Guild Wars 2

Aga.8641:

evilapprentice.6379:

Pyrial.2917:

You’ve basically summed up a variety of builds of all professions…congratulations.

I don’t follow – How often do other classes who spec for survivability/attrition lose their cap points due to their classes mechanics?

As far as I’m aware (and I admit I could be wrong on this), shield wall, ignore pain, renewed vigor (or whatever the Guardian elite is called), Necro forms which give a second healthbar definitely don’t prevent capping. I also believe (but again am not sure) an engi can keep capping while Elixir-S’d, and also Ele’s in vapor form.

You’re just QQ’ing for the sake of QQ’ing. Do you expect thief to be the master of every role? Thief has far more versatility then a lot of other professions in the current meta game.

Do explain – be sure to use examples in attempt to prove your point, rather just talking out of your kitten . If you have a valid, well thought out point you’d like to express, I’d love to hear it and consider it.

Pyrial.2917:

You’ve basically summed up a variety of builds of all professions…congratulations.

I don’t follow – How often do other classes who spec for survivability/attrition lose their cap points due to their classes mechanics?

As far as I’m aware (and I admit I could be wrong on this), shield wall, ignore pain, renewed vigor (or whatever the Guardian elite is called), Necro forms which give a second healthbar definitely don’t prevent capping. I also believe (but again am not sure) an engi can keep capping while Elixir-S’d, and also Ele’s in vapor form.

@Aga

By all means, if you feel Necro’s are UP, bring it up where appropriate – this isn’t the place. Post something constructive, or don’t post at all, I’m not interested in trolls.

mouse.1689:

I understand your frustration, but it seems like the current setup is the most balanced. Thieves aren’t good point defenders for the reasons you mentioned. They’re phenomenal roamers, though. The best in the game, in fact.

They’re also one of the best 1v1 classes in the game, which makes them good at taking points from single defenders. Granted, you may not be ticking that point over while you’re murdering the person standing on it, but you can often kill them quickly enough that that’s kind of a moot point.

Long story short, a Thief’s role in competitive PvP is roaming. They’re not good point defenders. But that’s why you bring a Guardian or Engi, right?

I agree to an extent, and I’m not really looking to complain. It’s just kind of unfortunate, since most classes in this game can choose tank, glass cannon burst, or anything in between and still contribute to their team in a meaningful way, whereas it seems thief has to be content with roaming and bursting players down, because what else can they do effectively?

Many players on these boards like to QQ about burst, thief burst in particular. Has anyone stopped to ask why so many thieves roll burst? Here’s your answer; Our survival mechanics being Stealth and (to a lesser extent) Mobility are to blame.

All classes have survival mechanics, some more unique than others – high base HP, higher base Armor, a number of block/immune skills, frequent condition removals, frequent small heals to help mitigate damage taken, etc etc. A Thieves primary survival mechanics are stealth and mobility, neither of which allow you to effectively defend or secure a point.

I’ve rolled a huge number of different thief builds, and what it comes down to is, without stealth and lots of dodging around, no amount of toughness and vitality will save you. Extremely high toughness/vit builds last a bit longer than your average thief, but have absolutely no killing power. Jack of all trade builds (where you try to keep all your stats fairly high) suffer from needing just a bit more – just a bit more mitigation to drop that glass cannon before he gets you, just a bit more damage to kill that bunker before he won the war of attrition, just a few more seconds of survivability for CD’s to refresh… etc.

I currently run a P/D Bleeds/attrition build that is just fantastic at outlasting most other classes (it of course has hard and soft counters, but in my opinion is the most robust of thief builds). It is however useless in TPvP – I can’t Cap or defend a point because my survivability is based on dodging attacks (which will take you off a cap point at times), and stealth, which stops you from capping/defending points entirely.

All of a thief’s key survivability talents are in the Shadow arts tree (+toughness/healing), and are based around stealth – regenerating health, curing conditions, faster initiative gain while in stealth, blinding surrounding enemies on stealth, gaining might when stealthing… our survivability trait line is very obviously stealth based. Whenever I stealth, an opposing players trained reaction is to dodge roll immediately (to avoid the backstab that isn’t coming), so I’m stuck in stealth at least 2 seconds before I can effectively start attacking them – additionally, health regen and condition removal (2 of the powerful stealth based survivability mechanics) are time based, meaning you’ll want to stay in stealth as long as possible to reap their benefits. It only takes 5 seconds for me to lose a point, and 14 to reclaim – Even if I only use stealth as a means to gain sneak attack (since P/D does abysmall damage without it), I’ll generally end up losing the point. This is why so few thieves focus on survivability – Who cares how long you live if you’re not contributing meaningfully to the team?

In addition, we don’t have a way to gain stability for stomping – our options are black powder, and stealth. Both work fine, I’m not complaining about that, but realize in a 1 on 1, if you stealth to stomp, that’s 3-4s your downed opponent is capping your point, almost guaranteed to neutralize it if you’ve had to use stealth at all during the fight (hint – you have). In close games, where Neutralizing a cap for 14 seconds can be the difference between a win and a loss, this is a very big deal.

So, just to be clear, I’m not saying Stealthed thieves should cap points – that would be too powerful. I honestly don’t have a suggestion how the issue could be addressed, and I’m not even 100% sure it needs to be. Just realize in the future, the next time a thief Haste->Pwhip spams you to death, realize he doesn’t have alot of other choices.

Is this for PvP or PvE?

Daecollo.9578:

Pistol And Dagger’s Bleed does 3 times less damage then Death Blossoms bleed and you do NOT get a poison or a roll.

Poison is also on D/D, if you want to remove conditions from the set, you should remove that as well.

D/D also restores Endurance.

I think they should lower the damage of backstab and add a bleed and poison to it and make all of D/D condition based, and make heartseeker also add a bleed.

Atm though, we are one of the last classes that needs redesigned, except for pistol/pistol and Flanking Strike.

Just to be clear, I’m not being sarcastic here – what kind of players are you facing when you roll D/D? Because rolling P/D, I see at LEAST 1 condition removal on 49 out of 50 of my fights (those without a condition removal are almost always either glass cannon, or obviously new to the game). More often than not, its 2-4 conditional removals in a 20s period. How does your super long, init intensive bleed help you out there? I specifically dumped D/D because any smart player waits until they have 9-12 stacks of bleed from your aerial twirls, then just drops them all, leaving you helpless for 10s.

Yes, D/D restores endurance, which P/D doesn’t. Que sera sera; it’s a small price to pay for how much more effective P/D is.

Why would I remove poison when it has a use in direct damage? I thought I made this perfectly clear, “this isn’t strictly about all abilities doing 1 type of damage, its about abilities being useful”. Poison is useful to a D/D build because it reduces heals by 33%.

My problem with unload isn’t that “It doesn’t do condition damage”, its that In a condition damage build you NEVER have a good reason to use it – it’s expensive and does kitten damage (in a condition build), and its generally used in desperation, or when you’ve got the fight in the bag. My problem with DB is the same – I dont care that the direct damage sucks, or that there’s a bleed, just that in a power/crit build, its a very expensive, sub-par dodge, and that’s it – 5 init is better spent on any of your other abilities 95% of the time, so why is it there? It doesn’t necessarily have to change to a Direct damage ability, but it should offer something to a Direct damage build because thats what the rest of D/D is focused on. Give me a reason to use Unload in a condi build, a reason to use DB in a power/crit build, even sometimes, and I’d be happy. At the moment, they are practically worthless when you spec in line with the rest of the weaponsets abilities (Condi for P/P and power/crit for D/D, to be clear)

I wish – The best witchhunter armor from WAR was the breasplate-overcoat combo, which seems to be sorely lacking from medium armor options (though I’ve only looked at the PvP armor).

Daecollo.9578:

Condition Thief for life, Dagger/Dagger is FINE, its our BEST weapon slot and does not need changed.

Sword/Dagger needs a revamp… Pistol/Pistol needs a revamp.

You’ve never tried pistol/dagger. Seriously, go try it. It’s better then D/D in every single aspect.
1) Condition removal no longer ruins your day, since your rapidly stacking short term bleeds for low initiative cost rather than slowly stacking long term bleeds at a high init cost.
2) You’re not in melee – pretty self explanatory.
3)Your stealth attack matters – Sneak attack is amazing compared to backstab in a condi build, again self explanatory.
4) A number of our utilities are infinitely easier to use with a ranged weapon than with a melee weapon (shadow refuge and shadowstep, primarily)

“D/D is not focused either but works flawlessly.”

Why do you feel it works flawlessly? That’s an honest question, maybe I’m thinking about it all wrong.

What function does DB fulfill in a power spec, other than a desperate evade? Liuili above mentioned that DB can hit for 1500 (3000 with proper spec on crit) with another 1500 from bleeds over 10-13 seconds – that sounds like a hell of a lot, but take some things into consideration ; any spec hitting that hard with DB is going to hit much harder with nearly anything else, AND is going to be on the squishy side. What squishy rogue has 5 init to spare for such a subpar attack? CnD will hit much harder, applies vuln, and gives you stealth. There’s a very small subset of situations where DB is the superior choice . Hell, even your auto-attack chain will hit harder, apply poison (and probably weakness due to 15 points deadly arts) and regain you some endurance. DB doesn’t even have to change that much, it just needs to offer SOMETHING to Direct damage specs – if they added something as minor as a single boon removal on the last hit, it would at least have a function for Direct Damage specs.

Ensign.2189:

There isn’t a single weapon in the game that inflicts damage conditions with every single skill. That’s not how the game’s design works. You usually get 2, maybe 3 skills that inflict condition damage, and you either decide to pump those up or not. Those 2-3 condition inflicting skills being weak for you because ‘LOL I’m full Berserker’s conditions bad’, or your non-condition skills being bad because ‘LOL I’m condition build what is damage?’ is a problem with the user, not the design of weapons. Those sets are not going to be optimized with extremely linear gear choices – and this is absolutely a good thing.

There is a minor issue of condition damage, as a stat, being somewhat underpowered given the paradigm of only 2-3 skills inflicting conditions; I expect this will change in a future patch.

“There isn’t a single weapon in the game that inflicts damage conditions with every single skill. "
Except for Engi Pistol/Shield or Pistol/Pistol, and some of their kits.

I Feel the conversation is getting de-railed. People love to make assumptions, most of which are 100% wrong. I specifically mentioned in my post that perhaps my suggestions weren’t perfect, but the main issue is the mixing and matching of abilities – DB doesn’t need to change to a direct damage ability specifically, but it should be in line with the rest of Dagger/Dagger – it currently isn’t. The same thing with Unload – it doesn’t need to specifically stack more conditions, but it should offer -something- to a condi build, because the other 4 Pistol/Pistol abilities are conditions, utility, and support.

Ranger shortbow is a very good example of what I’m aiming for – Shortbow is pretty obviously set up as a conditions weapon. 3 and 5 don’t stack conditions, but they are abilities that are still useful for a condition setup (swiftness and daze/stun are pretty useful for any setup, but that’s beside the point). Now compare that to Pistol/Pistol – what use is unload in a conditions build? Deathblossom is at least an evade, though the length of the animation kind of makes you a sitting duck on landing for anyone who knows what they’re doing. Other than a sub-par, last ditch evade, DB offers nothing to direct damage, which is what the rest of dagger/dagger is focused on. They could offer class appropriate buffs, or strip buffs from opponents, or anything, as long as it made sense to use the ability in the same vain as ALL the other weapon skills in the set.

Thank you, I did miss it.

This is going to sound dumb, but how do you sheath your weapons?

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

evilapprentice.6379:

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

Update your post instead of blaming people who correct you.

If you want to participate in a discussion, participate. If you want to read a couple comments and rush to throw in your 2 cents, by all means expect to be told to read the thread. I admitted I was incorrect, and corrected myself. Don’t let your personal dislike of the things I’m saying cloud your ability to rationalize.

On Second thought, it would be easier though if I just updated the original post, which I have.

I’ve asked around guild, the heart, and scanned my keybinds – there is no “stop auto-attacking” function. Am I missing it? I can’t imagine this deliberately designed this way (though maybe I’m wrong). When someone throws up a projectile reflect ability, I dont want to keep trying to shoot them – my current options are all pretty bad.

De-targeting doesn’t always work, and isn’t always something I want to do. Shift-clicking to disable autoattack in the middle of a heated match would just be stupid. My only current option is to turn 180 degree’s away from my target and wait, and thats just silly.

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

LiuliRenai.3928:

evilapprentice.6379:

All the ones I said. You’re rather far off the point. If you’re building up condition damage to run DB in D/D, you’re sacrificing the effectiveness of everything other ability – the poison from lotus strike ticks 1-2 times, so you’re not using it for damage (its a utility). Your heartseeker does garbage damage because you’re power is mid-range and you have no crit (or, you have great crit and kitten power if you run the rabid ammy). Cloak and Dagger is also laughable – the damage is not great, and all you’re using stealth for is getting close to your target so you can DB again, because backstab does kitten damage in the build.

Mixing and matching of abilities is stupid – we can’t build to please both, so we’re sacraficing some to most of our hotbar whenever we pick a focus, and I’d like to see that fixed. Look at Engi’s pistol/pistol – It screams condition damage, and guess what- not a single ability there is out of place. Why can’t we have that?

You are missing the point. A condition build does not need every single skill to do condition damage. They need every skill to be useful to them in some way.
D/D skill one’s poison does not tick for 1 or 2 with a condition spec, it ticks for 3 and stacks with poison for 16 seconds from steal, not to mention the added weakness.
Heartseeker is a gap closer.
Dancing Daggers cripples 4 opponents. You don’t use it for the damage, you use it to slow targets that are running away, or to prep your own retreat, and as an added bonus your +condition duration lengthens the cripple effect.
Cloak and Dagger stealths you. Of course it has bearing on the conversation. The more stealths you have, the more time you break your opponent’s targetting on you.

As a condition spec I rely primarily on Death Blossom and Pistol’s auto attack, and yet there isn’t a single skill I never use. The trick is when to use them.

Your engineer example has one big flaw – it stacks conditions that last 2~3 seconds (without speccing for more) while death blossom stacks 3 bleeds that last 10 seconds (15 in my build), is an AoE, and also an evade. Adding more skills that would add even more condition damage on top of this one ability that does more damage than all of Engineer’s P/P skills combined would be silly OP.

This is the last time I’ll be responding to you, so please, read very carefully – it’s silly to stick a condition damage only ability in the middle of a hotbar with 4 abilities designed to deal direct damage, or directly support the dealing of direct damage. Of course you can find uses for your other abilities, but they are being -underutilized due to poor design-. Reread the part I blocked out, because thats the key.

It leads to builds that either don’t use (power/crit doesnt use DB, unless your desperately trying to dodge a HB with no stunbreaks and no endurance) or underutilizes your other abilities. I’m glad you like the crap damage heartseeker does in a condi build, and you’ve found ways to explain how awesome your 500 damage CnD is (so you can backstab, right?), but you’re still ignoring the main issue. Until you acknowledge it, you’re just trolling.

Just because you think your build is better doesn’t mean engi’s isn’t -better by design-. The dev’s said “pistols are going to be for conditions”, and then didnt stick a big DD button right in the middle of their hotbar so engi’s can go “No no, its great for finishing off my bleeding, poisoned, confused foe 2 seconds faster”.

And, just a side note from personal preference, DB is garbage – Long, expensive to stack bleeds that get cleansed like crazy are awful in the current meta – short, rapidly stacking pistol bleeds are where its at for now.

Wolfe.3097:

First, D/P shadowshot self roots for for some reason, that needs fixing, cant believe you could even overlook that, have you ever used shadowshot?

I got so used to playing around it, i forgot it was there (and i havent run D/P in a long time), but you’re correct.

@Liul
“Fail on every count – it is not your skills that don’t make sense, it’s probably your build. On D/D my skill 1 applies both poison and weakness for more than 3 seconds and can be stacked to always be up on the target. My steal also adds to the poison and weakness durations. Great for PvE, great for PvP in some situations.”

And I’m sure you’re running 900 condition damage for that 3 second poison.

“Heartseeker as a condition thief is not the hard hitting ability it is for direct damage thieves, but with Carrion gear it still does a good chunk of damage for low health people, and more importantly it’s still a charge.”

Yes, if you’re specifically using 1 of the 4 condition amulets, heartseeker does “Ok” damage. That doesn’t change the fact that your gearing and specing you’re character entirely around 1 ability (DB) if you go D/D condition.

“Skill 4 is a cripple, which has it’s duration extended by my +condition duration.”

Which has no bearing on the conversation. Your condition damage does nothing to help Dancing Dagger.

“Skill 5 stealths me.”
Which isn’t a condition, also has no bearing on the conversation.

“So which are this skills which are supposedly not used in condition builds?”

All the ones I said. You’re rather far off the point. If you’re building up condition damage to run DB in D/D, you’re sacrificing the effectiveness of everything other ability – the poison from lotus strike ticks 1-2 times, so you’re not using it for damage (its a utility). Your heartseeker does garbage damage because you’re power is mid-range and you have no crit (or, you have great crit and kitten power if you run the rabid ammy). Cloak and Dagger is also laughable – the damage is not great, and all you’re using stealth for is getting close to your target so you can DB again, because backstab does kitten damage in the build.

Mixing and matching of abilities is stupid – we can’t build to please both, so we’re sacraficing some to most of our hotbar whenever we pick a focus, and I’d like to see that fixed. Look at Engi’s pistol/pistol – It screams condition damage, and guess what- not a single ability there is out of place. Why can’t we have that?

Nande.6810:

Agree with above. Did you guys consider that they deliberatly didn’t make a perfect weapon set so that players could come up with new/different and interesting builds?

Also I could not disagree more on hs and cnd not being used as condition thief, I would rather use 2 hs the one db when someone is about to die. Still does decent dmg.

Also p/p is a awesome set to swap to when your out of ini imo, and worls perfectly with a condition build. Sneak attack is boss! Rest of the weapon set is full of great utility that are super situational.

I would just cry if p/p became another burst build. Thiefs do have enough of imbalanced burst. We do NOT need ranged burst.

Basicly I think the sets are fine the way they are, they don’t have to be a perfect to be good and that opens up options for interesting builds.

Al tho I dislike dancing dagger, kitten expencive cripple!

Its not about being perfect, its about being properly designed. Why would D/D have 3 abilities that are directly affected by power/crit, and one that relies entirely on Condition damage? Should I stack condition damage at detriment to my other 3 abilities? Should I just ignore DB because i’m all power/crit?

Sneak attack is pistol mainhand, not P/P specific – P/D is massively superior primarily because Unload is a useless skill for a condi Build (in addition to no way to gain stealth and the delicious sneak attack), which pistol mainhand Screams loudly.

Speaking from a PvP standpoint, there is very little mixing and matching of condi/direct damage for thief (maybe other classes differ, I don’t know). Attrition specs work for other classes, but not so well for thief. We can’t win a war of attrition because our main survival mechanic (stealth), stops us from capping points. I can survive a -long- time in my build by milking my stealth, but I give up the cap point to the other team, and that just doesnt work.

Krathalos.3461:

The bow doesn’t do the pistol’s job, no, because the bow isn’t single target purely. The short bow, however, is a viable option as an offhand due to utility and being based off conditions. D/D is the main weapon for condition builds. P/P has no role right now because its role is outclassed. If you’re building condition damage, you’re not so fragile that you can’t dish out in melee, so D/D with DB shines. The issue with P/P is it doesn’t have a job right now. If you’re running conditions and really want to use pistol, just use P/D. It does the job while having a reliable stealth to use the Pistol’s great stealth attack.

P/P has the ability to become a primary weapon if it became burst. However, as it stands, P/P lacks both conditions and outright damage to be built either way, and bringing it to condition isn’t really a fix. It will still be kept in the back, with D/D and Shortbow being used more often.

P/P = no role, P/D = ranged, single target condition, Short bow = ranged, aoe conditions with sustained damage, D/D = burst single target or aoe condition, D/P = single target utility, S/P = burst, aoe, S/D = aoe, utility (which it kind of fails at tbh)

We’re missing a proper ranged burst weapon, and P/P could actually be it. It needs a complete rework in order for P/P to be a proper burst damage, though. If you remove Vital Shot’s bleed, P/D becomes less of a single target condition weapon. Body Shot needs changed completely.

If you want P/P to be burst, they’ll have to change pistol MH entirely – to fix P/P to compete with P/D, they could just change unload to something that compares with CnD → Sneak attack. I have a feeling they’ll modify 1 ability limited to only P/P rather than redesign Pistol MH entirely. Perhaps they don’t want thieves to have a ranged burst weapon?

LiuliRenai.3928:

This threads always ends up with Direct Damage thieves wanting even more damage than they already have at the expense of Condition thieves.

No.

Fail on every count – I’m a condition thief who wants my abilities to make sense. I’m sorry that you like your DB build, but its silly that of your 5 weapon skills, 2 are completely useless, and 1 is severly underused – DB is the ONLY WAY you can do damage.

Krathalos.3461:

You don’t need viable single target conditions when you have AoE conditions that accomplish the same thing. You also have poisons. Death Blossom is also more of our single target condition attack, but it can also deal AoE.

I’d prefer Death Blossom to deal outright damage and have less of an initiative cost (so that it would be better utility rather than conditions), but it works as is if you build around it.

We just don’t need another ranged condition weapon. We need one that actually benefits from a DPS build. Right now, we just have shortbow and its utility. If you’re a condition spec, Short bow is better than it is for a pure damage spec.

I run a condition spec right now, and trust me, the bow does not do the pistol’s job – If you need someone to die as a condition build, you’re using your pistol. If you’re supporting in a group fight, you use your bow. The bow -does not- do the pistols job.

bwillb.2165:

evilapprentice.6379:

The simple solution is to switch the 2. Make D/D dual skill a succession of quick, light damage stabs

Well death blossom was actually an attack in GW1 that was just good AoE direct damage, and I think this is a good direction to go with it, not just a flurry of blows on a single target.

As for the P/P skill, I’d like to see a little AoE on that as well. perhaps a splinter-shot deal where you shoot once with each pistol and each shot splits to 2 targets on contact, causing a decent burn on the primary target and a very short burn on the secondary targets. It would be a total of two hits and a decent burn on the primary target, and either two hits and a somewhat short burn on one secondary target or one hit and an even shorter burn each on two secondary targets, depending on what’s in range.

Maybe – my suggestions are just my 2 cents. The main point of this post is for D/D and P/P’s dual skills to match the rest of the entire kittening skillset, rather than just be abilities no one uses (or builds their entire spec to use, in the case of DB condition damage).

Krathalos.3461:

The problem with P/P isn’t Unload. P/P should be our ranged burst, and Shortbow should be our ranged condition damage. We shouldn’t have two ranged condition damage weapons. One of them will be redundant while the other will be the only one that’s used (as is currently why shortbow is the one used by most).

P/P’s issue is with its basic attack and Body Shot. Body Shot takes far too long, and its vulnerability is short. It’s basically unusable in PVP and PVE. The other classes can put longer vulnerability on in shorter time. It only really benefits Unload, and you’d barely get Unload out in the vulnerability time. The basic attack is also pretty poor, since half of its damage is outright while the other half is through bleed. This is a poor design idea in itself. You can’t build right for it without also building wrong for it. It needs to deal all of its damage outright. Even as is, Body Shot only works for Unload, and Unload only works if you build pure DPS. Something needs changed, and it’s not Unload. The Off-hand Pistol attacks are fine, though.

As for D/D, Death Blossom is pretty good in PVE. It makes Condition Damage melee thief good, especially in PVE. I wouldn’t mind a change, but it’s not really necessary.

As for Flanking Strike, I agree. It’s just not a viable attack in PVP, and it’s pretty lackluster in PVE too.

I’m not saying Deathblossom is a bad ability, it just has no place in D/D – If you spec power, DB is worthless. if you spec condition, your autoattack and Heartseeker are worthless, and CnD becomes a “gain stealth” ability, rather than a vulnerability/set up your target ability.

Also, Pistol and Bow are pretty different – Bow is purely AoE conditions. If you get rid of pistol as a conditions weapon, thief will have no viable Single target condition builds. IMO, Unload need to change to a condition ability.

Sorry, since all I really do is PvP, I didnt think about mentioning that all of my observations are from a PvP POV. I Don’t PvE, and I imagine my issues with flanking strike and pistol whip are less prevalent there. They’re still a bit of an issue in PvP though, and the DB and Unload points still stand, even in PvE.

Let’s be honest here, a majority of our dual skills are poorly designed. I’m just going to get right into it.

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing. (Edit: For those too lazy to read the entire threat, it’s been pointed out to me that the short duration root after teleporting to your target makes this ability pretty meh – I admit I forgot about that. The design is very well thought out for this ability, they just need to change the momentary root on hit)

P/D – Shadow Strike – Does exactly what its supposed to. Part of me wishes it added something (cripple, burn, blind), even if the init cost went up, but I’m no playtester, so its probably just personal bias.

S/P – Pistol Whip – Pistol whip is pretty good, but there are small problems which are causing ALOT of complaints in the community. Design wise, pistol whip is pretty solid – it hits marginally harder than your 3 swing auto-attack, stuns for interupts, and evades (since you’re rooted in place). The problem comes when, unless your target is rooted/snared, they can literally walk out of the last 2 swings. Yes, you could run venoms or traps or something to make sure the last 2 swings (4 total hits) connect, but thats alot of investment for 1 ability. Thieves remedy this by running Haste, so you can actually hit all your attacks with pistol whip, which leads to glass cannon burst specs, and endless forum QQ. I dont really have a suggestion to fix it, and tbh, its functional, and not nearly in as bad of shape as the next 3 abilities.

S/D – Flanking strike – As an idea, I love flanking strike. In execution, its awful. Cant be used effectively on a moving target (who stands still in pvp?) and will swing you around to the front of your target if used while in the rear arc. Silly. Just change it so that the first strike triggers a shadowstep to the targets rear arc, that way you still have to be in melee to use it, and it works as intended.

Now for the real stinkers.

D/D – Deathblossom – The ability itself is fine, it just has no place in D/D. Everything else in D/D is about direct damage, why is there an expensive, poor Direct Damage bleed attack sitting in the middle of my hotbar? if you’re building around deathblossom, your stacking condition damage, which means Most of your hotbar is useless or underpowered. HS and your autoattack do kitten damage, and CnD changes from “setup for the kill” to “stealth on demand” button. Dancing dagger is largely unaffected.

P/P – Unload – Exactly the same as Deathblossom. Its all condition/utility/support, and right in the middle of my hotbar I have a longish cast Direct Damage ability? Who’s running Pistol/Pistol with a ton of power and crit?

The simple solution is to switch the 2. Make D/D dual skill a succession of quick, light damage stabs, intended to do good damage on lightly armored targets, and be increasingly less effective as your targets armor goes up (this gives D/D a nice way to unload poisons too). Give P/P a long cast 3 shot that stacks a condition different than bleed – burning or confusion IMO.

Now, my suggestions might be off – as I said, I’m not a playtester and of course I’m a bit biased, playing a thief. Perhaps a different road should be taken to fix the abilities, but i feel my analysis of whats wrong with Flanking strike, Deathblossom, and Unload is spot on. Any chance we can see the Dev’s weigh in on this?

edit: Clarified some language, added some info to shadow shot.

Proeliator.8740:

evilapprentice.6379:

Why does nearly everyone describe PvP as “Kill = win”? People kitten endlessly of thieves running away; guess what, in most scenarios, if the thief ran away, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON. You held the point or you kept them from doing something advantageous for their team! They’re down a bunch of CD’s for the next 30s-1m, and won’t be contributing much! Just because you didn’t get the 15 points for driving a stake through their chest doesn’t mean you “lost the fight”.

Well I’ll say this for you…. you’ve managed to somehow marginalize the ability to actually kill other players in a brutally efficient manner. The problem is you say a player wins if they manage to drive off a thief for the 30-60 sec of his cooldowns but I disagree completely. Even if you only give a thief ambush a 50% chance of success before he escapes that’s a 50% chance every 30-60 seconds of killing another player in many cases even with other players in the area. Briefly driving him off didn’t win you anything but possibly a few more minutes of life. That thief can just go elsewhere or come back more prepared to kill you in no time at all. That means you need more players just to hold a point which actually IS doing something even if you would have us believe otherwise.

You talked a lot about learning your class and learning to pvp but I didn’t catch you mentioning what you play? I assume you’re a thief yes?

Well, I very clearly stated that I play a thief. Pistol/Dagger tho, so I don’t use HS, PW, or haste. Please, tell me how OP Vital shot is.

Out of curiosity, when did backstab = instant death? People talk as if once you’ve been backstabbed, the fight is over, why bother fighting back. What kind of spec are these people running? In every spec of every class I’ve tried theirs been plenty of utility – cripple, immobile, blind, KD, Push, pull, launch, daze.. the list goes on and on and on. If you get hit with a very hard backstab, you’re facing a glass cannon – a minute amount of CC of nearly any variety will absolutely ruin his day. its 100% risk vs reward.

Also, here’s a free tip – if a thief using Dagger MH stealths near you, do not under any circumstance stand still. Stealth lasts 3 seconds (4 if traited), turning around and swinging your MH is enough to find a thief in most situations – if you connect, dodge roll away. There you go, you just nulled their stealth.

Mawel.5340:

i think many thieves forget that their initiative downtimes are not longer than cooldowns the other classes have on their skills. addistionally the thief doent have to stay in the fight with low initiative, he can just vanish and run away, other classes cant.

initiative is a class mechanic but the burst capapbilitiy resulting from it needs to be taken to accoundt when defining the base dmg of several skills.

i also often read the guardians are op with their bunker build. its a build with no dps, it would suck if thes would still get bursted down by a single thief. retaliation ist too strong though, its way too easy to maintain.

here are some examples of balancing problems that occur in almost every mmo i ever played:

most of games have a class which is a squishy melee burst dd, so since this class is so squishy it needs skill which help to survive. here is one difficult task: it his class can avoid dmg it is not that much of a problem that it is squishy so it shouldnt do twice as much dmg to balance its statwise half survivability.

in most games this kind of a problem occurs somewhere, often its is the mage and the rogue which have some strange abitlities. in gw2 the ele mage was nerfed to death at some point it seems, the ranger was nerfed during the beta in his dmg oputput, other classes still have bugged skills and plainly useless traits. there is much work to do.

the only thing we can do about it is discussing issues in the forums reasonably so that they can be addressed by arenanet with less expensees.

please do not support the “everything is good as it is” attitude because this doesnt help to improve the game. if there is a discussion on wehter the rocket jump should have 100 range more or less, arenanet will recognize how urgent this issue is compared with 100 blades dealing 11k dmg on an 8s cd.

Why does nearly everyone describe PvP as “Kill = win”? People kitten endlessly of thieves running away; guess what, in most scenarios, if the thief ran away, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON. You held the point or you kept them from doing something advantageous for their team! They’re down a bunch of CD’s for the next 30s-1m, and won’t be contributing much! Just because you didn’t get the 15 points for driving a stake through their chest doesn’t mean you “lost the fight”.

As for your other points, they’re rather rambling and incoherent, but they have a distinct flavor of “Just doesnt get it”. Allow me to explain – when i first started PvPing, i was about ready to quit a week in; None of the specs I was whipping up on my own were working very well, and every death felt cheap because I had NO idea what was going on. My guildies kept ranting how broken ranger was, so I rolled it. It was nothing magical, so I tried mesmer, guardian, and engi for a period of time afterwards.

When I ditched them to try a new build for my thief I found on some boards, it was like divine intervention – I was kicking kitten

2 reasons –
1) my spec wasn’t glass cannon garbage. I was still learning the game, and glass cannon is completely unforgiving of mistakes. Pick a spec with some survivability, if only to learn how you should be squaring up against other classes.
2)I had a -vague- idea what the other classes I had played could do, so it no longer felt like cheap bullkitten when they dropped me. I quickly learned what abilities to dodge, when not to attack, when to interupt, etc…

Just try it, you’ll find that your preconceived notions are mostly wrong.

Seriously, I’m a bit stumped here. I’ve seen (what I believe) are 2 distinct builds that are hard to counter. I don’t know Ele very well, so I’m going to speak in broad terms – if I’m wrong, please correct me (politely)

“Never say die/never stop moving” – I’ve watched an ele drop 3-4 members of a tourney team (albeit a bit slowly) by being ridiculously mobile, dropping conditions, moderate healing, AoE Chill, and lots of AoE’s with moderate damage. They don’t burst people down, but I can’t get a bleed to stack over 3 or 4 (most players I can get to 10-15 rather quickly), they’re constantly healing small amounts which allows them to buy time for their activated heals, Melee has a hell of a time getting anywhere near them, and I believe they have some KD options.

“Node Denial” – Somewhat similar to the build above. Less tough to drop/get conditions to stick, and not as healy, but they Ride the lightning into the direct center of a cap point and just unleash hell – without stability, you’re getting bounced around, dazed, and taking fairly high damage. I wouldn’t call it true burst, but you’re not sticking around in the center without alot of armor/health and some good heals. Just as much mobility as the above spec.

Of all the classes and specs I’ve seen and learned to counter, these are 2 I still have trouble with. With my screen full of explosions, fire and ice, and the Ele itself sheathed in lightning or fire, its very hard to determine what abilities look like to learn what I should be attempting to counter. I don’t win every non-ele fight (obviously), but after most fights, I can look at what happened and say to myself “kitten I should have used this ability”, or “I wish i had this up”, etc. Against these 2 specs, I’m still stumped.

Node Denial can be dealt with, but all they have to do is pull a team off a node for 5 seconds and that can have a big impact on a game (IE, is useful). While I can kill one, I generally have to yield the point to them, and in a close game, that’s a win. “Never say die” I honestly don’t know what to do about. It’s a war of attrition, but one they win 4 out of 5 times. My experience might be biased, but I’ve watched my team get pasted nearly every time we’ve faced 1 or 2 of these types of Ele’s in TPvP.

Now, the problem might be those are the Only 2 good builds for ele (a lack of build diversity), and that would be a real issue, but I don’t know. So, Whats up?

Mac.1936:

It’s fine the way it is. It adds a dynamic to the map. I mean if you change it too much it’s just going to end up the each team gets 1 every time. Which negates the purpose of having them altogether.

Also, if it was changed to a % of damage done it would just lead to a burst class ninja-ing by bursting down then running away leaving the other team to kill him and still not end up getting it. Which is worse than last hit gets points in my opinion.

When the round first starts, sure. How many times have you seen an entire Tpvp team show up for the boss kill after the first? It’d be silly to let the other team uncap your bases for 25 points.

“most % of damage” probably wont work by itself, but there are a number of simple ways to fix that – Most % and has been hit by team in last 5 seconds, Most % and still in engagement range (the point where he turns back and start regenning, to be clear), etc.

The “dynamic” it adds is luck (via a lucky last shot, or your team is lucky enough to have a class build that makes ninjaing cheesy) – my main point was why are we injecting luck into a game based on skill?

They’ve already nerfed heartseeker – if you cant deal with the new kitten version, you should probably work on your skills, or play a game more friendly to your skill type (not being a kitten here).

Unless you’re Immobilized ,crippled, or chilled, you can literally WALK out of the last 2 swings of pistol whip – without haste, its a lackluster skill – it hits about as hard as the 3 swing auto-attack combo (except you’re rooted to the ground while using it, and the last swing doesn’t apply weakness and cripple). If you’re crippled/chilled, you can still dodge roll out of the last 2 swings.

So, I’ve got 10 stacks of bleed on Chieftan, the 2 NPC pets from Thieves guild, and I’m currently hitting him with the 5 shots from sneak attack – He’s at about 2% life. From behind me, a player from the other team hits him once and claims the 25 points.

This isn’t skill. With the alarming speed the boss’s health was dropping, there’s no way he timed his shot – he took a hail mary shot, and lady luck gave his team 25 points and and a 50 point bump to all stats.

If one of your team members runs a build with an ability that’s hard or impossible-once-started (Pwhip, deathblossom, blurred frenzy, etc) to counter, it’s a luck-of-the-draw advantage, and in no way represents skill.

“But you could just stun/intercept him!’ – Unless the player knows what he’s doing, and brings stun-breaks to the fight. its exceedingly easy for some classes to dodge-roll/speed boost/teleport past an entire team to hit a mob once. Kudos to them for understanding their class, but it’s not really “skill” if I Dodge->shadow step->steal->haste->Pwhip spam a boss down and ninja it in the last 10%. There’s very little an opposing team can do.

Currently, “last hit gets credit” favors cheesy combo’s and luck – this game is supposed to be all about skill. How about we fix it so that it is?

[“So, a thief blows multiple CD’s (Devourer’s Venom, a gap closer (Inf strike, steal, inf sig), haste)), and every class should just be able to hit a stunbreak and get off scott free?”]
“You mean like, when every other class does it and a thief just vanishes wasting their cooldowns and getting off scott free?”

Stealth lasts 3 seconds (4 if traited). Vanish just means you cant see them – you can still hit them. A number of other classes have straight up immunity abilities. Why not kitten about those?

“But it’s fine, no one should spec pure damage and have fun, because a thief will kill you, you have to spec your class around thieves. A thief on the other hand, their allowed to spec pure damage, because that’s what they are all doing mostly to get these numbers. Double standards much?”
Thieves running glass cannon builds are 100% bound to risk vs reward – they hit like a truck, but if their suicide run fails, they’re boned – there are dozens of ways to neutralize a thief for just a couple seconds, and that’s all you really need vs a glass cannon.

“Oh wait, they should learn to dodge. Not like, you know, you need to do that with EVERY other class anyway.”
Not entirely sure what you mean here. Clarify?

“But in the end it’s fine, once you’re out of initiative, you can’t keep bursting like those other classes who’s cooldowns usually take longer to come off than initiative regains anyway.”
Those classes have multiple weapon sets (or Kits, or attunements), so they’ve got 2 weapons worth of CD’s (or more) to consider – thieves have 1 initiative pool.

“Still, thieves claiming their not OP must clearly mean their not, after all, it’s the majority that’s wrong and just haven’t learnt to play yet while the thieves are super skilled.”
The % of people who come to kitten on the forum about class X will always outweigh those who are content with the game, seeing as they generally don’t come here in anger to vent about how such and such is so borked – people are kittening about every class, thief is the easiest to kitten about because they have a small pool of constantly used abilities – “HS Spam is so broken”… because a P/D thief doesn’t have much else in the way of “Dealing damage” besides HS. Also, by the boards reasoning, -every- class is broken, UP, and working as intended. We can’t all be right.

“You know, I actually have no problems in dealing with thieves, especially 1 on 1 (but in a zerg fest they have one of the two class’s best abilities at not getting stamped so able to rally) probably because I’ve not met many who’s needed to learn their class, but I do have a problem with the generic defence replies which pretty much go for all classes anyway.”
My response was in no way generic – I specified what abilities a thief was using, and what abilities you should use specifically to counter. You know what a thief does in a zerg fest most times? Whip out his short bow. Know why? Even in a toughness/healing build (which I ran for a long time), the amount of AoE,KD,Pull/push/launch in a giant zerg is over-whelming. We have no way to give ourselves stability, and even while stealthed we’ll get hit with anything that would normally hit us. There are builds that can survive in a zerg (LDB, to be specific for you), but that build will just burn its init on DB and then get the kitten out of the center, lest they melt.

@Kage

I don’t think many people understand how Thief works before they complain about them. Lets take a moment to examine Dagger/Pistol and Sword/Pistol.

In either setup, your offhand abilities are headshot (short daze) and Black powder (Blind, smoke field that blinds periodically). Both are -amazing- utilities, but their damage is practically non-existant (seriously, a power/crit glass cannon -might- have 350 damage listed on either of these abilities). For doing damage, you’re left with the MH and your dual skill.

Dagger – Shadow shot is a great all around skill – it blinds, it does decent damage, and its a gap closer. Problem is, once that gap is closes, heartseeker is usually the superior option (or it was pre-nerf, havent used daggers in a while so I dont know the current state). Sure, there are times hitting shadow shot is more tactically sound than HS, but its not often, leading to people crying about HS spam.

Sword – Infilitrators strike is also a great all around skill – Teleport and immobilize which turns into a stun break/escape/condition drop for 12s, and it does ok damage too. Since Inf strike turns into shadow return for 12 seconds after use, what options does a rogue have for DPS? Auto-attack and pistol whip. Thats it.

There are times where its smarter to Headshot, or black powder instead of queing up another PWhip. Most thieves people are complaining about are probably doing just that, but all its doing is hurting them in the long run. If you absolutely need to do some damage to your target, you’re relying on HS or PW because those are YOUR ONLY OPTIONS.

Just a quick aside to anticipate questions – a rogue’s secondary weapon is almost always (and should almost always be) a shortbow – it’s not a DPS powerhouse, but it brings too much to any match to even really consider equipping any other weapon combo.

So, a thief blows multiple CD’s (Devourer’s Venom, a gap closer (Inf strike, steal, inf sig), haste)), and every class should just be able to hit a stunbreak and get off scott free? If any class is going to spend a number of utilities, and a ton of initiative/big CD skill (5 just for 1 Whip, 8 if they opened with inf Strike), you should expect to have to sink similar resources into avoiding it. Engineers can just hit Elixir S, giving them the spare time to type out “lol, haste wasted”. Warriors can break stun and use their immune, or their shield block skill, and just stroll on out (or sit there and block every shot, if immobilized) – “lol, haste wasted”. Guardian can break stun and throw up any of their multiple block options, severely limiting the connecting strikes. I believe necro’s can go plague form and just spam their blind (though I don’t know for sure).

Point is, if ALL the thief is using is haste and pistol whip, its amazingly easy to hit stun break and dodge roll – you WILL escape, as long as you have a decent reaction time. If the thief is going to start investing more into it (gap closer, venom, etc), plan on bringing more than just a stun break to evade it.

You’re probably fairly squishy – thieves only down state attack is a knife that bounces across targets, and cripples – it works for what its intended for, but it isn’t anything to write home about against 1 target. Its possible they were a high might/crit spec, with the 50% more downed damage trait, but even then there’s no way he was doing 8k-16k (i dont know your HP pool) damage with knives unless you made a number of mistakes.

I’m sick of Zerg Hot joins, and even more fed up with pugging Tourneys – I’ve inquired multiple times in the Heart, to no response. Rank 22 Thief, looking for a tourney focused guild – I’m not asking for some huge commitment, just a guild of players who are primarily concerned with forming tourney teams, then running them. If anyone is interested, please give me a shout – If I’m on, I’m in the Mists.

Carlin.1059:

SmackMyBird.2386:

You’re way too used to WoW.
This game’s PvP is not supposed to be working like the Arenakitten1 combo 1 kill that it is in WoW. “You cant burst someone down: Flawed” <- wth ? haha.
I’d much rather have a game without frostmages using 3 skills in a combo to 1shot your face if you’re out of defensive cooldowns, that sort of gameplay is proper bs.

You don’t have 5 abilities, most proffesions have around 15 to use, what are you talking about ?

“Downed state in PvPD” And again, just because ur a WoW baddie doesnt mean every game that’s not a papercut copy is bad, it’s a new system and it has brought with it what they wanted: Teamplay and utilization of cooldowns. (I bet you just have no clue how to properly finish people off in a teamfight so you rage xD)

Necros are crazy good if not in the hands of a kitten scrub that has no clue how boons and conditions work. Some bugged traits, yet still they can slaughter. Ele’s are too un-rewarding for the high skillcap of the proff, i agree. But these are just minor minor balancing issues, and the game isn’t even a month old. I seriously do hope you’re trolling here.

“Dodge removes the skill factor” ….. It’s one of the fewer tools in this game at actually requires skill and awareness. Proper usage of your energy ( and focusing on having the vigor boon up ) separates scrubs from good players. If a player pays attention to his opponent and properly reads how he’s about to play he can avoid a spike of damage if the opponent is careless. This ADDS to the skill factor.

There is 1 job with evade spam, possibly two. Rangers and thiefs. And even if a Thief spams away his lotus, the damage output is low as kitten, and ground-aoe’s and well-timed knockbacks screw them over in a second. Try to play the game and actually learn how to counter things out before blatantly claiming things to be unbalanced, and ontop of that the things you claim to be unbalanced is what 8v8 hotjoin scrubs moan about. (heartseeker spamming for instance, which was by far the most useless thing a thief could do vs someone with half a brain.)

There’s a reason why the “water map” is not in tournaments, it’s in the hotjoin PvP because thats where people go tokittenaround when they are bored. If you want proper PvP go play Tournaments. And don’t say “what if i just want to play on my own and have some fun, without a bad underwater map”
I’m pretty sure no other game had fun-solo PvP either. WoW for instance, nothing was more boring than solo play battlegrounds.

1/10 to this post, 90% of the things in your text is just pure l2p issues.
I agree that the PvP has alot to improve, which i’m 100% sure they will. Yet none of the ACTUAL issues were stated in your list of “bad things”. Such as having different modes, bigger tournaments, more maps, just a larger PvP experience in general. The balancing and the combat of the game is absolutely fine. It’s the things around it that needs some work.

TL;DR: Op needs to play more PvP and actually figure out how this game is built up, and that it’s not kitten world of wartard.

The hardest nuke button for mesmer and rogue, makes them unkillable.
What I meant when I said that you can’t burst someone down was that there’s simply a lack of spells for a lot of classes. IE hundred blades (which is a horrible build) makes you stand still, and the auto attack does zero damage at all. The only real burst damage warrior has is hundred blades.
Horrible.
PvP based around cooldowns are not a good way to design a game, end of discussion.
And also, I said: Why have so many immune and evasion spells when there’s dodge already in the g ame? EVASION AND IMMUNE removes the skill factor.
Comprehension 1/10. : D DDD

" end of discussion. "

If you’re unwilling to consider others viewpoints and learn and grow as a player, go play something else. A game that requires thought and skill and planning is apparently too much for you.

Everything you’ve said in this post (excluding the water maps in PvP comment) -screams- to anyone who’s been pvping longer than an hour that you have NO idea what you’re doing. I felt pretty much exactly how you feel now the first 3 days I played the game – I didn’t understand any other classes mechanics, abilities, utility skills, heals, etc. Everything felt cheap and broken and OP. Then I decided to learn to play the game, and nearly everything was magically fixed. I’ve personally seen Necro’s that can hold a point against 3 players for 30s, unkillable Ele’s, and Uncatchable harrassment rangers who you can’t ignore – If the majority of people are playing stupid specs, thats on them, not the class. Also, how exactly are you measuring the fact that the “Game is dying day by day”? What empirical tools are you using? If it’s your personal feelings, or people kittening on the forums (which is WHY forums exist), well that’s just a tad biased.

Learn to play (and I’m saying that sincerely, not condescendingly), and you’ll find this game is much more enjoyable.

Malakree.5912:

One of the best ways to counter an ability is to understand how it works – PW’s stun lasts 1/2 second. That’s long enough for 2 of the 4 swings to hit you.

This is why the build runs quickness, so that it last long enough for you to chain the hits.

Then run a stunbreak and laugh – the thief just lost all his endurance for nothing.

Let me try my hand at prognostication here, your response is going to be “But my stunbreak can’t always be up!”.

If your stunbreak is down, its for 1 of 2 reasons –
1) You just used it in a fight, to avoid a Frenzy→Hundred blades, or Haste→Pistol whip, or something similar. If this is the case, well, thems the breaks – you fought 2 players in a short time span, they -should- have the advantage.
2) You wasted your stunbreak on a CC that inconvenienced you, but wasn’t threatening your life, because you just -HAD- to get back into the fight or something. In this case, you will learn to play in time – save your stunbreaks for when you -really- need them.

Animosity.5231:

Let’s take Pistol Whip thieves since you already used them. PW stuns, and does excellent damage. They get locked into place during the animation, so dodging is a viable option – until you consider the stun. So, how do we counter this? Bring a stun-break! Oh, wait, they can use PW 3-4 times in a row. Get caught in one when the break is on CD, eat them all. Ok, so take stability! Most stability abilities last only a few seconds. A thief can dodge a few times, pop stealth, then PW spam again. Little effort on his part, but you’re required to use up multiple u-skills, having them off CD, and have to play well in order to counter it. The effort to counter it far outweighs the effort the Thief puts in for the most part. Sure, once you catch him without stealth, and you have stability, he’s probably dead, but that requires a specific set of circumstances as opposed to a specific counter-build or strategy.

One of the best ways to counter an ability is to understand how it works – PW’s stun lasts 1/2 second. That’s long enough for 2 of the 4 swings to hit you. Once that stun wears off, you can dodge roll (or even just walk, depending on positioning) out of the last 2 swings. If you’re getting stun-locked by non-hasted PW’s, you’re doing something wrong.

Also note that PW is a 5 initiative skill – if a thief is spamming PW 3-4 in a row, they’re running high base init/high init regen build and blowing their entire init pool / all their regen tricks to do something like that. Initiative regens at 1 per 1.67s (base, not including talents), so they’re going to be sitting ducks for a while after that.

I agree 100%, but it’s not just defending. There are alot of situations you get paltry points as a reward for, but are very helpful for your team – If I neutralize a point, then keep it neutralized for 30s against 3 players, that’s a huge bonus for my team – I’m keeping points away from the competition, and giving us a 2 man advantage. When I eventually die, without scoring a single real kill, I’ve earned all of 10 points for neutralizing their cap. That in no way reflects how much I did for the success of the team.

There are dozens more situations I could list that are similarly poorly compensated compared to the level of contribution they serve, but it would be pointless. Honestly, rewards have to be map wide, with small bonuses. Everyone on the team gets 5 points a cap, everyone on the team gets 10 points a kill, with the actual killer getting an additional 5. That’s the only way to promote smart play, rather than zerg teams that lose the match but make twice as much glory/rank points because they were always fighting with superior numbers.

People explained to you why your thought process was wrong multiple times in the thread i started, so instead of admitting that hey, MAYBE you were wrong and re-examining things, you come to cry in another of your own creation. Honestly man, when 85% of players disagree with you, its time to at least re-examine your thought process.

And just to clarify, you could remove HS from the hotbar, and it wouldn’t affect me. I don’t use daggers, and I don’t foresee myself using them anytime soon. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong for my own personal benefit, but because you’re actually wrong.

Gentso.1852:

evilapprentice.6379:

Gentso.1852:

CC breakers are usually always down in sPvP. And regardless, the damage thieves do is too high. You just can’t justify insane damage for any class by saying you should break stun.

You are -exactly- the person this post is referencing. You don’t bring any empirical evidence, just vague notions and complaints. No examples, no explanations, just “Waah, thieves hit too hard.”
If a thief is hitting you that hard, he’s glass cannon, or you are – there are ways to counter; Learn them, or get used to the feeling that every spec/class that beats you is OP.

No, you’re just being difficult in trying to justify blatantly OP class. It’s sPvP, you’re in combat all of the time and forced to use CC breakers all the time. You thieves know you’ll be getting nerfed because it’s obvious.

Like everybody says, they can roll a thief and immediately start destroying everyone without even knowing what they’re doing. That in itself is flawed design, and it will be addressed.

And it’s not like it’s difficult to point out people who’ve already used their CC breakers as a thief to get easy free kills.

Is that why I’ve been eating so many awful thieves alive? I’m not joking, the last 2 days I’ve been rolling up on thieves, fighting tactically, and watching them run around like chickens with their heads cut off. They have NO IDEA What to do when HS spam doesn’t auto-win them the fight. Its gotten to the point where some of them are so bad I just time my Pistol whips to hit them in the face right when their heartseeker hits, and watching them melt is priceless.

For your earlier point, no, your Ranger or Warrior wont own me if you stun me – I run a survivability spec for exactly that reason. Many a time I’ve eaten a frenzy→rush→HB
to the face because my stun breaks were down – sure it puts me at a disadvantage, but its still 100% possible to outplay the opposition and win the fight, which I’ve done multiple times (I’ve also lost some of those fights, but hey, cant win em all). If people want to survive, they can play survivability specs. If they want to rampage across the map, they can play Glass cannons, or high damage output specs without alot of CC breaking/forgiveness for their mistakes. You’ll get kills alot faster than me, but you’ll also be killed alot faster than me. That’s how the game works.

Strand the Man.9261:

I agree OP…and I don’t even play as a Thief! The sad thing is that everyone has the ability to create a class and instantly have access to lvl 80 with full gear/skills. This means that everyone should be learning other classes’ weaknessess/strengths first-hand.

Sure it sucks to get hit with multiple HS…especially by multiple Thieves, but really, it’s no difference than getting slammed by multiple anyone. Thieves are supposed to be good 1v1, that’s their specialty. Guess what, there is no 1v1 sPvP matches. Plenty of classes laugh at Thieves…befriend one in your next match and have them hang with you. OR…you see a thief attacking a teammate during a group battle…stop, target him, and watch him melt before doing any real damage.

Thanks for the support! I do want to clarify though; I’m not defending HS because I’m a thief, I’m defending it because it isn’t OP. I don’t even use dagger MH, and I don’t see myself using it in the near future.

Gentso.1852:

CC breakers are usually always down in sPvP. And regardless, the damage thieves do is too high. You just can’t justify insane damage for any class by saying you should break stun.

You are -exactly- the person this post is referencing. You don’t bring any empirical evidence, just vague notions and complaints. No examples, no explanations, just “Waah, thieves hit too hard.”
If a thief is hitting you that hard, he’s glass cannon, or you are – there are ways to counter; Learn them, or get used to the feeling that every spec/class that beats you is OP.

Seriously guys, learn to play the game a little, and things will work itself out. Here’s a little encounter I had with a poor player a few days ago, when my Thief was still using Dagger MH (paraphrased, of course)-

Idiot: “GG HS spamming me to death, noob”
Me: “You were using Dagger storm, and I’m D/P and Shbow, heartseeker is literally the only non autoattack skill I have that will hit you.”
Idiot: “I’m surprised you can type while you’re spamming 2 so much”
Me: “Regardless how you feel ‘Using the only ability i have that will hit you’ is pretty tactically sound in anyones book”
Idiot: Repeated nonsense about HS spamming, etc…

There’s 2 factors here. When you don’t understand how an ability works, its OP. I thought Mes was OP, until I learned how the class worked. I thought Frenzy->bull rush-> hundred blades was OP until I realized packing a stun break was more important that going glass cannon. As people learn, HS will become more understood, and people will learn its counters.

Factor 2 is that people parrot everything they hear, especially bad players. “I’ve been killed my HS spam, and everyone says its OP, so it must be!”. Seriously, the game hasn’t been out a month. Give it some time before you cry about how OP everything you don’t understand yet is.

This entire thread is pretty hilarious, because so far, nearly every class is OP, UP, and completely fine.

Playing a thief, its just silly seeing people complain about glass cannon builds. Yes, if you fail to react to a glass cannon, they will destroy you. The margin of error for a glass cannon, however, is slim – if they don’t kill you exceedingly quick, they’re screwed. Dodging, using escape skills, using defense skills, crippling, immobilizing, and weakness are all great, easy ways to put a glass cannon on the defensive immediately (something they’re not built to do so well). I don’t play a glass cannon specifically because they’re so easily and widely countered.

If you eat an entire non-hasted pistol whip, you’re a bad player or you screwed up – the stun only last long enough for 2-3 of the hits to connect, and nearly every non-baddie I’ve ever used it on dodge rolls out of the last 2 swings. If you eat a hasted Pistol whip or 2, your Stun escape is on CD (unlucky, but it happens to all of us), or you’re a baddie and didn’t slot one.

As for HS spam – its unfortunate, but the way thief was designed. ShBow brings so much utility to the table that you’re basically nerfing yourself if you dont have one equipped, so you’re usually restricted to one melee weapon setup. If it happens to be a dagger, HS is your go to skill for damage. In a D/P setup, your other skills are subpar at dealing damage. Shadow shot is a nice utility and gap closer, but its more expensive and does less damage than HS. Your Pistol OH abilities are 100% utility, and do almost no damage. in a D/D setup, DB is useless (for a direct damage spec at least), Dancing dagger is a utility, and cloak and dagger is meh – its super expensive, and any player who’s been playing for more than 10 minutes knows that if a thief stealths near you, you spin around spamming your autoattack, making it hard to get a flanking backstab in, and dealing a nice amount of damage to said thief (Especially glass cannon builds)

As for down states, thief is easy to counter for me – here’s how you do it. Start your kill animation, and when they port away, hit any skill that shadowsteps to the target (Steal, Infilitrator sig, Shadowstep). Dead, confused thief. I’m not 100% up to other classes access to shadowstep like abilities, so maybe that’s only easy for other thieves. If they vanish from sight entirely, just autoattack the area they were in.

Mesmer down state isn’t hard to counter, but it does feel very time consuming. in a one on one, a good mesmer will wait til the very last second to teleport away and stealth – you have to wait for the illusion to appear, then the stealth to wear off, then get to your target and kill it. In 1v1’s, this isn’t hard, it just feels time consuming (but not really any more than thief’s). In a big brawl with multiple players about, it can be quite frustrating. You don’t have time to sit and wait for the mes to reappear, then wait for the REAL mes to reappear, then get to him and kill him. This is all time in which the opposing team could get a kill and rally the mes, or your downed teammates might die (missing their own rally from killing the mes). Maybe (key word here being MAYBE) the length of stealth on Mes’s downed port/stealth/copy skill needs to be reduced a bit. I don’t know for sure, I’m not a playtester.