Balance is 99% focused on spvp. There are very few condi thieves there.
My only concern with it is Stronghold. The mob AI is basically non-existent, which makes condis incredibly potent. See: https://youtu.be/5yJihva0Qrg?t=56s
Mesmer requires more skill and intuition than many other professions. You’re probably rusty in both of those departments, given that you took an 18 month break.
Also, you will get better, actionable advice if you list the traits/equipment for your build.
At about 1:20 i use distortion and you can see the invulnerable icon (+ the master of reflection icon) popping up, going away, and popping up again. I didn’t get hit in between but it seems like i was vulnerable for like a second during F4 at that moment.
Note that this was with IP traited.
It does look like something goofy is going on. Look how your clone counter ticks down slower than when you shatter at 4:45.
how is playing SA in 2015 something to be proud of I don’t understand what you mean. anyway this is okay gameplay just very sloppy at times, SA outright carried you from dying many times. you random dodge more than me and i’m an acro thief lol.
I absolutely hate SA (to the point that I have a troll PU mesmer named Shadow Arts Thief). That said, don’t be so harsh on this guy…
If you want to talk about sloppy game play, look at your new video (https://youtu.be/HXYCQ6QjcK4?t=1m45s) at 1:48. You literally run into a churning earth and CnD against shocking aura. Really? Really?!? And you’re lecturing someone about missing CnD’s? I’d rather miss a CnD than land one like that.
Seriously though, both of your videos have some nice fights.
Go in with two and bring lots of interrupts. Turreteers are weak to CC. Spamming cc lets the other person land everything, which takes them down pretty quick.
IMO the “play the other two points” thing only works if the engi is bunkered on his own home point. If you have to hold far, the opponents’ short respawn walk does a lot to balance that outnumbered fight.
Yeah it seems everyone is laser focused on HoT. Like I said before, I’m guessing even the stability rework was done because of some roadblock they found with the Revenant mechanics.
Thief shouldn’t be revealed, but backstab should cost initiative. That way the thief can try again, but is still punished a little for attacking into a dodge/block/invuln/blind.
“But that’s our auto attack”…ok, then give a stealth AA and move backstab to f2
Originally by: hooma.9642 What: Consume Plasma Type: Skill buff Suggestion: Give additional stacks of stability to Consume Plasma Why: Receiving every single boon in the game isn’t strong enough, especially against a class that thieves already hard counter. Consume Plasma is basically a better version of pre-nerf Lyssa runes, except for the stability. Obviously that needs to be corrected. Thieves need all the help they can get when it comes to fighting mesmers.
BP + HS is a 9 initiative combo and it takes a total of 1.25 seconds to complete and it is the most telegraphed ability in the game. Interrupt the heartseeker and the thief doesn’t gain stealth and loses 3 initiative for certain. If the thief is very experienced he can double back on the powder and still gain stealth with a second HS but most will “wtf” and die. This is assuming you didn’t use GS 5 to interrupt him and you don’t follow up with GS 5 or any kind of immob, stun, etc. or simply the second charge of mantra of distraction.
With that done, the thief incurs a total of 9 seconds in cooldowns for all of his weapon skills.
First of all, BP+HS is definitely not the most telegraphed ability in the game.
It doesn’t take an experienced thief to press 2 again after being dazed by MoD
The second charge of MoD won’t be off CD before the thief can use HS again (it’s a 1s daze with a 5 second recharge)
You talk about the thief losing 9s of cooldowns, but completely ignore what the mesmer loses. That number is 50% of a 30s CD skill, so effectively a 15s CD. Adding the GS5 you mentioned, the comparison becomes 12s for thief vs 45 seconds for mesmer
Most thieves (like you) are quick to point out mesmers’ ability to prevent a single stealth attempt, but ignore the CD race over the course of an engagement. If 1 denied stealth killed the thief, it wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately that’s not the case (as you correctly point out, only inexperienced thieves “wtf and die”).
Everyone here forgets the game’s genre. It’s an MMO! That means grinding! Players who grind are rewarded more than skilled players. That’s the whole idea of any mmo, and the leaderboards represent that! You think that just because we are getting a moba map you should be ranked the same way? If you want to be rewarded for skillful play, stop playing an MMO!
I’m fine with the current system. In fact, I think rank should be solely determined by the total number of games played, win or lose!
To the argument of “this will never happen” I do understand that is a long shot, but we don’t need to add entirely new traits so much as remove/rework existing traits. Each line has some frivolous replaceable trait that could be scrapped to push the Mesmer into a better direction.
You want to replace an existing trait? With a new trait. That’s happened to a tiny handful of traits since launch (e.g., Dhuumfire). Your solution involves reworking 4-5 traits. It will never happen.
Also contrary to popular beliefs the devs DO sometimes at some point read these forums, and us having a discussion on these types of things very well could inspire the same type of convo in the dev offices.
Yes, devs browse the forums. The best way to inspire them to act is with realistic solutions. Remember the Mind Stab rework? The devs came to the forums and got several good ideas. What happened? They increased the skill’s radius.
I’m not faulting the devs or being negative about the future. I’m just acknowledging the existence of development constraints and advocating for realistic solutions.
As fun as these discussions are, they’re absolutely worthless (and arguably counterproductive). Anet balances with number tweaks, not with new skills. If we want to rally behind any change, it should be making DE an adept major. It might not be the perfect solution, but it’s a more realistic request of Anet.
Yeah that combined with the blind rework in summer 2013 that prevented it from being cleansed just by attacking air. It was a good change, but still a massive buff for thieves (one thieves often forget about when complaining about a history of nerfs).
Someone earlier in the thread hit the nail on the head. The first version of Power Block put CDs on rezzing and stomping. I’m guessing that whatever they did to fix that also ended up affecting the thief interaction, and Anet can’t be bothered to refactor the code.
Everyone talking tokens and new effects is wasting time. Because they’re so busy on HoT, the only balancing Anet does right now is number tweaking (think boon/condi duration, CDs, attack radius, etc.).
The upcoming stab change is the first technical addition/rework in over a year. If I had to guess, it was probably only implemented because of some road block with the Revenant.
what i like about this thread is the fact that devs actually implemented some of this suggestions which says so much about them~
i wonder if we wrote here “jump off the cliff”, would they do it too?
Perhaps this thread says more about the thieves with so much class loyalty that they’re wholly incapable of taking a critical look at their own profession’s skills. So much so, that they’re literally mocking ideas that end up in the game.
Please keep in mind this is not a rage message, this is reality
To make thief more viable, we need:
- More backstab damage (10k isn’t enough)
- More regen (330/seconds in stealth isn’t enough)
- More stealth (perma stealth isn’t enough)
- More TPs (5-6 TPs aren’t enough)
- More blinds (perma blind isn’t enough)
- More dodges (perma vigor and Feline Grace aren’t enough)
- More presence in PvP (1 thief in every top team isn’t enough)
Interrupt mesmer so always blink, MoD and decoy or portal depending on the map and opposing team comp.
I opt for decoy if the opposing team is bursty and portal if the opposing team is tanky. I’m also more willing to slot portal on maps with good verticality (khylo) because it’s easier to deaggro.
Make it so that you don’t get daily credit (or any rewards) unless you played the entire game (start to finish) on the winning side. That would fix the problem in a heartbeat.
So many shadow arts tears in here. It just shows what a colossal crutch that trait line really is. “Oh no! I can no longer open on a 1v10 and get away when it doesn’t go my way! Such broken!”
With the amount of stacks in just self-sustaining skills (Dolyak signet: 10 stacks for 8s) it’ll probably be better to wait it out/boon strip it than trying to wear it down with interruptions (even the best interruption mesmers will have trouble overcoming that amount by themselves). This change seems to be more of an band-aid for WvW than PvP. Though I can’t deny the potential for interruption mesmers in WvW, I’m still a bit disappointed at this change.
It does look that way. I still want to see what the stack counts are for each skill.
Holy walls of text, Batman! If you want people to understand (or even read) your arguments, try to be more concise. Your post history looks like a mass grave for words.
Anyhow, intentional interrupts are very difficult vs. most thieves (save HS, HiS and bassi). Haphazardly guessing with them can work against some classes (engi, for example), but with thieves it is generally a losing game.
Oh no! Someone on the internet uses words! On a forum at that! Rude! Call the.. call the.. someone! Halp! It dazes my poor brain to see words written out in paragraphs and I must call it a wall of text, even though it is not by any standards. I am so insulted to see a post that has more than 3 sentences!
And no, intentional interrupts are not very difficult vs thieves. An inexperienced-with-interrupts Mesmer might think that though. E.g., take on their #1. It’s a predictable pattern. And again, that’s why you string out the Diversion with your own Illusionary Persona being very reliable as the first hit, to increase the odds. You try create your clones a certain range apart, before going for the dazes.
Your poor brain able to read this? Too many words to handle? Did my Diversion hit you on the forums again? Maybe I just like playing Mesmer too much if it works here too.
Agree to disagree on both your defense of word diarrhea and all of the points you’re trying to make about interrupting thieves therein.
Going forward, I’d say limit the 1v1s to hard counters or unusual fights. Watching you chase rangers or gank glass builds with ye ol’ prestige>mirror>blink>mind wrack>mind stab combo isn’t interesting.
Holy walls of text, Batman! If you want people to understand (or even read) your arguments, try to be more concise. Your post history looks like a mass grave for words.
Anyhow, intentional interrupts are very difficult vs thieves (save HS, HiS and bassi). Haphazardly guessing with them can work against some classes (engi, for example), but with thieves it is generally a losing game.
Too early to tell. We’ll have to see how it plays. To counter your points:
1) Most mesmer builds are very weak to conditions
2) Revenant gets stability on dodge roll (plus, I doubt you’ll be able to interrupt upkeep skills anyways)
I have other gripes (primarily backstab costing 0 initiative so it can be spammed until it lands and consume plasma), but if they fixed those two things, it would go a long way towards making thieves a more realistic counter.
Certainly is confusing — will it still have timers or will it be like mantra stacks from now on? Also, this looks good for lockdown mes, but then there’s hambow warriors that will take advantage of it too.
It’s not confusing. It’s just like blind except it stacks. You can use condi removal to cleanse blind, or you can miss an attack. Similarly, you can use boon removal to strip stab, or you can use cc to strip a single stack.
So if a Warrior has 1 stack of 3 seconds stability, and a Mesmer hits him with a Pull, that will remove the Stability even though he still had 2 seconds left on it?
And if the Warrior has 3 stacks of 3 seconds stabilty, and the Mesmer hits him with GS-Mind Stab(remove boons), then the Warrior will have NO stability?
Yes. At least that’s how it was explained on stream.
Devs just announced stability will be changed to act like blind. It will stack in quantity instead of duration. If you CC someone with stab, they immediately lose 1 stack of it.
No. It doesn’t beat all. It just trolls really well.
Theives will tell you to use your weapon skills/utilities to prevent them from getting into stealth in the first place. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Their ability to attempt to gain stealth will outpace your ability to prevent it, unless you’re also a thief.
Still, it’s your best bet. Interrupt the stealth procs and burst as much as you can between.
And anyone bashing the naming, dont be a jerk, names make a build unique on its own way, so making that part as your own. I mean what the fak is wrong with naming a build?
To me, naming builds just creates a kittening contest between different egos laying claim to sets of traits (see: this thread). It’s particularly narcissistic when they start versioning their builds each time they change a sigil or an adept trait.
That said, guides are always welcome, and I agree we’ve been a little harsh on Syric.
all forums or just ours? (I’m only here so I don’t really know about the others)
All of them. Fewer people playing with not as much to talk about.
Most professions/matchups are pretty thoroughly explored at this point. Even Chaos, the man of a million surveys/guides/explanations/talking points, is struggling for content these days.
They’ve been consolidating a lot of the sub-forums because of it. Things will pick up again when the HoT is released.
The swordsman isn’t meant for team fights. It is meant for single target pressure. It baits dodge rolls very well in 1v1s and 2v2s. It also spawns next to the caster, so you can choose exactly where to place it. If you think it is a poor phantasm in small fights, maybe try positioning it differently.
Helseth was always a beast with staff. His movement/positioning/kiting with it was very good. I’m wondering if losing staff outweighs the benefit he gets from torch stealth.
Wait, so this guy is better at hiding than Tupac (literally 30 seconds stacking stealth from 37:23 – 37:53) but using LoS to heal is “cheap and low”? There are no words.
Edit: wow…36:43 – 37:53. He stays in stealth for 61 of 70 seconds.
Ok, I get it. Damage is a bad idea. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.
Let’s try an exercise…backstab now costs two initiative. In exchange, I’ll give you might, but only when you land backstab. How many stacks of might do you need to agree to the deal? If more than 25, then I’ll start giving you vigor, then regen, then swiftness and so on. There is a point at which you take the deal. If you claim that point would make you OP, then you would obviously be willing to take the trade at a lower amount, so there is guaranteed to be a point at which it is an even trade. This isn’t a hard concept.
At that point, you are punished for missing backstab (like every other burst skill in the game) but are properly compensated and rewarded for skilled play.
