who do between 2-8k.
You mention core ranger having high DPS and same for engy and that both use core however they require targets to not be moving much at all to come close to that. Compare this to the real top tier damage dealers who can DPS while moving and core ranger falls behind fairly rapidly and the top DPS classes all use elite specs.
Remember is said within roles, within roles the elite specs are the absolute best and others don’t come close. Even a core warrior pales to an elite spec warrior.
(edited by apharma.3741)
And in ANet’s delusional mind they think everyone with the expansion wants to play the elites and that it’ll incite the free players to buy power via the expansion.
How are those profit margins working? Not well.
About those profit margins……https://articles.pvplive.net/article_images/OverwatchRev.JPG
It might surprise you but the main players of gw2 are not pvp’ers but ppl who enjoy raids and idk pve i guess? Anyway these players do not have much concern about class balance or build diversity or whatnot.
So yea as long as the numbers are good no reason to majorly change anything, just pump out the next expansion.
Except a lot of the PvE people have expressed concerns with class balance and in particular HoT elite specs.
A lot of classes can output enough healing to make raids easy but why is druid the only healer you really see? The unique buffs, quite frankly it’s beyond broken in its role.
Can other classes stack 25 might? Sure, eles can keep nice might uptime and other classes can but nothing comes close to the ease of warrior + unique buffs.
Are classes able to cheese through mechanics with invulnerability? Sure but only a mesmer can carry the whole 5 player party through. They also have a monopoly on quickness and alacrity which drastically decrease cool downs.
Now sure raids and high level fractals can be done with any mix of classes pretty easily if you’re that good but you are dilibrately playing sub standard builds but you play them optimally.
Balance within roles took a nose dive in every single area of the game with HoT, doesn’t matter if you’re PvP, WvW or PvE and I don’t honestly know anyone who is happy about the state of balance.
Meh happened to me months ago, no one cared and it won’t change. Was down before I could react, basically only an auto skill would have saved me. Wasn’t even full zerk either.
Good luck with the balance crusade, I don’t see anet giving two figs about it.Thief was within 1200 range of you unstealthed blew 4 long CDs to land two Hits, no different then most big hits that happen in WvW, it sucks when it happens but WvW will never be balanced, you will never see those numbers in PvP just because less stats and less damage modifiers. Fun fact you can get hit from a well setup maul for 18k in PvP the Ranger was super glass and died when sneezed on though, that was the biggest hit I have seen in PvP to date.
So far the classes I know that can land over 20k hits in WvW are Revenant CoR doesn’t need any setup just hit CoR and can easily achieve over 15k damage, Warrior with Gun Flame, Warrior with Arc Divider hits for over 15k easily, Ranger with Maul can hit for 20k with setup, and Thief running full Signet with setup on D/D with Berserker gear. I haven’t seen other classes achieve anything higher than these ones.
A perfect mesmer burst with full zerk, scholar can 100-0 any class without an auto invuln that’s in zerk. I’ve had mind wrack hit for 13k alone with 4.5k total from mirror blade and a 4k mind stab to finish.
Course if you make 1 mistake you are incredibly dead.
Highest burst in the game? Not even close, Sc/F ele with arcane wave can take 20k off people, though they’d have to be special to be hit by dragons tooth, triple phoenix, electrical discharge, lightening bolt and arcane wave.
Mesmer doing a full burst while also predictable can do more than thief but in terms of current meta builds and viable builds warrior takes a big old dump on thief burst. 5k headbutt into 6k arc divider, gg.
Implement voice comms in PvP and 5 randoms instanly become a communicating team.
Even if only 1 of the 5 has a mic.
Amazing.
Ele: “Hey guys, stick near me and I’ll heal you up!”
Warrior: “**** off you ********* ********, i **** yor mom!”
Ele: “Charming, lets just win ok?”
Ranger: (breathing)
Guardian: (screaming and shouting in the background) “SHUT UP MOM IM PLAYING MY ******* GAME!”
Ele: “So…..anyone got a plan?”
Ranger: (breathing intensifies)
Guardian: “Sorry I just had to SHUT UP MOM!! Sorry sorry, yeah I’ll go mid with you and the war.”
Warrior: “**** off you piece of ****”
Ele: “Sure ok.”
Ranger: (loud breathing)
Ele: “Are you ok druid?”
Ranger: "Es-tu une fille?
Ele: “errrrr”
Ranger: “Je ne parle que français”
Announcer: The match is about to begin!
Ha! At least we push a few buttons. Your passives play the game for you.
Idk why people say this. I -was- a thief main before HoT made it boring, but jeez the class elitism is old old old old old old old. Have you ever seen an acro build? Thief has a passive stunbreak + endurance refill and a passive distortion. Can I get a passive infuse light?
Yeah Thief totally has a passive distortion SMH…. this is why you can never take people seriously on the forums.
Distortion is Invulnerability, not Evade just saying.
Oh please cut the semantics. Oh no, the only difference is you can get hit with Pulm!
+ you can also proc the evasion traits in DD and Acro. Was that scientifically accurate enough for you?
No during Evade you can still be CC’d while Invuln you cannot, during Evade you can still take damage from certain traits, sigils and skill while Invuln you cannot. GG it’s not semantics they are two completely different skills. And let it be noted this topic is about Interrupting Distruption and Headshot which the last I checked the Staff Acro Build and the D/D Acro build do not use. Again can’t take you seriously when you say you mained Thief and then say Thief has Distortion.
No you cannot be CC’d lol. Unless you somehow proc mesmer’s CC mirror or another trait like that. You are literally being the biggest nitpicker to try to discredit me. I was a thief main for two years and still play it daily. D/D -> S/D -> D/P now so you’re barking up the wrong tree.
This topic is about ID and Headshot but this is all related. Because all you thief QQers will whine “waahhhhh we can’t 1v1!” so it doesn’t deserve a nerf when its YOUR FAULT you don’t take the builds that allow you to do that.
Oh really you can’t be CC’d? Let’s see try moving through any Line if Warding or DragonsMaw or the DH Spear of Justice Pull while the 2 second Evade is active oh that’s right you will be CC’d by knock down, pull etc while Invuln you wont be affected. I think you should do some research before stating things.
You are the only one discrediting yourself, I’m just providing the correct info.
It would be more accurate to call it blur not distortion as it behaves like blur which is nearly invuln.
Im a simple player, i play max 2 hours a day, i dont watch e-“sport” gw2, i dont care about top tier player problems, im atleast 35% of the player base of gw2, how about balancing the game to my skill level? And not to some special snowflake kids playing 28 hours a day…..
game is already balanced around you…. look at all passives from warrior, druid literary lets the game play for him
Hope this was some advanced sarcasm
Nope it is true, the amount of Passive Defenses and offenses in this game as well as all the kindly AoE Spam, and skills that are both Heavily offensive and Defensive at the same time are designed around Casual players otherwise they would have designed skills around PvP instead and have more active game play and not have skills so frontloaded with effects. There are classes that have severely low Skill floors and they essentially pilot themselves and get carried by passive defenses.
Then the reverse side of this look at all the competitive Game types they have no real rewards for performing well, the Rewards are designed to benefit Casual players more so than the competitive players, hell when a player feels like they can’t achieve something Anet instantly hops to and complies most recent example AP points for the Top 250 on Leader board, previous example Legendary Backpiece from PvP.
I agree
Did I ever say Thief had no Passives? Let’s look at the post. Hmmm nope.
Nice try though, here is your Anet approved Participation Trophy.
Yeah true enough you didn’t say thief has no passives, however I have seen people who main thief talk about the same subject matter and how passives need to go without realising their own class has quite a few themselves.
The funny thing is the passive defences a thief has in acro are all much lower cool downs and better than the equivalent traits for other classes.
@Cynz, just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean thief is free of passives and I wasn’t aware attacking a target is such a highly skillful play, especially when it involves instant cast abilities and your auto applies poison by default.
You do realise instant reflexes is a cheaper version of endure pain with lower cool down but lower uptime?
(edited by apharma.3741)
Im a simple player, i play max 2 hours a day, i dont watch e-“sport” gw2, i dont care about top tier player problems, im atleast 35% of the player base of gw2, how about balancing the game to my skill level? And not to some special snowflake kids playing 28 hours a day…..
game is already balanced around you…. look at all passives from warrior, druid literary lets the game play for him
Hope this was some advanced sarcasm
Nope it is true, the amount of Passive Defenses and offenses in this game as well as all the kindly AoE Spam, and skills that are both Heavily offensive and Defensive at the same time are designed around Casual players otherwise they would have designed skills around PvP instead and have more active game play and not have skills so frontloaded with effects. There are classes that have severely low Skill floors and they essentially pilot themselves and get carried by passive defenses.
Then the reverse side of this look at all the competitive Game types they have no real rewards for performing well, the Rewards are designed to benefit Casual players more so than the competitive players, hell when a player feels like they can’t achieve something Anet instantly hops to and complies most recent example AP points for the Top 250 on Leader board, previous example Legendary Backpiece from PvP.
I agree
Edit: Before someone points out only a few at best are used in the current meta build, I am fully aware of this, it doesn’t change that thief has passives that are applied with very little user interaction which is what is being complained about.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Again, how about Drazeh, Zan, Helseth, Sind, Denshee, Rom and anyone else that feels up to it do a 1v1s streamed event between top players?
Then people can see how the 1v1s go when played “optimally” between different classes and how they all hold up. Would also make for some decent viewing and I dare say everyone will get something out of it, hopefully more subs for the top players and a more educated community.
So to move the discussion forward and provide some ideas of content for all parties, would it be an idea for having a streamed duel evening or event between various top players?
You could also take a leaf out of revs books and make headshot a longer daze but with kitten CD….
Either way this thread will be a salt mine, let me grab my popcorn.
Thief weapons skills don’t have cooldowns, so how would you even accomplish that lol
The way they did for stealth attacks; ANet doesn’t care.
2s ICD would probably make the trait plenty usable and hit spammers while giving stab-less/limited-stab professions like necro a little bit of relief.
I was actually meaning the way rev had almost no cool downs in beta and it became extremely obvious some of it was broken overpowered. Thief has the opposite problem with its weapon skills, it’s balanced by the ability to spam it and so skills are being kept weak but with no cool down only resource management.
Ok. Let’s assume PI gets nerfed and can’t compete with EA anymore. This would lead to overall lower damage done by thief. To make up for it, thief would need to rely more on backstab.
Problem with backstab atm
1. it got nerfed way too many times in the past (CD, dmg nerf etc.)
2. it puts thief in really bad spot forcing him to eat all AoE flying around
3. due to nature of backstab (requires stealth etc.) it gets heavily hardcountered by blinds, blocks, passives etc. I know there are some highlights on youtube showing thieves doing 10k backstabs but our average backstab is like 3k on a good day due to passives etc.So, imo, it would take a lot of changes to make bs worth of use again.
Problem 1: CD needs to go, this change was uncalled for on first place.
Problem 2: either massive AoE spam needs to go from all classes or thief needs ways to deal with it. Changing all classes like this would require a lot of work, take also pve into account – it won’t happen. Only way would be giving thief some kind of buff while in stealth to deal with AoE, e.g. reduce damage taken from all sources (ik there is SA trait, but SA itself is laughable compared to DD atm so nobody will take it) – but then everyone would cry that they can’t kill thief and stealth camping would be even more prevalent.
Problem 3: as with problem 2, it would require quite few nerfs to survival of other classes. Let’s assume Anet does implement it. It would once again heavily affect raids, wvw and interaction between those classes. Anet could also give thieves better way to land backstab (e.g. make it unblockable/ignoring protection if landed from behind on X CD) but then people relying on all their passives will cry rivers that they are dying to backstab.
Bottom line: thief is a glassy damage dealer that gave up everything but mobility and stealth for damage. They are meant to do damage. Regardless in what way they are dealing damage, players will be never satisfied and will complain about the class. The joke is, thief damage is still 99% single target, unlike traps and co.
I think dissatisfaction doesn’t come from the damage itself (in case of PI, as someone mentioned before, it works same way as confusion) but from the fact that thieves are so slippery and force enemy to time their skills and participate in mind games. Your average Joe is not interested in it, they just want to press their button, soak damage and mash things.
Didn’t see this till now, sorry for that.
I agree that the ICD on stealth attacks isn’t great atm however conversely it wasn’t balanced when a thief was in stealth and all you saw was block, block,block, backstab too. Reducing it to 1/2s CD while adjusting the aftercast might resolve issues in a decent middle ground.
The only things I really think need nerfing is HoT stuff, things like >50% uptime on stab, perma prot, spammable X, lots of traits and weapon skills I can’t list due to message body length. Needless to say there needs to be more trade offs for picking elite.
I personally think one of the main problems with thief is it has too much mobility for it to warrant having too much on point presence. It’s skills have pretty decent power scaling and a minor increasing to the non auto attacks (10-40% depending on skill) would allow them to compete nicely in a more tanky build if mobility was toned down considerably. The other aspect is that thief is just so much better in the +1 decap role and build which makes all other builds rubbish.
Personally I find the most dissatisfying aspect of fighting thieves is a lot of the time they jump you and if they weren’t successful they run away only to come back maybe 10-20s later. To a lot of people it looks like there wasn’t much risk involved and with the lower cool downs and ability to use effective skills back to back it doesn’t feel fun to fight. The other aspect is the cheesey builds that do require a lot more effort to kill than to survive against, every other class has cheesey builds, but most of the time they only require you to be aware that they are using that build and you can counter it with little effort.
In a patch that I would have introduced PI would have to be reduced significantly as most other HoT specs would be. Stab wouldn’t be something classes can just spam or keep up with little to no care, reflects would have a slightly higher cool down with simple projectile blocks left as is. Generally a lot of things would be toned down as well as an overhaul of boons and their uptime.
So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.
Defense rests.
Next.
If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.
What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.
When doing your "raw damage " comparisons you ignore the fact that a mesmer interrupt can be followed up by a number of other weapon skills. Just the one used goes on cooldown. While a thief does not have cooldowns per se the more times they try a headshot quicker they get to the point where all of their skills outside the AA unusable due to the use of INI.
Headshot spam means no ini left to stealth , or to unload or to do a pistolwhip. The damage off headshot is still less then an AA chain and requires an interrupt to proc. The skills damage is fine. Without ability to crit against heavies the damage per ini spent is just not there.
Your “math” trying to prove it does too much damage is very much like the people who come here claiming the same about backstab or heartseeker. It ignores costs associated with it and in particular as it relates to ini and the lost opportunity of other weapon skills when the INI used up trying to get an interrupt off.
People that complain about the thief ability to spam a skill still just do not understand how that makes the theif play so very different. The more a theif spams a single skills off his weaponset, the less available are the other skills. Managing INI is key and headshot spams where 4 chained and one in 4 proc is not managing INI.
Thing is thief auto is one of the strongest in the game, opportunity cost while it is there there it isn’t half as big as a lot are saying it is. When I play thief (WvW only mind you) I don’t spam headshot, I wait till I see them doing an animation then bam headshot, next animation head shot, while also putting in auto attacks as needed. I don’t spam needlessly and I don’t waste ini when I know how much the auto does. I am not an amazing thief but I don’t have trouble with ini 90% of the time. Many other classes cannot use skills back to back, once it’s done it’s done both systems have drawbacks and advantages.
When you compare PI to every other interrupt trait out there only power block comes close to it’s raw damage and you have to invest in precision and ferocity for that. Though I did mention comparing the two isn’t really a great option, just as the confusion on interrupt traits are hard to compare as a cleanse can negate all the damage.
The math wasn’t to show it as OP/UP it was to show the comparison and the false information Azukas was spreading. You can all make your own decisions based on it or ignore it, I don’t really care. In my opinion though it is too strong and I have already outlined what I would do to the skill along with how I would reduce mesmer and other elite specs. I would urge you to read that.
Cynz, go read my other replies not to you but others in the thread. My responce about paladins was in relation to the skill PI not the other weapon skills on thief as that is what we’re talking about.
I know what EA is, my point is you are not picking any cleanses in any other line at all and choose instead to pick mainly damage traits in every other lines, compared to other classes that are picking their condi cleanse line as well as power defence line.
Edit: Cynz I’ve seen a post you made earlier I haven’t read, I’ll go read it in a sec.
(edited by apharma.3741)
So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.
Defense rests.
Next.
If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.
What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.
That is not true:
- you give up condi removal for it
- you give up gap closers, stealth for it since you use ini for headshot instead of other spells
- you actually have to run dps amy for it to do meaningful dmg….
- you actually have to successful interrupt the target and that is not as easy as you would think due to nature of other classes (pulsing stab, blinds, blocks etc.)Now let’s do a little comparison here: take scrapper hammer. Most skills have basically backstab multiplies. How much does scrapper have to invest to do decent damage with those spells? Rrrright not much really: 0 traits required and scrapper can run paladin amy (so still be able to invest in survival). Not to mention those spells all have secondary utility like block or reflect so it is not like he only does damage with those.
How is 3k (on good day) single target PI is OP when there is warrior running around doing 7k instant aoe damage covering whole point while having by far better survival than thief? Or let’s take your beloved mesmer with undodgable/unkitable shatters because clones run at 300% speed and teleport on top of you even across the map. I am not even going to start on double quickness moa (animation shows after moa is already in effect) which messes up necros more than PI will ever do.
Again, you invest nothing into a condi removal line and choose to take a DPS line instead. Look at the scrapper build, every single line is defensive.
A thief can run paladins and get the same damage out of PI, basically any amulet that adds 1050 power and pack runes and you hit as hard as marauder with it so no, you don’t need to run a dps amulet tbh.
What gap closer are you giving up to take PI? If you’re meaning the choice to use headshot instead of shadowshot then that’s a choice depending on circumstance. If you’re playing well you use the headshot to interrupt them being able to recover from a spike in damage or you use shadowshot to close in and finish them. Heaven forbid you play a class where when they use a skill to gap close it’s gone for 30s+.
The damage on scrapper skills is strong, you’ve seen me say it before so I don’t see why you keep bringing it up.
They changed Moa so the signet appears above the mesmer at the start of casting now. Arc divider is silly strong, many people have said how making it a huge AoE is essentially guaranteed adrenal healing but that has nothing to do with the thread. Neither does “unevadable shatters” as you put it as this thread is about PI.
You haven’t asked my opinion on half the things you assume I’m OK with and keep presuming I’m ok with other things I think are grossly overtuned. I’m asking you to please stop derailing the thread and these constant assumptions for the sake of the thread.
The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.
But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.
Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrustvs
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_
PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.
Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.
So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.
Thank You
Ok, lets talk about factually incorrect statements.
“PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.”
Confusion damage formula for background tick = (0.035 Condition Damage) + 10
Confusion damage formula for on activation = (0.0625 Condition Damage) + 49.5
So with carrion amulet it looks like:
((0.035 X 1200) + 10) X 4 = 208
((0.0625 X 1200) + 49.5) X 4 = 498
So 1-2 ticks and a skill use you will take 208+208+498 = 914 damage
Even if we calculate the full background tick for 6s you only take 1232 and would need quite a few skill activation hits to get to 4k.
PI is a 3.28 coefficient and the damage formula is as follows:
Damage done = (Weapon strength) X Power X (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
You also have to factor in multipliers which the thief has a 10% minor in DA and will have at least 5 of the lead attacks buff.
(2225 X 3.28 X 952.5/2000) X (1.10 X 1.05) = 4014
So no, mistrust won’t do even close to PI levels of damage.
Now for power block.
It has a 1.5 coefficient so on the same target and assuming we get about a 10% damage increase through vulnerability with berserker amulet and greatsword the formula looks as below:
(2375 X 1.5 X 1047.5/2000) X (1.10) = 2052
It can crit so we’ll assume it does for 110% more damage and it looks like 4310.
That is more than PI, however there are differences between the two skills. Power block needs precision and ferocity to hit as hard as PI and there’s also other advantages to power block that you use it for, namely the increased cool downs. There’s also the potential for procing it where thief has much more use of interrupts than the mesmer per investment. The realistic damage from power block though is about 3k as you’re sitting on just over 50% crit chance.
Edit: Tbh you really can’t compare power block with PI very well and I’ve also weighted everything in the mesmers favour here, using sword will reduce the damage and running marauder will equally reduce damage both on crit and without.
Perhaps someone might want to compare other on interrupt damage or condition applications and see how they measure up to PI?
Edit 2: I can only really find a warrior on interrupt trait which applies 4s confusion for 8s which would do more damage than mistrust (on single targets) but less in team fights. It’s worth noting that mistrust can score high numbers if you interrupt 2-3 people in a group and they don’t realise, the draw back though is better AoE cleansing and that the mesmer would lack certain defenses afforded by the current meta build.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.
This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?
I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?
Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.
The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.
Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.
The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.
I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.
You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.
Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.
Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.
Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.
Great! So so that means thieves have been in the winning team comps for pro team champions then?
We don’t really know, last ESLs were quite a long time ago, September I believe and some of the hefty nerfs didn’t happen till October. Additionally that was the world championship so the teams competing as far as I know we’re already decided and short of the few thief players that we’re already on those teams there wasn’t likely to be a big roster change. On of the major changes was the nerfs to revs which I’m sure hasn’t gone unnoticed even by you.
I’m sure Sindrener can explain it in more detail as he knows more about ESL and how they work than I do.
Still the thread is about PI, on its own I believe it is far too strong for the little investment needed especially on the weapon set that is already the strongest for thieves. That doesn’t mean I think thief is currently OP though just that the skill is just like how I think UA is OP even if rev isn’t ATM.
I’m a mesmer main and I’ve seen this type of thread many times before. So I will post what I’ve always posted in these threads.
You have to look at the grand scheme of things in terms of PI. In those terms nothing about the Thief is OP. The only class that actually has a,decent gripe is necro, but if you should never be left to 1v1 a thief anyways. If you find you are in one vs a thief and die….that is a l2p issue on you and your team. Same with rev.
Now on each of those classes while you are countered you can survive a 1v1 long enough for a +1.
Now the other 6 classes pretty much hard or soft counter thief. This is with the OP PI trait too. So if you are dying 1v1 to a thief on one of these other classes then PI is not the problem. You are. Also if you are unable to hold out in a 1v1 with a thief long enough for a rotation to help you while on a necro or rev, PI is not the problem…you are.
No changes at this time are warranted to PI based on the current state of the entire game.
Thank you and /thread
This has not been refuted and pretty much shut the door on ANY argument for the nerfing of thief.
Until one you can prove this wrong this thread is over and the mods should lock it for spam/trolling/etc.
Thank you and /thread
The thing is this entire thread is about pulmonary impact not whether or not thief is OP. Is PI OP? At a 3.28 multiplier it is undoubtedly strong especially considering there’s been a trend of increasing cast times on skills to allow interrupting them. When you also consider how little you have to invest to make it strong too (all you need is power) it’s obvious to many it is far too rewarding for what it is.
Turning round and making the thread about the thief as a whole is derailing it as many thief mains like yourself have done. Especially when the common responses only derail the thread even more after some people have tried to get it back on track.
Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.
This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?
I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?
Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.
The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.
Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.
The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.
I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.
You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.
Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.
Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.
Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.
Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.
This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?
I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?
Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.
The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.
Apharma. Thanks for the apology. People troll and talk kitten all the time, but yea i get that sometimes it’s just for yuks. As for a reply assessing what you’ve said, just read what I’ve posted. And if you still disagree then w/e people are entitled to their opinion.
It wasn’t an apology, I make no such thing for what I said or the way I say it. As for your build, the mantra healing trait is a really bad thing to take because impacting disruption thieves will eat you for breakfast, same with the heal and you don’t have enough stealth for both.
Torch is factually worse than shield for “having to stay in the fight” as you put it, torch will let the node get decapped without really giving you much else other than a really long cast phantasm and stealth to channel your easily interrupted heals. The shield however gives you a double block for 3s total on a 25-35s CD (factoring alacrity and celerity) as well as a double stun with projectile block and quickness.
Using well of eternity means it’s harder to interrupt, gives you nearly the same healing as ether feast without clones but with the bonus of cleansing per pulse (5 total conditions removed with inspiration line) and an ally heal if they’re smart.
If you want to play this build go ahead but don’t try to pass off bad decisions the way you are doing. If you were to use a mantra for healing, pain or distraction would yield better results. If you need it for cleanses as I say you should use well of eternity then slot a better utility, even phantasmal disenchanter wouldn’t be that bad an idea in this meta. Stealth doesn’t help you stay in a fight or keep a node yours/contested.
Most people on the forums say they are ok with nerfs to their class if the other classes get tone down as well, so why not start that discussion and try to figure something out that works to better balance all classes in a way that we can all agree? I’m trying to change the conversation to a more productive one. All you have to do is see Cynz reaction to these nerf suggestions. I promise that if you included toning down all the other classes while asking for a nerf to thief Cynz and others would be more willing to compromise.
Editted it down to the part that’s relevant not because of any underhandedness.
The thing is I’ve seen a lot of nerf mesmer threads as well, it’s not until you explain that a mesmers shield is the highest cool down block for duration in the entire game that people start to realise maybe it’s not actually imbalanced.
Anyway as I’ve said many times as well a lot of HoT things need toning down, I posted in the mesmer section a long time ago how I would reduce the class to how I thought the elite spec should be.
I can’t find it but I’ll give you the gist of it, no continuum split, alacrity mesmer only mechanic, less quickness and even then chrono would be a trait line that would be a good option in many cases. However it would be utterly attrocious if every other class was left the same way and I would expect some seriously deep nerfs to others as well.
The point is moot though as ANet clearly showed with the first 2 balance patches that they would rather change core aspects than nerf the power creeped HoT specs and the clear imbalances within them.
I agree with this 100%, and yes I feel that if the community had these discussions we would be able to come to an agreement across all classes and player base, but anet keeps going at it the wrong way. I’m hoping that if we have more discussions like this where the community can agree on nerfs and buffs than anet might eventually see what we are really asking for which is a balanced game that is fun.
The thing is mesmer wouldn’t be in a great place with the above suggestion (though it would bring the elite spec in line) as they still have pathetic sustained damage due to balancing around clones and phantasms. It might also delete them from PvE and WvW roaming would be back to core mesmer most likely because stealth is so OP there.
Even nerfs on this level to other classes doesn’t really help as there are deep seated issues within the classes. HoT pets for ranger are way too tanky in 1v1s but die super easy in team fights, ele does not have anything but support builds as they don’t have the tools to be a roamer or a bruiser anymore, thief having bouncing off the walls crazy mobility but no ability to be a team fighter. That’s just to name a few.
Most people on the forums say they are ok with nerfs to their class if the other classes get tone down as well, so why not start that discussion and try to figure something out that works to better balance all classes in a way that we can all agree? I’m trying to change the conversation to a more productive one. All you have to do is see Cynz reaction to these nerf suggestions. I promise that if you included toning down all the other classes while asking for a nerf to thief Cynz and others would be more willing to compromise.
Editted it down to the part that’s relevant not because of any underhandedness.
The thing is I’ve seen a lot of nerf mesmer threads as well, it’s not until you explain that a mesmers shield is the highest cool down block for duration in the entire game that people start to realise maybe it’s not actually imbalanced.
Anyway as I’ve said many times as well a lot of HoT things need toning down, I posted in the mesmer section a long time ago how I would reduce the class to how I thought the elite spec should be.
I can’t find it but I’ll give you the gist of it, no continuum split, alacrity mesmer only mechanic, less quickness and even then chrono would be a trait line that would be a good option in many cases. However it would be utterly attrocious if every other class was left the same way and I would expect some seriously deep nerfs to others as well.
The point is moot though as ANet clearly showed with the first 2 balance patches that they would rather change core aspects than nerf the power creeped HoT specs and the clear imbalances within them.
Edit: If I was on the balance team I would reduce the damage by 20% bringing it to a 2.62 coefficient instead of 3.28 and add an icd of 5s.
What I think is more likely will happen is damage reduced by 40%, headshot costs 5-6 ini and possibly an icd anyway.
(edited by apharma.3741)
I did no such claiming, go back and read what I put, I said they had not nerfed thief traits. The reason I said that is because they haven’t (though as deceiver said the changes to venoms can be seen as buffs or nerfs) nerfed a single trait however I am more than aware of the ICD on stealth attacks.
I want to clarify: I did not say the venom changes can be seen as buffs. If we’re talking traits, venoms were objectively nerfed; in the context of venomshare builds, they were also nerfed, too. It was a PvE buff and a ganker buff (dumb) on builds not speccing into it. Otherwise it was a strict trait nerf and build nerf because they removed a substantial amount of the support potential from the traits themselves/the build itself and did not compensate for it.
Fair enough, venom builds are not something I particularly took notice off so I’ll take your words for it in the trait area. Still I do think it’s a bit much the complaining about the exceedingly few nerfs since HoT considering how many buffs thief has received regardless of whether we personally think it was in the wrong places.
Lol, playing with myself a bit for sure. Obviously Apharma this post is a prolonged pet project of mine. But it’s ok. At least this kinda masturbation is satisfying. Commenting on people’s post with needless jabs is the kind of thing teenage kids do…it’s so old hat and boring.
No need to take it personally it was just for a bit of fun, it was a reference to how you seem to be mostly replying to yourself at multiple times. Your build and some of the replies you posted especially the quoted looks to me that you’re trying to be different for the sake of being different.
Sceptre, ok I guess you can justify it for the extra condition pressure at the cost of blurred frenzy but torch over shield? If you’re going for a dueling spec and have chrono then shield is by far more useful and is even more useful when numbers climb from 1v1 to team fights. I just don’t think there’s any reason to use torch even with the pledge.
You said you found allies don’t stand in the well for its heal, yes this happens but if your allies are too dumb to benefit, stop using it for them and use it for you. You’re taking the cleanse mantra but if you took well of eternity and used it properly you wouldn’t need the mantra and can instead slot something more useful in a fight. Decoy or portal would work well in this build even if you don’t want the signet of illusions which is great both offensively and defensively.
Gravity well, that’s personal preference I guess but there is definitely an advantage to being able to moa an ele and snowball a fight by which time CS is off cool down.
Ross was referring to how the majority of your build is close to the meta, there are some differences, albeit worse choices, but your role, the way you do damage and a large amount of the traits are the same.
While it’s wrong of ANet to keep nerfing core skills and traits because of elite specs every other class has suffered because of this so I see no reason to make exceptions for thief. IP is very oppressive for how little you need to invest in it for DP, when a thief jumps you and gets you to 50% or less IP makes sure that on any class with a heal or even any defensive skill with a cast time of 1/2s or more is essentially dead as they can’t heal or take any defensive measures.
Thief needs reworking from the ground up, same with mesmer, some aspects of ele, pet mechanics in general and classes dependant on them.
They already nerfed every single core thief spec in previous patch….. there was never exception on first place. Why are you posting misinformation?
Traps are oppressive, scrapper hammer is oppressive, 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD is oppressive, aoe spam is oppressive, condi spam is oppressive, passives are oppressive, high update on blocks is oppressive…. what about those?
I can survive thief jumping on me and using IP as a thief/necro w/o relying on blocks, heals etc. Why can’t you? Pro tipp: use LoS if you really need to use long cast.
Put the rage away Cynz. They haven’t nerfed a single thief trait since HoT in fact thief is the absolute most buffed core spec since HoT. If you’re referring to the spec patch can you at least have the decency to read and think about what I posted before raging on the forum?
Doesn’t change what I said Cynz, if you’re not near something to Los behind (and why the eff isn’t the thief sticking to you like glue to kill you?!) most of the time you’re done for.
While it’s wrong of ANet to keep nerfing core skills and traits because of elite specs every other class has suffered because of this so I see no reason to make exceptions for thief. IP is very oppressive for how little you need to invest in it for DP, when a thief jumps you and gets you to 50% or less IP makes sure that on any class with a heal or even any defensive skill with a cast time of 1/2s or more is essentially dead as they can’t heal or take any defensive measures.
Thief needs reworking from the ground up, same with mesmer, some aspects of ele, pet mechanics in general and classes dependant on them.
I can see the ithilwen comparison someone mentioned.
Also rev loses to thief hands down and has less mobility as it requires a target to teleport to, not very good for a quick decap or buff grab. If you lose to rev as thief try dueling them a bit, IP completely destroys them once they’ve rotated through precision strike/UA combo.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Enjoy the free win by having all team fights be effectively 4v5 on your favorable because some trashy player decided to play a build that’s total junk.
Also standing somewhere he can’t teleport onto you can really mess him up and either get you the decap, full cap or defence. Then if he’s still annoying cleanse and leave, well of eternity with inspiration is a cleanse all against this.
AngryGrump your mesmer example only shows you have no clue how the game works at its most basic level. Clones and phantasms have to be summoned upon something and generally requires a target, the only way a mesmer can summon a clone to counter this thief is to run deceptive evasion which almost no mesmers run at all.
No target = no clones or phantasms which is why a high stealth uptime enemy is hard to fight as a mesmer.
You could also take a leaf out of revs books and make headshot a longer daze but with kitten CD….
Either way this thread will be a salt mine, let me grab my popcorn.
Ele is terrible for carrying as you’re very dependant on your allies not being completely moronic and running from you or telling you to cap a point as they all run into 2 necrosis and an ele to die.