The OP is clearly talking about big scrolling white numbers and short time to kill, not “better” or “easier”, which factors in utility, survivability, group size, and other factors. Thief clearly wins here…either that or it’s a l2p issue.
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(Some classes are filling their roles, some are not) you are right because thief is a thief it is not an assassin. Why they have lethal damage?
To kill? Like every other profession. Really, like in many games, it’s all about that. We don’t have a pick-lock skill here, there aren’t any locks to pick in this game.
Damage output is not the reason here, P/D fights last long, they use the whole Shadow Arts line because it offers healing and condition removal, which are essential to long fights.
Or maybe then the thief dodges or changes direction and they will be lost. And the thief appears for a little fraction of time and backstab them, because they couldn’t know from where the thief was coming and the time of reaction wasn’t good enough. If they were more skilled, maybe they would have a chance.
Yeah. lack of skill is their problem in the first place, we’re going to alter mechanics and break a profession to bring the game at their level? What’s next?
Now 6 initiative + 50% endurance to get into stealth is reasonable, while at the same time a pending backstab becomes clearly visible for anyone to dodge or turn on? Could as well remove stealth and rework the profession from the ground up to do without it.
In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore.
And then they follow simply by stepping in the direction they were to make them visible again, and they’d still be facing the thief, making backstab impossible. And even when loosing track of the thief they would be visible again when closing in for backstab, so that even a beginner could avoid it.
I understand that you feel skill should only be required from the thief?
Just before dying your new thief can transmute the skin of the anonimity hood onto a cheap lowlevel white mask and then your main can transmute that skin onto a high level, exotic mask.
It’s not just level, gear is a major factor. Exotic is a lot better then rare, rare is a lot better then masterwork which is better then fine gear. The gap between exotic and fine or even masterwork gear is huge. If this power difference is supposed to show, on top of a power gap between low and high level characters then yes, a level 80 in full exotics will be cruising low level zones.
They deserve a break from Zaithan and Jormag once in a while!
First, you would still be able to backstab people, because they would only have a small fraction of time to counter it, but it would give them the possibility that doesn’t exist now.
Thief could never land a backstab because anyone who isn’t unspeakably bad would be able to turn with the thief and face them at all times.
In WvWvW, not true. Especially with culling and with tons of other enemies. It would just be a little more challenging than now.
Off course they can, if they can’t follow someone trying to run around them they shouldn’t be playing PvP, not even Wvw. But then, that level of player is exactly the type that is calling for these ridiculous nerfs.
First, you would still be able to backstab people, because they would only have a small fraction of time to counter it, but it would give them the possibility that doesn’t exist now.
Thief could never land a backstab because anyone who isn’t unspeakably bad would be able to turn with the thief and face them at all times.
…The suggestion is that when a invisible thief comes too close of the enemy he turns visible …
Thief is primarily melee and you want stealth to break when they come into melee range?
You talk like you stay in stealth while in melee combat and it is not true. While playing D/D, for example, you will enter stealth to land a backstab and not much else. After that you will have your debuff.
Your suggestion was to break stealth simply by being close, so you’d basically land C&D, stealth and immediately become revealed, without ever getting around to backstab. And even without revealed debuff, you can never land a backstab on anyone who’s able to see you, unless they’re complete fools, so you’d either have to toss the requirement to hit from behind and just always give the full backstab damage.
You can not have semi-stealth, it just doesn’t work because being visible, even slightly, is simply being visible.
You can transmute it again, and given the price of cultural armor (tier 3) I would recommend that over salvaging …
You’ll need exotic level anyway, eventually. Meanwhile, power precision and toughness are fine, but to make precision work you need a decent amount of it (say, crit chance to 40-60% or higher) and some +crit damage trinkets. So add precision, + crit damage and some vitality on you trinkets. For a power (direct damage) build Critical Strikes is ok, though I find it somewhat lacking in desirable traits.
Stealth is not just for defence, stealth is the precondition for damage, backstab is the dagger-mainhand damage dealer, would you think regular auto-attacks doing backstab damage (without requiring stealth) isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sneak-attack, the only damage skill for pistol mainhand. Do you think having sneak-attack damage and bleeding in the regular auto-attack chain isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sword daze, can you imagine the complaints if that was transferred to the regular auto-attack chain?
Isn’t precision almost useless for a condition theif?
Yes, it is. Unless you also go deep into power, precision and critical damage and there isn’t enough gear to cover them all.
Carrion gear does not give precision though.
What you take in addition depends on playstyle and build but power always contributes.
Precision: Use in combination with +crit damage to make effective. Some rune/sigil/traits triggering from criticals benefit from this stat
Toughness: reduces incoming damage and makes yout HP count for more. For survivability it competes with vitality and is preferred for attrition builds that use lots of small healing.
Yes, thief is not easy in PvP. My main is a thief and died many times, while the necromancer I started recently is currently level 14, did all her story at the exact recommended level and she hasn’t died once, never even get downed.
It’s ok to ask, but some test don’t require maths, 3 seconds is the duration of the revealed debuff, or untraited stealth. Sometimes you can use these kinds of ‘timers’, in this case, when you hit them from stealth with the #1 sword skill and the daze lasts about as long as the revealed debuff, then you know the effect of sigil.
Depends if your health > 90%. The runes add 45 more power, the orbs add some vitality. 6 Orbs add more +crit damage then 6 runes, whose +10% makes up only when your health > 90%. I wouldn’t pick the runes.
A player tested it for 2 seconds and also gave the method of testing on the talk page of Sigil of Strength discussion page. The 1 second on the Sigil page mentions no source.
Power increases crit damage too, doesn’t it? So why would power/crit not be worth it, you’re still increasing the damage done by crits.
Yes, it does. You’d have to compare pieces of equipment, what’s the (average) damage with power on the ring and what with +crit damage. The latter is a percentage, at some power-point you may gain more by choosing the crit damage then by increasing power.
0/0/30/20/20
30 Shadow Arts, Shadow’s Embrace (remove conditions), Shadow Rejuvenation (heal), the third of you choice.
CnD on mobs (not neccesarily the one you are targetting) to get into stealth, which enables Sneak Attack on your #1 pistol skill. Remain in stealth as needed, longer if you need to heal up, shorter when you’re fine. Pop your healing skill when needed, Blinding Powder when you’ve missed a couple of CnD’s, the shadow step skill (signet or other) to break stuns. Repeat until all mobs are dead. Anything with no or insufficient healing will fall eventually.
In PvP a little visibility is just as visible as plain visible so anything less then invisibility has no merits whatsoever, unless it adds in a miss-chance or something. You are asking for something visible to see where you’re supposed to hit, but that something would basically defeat partial (in)visibility completely.
Keep it coming, you are right, outside stealth and sword mainhand we have very poor condition removal. Perhaps Shadow’s Embrace could switch places with the dreaded 5 point Shadow Arts trait, Last Refuge. And SoM passive could remove a condition every, say, 5 hits while Withdraw becomes a signet with ‘Removes a condition whenever you dodge’ as it’s passive.
Tyria floats on a large sea, I’ve seen it in Diessa Plateau.
Shadow Return (thief #2 sword) got me underground, jumping into the void into the water, F12 char select and I returned on the normal surface. Manbane’s Waypoint, the entrance of the spider nest cavern.
The price for rare items and ecto on the TP is, most likely, linked by the market (economy), you will not stand to gain or loose much going one way or the other. Trade incurs a 15% loss, salvaging the ectos you want to use yourself from the rare items you find might be worthwhile. On the other hand, people tend to over-estimate their winnings so the prices of rare item on the TP might be higher then they should be, i.o.w. if your just trying to make the most money, selling the rare items is probably the most profitable.
Possibly, there’s a long winding path leading to with quite a few dredge on it so it would be impossible to get out of range/combat. Why shouldn’t you be able to interact with it?
