Guild Wars 2

DieQuex.4096:

Save for shocking aura being annoying, how is D/D Ele OP (in hotjoin especially)? I personally still mostly see Thieves and Mesmers, so I dunno’ what to say OP. There weren’t any real changes that made Eles OP. The main aspect of the D/D Thief burst that makes them obnoxious in hotjoin hasn’t been touched so still seeing a lot of Thieves isn’t surprising.

You’ll probably see even more Mesmers when a larger majority of the sPvP playerbase figure out how to efficiently instagib with a glass shatter Mesmer.

Only thing that will really solve the issue is weaning people to ranked Tournies, whenever they are introduced.

Anyone who’s annoying to fight will be considered OP. Its extremely annoying to fight a stealth spamming thief, an evasive mesmer, a chain blocking bunker guardian, or a bunker Ele who never stops moving, constantly has protection/regeneration/stability up, and rubberbands from 20% to 100% hp 8 times a fight. A good burst ele can also be very annoying – eat 1 updraft, and by the time you have control of your character again you’re at 20% health.

I’m not saying any of these specs are OP, but they are annoying to fight (especially if your particular class/build doesn’t have the tools to pin them down), and to most people, annoying = cheap = OP.

If you’re willing to put the time in, you should probably hit up a skill builder, and read through every classes skills for every weapon (gw2skills.net/editor/en). You’re going to want to pick out the ones that seem like they’d be a problem, make the class yourself, and see what the animations look like. You could also find some “How to fight X class” videos on youtube.

It sounds like alot of work, but if you’re just starting, you’re going to get mauled. I’ve been playing since head start, and its obvious within 2 seconds if I’m fighting a newer player – they’re overwhelmed, they have no idea what I’m doing, what skills I’m going to use, how I’m going to respond to their skills, etc…

The first 2 weeks I played the game, I was just about ready to quit every time I logged out – I had no idea how to spec my class, how to play it, how to fight other classes, and every death felt like a cheap shot (I didn’t play much in the betas). Once I learned what to watch for, some of the more common specs of other classes, and how to use my own skills to their fullest potential, it became exponentially more fun.

Frizz.6704:

Just went into a game and one side was all thieves bar 2 players, the other side was all DD Ele’s bar 2 players. You have gone from having one seemingly OP class to two, and that is not including mesmers. This is ridiculous. You have set up a game where no one gets any type of reward to ‘maining’ a class, and the result is that everyone just rolls the current OP class and it’s boring in sPvP to not have a balanced mix of classes. You need to address this. Now the problem is if I am to have any hope in enjoying the game I have to play a class that copes well with this new Ele/Thief combo, as opposed to playing the class I enjoy.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t count for much. If I came to the boards to point out all the times I’ve seen an imbalanced hotjoin, I could claim every single class was imbalanced.

Not a bad suggestion, but low priority. There are alot of issues that need repair, and features that need adding. When the game is in a more stable place, it would be nice to see.

Deathspike.1870:

Arsenic.8259:

This is so true, it’s not even funny. And so many warrs complain about thieves.

Playing both a warrior and thief, I must say, the thief is a lot more powerful. A warrior, when fully geared towards bursting damage, has one trick up their sleeves every minute or so. That trick is easy to dodge, or when caught, you just need a single stun breaker (remember to keep one against a warrior). The thief, on the other hand, can just recover using stealth and try his one-shot-kill move again.. and again.. and again. Until you succeed, or give up and walk away (in case of bunker Guardians and Elementalists).

Please explain how the thief is using steal (part of the “1 shot kill move”) again and again and again and again. Steal does a good amount of damage, and applies poison (another 10% for your typical 30/30/0/0/10 build). Yes, they can keep using backstab, but you can counter that (generally) by moving away from the direction the thief was going when he stealthed. Warrior can use bola every 20s (i believe), and HB every 8(6 traited) seconds.

Not that I’m claiming warrior is OP, or thief UP – just pointing out the flaw in your argument.

FuVirus.6398:

evilapprentice.6379:

I’ve seen a random trick shot fly straight up into the air on what looked like the center of the point once or twice, but it only sticks out in my memory because I’ve literally only seen it once or twice, and I thought to myself “Where the heck is that shot going”?

I do like how you insinuated that thieves are somehow knowingly abusing this bug (like the Guardian block bug, which required the player to attempt to get the skill to bug out) rather than just, you know, using one of their better weapons for fighting Mesmers. In fact, against your typical Mesmer, a trick shot attack being eaten up by a node rather than say, a phantasm or clone, would be detrimental.

Quick sidebar, how in the world are you getting hit consistently for 4k by a shortbow? If the shot is indeed bouncing off the cap, you’ll take a maximum of 2 hits (you, the node, you, the node).

If i get hit once by an auto attack its a 2k crit on me, im glass cannon. So 1 shot bouncing off the ground and back to me will do 2x 2k = 4k.

running 3200 attack and 50% crit damage, I don’t see many 2k crits. I guess if I have a couple stacks of might and 25 stacks of bloodlust.

So, when you fight a thief with some power stacks (or 30/30/0/0/10 total glass cannons), they deal 4k to you on double crits. That’s very different than your “every time a thief shoots me with his bow on a point i take 4k” statement. Don’t embellish, it weakens your argument. which is overblown and alarmist to begin with.

I’ve seen a random trick shot fly straight up into the air on what looked like the center of the point once or twice, but it only sticks out in my memory because I’ve literally only seen it once or twice, and I thought to myself “Where the heck is that shot going”?

I do like how you insinuated that thieves are somehow knowingly abusing this bug (like the Guardian block bug, which required the player to attempt to get the skill to bug out) rather than just, you know, using one of their better weapons for fighting Mesmers. In fact, against your typical Mesmer, a trick shot attack being eaten up by a node rather than say, a phantasm or clone, would be detrimental.

Quick sidebar, how in the world are you getting hit consistently for 4k by a shortbow? If the shot is indeed bouncing off the cap, you’ll take a maximum of 2 hits (you, the node, you, the node).

What we’d like to see (my personal opinion of course)-
- A buff to vital shot (I won’t weigh in on what the buff should be, I’m not a playtester. its obvious the skill needs something more.)
- Body shot changed in some way to make it actually worth using.
- Some sort of coherency in the set itself – with 4 and 5 being pure utility skills, P/P has 3 skills for damage. Body shot is worthless, a complete waste of initiative. That leaves us with Vital shot (and sneak attack), which are clearly intended for condition builds, and Unload, which is clearly intended for direct damage power builds. Fixing Body shot would likely help nudge the set to some sort of “identity”, but something would have to be done (probably minor) to either vital shot (and sneak attack) or unload to give the set some coherency.
- Some survivability in the set itself, or access to our already established survivability mechanics (mobility, stealth). Currently, P/P is a sitting duck, relying 100% on utilities for stealth or other survivability mechanics to keep it from being eaten alive. any dagger OH spec gets access to stealth, any sword MH spec gets access to inf strike, shbow gets disabling shot. P/P needs -something- to keep it from being a sitting duck.

What we can expect from Anet considering the precedents they’ve set when dealing with the thief class
-15% more damage for Headshot and Black powder shot
-5% faster unload speed animation
-5% increase in Shadow refuge healing
-Body shot range changed to 1200

savints.6281:

I am just going to leave this here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH1kzDQ_4nA

I’m not doubting his skill (he obviously knows what he’s doing), but there’s a couple things wrong with this video that makes it incompatible with OP’s point.

-This a WvW video, not sPvP. WvW is categorized as PvE for a reason. I can elaborate, but I really shouldn’t have to.
- Alot of the players he’s fighting are straight up inexperienced. 3 players in melee range let a non-stealth thief get a stomp off? What? That guardian just standing still while he stealths near a downed enemy and gets the stomp off unmolested? The conditions he’s applying are almost never cleansed, something you wont see in sPvP ever.

I started playing this spec before it became popular, and i felt invincible. People honestly didn’t know what was going on (there were literally almost 0 thieves using pistol MH at this point). They’d never fought P/D, didn’t know what I was trying to do, my general strategy, how to counter it…and so on. I’d rock 3 on 1’s and 4 on 1’s constantly. It was like that first time you got bola->frenzy->HB’ed – you had no idea what was going on, but you quickly learned. Now take that, and instead of a single combo you had to learn, it was an entire playstyle. Alot of the enemies in this video fall into that category – confused, and with no idea what they’re fighting. This video plays out exactly like my fights did 3 months ago. Those days are long, long gone.

I wouldn’t say viable – we’re 100% viable as high DPS and Burst. What we don’t have is depth or options. The second we move away from DPS or burst, we lose more than we gain.

Einzelganger.4152:

Oh, by the way. I just wanted to point out a thief that has probably the most skill with this condition build and he utilizes ZERO stealthing utilities. I applaud the likes of WILD BILL. Truly amazing skill and everyone do yourself a favor and check out how he decimates opponents with zero stealth utilities on you tube. He only needs cloak and dagger. Period. He deserves credit for how well he does it compared to the next guy, myself included. Peace.

People run SR in alot of builds because its an amazing team support skill – prevent a stomp, cloak a revival, facilitate an escape, set up a svanir/chieftan steal…
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone running Blinding powder with P/D, because caltrops is amazing, and you probably want to run a stunbreak. Wild Bill might be an amazing player (haven’t watched any vids, so I don’t know), but not running SR is probably detrimental to your team overall.

Einzelganger.4152:

Lol, let us be REAL here folks. It is broken. High condition damage on a skill that utilizes ZERO initiative (at a distance) PLUS stealth. LMFAO. LET US BE REAL. As I stated Aervius, I use this build too. Might want to reread that part in the beginning and the end. The initiative cost should be small as not to destroy the mechanics but only hamper the spamming of something so broken when coupled with high condition. Look, we already can gain 2 initiative when triggering a stealth skill or we can gain initiative quicker when in stealth, if we have these traited. And I bet my bottom dollar you do!

There’s no way to soften this – if you think vital shot is overpowered, there is absolutely no way you can have even a basic understand of the games mechanics. I don’t understand how to logically express my opinion that doesn’t require that the person I’m speaking to acknowledge and understand the basic manner in which the game works. But I’ll give it a shot.

I played P/D conditions for a long, long time. Anyone who’s played the spec for 5 minutes quickly learns it’s success is directly tied to how often you can access stealth for sneak attack – vital shot is a very minimal part of the build in general. If anything, vital shot needs a buff, and sneak attack can take a minor nerf (so sneak attack is still better than vital shot, but the build doesn’t entirely rely on it.)

And just for kitten and giggles, I didn’t bother with 2 init on stealth – in my experience, regen or blind on stealth was a vastly superior choice.

Tulisin.6945:

You’re burst if you choose to play that way, not because that is the only thing thieves can do. Every profession has a tougher time surviving in 1v2 than they do in 1v1, and thief survivability actually scales better than most in that regard. Thieves also have more condition removal than most professions.

What you cannot do, however, is have it both ways. If you’re taking HiS or trying to stack a bunch of power and backstab people then you aren’t playing a survivable build, regardless of how much toughness you stack.

Its the only thing thieves do well. Sure, you can survive, if you sacrifice alot of damage. If you gain 20% more survivability, your TTK is probably going up more than 20%. It’s not an issue “can i play a survivable thief”, its “Can I play an effective survivable thief”, and the bottom line is, you lose more damage than you gain in survivability. Especially when you look at an organized format – you’ve only got X seconds before a roamer shows up to assist – if your target isn’t down, you don’t get an immune skill to pop and try to finish off your first target, or protection to throw up for the same reason.

In a big melee with AoE flying everywhere, you’re taking more damage than most (comparatively) because you’re in the lowest base HP bracket, medium armor, and no access to all the defensive abilities/boons I’ve been talking about.

A thief has decent condition removal with sword, and excellent condition removal if they play a stealth heavy build with at least 10 points in shadow arts (and again, stealth heavy can be detrimental in tPvP). Otherwise, our condition removal is extremely subpar. Having a weaponset or a specific build (that relies heavily on stealth) that’s good at cleansing conditions isn’t the same as being able to slot a utility or heal that deals with conditions.

After respecing something like 3 times a day on average since early release, I’ve come to the conclusion that there just isn’t any benefit for a thief to try to hybrid for survivability (via toughness anyway).

Excluding P/D conditions and Silly dancing unicorn specs, the lack of immune skills, protection, and stability makes it a losing proposition for a thief to try to use toughness as a mitigation stat. We have little access to regen or condition cleanse (excluding constantly stealthing with at least 20 points in shadow arts, which can be undesirable in TPvP, and it isn’t like good players don’t have a decent idea where you’ll be going if you’re in stealth) . In any organized setting, your thief is going to be a roamer (can’t bunker effectively), and burst is absolutely required.

Every second your target is up is another second for help to arrive. The moment a fight turns into a 2 on 1, our mitigation starts losing effectiveness (more so than a class that relies on a higher HP pool, defensive boons, and immunity/block skills). A block stops all incoming sources of damage, as does being immune. Having protection or stability up affects anyone attacking you. Being mobile and dodgy is harder when you have 2 (or more) players you have to keep an eye on.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m not claiming anything is OP, UP, Broken, on any class. It’s just after months of trying to play a survivable direct damage thief who is also effective, its all time wasted – we’re burst by design, and we don’t have have the tools to play as effectively any other way.

It’s worrying to watch Anet continually chip at our damage and replace it with ineffective survivability. It’d be great is they just made a decision concerning whether or not they want thieves to be burst, or a mobile/dodgy warrior.

Wolfield.9812:

With sword you dont really use much of your ini. Ever thought of getting lead attacks in, 15% damage increase.

If you took haste as the stun break, you can get a massive dps boost in a vital moment to down that one really important person in the fight, or use it to break a stun to save your life (tho its cooldown is long.)

I really love the sword thief, but yet to find a build that works in spvp since the pistol whip nerf. It has such potential but other builds out there do more support damage and survival.

I’m honestly finding this spec to have decent survival – the caveat is you shadow return out of combat the second you start to take damage. It can be a bit slow, but your opponent will miss alot of their big CD attacks, and people tend to panic/get frustrated when they blow 4 or 5 CD’s and barely touch you. good ranged can be a bit of an issue, I was thinking about maybe trading Scorpion wire for Smoke screen…

Concerning Haste; Maybe. It sounds like it has potential, but I feel its much to easy to counter with block/immune/stunbreakers.

PopeUrban.2578:

Straight crit chance is a boring trait, like straight damage buffs is boring. I hate traits that just do stuff you can do with gear. Sword is a set that’s all about the disables and rips, so how about something that synergizes with that? How about:

Martial Malice – You have a 15% chance to add one stack to any condition suffered by your target while wielding a sword. If your target has no conditions, remove a boon in stead. If your target has no conditions or boons, gain 2 initiative. Cooldown 5 seconds.

Drop the condition part (which is kind of a crapshoot – if you extend cripple, chill, immob, or even poison, it would be awesome. If you add a stack of/extend confusion, burning, or bleeding, it would suck). Boon strip (with init regen on no boons to strip) would actually be fairly useful.

So, as a small pre-amble, I have no interest in P/D conditions anymore, or D/D Glass cannon. Neither spec is fun for me personally, so I’m going in a different direction.

Here’s the link – (I’m not sure why, but you’ll have to copy/paste it into your browser)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmyOnbS5E95Ex2jdqTeqVgmdP4qV1KA;TsAA1CnoSykkIJbSukkJNo4YxECA

So, the Idea is S/X (P or D, I haven’t decided yet. If flanking strike worked correctly, it would almost definitely be D). The key to the entire spec is Inf Strike – you basically never start a melee without it. When your target escapes, chills you, knocks you back, hits you with a painful condition, or the fight becomes an AoE fest, you Shadow return, reposition your starting point so you’re not Returning into a kittentorm, and go again. Most of your other skills are situationally useful at best – HS when your target wants to heal, or to interrupt a long cast time, Black powder for stomping, and the occasional pistol whip when you really want to DPS your target without eating 3-4 AoE abilities. Shbow as the second weapon, for obvious reasons. It seems to work out fairly well.

I guess I’m more curious about the heal and utilities – I like withdraw over HiS for the root/snare break, and it works well with vigorous recovery, and the overall point of the spec (High mobility, never standing in 1 place too long). Scorpion wire seems effective for pulling your target out of a group, and setting them up for a DPS train. Ambush trap felt a bit silly at first, but its generally pretty useful – Your moving around so much, trying to pop in and out of range to avoid damage as much as possible and as you’re doing this you have a pet applying constant pressure, and its occasional use of scorpion wire can be nice. I’ve always preferred Inf Sig as my stunbreak – passive init regen, quick CD (for a stunbreak), and a gap closer. Its alot less necessary in a spec like this (seeing as you should almost never start a fight without a shadow return available), but the passive init regen, having an emergency stunbreak for when you screw up, and the ability to close insane gaps when needed (Inf sig->inf strike->steal for 2400 range) has me keep it around. Thieves guild for obvious reasons.

So, there’s my spec. Any observations, or suggestions for improvement?

WereDragon.6083:

Insanely useful for insta breaking backstabbers. Can’t back stab me if you can’t get to me, oh your up against me again 3 bye bye

It’s actually really fun against BS thieves. Let em stealth, backtrack for a second or 2 so they think you’re an idiot (assuming they started in front of you), then shadow strike. 9 times out of ten, you’re out of melee range and did some damage to them while they were stealth. It’s amazing.

Edit: Re-reading your reply, maybe I misunderstood you – I’ve always had a target selected when it failed. Is that what you’re referring to?

So, I just spec’d S/P for the first time in a long time, And Inf Strike is basically my major attack skill. Its just about the only way to get a few swings in without your opponent slipping away, or getting eaten alive by AoE’s.

So, now that I’m using inf strike very frequently, I’ve noticed at times, it doesnt fire correctly – I spend the 3 init, but my return circle appears below my feet, and I don’t teleport to my target. By “at times” i mean, on average, once per game. I’ve also tested and replicated it on dummies in the mist, but I can’t identify any sort of consistent situation or trigger that causes it to happen.

I’m inclined to believe its just another ANet kittenup, but in the interest of fairness, is there anything I’m doing that could be causing it?

Its not a bad skill design-wise, but the current meta makes it undesirable.

Assuming P/D was designed in a way to be functional without sneak attack, there are plenty of situations where Shadow strike would come in very handy. You would have to situationally decide whether to CnD or Shadow strike.

Unfortunately however, the current meta makes P/D almost worthless without using Sneak attack as often as possible.

I suppose the game might have mis-reported the issue (IE, I was blocked, but it came back as obstructed. It definitely wasn’t an evade, as my target didn’t dodge and wasn’t using a skill at the time), and tbh, the “Obstructed” response to steal has only happened a handful of times. A handful of times isn’t a huge deal (Nothing will ever be perfect, I can understand that).

The issue with ranged attacks is still very severe however. Sometimes, just running away at an angle is enough to make Dancing Dagger or Trick shot report “obstructed” by thin air. Switching to Shbow for an average length fight (15-20s, lets say) is enough to nigh-guarantee at least 1 mysteriously obstructed shot, and I’d say 1 out of every 6 dancing daggers is obstructed. This is a fairly huge deal – If I’m using Dancing Dagger, I’m desperate to cripple my target (Seeing as DD now does less damage than trick shot) – wasting 4 init and my target not being crippled can be huge; Not every obstructed Dancing Dagger is a fight changing issue, but at times, it is.

nerva.7940:

evilapprentice.6379:

Their mobility is part of their survivability.

uh, no it isnt. mobility is part of their domination. stealth is part of their survivability. why thieves can teleport all over the place while stealthing most of the time is beyond me. if you dont see how broken this is then youre obviously biased.

And a quick search of your last 6 or 7 posts (probably more, that’s just the amount I’ve seen) will show your bias. You obviously dislike the way thieves play, and rather than learning how to counter them, you come to the boards to complain about, well, just about anything thief related. Not even the common complaints, just these Out-of-left-field issues your having trouble finding like-minded support for even on the sPvP boards, notorious for crying about thieves. So give it a rest man, or take my advice.

Seragi.5910:

Im not sure about you but I can 2v1 even 3v1 people at a point on my thief without going stealth a single time…. so yeah if you know how to play the class thief can be one of the best node defenders

I’d love to see the video of you doing that, while holding the point, in a Paid tourney match against a halfway decent team. Actually, I’d be astounded, because I’d put money on the fact that it doesn’t exist.

pedrst.3127:

evilapprentice.6379:

Not always the case means, sometimes, it is the case. Nothing is 100%. Mobility is a poor “Survivability playstyle” for capturing and holding points, its balanced by the fact that it makes for great roamers and harassment.

Ember.4326:

Thief a good point defender, now I’ve heard it all. Probably the backstab build as well, can tank so well. LOL.

And before anyone brings stealth into “defending point”, being stealthed means you are losing cap time on the point.

I don’t know if you understand that harassing an enemy point while keeping yours is a way to also be defending your points, since you’re always forcing the enemy team to be present on their natural, you’re removing them from attacking your positions. Have you never wondered why you must have high mobility classes running through points either keeping them from being capped as long as possible (buying time and giving extra points for his team) and leave to help some other place (due high mobility).

Which is why my post specifically mentioned that good harassment was a tradeoff for poor defense skills. While actively defending a team point and assaulting an enemy controlled point are comparable, they are not the same thing. That bunker wasn’t coming to assault my teams node anyway, so by roaming over to his point and watching him ignore my damage (unless I go full glass cannon, at which point it becomes a “are my reaction times faster than yours” contest) all I’m doing is giving him something to do. The bottom line is that mobility for thief and ele is fine – its not OP or UP, its just about right where it needs to be.

pedrst.3127:

evilapprentice.6379:

Edit: Lets also not forget that the point of Conquest isn’t “Down the most players in the time allotted.” If you chased an Ele or Thief off the point, Congratulations – you won that fight.

If you play competitively you know this is not always the case. Good mobility also adds in survivability. You can always hit-and-run to keep your opponents pinned up having to come defend a point and Thiefs/Eles can simple get the kitten out if things get tough (invisibility & mist form). Besides it also makes them good point defenders, or they at least buy time till the rest team arrives.

Not always the case means, sometimes, it is the case. Nothing is 100%. Mobility is a poor “Survivability playstyle” for capturing and holding points, its balanced by the fact that it makes for great roamers and harassment.

nerva.7940:

no prof is as mobile as ele and thief. theyre outright OP in this department, making them the best roamers, and allowing them the most survivability in the game, hands down. you just cant argue that.

Again, Just ask them to remove thief man, or play a different game. You have complaints about every facet of the class; save yourself a bunch of time, ask Anet to remove thief, and when they say no, learn to cope or play something else.

Thief and Ele have 40 or 80% less HP than the other classes (excluding guardian). Mobility means Not standing on the point which means not contesting/holding capture points in the only PvP mode available to us. Ele has light armor (lowest base armor in the game), and thief has no access to block or immunity skills, or protection/stability (not counting dagger storm, which in the current meta is corrupt boon bait). Their mobility is part of their survivability. If you take away mobility from the thief and replace it with HP and immune skills (and you will have to replace it, because without mobility a thief is a free kill), congratulations, you just made a slightly less armored Warrior.

Edit: Lets also not forget that the point of Conquest isn’t “Down the most players in the time allotted.” If you chased an Ele or Thief off the point, Congratulations – you won that fight.

This has gotten way out of hand. It’s annoying when the occasional ranged autoattack is obstructed mysteriously across open terrain. It affects gameplay when scorpion wire or disabling shot is obstructed by thin air. Its a major kittening issue when steal (A melee ability) gets obstructed on a target standing almost dead center on the quarry.

I get that people want ladders, and matchmaking, and new maps, and so on and so on, and those are important, but we need classes and abilities functioning as designed first. Balance changes require thought and planning – that can wait. Skills and traits need to work 99.9% of the time first.

Cant happen.

Our utilities, heals, and elites were designed with CD’s in mind. Our weapon set skills were designed with Initiative in mind. If you wanted to switch All non weapon skills to Initiative (or all weapon skills to CD, like many whiners on the PvP boards are constantly crying for), it would require a complete redesign of said skills, and that’s just not going to happen.

This would also make our non weapon skills just as bland as our weapon skills – they have to be powerful enough to be worth using, but not so powerful as to be broken when spammed – this would lead to designs like most of our weaponsets, IE, 1 good DPS skill, 3 utility only skills that (generally) cost too much initiative, and auto-attack.

Seriously man, picking through every single thief skill you dislike and posting on the forums how its “broken” is way slower than just asking Anet to remove thief from the game.

Make no mistake, that is what you’re asking – but instead of just saying “please redesign thieves from the ground up”, you’re attempting to make a case against every skill you don’t like, until (assuming you were successful), thieves would be unplayable…requiring a redesign from the ground up.

Ellimist.2619:

on a side note, I just wish necros could have it as easy as thieves. Running a pure bleed build you put everything(runes, sigils, traits, and weapon selections) into maximizing bleed potency and duration. At most after hitting six different weapon abilities, swapping sets, and using most of your utilities you still only have a 19 bleed stack. To be able to lay down a caltrops and spam death blossom and hit 25 stacks seems a tad unbalanced.

And of course on the other side of that argument (From a PvP standpoint at least), focusing all of our DPS into the 1 damaging condition we can apply reliably means its ridiculously easy to cleanse.

nerva.7940:

they just need to get on adjusting the blatant, horrible, game-ruining builds faster, and not let it linger for months and months. this way, they wouldnt have to remove an entire profession.

According to the community, the thief builds that actually work (glass cannon BS, P/D conditions) are blatant, horrible game-ruining builds. Seeing as these 2 builds are nearly polar opposites of each other, I’m led to believe people just don’t like playing against thief style mechanics – those aren’t going anywhere, so people should probably get used to it.

Honestly, just cut the middle man and ask Anet to remove thief completely. That may sound sarcastic, but I really mean it – no amount of nerfs will make the community happy – they’ll just pick the next ability that displeases them, cry about it endlessly, and get it nerfed. Then thieves will be given 100 more HP for HiS base, and Anet will call it a “survivability buff”.

Most classes have a spec option that includes a “Get the hell off the point” style AoE ability – Caltrops lasts longer, and is less devastating to stand in than most. A properly spec’d bunker guardian, or any bunker ele can just ignore it. Other classes have plenty of ways to counter it. I’m sorry your spec doesn’t pack a way to counter it quickly and easily, but mine doesn’t either. You’ll learn to play around it.

kittenon.8572:

evilapprentice.6379:

Which is (roughly) the same amount that protection mitigates. A defensive boon that (roughly) mimics having an additional 1k toughness. There is no offensive boon in the game that does anything comparable.

Toughness should be changed to offer more mitigation, and protection should be reduced – not extreme changes, maybe 8-10% more mitigation for toughness, and cut protection roughly in half. It’s silly that the ability to truly Bunker is limited to classes who have constant access to a defensive boons.

“Might is a boon which increases power and condition damage and can stack in intensity up to 25 times. The effect of might is determined by the following formula:

0.375 * Level + 5 = Power and Condition Damage per stack

At level 80, this would equal 35. "

Since Armor does not mitigate condition damage,and Might is allowed to be stacked in intensity,Protection is essential.

You are comparing a fixed duration, intensity stack offensive boon (might), to a duration stacking, static 33% damage reduction defensive boon (protection).

I know for a fact my P/D conditions thief can reliably keep up around 10 stacks of might for your average length fight- through use of multiple abilities, or multiple actions (like stealthing or dodging granting might via thief traits). Thats 350 power, and 350 condition damage. There are no specs I’m aware of (that doesn’t mean they don’t exist) that can take full advantage of both Power AND Condition damage – your spec generally takes full advantage of 1, and the other matters to a varying degree (not very much, generally). Regardless, lets assume you roll a spec that takes full advantage of both – that’s 700 additional “DPS” stats by gaining 10 stacks of an offensive boon which stacks intensity rather than duration…compared to the (rough) equivalent of 1k toughness for 1 defensive boon…which stacks duration.

Syeria.4812:

Just for reference, this is how toughness currently works:

Wiki

Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character’s ability to withstand direct damage.

Wiki

Armor is a value that is listed on the hero panel. It is equal to Defense plus Toughness attribute, and will determine how much incoming damage will be reduced. Armor does not mitigate Condition Damage or falling damage.

Wiki

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

So essentially, increasing toughness decreases damage at this rate: (Toughness Increase)/[(Previous Armor)]. For example, someone with 2000 armor adding an additional 1000 toughness will reduce the damage they take by 1000/(20001000) = 1/3

Which is (roughly) the same amount that protection mitigates. A defensive boon that (roughly) mimics having an additional 1k toughness. There is no offensive boon in the game that does anything comparable.

Toughness should be changed to offer more mitigation, and protection should be reduced – not extreme changes, maybe 8-10% more mitigation for toughness, and cut protection roughly in half. It’s silly that the ability to truly Bunker is limited to classes who have constant access to a defensive boons.

Nikkle.4013:

Soryuju.8164:

You’re still criticizing his build, though, when he’s criticizing the effectiveness of the Toughness stat. Even if he had 18k HP to go with that 3k armor, he’s still losing 14k of it to a single combo.

I was really criticizing his test. I thought this was clear in my +crit damage example. If someone posted data from a test golem saying +crit damage as being a bad stat and had only about 15% crit everyone would say something like “you have no crit, of course its a ‘bad stat’, get more crit”. Same here. I believe armor is the opposite to power which means a 50% increase in toughness is not going to counter a 50% increase in the enemy’s power. This is due to armor being the aggregate of toughness and base armor. 50% increase of toughness is a <50% increase in armor. This does not mean toughness is a bad stat or that everyone should go glass because “power is king”. Anyone who plays this game knows the strength of a good guardian or ele bunker. Defensive stats are strong, they just are not 1:1 counters. They require a proper setup.

But you’re kind of missing the point. The point is, toughness as a stat is secondary to your setup. If you took high power, crit, and crit damage, your setup wouldn’t matter much – you would hit comparatively hard with any weapon. A high toughness doesn’t do much for you unless you spec around it, and some classes just cant.

Take Thief as the perfect example – everyone complains how “one note” thieves are, as they tend to go full glass cannon, or somewhere close. The issue there is, thieves don’t have a choice. I’ve run almost the exact setup in OP’s picture, and it’s laughable how little difference an additional 1k toughness matters when you don’t have any access at all to protection, stability, immunity/block skills, or KB/KD/Launch, and your access to cleanses and regen are limited to how much you can stealth(which isn’t as accessible as say, switching to water, or using a utility which cant miss).

Your ability to bunker in this game is directly tied into your access to defensive boons (as well as immunity skills, blocking, and KB/KD/Launch) – toughness is a secondary stat. Your ability to do damage is directly tied to your power, crit, and crit damage, with offensive boons and particular skills as a secondary booster.

I’ve grown unbelievably bored with P/D conditions, and I’m just not into instagib.

As a sPvPer, this leaves me with few other options. Nothing else is quite as effective as these 2 specs – I’ve tested dozens upon dozens different combinations of traits, runes, sigils, and amulets. You either lose too much damage to be effective, or don’t do quite enough because you’re not full burst, and you’re only a tiny bit tougher. Its laughable how little of a difference an extra 1k toughness makes for a class with no access to protection, stability, or immunity/block skills.

This brings me to D/P – I’ve tested a number of builds that really seem like they could be viable, except for their ability to close a gap. HS kind of works, sometimes, as long as your opponent isn’t too far, and you’re not snared or immobilized, but its no shadow shot as far as closing gaps go. If shadow shot didn’t root the thief on hit, I would actually be able to test a number of specs to their fullest potential, and who knows, maybe thieves would have another spec or 2 to roll in tourneys.

It baffles me that this skill is still broken – this isn’t like P/P, which needs alot of adjustments to be fixed…all they need to do is remove the line of code that tells the game to root you on hit. There are already a number of skills that teleport you to your target without rooting you, it can’t possibly be that hard.

And for those of you who feel that this skill roots on hit by design…well, that can’t possibly be true. I honestly don’t have a ton of confidence in the dev and balancing team with their current record, but nobody, and I mean NOBODY would design a gap closer that rooted the user on hit – It’d be like a channeled bleed stack that cleansed your target at the end; utterly kittening pointless

Go play a thief. That’s all the advice I can give you.

After about a week or so, you’ll see that the way Anet designed every weapon combination, you have (At best) one ability designed to do damage. Everything else is a utility of some sort, with a varying degree of damage (never alot) attached to it – a cripple, a daze, a gap closer, an escape, a condition cleanse….and so on. This has never been more true than after the OH Dagger nerf.

D/D thieves spam HS because if revealed is down, their only other option is auto attack. Yes, there is of course backstab, but it requires stealth (which costs 6 init, a heal, or a utility), and positioning.
S/P thieves don’t spam much of anything, because their best DPS option is auto attack. You might see them “Spamming” infiltrators strike (as much as that ability can be spammed), because it’s a spare “oh kitten” button, and you need to keep your reurns clean. Same thing for S/D, though you could argue they spam CnD (which now does pretty awful damage for the init cost), which is the only way to access the daze the build is based on.
P/P doesn’t have a “good damage option”, but unload is the closest thing to it – good luck trying to do damage with anything else.
P/D is always stealthing because without sneak attack, the spec is basically pointless.
D/P might have had a second option. Shadow shot does slightly less damage, but it has double the range of HS, and a blind attached – it also does better damage over 50%, and (I believe) only slightly less for the 25-50% range, for only 1 more initiative. I could see tactically using Shadow shot over HS in many situations….if only Shadow shot (a gap closer), didn’t root us on hit.

If you really want a CD attached to every weapon skill, you’ll have the boost the damage of 4/5 of each weaponsets skills to balance it out.

So I noticed someone has resurrected an extremely similar post on this forum from about a month ago…which actually got a Dev response, promising most of the things I’ve asked for. Seeing as we still haven’t gotten it, I’d say is fair to start worrying.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I just hang on to the dream that I will log on one day and download a patch that fixes everything. I see POV though, if someone says hey we are doing x, y, or z, and it does not happen, I think there is some liability there that they want to avoid.

I can see that argument – I really can. The internet is an unforgiving place, and posting planned changes that may not come to fruition (or even if the timeline changes) is a surefire way to cause a forum firestorm. But those people will always act like that; they’ll whine and cry and threaten to leave over even the slightest of imagined injustices.

The more level-headed among us deserve some sort of information. Not just snippets here and there; a stickied, all-encompassing post which addresses planned changes(Like ladder, matchmaking, etc…), class bugs, class balances, and fixes to underperforming weaponsets, utilities, and elites. I’ve seen the argument from Dev’s “Every minute I spend here is a minute I’m not working” – Fine, take a day. I’m fairly sure anyone who actually cares about this game will wait a whole additional day for some information about where this is all going, rather than what little we’ve been getting since launch.

I understand things take time – trust me, I do. There’s alot of demands being thrown around on the forums; ladders, matchmaking, balance changes, bug fixes, private arenas, new game modes…the list goes on and on and on. I’m sure you guys have a list of priorities – the things you consider most important, and why you feel that way. Why not share some of that information with us?

It’s really very, very disheartening to be kept so in the dark. I enjoy this game – I really do, which is why I keep playing, despite a lack of variety (Conquest only gets very old), the bunker/burst meta of the current system, the list of bugs and design issues with my favored class… this list also goes on and on. My point is, I like the game underneath it all, and I am willing to wait, something I feel alot of players here also feel. You don’t ask me for a monthly fee, and there is no gear race – I could quit tomorrow, come back in 3 months, and not have to worry about power creep. That’s a big deal for me.

But at the moment, I feel it isn’t worth it. I have almost no idea what you’re working on. There’s nothing to keep me interested, because I’ve got nothing to look forward to. It hurts my confidence in the game to sit here and hope the next patch will fix things important to me, and be subsequently disappointed. If you released a list of your priorities, and the thing I cared about wasn’t in the top 5, It would still suck, but at least I would know ANet cared, and it would come along eventually.

I can be patient, I’m an adult. I can’t hold blind faith forever. Give me something to be patient for, rather than let us lose hope.

Note: Again, agree or disagree, please keep things in this post civil. If Anet actually reads and responds, I’d like even dissenting opinions to have a modicum of respect and decency in them.

You get a small fraction of healing power.

I’m not able to check right now, but running a Shamans amutet (569 healing power, diff jewel with no healing power) and 30 points in shadow arts (another 300) for a total 869, I believe I get somewhere around 140 per hit.

I don’t usually like to make comparisons, but this is a huge departure from what I experienced with Rift. This isn’t a question of whether or not you liked their system, or whose you thought was better – this is all about the dev team.

Balance changes were discussed ad nauseam – there was constant feedback from the devs, and a test server designed for player testing – they made some changes (some they thought up, some community suggested), threw it up, and let the players test it out. Their system wasn’t perfect by any means, but it usually ended up with most of the playerbase being happy, and more importantly fully aware of what was going on, and on what kind of timeline these changes were being implemented.

Now I like the gameplay here better – the non-run-of-the-mill combat system, the skill required beyond just pressing buttons in the right order…. but I wish Anet had 1/10th the resources Trion did, because I’d kill for a little feedback.

Still nothing, Anet?

I think of all the things this game is lacking, transparency and communication are the biggest issues. We’re left in the dark concerning issues of design vs bug (D/P dual skill rooting on hit, people concerned that Pistol 1 is firing at half the speed of its listed activation time..and so on), and also left baffled about design choices in patches.

Most of us still can’t understand why PW does less damage than our autoattack (for 5 init while rooting us too!), or why so many of our weaponsets have fatal flaws making them unusable in a competitive setting, or why a 6 init skill lost 33% damage. How did that make it through playtesting? 33% is -alot- for an ability that costs half an initiative bar to lose… and when we ask for something, anything, we’re just ignored.

I’d be happy with a “we understand your concerns, we’re working on them/we’re looking into it/we disagree”…just about anything other that total silence.

Kerishan.8460:

If you play alone yes, burst spec is useless, but if u have a good team you can shine with burst build. Just remember to use you good point.

PS. A good thief can escape by ALL fight, you need only shadowstep.

Its not about a spec being useless, its about it not being fun for me. I don’t want to sit here and think to myself “Ha, your stunbreak is down, I win” or “Whoops, got knocked down, time to shadowstep away and come back in 30s.”

LiuliRenai.3928:

I’m also running 0/0/30/20/20. The trick with it imho is to switch often between D/D death blossom and P/D, and use it as a high dodge bunker build. I’m doing alright with it in PuG tourneys, throwing caltrops on a capture point is helpful in winning 1 vs 1s against other bunkers (takes forever though) and direct damage dealers.

It’s of course still not as good as Guardian and Elementalist bunkers, since it requires a lot of active reaction as your defense, and sometimes you’ll just be unlucky and get immobilized one too many times in a row.

But that’s the nature of thief. There is one build to rule them all. Other builds like the above are still viable and still fun, but they do not excel.

My main issue with 0/0/30/20/20 is its so focused on stealth and dodging, the quickest ways to lose a point. If you get a couple bad conditions on you, you -need- to stealth to drop them. If you need a second of breather room to open up a gap and restore some HP, you’re going to start losing your point. Getting a stomp off without stealth can be a pain (again, we’re assuming organized teams here – if you’re running an attrition spec like P/D conditions, there’s going to be time for a roamer to respond and make their way to the point you’re assaulting), and by the time you’ve got the stomp off, the point has been neutralized.

D/D is not bad for surviving in the center of an AoE fest…as long as you dodge the kitten out of there the second you don’t have the Init to hit DB. You’re paying alot for bleeds that are just going to get cleansed though. And giving up SB is -alot- to ask – no more on demand poision, no more disabling shot, and no more inf arrow.

There’s also the issue that you basically don’t count as an opponent against a bunker ele – they outheal your pitiful direct damage, and drop your bleeds nearly as fast as you can stack them, which is saying alot since P/D is all about short duration, quickly stacked bleeds.

Fiesbert.9816:

Imbalanced downed states
The downed#2 has to be equally powerful for all classes. While its fine to have them being a little different accross professions, its not fine that some downed#2 will prolong your life garuanteed while others might help you against a single guy.

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vapor_Form – garuanteed to prolong your life. Invulnerable to damage and heals you back to 50% downed health. The best downed#2
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deception_%28mesmer%29 – second best downed#2. Will buy you a couple of seconds and some are still too stupid to stomp you instead of your clone, despite you having an extra symbol over your head. Can’t be countered but at least one can still be damaged by conditions and attacking thin air at the right spot.
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Escape – Third best downed#2. Safes you against a stomp from limitless players. However you are still prone to attacks and debuffs.
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Thunderclap – A very balanced downed#2. Can be countered by blindness, blocking and stability. Might buy you some time but is still counterable. This it what downed#2 should be like.
• The downed#2 of warrior, engineer and necromancer are equally crappy http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fear_%28necromancer_skill%29, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hammer_Toss, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grappling_Line . One shouldn’t even bother trying to do something while downed against more than one guy, won’t help you much. While Warriors and Engineers at least have a strong downed#3 Necromancers have it the worst and are basically dead after they used their downed#2.

Suggestion : Change all downed#2 to PBAoE stuns/dazes/knockdowns, whatever fits the profession best. Downed#3 should also be about prolonging your life and never about damage.

I’ve pointed this out before, and I’ll point it out again. You’re looking at downed states in an entirely selfish fashion. This isn’t Rambo, the MMO – it is a team based game. While Ele, Thief and Mes Downstate 2’s are powerful, they only achieve stomp avoidance for the player using them. There is no way their ability can be used for anything else. Ranger, Necro, Engi, Guard and War Downstate 2’s can be used to interrupt a stomp, interrupt a revival, or interrupt a stomp on a teammate.

It could be that the downstate 2’s are still slightly imbalanced (Ele HP reset after mist form seems a bit silly, but not enough for me to complain about it), but their different strengths and weaknesses are constantly ignored in “Normalize Downstate” posts because people tend to only think of themselves.

So, I’ve been avoiding 30/30/0/0/10 forever. I don’t like the way it plays, and I don’t like the binary nature of the spec.

I was initially running 0/0/30/20/20 P/D conditions pre-patch, but whenever I faced a good team in free tourney, or any team in paid, it seemed pointless – every opponent was either running “As hard to kill as possible bunker” or complete burst – my survivability/conditions spec didn’t have the damage to drop bunkers fast enough, or 1 wrong move against 1 or 2 burst specs and I ended up KD’d and dead before I could break it (or close enough to dead to make the fight moot).

Post patch, I decided to try something different – 10/30/0/30/0 running S/P and SB, soliders ammy with a zerk jewel, crit and precision runes in S/P. It’s got some survivability, some burst, and once people start dropping, a very respectable crit for a thief with 2600 armor. I was running this in 5v5’s for a week, doing very well so I felt very confident, then brought it into a free tourney last night. The second we hit an organized team, it all fell apart – in any big melee, there’s so much AoE, pets, and multi target abilities flying around, my toughness doesn’t cut it, and I Don’t do enough damage to kill people before 7 seperate sources of damage from 3 separate players ends the fight for me.

That leads me to the question in the title – what are people running in paid tourneys post patch? If the answer is insta-gib, I guess I’ll bite the bullet and run it.

Caffynated.5713:

evilapprentice.6379:

You’re take on thieves is very, very off IMO. Your first point is just impossible. You’re talking about taking our class ability (which without traits is basically just a 45s CD gap closer) down from kind of bland to straight up bad. Your suggestion would nerf every single thief build in the game to stop 1 spec, something Anet’s been doing and the thief community has not enjoyed. I wont weigh in on whether or not Instagib needs to be nerfed, but if it does, Anet has to find a way to nerf glass cannons that won’t ruin the more moderate builds.

As for 3, stealth is already limited enough. Its short duration, has a CD (via revealed), and access to it isn’t guaranteed (its on dagger OH for half your standard initiative bar, can be accessed via utilities/one of our heals, or via combo fields). Limit it any further, and you’ll have to buff thieves survivability somewhere else, and we’ll turn into dodgy medium armor warriors.

Concerning quickness, yeah, its silly. Its too easy to mitigate the downsides (Sig of agility for thieves, endure pain for warriors, etc), and it’s just a bad idea.

A free instant cast gap closer is as far from bad as class skills can get. The ability to trait it for a huge damage hit and/or stealth on use takes it from good to amazing. You need to play another class if you think a 1/2 second after cast on an instant cast ability is going to be a game breaking nerf. For most classes that isn’t even 1 auto attack. The ability to trait for stealth on steal means that you could even be invisible while you wait it out.

Your take on stealth just leaves me shaking my head. We have multiple ways to enter stealth, not just CnD. Right now it’s just not a fair or fun game mechanic to play against.

You’re right, that’s why I listed the multiple ways we can access stealth, and not just CnD (I’ve bolded it for you in your quote of me, so you can’t miss it this time). An instant gap closer on any other class would probably be awesome, but on a class that already has that on Sword 2, D/P 3, and a utility skill (and you can also probably count scorpion wire, because it pulls your target to you, and Shadowstep because It -can- be used to close a gap…and Inf arrow if you want to get really technical), it becomes a little less amazing.

I also pointed out that it was bland without traits. The traits make it nice, but I’d prefer it if the ability was more well rounded by itself, rather than relying on traits to buff it up. Those are traits that could be doing something better, being spent to make our unique ability a little less kitteny. A 1/2 second after stealth is an open invitation for a good player to counter you. “Hi, I’m here. Feel free to dodge, throw up protection, knock me back, go immune, start blocking, whatever you need. I’ll be standing here for a bit before I do anything”. 1/2 a second on steal would make it worse than Inf sig, which breaks stun, cools down faster, and restores init when its not in use. Let’s not also forget that a ranged focus build (except P/D conditions) probably isn’t too interested in closing gaps, making our unique class ability kind of a crap shoot for them.

Fun or not, Stealth is in the game. People knew that coming in. Stealth is more limited in this game than most, but most people won’t be happy unless it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, it does, and the chances that they’ll completely redesign thief is slim. Stealth has a number of weaknesses people don’t seem willing to acknowledge – a stealthed thief isn’t immune, conditions still affect us (though we can trait to drop them slowly in stealth) and it lasts 3-4 seconds on almost every ability (SR being the single exception, and the new Shadow trap i believe is 5). You could literally run the opposite direction of a thief once they stealth, and without some sort of speed boost on the thief, or them using another gap closing ability (most of which would break stealth), they might not be able to catch you. Of course the above scenario has exceptions, but the fact that “Walk in a single direction for 3-4 seconds” is a viable counter to stealth in some scenario’s tells you what you need to know about it.

These abilities are stronger than stuns. That’s simply unacceptable – there’s an ability specifically designed to break stuns because making another player lose control of their character is the single most powerful thing you can do in any PvP game. Kb, kd, pull and launch do not allow for an immediate stunbreak response.

In the current meta, not being able to respond for even 1 second can mean 3/4 of the HP bar gone. Stunbreakers need to work on Kb/Kd/pull and launch exactly the same way it does to a stun, or else you’re giving classes with better access to those abilities a significant advantage in an organized game.