i’m confused. did you claim (in your original post) that Pistol Whip has evasion? it has the opposite of evasion. it roots you in place! what are you talking about?
Why is there a trait to make Steal apply stealth if one can simply CnD + Steal to get the same effect? Are we sure this is working as intended people?
Yes, this is working as intended. Not every Thief has an off-hand dagger equipped all the time you know. Nor does every Thief put 20 points in Shadow Arts and take Hidden Thief trait.
Why do you assume something is a bug just because its good strategy? Is it a bug that Warriors can hit someone with Hundred Blades while they’re knocked down from Bull Rush? According to your logic it must be. A clever combination of skills that produces a strong effect, clearly the developers never intended that!
No class currently depends on quickness bursts. They will be toned down.
Thieves don’t depend on it either. there’s only one build that even uses Haste, its the Sword+Pistol build that tries to Haste and spam Pistol Whip. this isn’t actually the build that people complain about though. Its the Dagger+Dagger backstab build that generates the really scary burst damage.
i don’t think Shadow Refuge is behaving in a bugged way at all. I think its working as intended, but its intended behavior is just a little strange.
It seems like it pulses 5 times. The first 4 pulses grant 1 second of Stealth (and heal you too). The 5th pulse grants like 4 seconds of stealth. if you’re in the Refuge on the last pulse you get the long duration stealth.
Prodigy is incorrect and likely simply hasn’t learned how to play a Thief effectively in the difficult PvE content.
To do well in endgame Dynamic Events and Explorable Mode dungeons you need to take full advantage of weapon swapping and the power of the Shortbow. A typical encounter in an explorable dungeon goes something like this:
- Start the pull with Shortbow and drop Choking Gas and plink away at mobs for the opening of the fight until the pull is relatively well controlled.
- once the pull is controlled swap to your melee weapons and go to work on the focus fire target set by your group. your damage in melee is much higher then at range, so waiting for the opportunity to get in and melee is well worth it.
- once the first target is down switch back to shortbow and repeat this process until the pull is done.
Suggested Build 1: Venom Sharing
gear stat priorities: Power, Condition Damage, Vitality
most of your initiative in this build should be spent on Body Shot and Black Powder, using your auto-attack bleed and Spider Venom poison to do most of your DPS.
the main power of this build comes from sharing your venoms. in particular this will spread Skale Venom to your entire party (with 4 strikes, thanks to your Residual Venoms trait). 5 party members with 4 strikes of Skale Venom ends up distributing 20 stacks of vulnerability to your enemies. this is probably the single largest group damage buff you are capable of providing., being essentially a blanket 20% party wide damage buff.
this build also includes Shadow Refuge in the utility slot. this is an incredibly useful skill for reviving downed party members. you’ve also got support for this with Shadow Protector, so your Shadow Refuge will grant every party member inside it Regeneration, greatly enhancing the amount of health it will end up restoring. Finally, don’t forget that Shadow Refuge also counts as a Darkness Combo Field, so it can be combo’d to produce either Blindness (blast or leap finishers) or Life Draining (projectile or whirl finishers).
Suggested Build 2: Unload Crit focused
gear stat priorities: Precision, Power, Vitality
this build is oriented around shooting off Unload whenever you are free to fire. most of your initiative in this build should be spent on Unload.
this build achieves control over enemies by crippling them with Caltrops (and Ankle Shots). it provides group support by stacking vulnerability automatically on your crits (from Sundering Strikes). this build is less group support oriented by will have higher personal damage output, particularly at finishing off low health mobs. you’ll be able to sustain your Unload dps very well with this build due to initiative recovery from Roll for Initiative and Hastened Replenishment. this build is a bit more on the selfish pistol turret style but should have high single target DPS to help justify it.
i think this build will not be successful in explorable dungeons. i see three major issues with it.
1) if you are gearing for damage stats only (power, condition damage, precision) you will just die alot. the monsters in explorable dungeons are very dangerous, and even at range you can get sniped by enemy archers/casters and outright killed by the numerous AoE attacks and/or minion summons that will occur. you will need to gear with plenty of vitality to be able to stay alive in these dungeons. so you’re gonna have to compromise some on your damage stats.
2) you don’t have any utility skills slotted that will help you or your group stay alive, control enemies, or enhance effectiveness of your party. the venoms are just purely selfish buffs for your own attacks, and a bit underpowered at that. agility signet will sometimes be helpful for restoring endurance if you need to dodge more but i’m guessing that you have slotted it because you want the extra precision. this is a waste of your slot. slightly higher crit chance is not of sufficient benefit to be worth it in the difficult content of explorable dungeons.
3) your trait build seems very sub-optimal. you are missing some of the absolutely most powerful offensive support traits (Venomous Aura, in particular). you seem to be under the impression that it is a good idea to stand in the back as a pistol turret, pop your venoms (to stack some might) and just shoot shoot shoot. this will not help your group defeat the encounter. you will be providing only average ranged DPS and contributing nothing else to your group.
my build suggestions in following post
i use Carrion because i find the vitality really valuable. i guess Rampager would do a bit more damage from the Precision, but i never really liked it. you’re not also stacking +crit damage stuff or taking traits that have added effects on crit, so the benefit seems small to me.
ok, then how about this suggestion for you, on your ranger
I think too much emphasis is placed on your Crippling Shot ability. In my opinion it makes the Ranger class “lack depth” because its too simple and effective to shoot someone with Crippling Shot whenever the cooldown is up. There is no tactical decision making involved here. You just always shoot it at your primary target. In my opinion, for the good of the Ranger class, the Crippling Shot skill should be changed (buffed?) to not inflict bleeding. Instead, it should have its cooldown increased to 60 seconds, but instead of a cripple it should be an immobilize. Thats more powerful right?
Also, your pet abilities lack skill. You don’t even have to supervise them, its just automatic. I’d suggest changing this to a far more tactical “pet attack button” setup so the ranger has to press an attack key once every 4 seconds to make his pet attack.
oh lol. my mistake.
thats just a downed skill. who cares? it gets like 2 seconds of extra bandage time to help buy some time for a team-mate to revive you. thats fine in my opinion.
i use Blinding Powder all the time in PvE. not sure what your complaint is. stealth isn’t invulnerability. what were you expecting? it makes bad guys drop their target and not hit you directly. just roll away from the AoE. it keeps you alive very nicely.
lol. of all the things to get upset about.
this change seems to be related primarily to a weird bug/exploit for when people would fall down cliffs in alot of small steps and end up triggering this ability like 5 times in a row and getting 30 or more of stealth.
under normal circumstances (say, jumping down from a wall) you would only ever get 1 trigger anyway, and have no realistic way to perform this more than often then ever 8 seconds.
they just fixed a bug basically. this is not a power level adjustment (aka nerf) of any kind.
Heartseeker should deal lower damage from the front but higher when behind, I know we already have a backstab ability but Heartseeker also fits this role really well; keep the increasing damage depending on target health.
Heartseeker already has a damage restriction. Its damage is based on enemy’s current health. Why does it need to ALSO have a positional requirement? Its already been adjusted. Its fine now. Why are you immediately calling for more nerfs?
Pistol whip should have a very slightly longer stun, only strike once or twice for moderate damage and not lock the thief to the floor.
your suggestion would actually overpowered Pistol Whip by a large amount. a longer stun and the ability to move while doing it would only further encourage spam of it, not encourage people to use different abilities. the way it is currently it at least requires set up (with an immobilize or chill or something) to be able to reliably land it. its also got inherent risk baked in because of the self-root. if your opponent dodges it (because you failed to set it up properly, for example) then you’re wide open and are gonna get nailed. as it stands currently there is some inherent balance and subtlety to the use of Pistol Whip. what you are proposing is making the ability much more powerful and much more brainless.
Let me ask you an honest question: do you play a Thief? it sounds like you don’t. it sounds like you play some other class but have some opinion about a class you don’t play.
seems to me like this is all the result of wacky WvW buffs more than anything to do with the class. seeing screenshots of people nailing 13K backstabs and 4K Dancing Daggers and stuff like that is a clear indication that there’s no semblance of balance or fairness (at least on a small scale level) in WvW.
if you look at the damage output of these abilities in sPvP battelgrounds you get EXTREMELY different results. Backstab crits will be between 3.5K and 6K (depending on opponent armor and toughness). Dancing Dagger hits will be for like 600 non-crit, so maybe 900-1100 crit (depending on your +crit damage stat).
if you fight under these more controlled circumstances in sPvP, where its actually balanced for small scale engagements, then you just won’t see these bonkers over the top insta-gib crits. those are clearly the result of World buffs and gear disparity. they are not anything to do with the class itself.
Section 4: Combo Fields and Finishers
1) Which combo fields does the Thief have the ability to create?
Black Powder (off-hand pistol 5 button) can create a small circular Smoke Combo Field centered around the Thief.
Smoke Screen (utility slot skill) can create a line/wall shaped smoke combo field (that also blocks projectiles, this is from Smoke Screen skill and not a usual property of Smoke combo fields).
Choking Gas (shortbow 4 button) creates a large circular poison combo field at the location of your ground target.
Shadow Refuge (utility slot skill) creates a large circular Dark Combo Field at the location of your ground target.
2) Which combo finishers does the Thief have access to?
Heartseeker (mainhand dagger 2 button) is a Leap combo finisher.
Death Blossom (dagger+dagger 3 button dual skill) is a Whirl combo finisher.
All Pistol shots are 20% chance to trigger projectile combo finishers. This is per bullet so the Unload ability (which fires 8 bullets) has 8 chances to trigger a combo if shot through a field.
Trick Shot (shortbow 1 button) is a 20% chance projectile finisher. Disabling Shot (shortbow 3 button) is a 100% chance projectile finisher.
Dagger Storm (elite slot skill) is a Whirl Combo finisher that combos with the field you are whirling in once per second for its entire duration (8 seconds).
Finally, Cluster Bomb (Shortbow button 2) is a blast finisher.
3) Which Weapon Set has the most combo finishers? Which has the least?
Sword+Dagger has zero combo finishers. It is the only weapon set totally incapable of interacting with combo fields.
Sword+Pistol is also a bit restricted here, but has projectile finishers from pistol off-hand (4 and 5), though these are impractical finishers.
Dagger+Dagger is tied for the most (with Shortbow) with both a Leap (Heartseeker) and a Whirl (Death Blossom).
Shortbow also has 2 finishers, a projectile finisher and a blast finisher
4) What self-combos (where the Thief provides both the Combo Field and the Finisher) does the Thief possess?
Smoke Field + Leap = Enter Stealth
Smoke Field + Projectile = blind enemy hit by that projectile
Smoke Field + Whirl = Blinding Bolts (blind enemies hit by the scattered blinding projectiles)
Smoke Field + Blast (note: hard to pull off, requires rapidly swapping to Shortbow) = Area Stealth (all nearby allies are put into stealth)
Poison Field + Leap (note: hard to pull off, requires rapidly swapping to mainhand dagger) = Weakness
Poison Field + Projectile = poison enemy struck by that projectile
Poison Field + Whirl = Poison Bolts (poison enemies hit by scattered poison projectiles)
Poison Field + Blast = Area Weakness (weakens all enemies in the blast radius)
Dark Field + Leap = Blind enemy struck by the leap attack
Dark Field + Projectile = Life Leeching (steal health from enemy hit by that projectile)
Dark Field + Whirl = Leeching bolts (steal health from enemies hit by scattered leeching projectiles)
Dark Field + Blast = Area Blindness (blinds all enemies in the blast radius)
5) True or False: two combo fields in the same area will apply both effects to a finisher used in the area?
False. only the most recently created combo field will apply. finishers can only trigger one field at a time
6) True or False: there is a limit to how many combos a single field can produce from finishers used in it?
False. a combo field will combo with EVERY finisher used in the field by any number of players.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
Section 3 – Stealth
1) True or False: A Thief can be damaged while in Stealth
True
2) True or False: A Thief can be targeted while in Stealth
False, and any enemies who have the Thief as their current target will drop their target when the Thief enters stealth
3) What does the “revealed” condition do?
Revealed is a condition a player gains whenever exiting Stealth. It lasts for 1 second and prevents that player from entering Stealth again while they are revealed
4) Which activated abilities grant Stealth to a Thief?
Hide in Shadows (healing slot skill, 30 second cooldown),
Binding Powder (utility slot skill, 60 second cooldown),
Shadow Refuge (utility slot skill, 60 second cooldown, revealed if leave AoE),
Shadow Trap (utility slot skill, 30 second cooldown, requires enemy to trip the trap),
Steal if traited with Hidden Thief (20 point trait in Shadow Arts line),
Cloak and Dagger (off-hand dagger melee attack, 6 initiative),
Blinding Tuft/Feathers (stolen item abilities)
5) What will drop Stealth?
basically nothing except for attacking or running out of time. taking damage does not drop stealth. i’m unaware of any abilities that reveal stealthed enemies
6) Which other classes are capable of using Stealth, besides the Thief?
The mesmer has several abilities that grant stealth to himself and/or allies. Unlike the Thief, however, the Mesmer does not have any special stealth opening attacks.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
Section 2 – Dodging and Endurance
1) The endurance bar contains how much endurance? Dodging requires how much endurance?
100 points total. 50 points to dodge roll
2) What is the natural regen rate of the Endurance bar?
a. 10 per second
b. 5 per second
c. 7.5 per second
c. 15 per second
the answer is b. 5 per second. this means that it takes 20 seconds to regen a full bar of endurance, and each dodge consumes 10 seconds worth of endurance.
3) Which conditions PREVENT a player from dodge rolling?
Immobilized makes an afflicted player unable to use their dodge roll. Chilled and Crippled affect the distance your dodge roll travels, making it MUCH less effective at getting out of the way of incoming attacks (particularly true of Chilled which slows you by 66%). Other control impairing effects like Stunned, Knocked Down, and Feared have this effect as well (because they disable all control of your character). Your own slot skill Haste will also drain your endurance and block endurance recovery for 4 seconds, so this makes YOU unable to dodge for a time.
4) What does Vigor do and what grants it?
Vigor is a boon that doubles the rate of endurance recovery. A character buffed by Vigor can effectively dodge twice as often (every 5 seconds rather than every 10). Thieves have no slot skills or weapon skills that grant Vigor but do have some traits that grant it. Vigorous Recovery (10 points in Acrobatics line) grants 10 seconds of Vigor on using the self-heal slot skill. Bountiful Theft (20 points in Trickery line) grants 15 seconds of Vigor (as well as stealing 2 boons) to self and nearby allies on Stealing.
5) What sources of evasion does a Thief have access to?
The normal dodge roll of course, but several others as well.
Withdraw (healing skill) evades with a backwards roll.
Roll for Initiative (utility skill) also evades with a backwards roll.
Flanking Strike (Sword+Dagger dual skill) evades with a flanking maneuver that tries to roll you to the back or side of your opponent. The evade will occur reliably, but the actual position you end up in is a bit less predictable.
Death Blossom (Dagger+Dagger dual skill) is a leaping evade that will vault over an enemy’s head and land at his rear.
Disabling Shot (Shortbow, slot 3) will evade while leaping backwards.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
Hello all. Hopefully this post has some educational merit to it, for those of you interested in learning more of the details about playing your Thief. This post is in Quiz form (mixed multiple choice and free response), hopefully to make it more entertaining. How many questions will you get right, without looking them up?
Section 1 – Initiative
1) Initiative points regenerate at a rate of…?
a. 1 per second
b. 1 per 2 seconds
c. 1 per 1.67 seconds
d. 1 per .5 seconds
the correct answer is c. 1 per 1.67 seconds
2) What is the starting size of the initiative pool? What is the maximum size?
starting size is 12 points of initiative. can be expanded to 15 points with the Preparedness trait (15 points in the Trickery line).
3) Which abilities ACTIVELY recover initiative (meaning instantly gain more initiative when activated)?
Roll for Initiative restores 6 initiative when used. It is the only ability available by default that instantly recovers initiative. However, several traits can grant this ability.
Kleptomaniac trait (5 points in Trickery line) causes Steal to gain 3 initiative.
Hastened Replenishment (30 points in Trickery line) causes your self-heal slot skill to restore 4 initiative. Quick Pockets (30 points in Acrobatics line) causes weapon swapping to restore 3 initiative.
Infusion of Shadow (10 points in Shadow Arts line) causes stealthing to gain 2 points.
Signet Use (20 points in Critical Strikes line) causes using a Signet to gain 2 points.
4) Which abilities PASSIVELY recover initiative (meaning gaining more initiative without it being linked to a specific ability activation)?
The only slot skill that accomplishes this is Infiltrator’s Signet, which regens 1 extra initiative every 10 seconds (a pretty weak effect).
Traits can offer much more significant passive initiative recovery.
Opportunist (15 points in Critical Strikes line) gives your crits a 20% chance to recover a point. Patience (20 points in Shadow Arts line) regains 1 initiative every 3 seconds while in stealth, usually resulting in 1 or 2 points of extra initiative every time you go into stealth.
Quick Recovery (20 points in Acrobatics Line) regens 2 extra initiative every 10 seconds.
Initial Strikes (20 points in Trickery line) gives a 7% chance per auto-attack hit to restore 1 point.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
HS is borked needs fixing asap!!!!!!
i think i know what you’re getting at, but can you try to post a more detailed explanation? this thread is for bug reports basically. so if you could describe exactly what is broken and under what circumstances it is broken that would be best.
It should probably cost 4 Initiative rather than 3.
In turn, they could drop Death Blossom to 4 (down from 5).
do you play thief or do you just come here to ask for nerfs?
his post was about heartseeking missing its target on a regular basis. “bork” as in “broken” as in “there is some technical issue with the skill”.
the initiative system is basically about imposing a tension between blowing all the initiative on attacks or saving some for more situational abilities.
for example, in Dagger+Dagger I can, if i choose, spam Death Blossom and nothing else. This works ok when my opponents are literally robots (in PvE) or players who are so bad they don’t pose any threat to me and I just want to kill them faster. But this leaves me without initiative to spend on abilities that are very important in harder fights. Against more competent opponents I very badly want to have initiative available to use Dancing Dagger and Cloak and Dagger so I can control the fight a bit better.
This natural tension is actually a GOOD thing. it means that learning not to spam damage attacks is a major hurdle in the learning curve. Climbing the learning curve is meaningful. This is something that matters. Well designed systems actually do present a learning cure to be climbed so there is something to distinguish experts from novices. The system is a good one and should stay in place.
/sigh
Just try to level some other class someday. And you’ll see for yourself how weak Thief is. All your “tricky, evasive” is just another wording for “lacking the ability to stomp trash mobs like every other class does”. For the most impressive display of power you can try Guardian. But don’t complain that after playing Guardian it’s hard to convince yourself to log on your Thief again.
i get the strong impression from this post that you are basically just bad at playing Thief. have you seriously not figured out how to wreck trash mobs on a thief? its incredibly easy. what are you even doing wrong? there are like 3 different builds that are all good at doing it. Have you even seen what a bleed stacking Dagger+Dagger Thief can do with Death Blossoms? I can kill mobs 2 levels above me, in groups of 5 at a time!
basically you should just learn to play.
The let's help the Thief thread ( discussion about what is wrong and what isn't about the thief)
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Posted by: metaphorm.6904
i’ve played Dagger+Pistol alot actually. I do like the build. It has alot of good things about it. Very high single target damage, kinda tanky due to Black Powder, and excellent gap closing.
Its a respectable weapon set to be sure but I still prefer Dagger+Dagger. It just Backstabs way better (has Cloak and Dagger after all) and Death Blossom is great; decent damage even if you don’t stack condition damage, insane damage if you do.
as much as i like black powder i eventually just dropped the off-hand pistol. its just a matter of performance for me. i get more kills and cap more points as Dagger+Dagger. results don’t lie. maybe its just my playstyle, but the difference for me was really noticeable.
sounds like your gear (Carrion set) is correct, so you should have enough vitality to survive alot of stuff. not sure why you’re going down so fast. Thief is kinda squishy but between evasion, stealth, and a decent health pool you should do ok.
i like this build for a Cond Damage thief:
weapon sets are Dagger+Dagger and Shortbow.
This build has venom sharing and two venoms so it can provide excellent offensive support. You’ve got Preparedness so you can get off 3 Death Blossoms instead of 2, before running out of init. nice.
The general playstyle of this build depends on the circumstances. In a big group fight stay with your shortbow and just spread venom to your team while taking potshots at people with the bow and using Cluster Bomb for AoE damage. In smaller fights you can really dominate by running into melee and dropping caltrops and popping your venoms while Death Blossoming. the immobilize from Devourer Venom is particularly awesome here as it keeps your enemy stuck in place, accumulating bleed stacks without being able to dodge roll out of the Caltrops or away from your death blossom attacks. by the time the fight is 5 seconds old your opponent will be poisoned, weakened, and have 15 stacks of bleeding on him. pretty nasty. good way to finish the fight from here is to just kite him with Dancing Dagger or even switch back to Shortbow and plink him down while he bleeds out.
The let's help the Thief thread ( discussion about what is wrong and what isn't about the thief)
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Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Initiative
Initiative, with the increased regen and traits, just felt right.
The only thing i would do to make ini PERFECT is to increase the pool to 15 ( changing preparedness into something else).
kinda agree. Preparedness feels REALLYkittenimportant. whenever I’m playing a build without it I feel just generically weaker and more awkward. I think the initiative system is very good in general but i don’t like having a trait that feels as close to “must have” as Preparedness now feels. note that i don’t feel like this is a power level issue. 12 initiative is enough, really. its just that 15 feels so much better. In the interest of build diversity i wouldn’t mind seeing some kind of change here.
Traits
Every traitline has its uses, and its purposes. Aside trickery.
This traitline is simply a mess.Probably due to Steal being “meh” ( a good skill after 45 or 34 secs, doesn’t really change that much), but the only reason to go into this traitline is preparedness.
And since you put 15 traits, and you’re here, why don’t we put another 5 and take Bountiful theft ( very good).I would reconsider this traitline, along with Steal, and give by default 15 ini.
i couldn’t disagree more strongly. Steal is not a MEH ability at all. its really really good, and not just for the stolen items (those those are good too). The traits in several of the lines make Steal into an absolutely awesome build focal point ability.
For example, I often play a backstab build with points in Deadly Arts and Shadow Arts. This spec gets a Steal that does large burst damage (from mug), inflicts Poison and Weakness (from Serpent’s Touch and Lotus Poison), and puts you in a 3 second Stealth (from Hidden Thief), which blinds all enemies near you automatically (from Cloaked in Shadow, synergizing with Hidden Thief). Then you’re in stealth and right next to your opponent so you can unload a huge, auto crit (from Hidden Killer) Backstab for gigantic burst damage.
That is NOT a “meh” ability. I’d gladly use that ability even if it didn’t steal any items at all. The traits make Steal AWESOME. So good that being able to do it every 34 seconds instead of every 45 seems useful to me.
That aside, I also think you’re wrong that the Trickery trait line is a mess. I think most people will strongly disagree with you here. Some of the most powerful and useful traits are in this line. I think if you ask the community you’ll find that Kleptomianc, Preparedness, Uncatchable, Thrill of the Crime, Initial Strike, and Bountiful Theft are all very popular because they are powerful and useful.
The let's help the Thief thread ( discussion about what is wrong and what isn't about the thief)
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Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Steal
No really, no.
I don’t want to exaggerate, but this skill ( mechanic ?) just doesn’t feel right from a balance perspective.
6/8 items are OP as hell, THEY EVEN MADE WHIRLING AXE GOOD ( perma evade ? OMG)
4 secs daze ( LOLWUT ?!?!?) from a guardian
AoE heal, condition removal + water field from rangers ( O_O)
3secs AoE fear from necros ( O_o)etc etc etc.
Then we have Throw gunk and Ice stab . Why , i mean , just why ?
Currently , Steal is really OP, as long as you don’t steal from engies and eles.
I disagree with you that this mechanic is overpowered in the way you say it is or that Throw Gunk and Ice Stab are bad.
First, you’ve got at least one factual error here. Whirling Axe does not evade. You can absolutely be smacked around while whirling. Its not a leap-evade like Death Blossom. Its a channeled PBAoE, like Dagger Storm. except it doesn’t reflect projectiles. you’re very vulnerable while doing it.
My opinion is that Throw Gunk is extremely good actually. Its an ethereal combo field! applying the random conditions in a small area is not whats good about it. comboing off the field is whats good. Leaping through it gives Chaos Armor, which is very useful. Whirling through it (from Death Blossom, for example) sends out Confusion Bolts! stacking confusion on every enemy around you is amazing. Maybe your experience with this is based only on Sword+Pistol weapon set. Dagger+Dagger can combo the heck out of it and its a great Steal item.
Ice Stab is also extremely powerful. Its a 10 second duration chill. Thats ludicrously long duration. Consider the context. You steal it from an Elementalist. A class that is trying to kite you and is largely mitigated by waiting for their most powerful abilities to finish cooling down. Chilling an elementalist is a death sentence for them. They won’t be able to kite you. They won’t get their good skills cooled down before they die. Its extremely good specifically against the target you steal it from.
The stolen abilities ARE powerful. I don’t consider them overpowered though. Thieves don’t have a powerful long-cooldown weapon skill the way most classes do. Most classes have a 30sec or 45sec cooldown skill on their 5 button. Thieves don’t. Our most potent attacks are like 6 initiative, which is basically the equivalent of a 6 or 8 second cooldown ability from another class. Thieves basically have 4 skills that are the same magnitude of the 2 or 3 skills of other classes. We have none that are like the powerful, but long cooldown 4 or 5 skills. So instead we Steal them. Thats how it works. We don’t have our own Power Skills. We take them from our enemy.
The let's help the Thief thread ( discussion about what is wrong and what isn't about the thief)
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Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Now almost every set is viable, but there are still some lacks.
disagree. the disparity in usefulness and efficiency between the weapon sets is very large. i think alot of people agree with me on this. my opinion of the relative rankings of the sets for PvP is as follows (ranked from best to worst)
1) Sword+Pistol tied with Dagger+Dagger (both very effective melee sets)
2) Shortbow (nearly mandatory weapon for your weapon swap, incredibly high utility even if damage is only moderate)
3) huge gap. no other weapon set is close to the ones mentioned above
4) Dagger+Pistol (still a respectable 1on1 set but suffers badly from total lack of AoE)
5) Pistol+Dagger (can be useful for harrasment and defensive kiting, sometimes used by venom aura support builds, but generally tough to justify due to low damage)
6) Pistol + Pistol (should have good single target damage, but doesn’t because Unload is too inefficient for its initiative cost. like Dagger+Pistol, this also suffers greatly from total lack of AoE.)
7) Sword+Dagger (basically just dysfunctionally bad in PvP. low damage, broken dual skill)
Have done a bit of independent investigating of the frequently reported issue with the Hidden Thief trait (enter stealth when stealing).
My results were consistent: This trait works correctly when equipped with a main hand Sword or Dagger but is likely to bug and not work correctly when equipped with a main hand pistol or a shortbow.
When equipped with a mainhand melee weapon the auto-attack was correctly suspended when entering stealth and I would remain in stealth, as expected, for the listed 2 second duration (3 seconds actually, since time was extended for 1 second by Meld With Shadows).
When equipped with a mainhand ranged weapon this trait was likely to bug out. At minimum this does not correctly suspend auto-attacks for ranged weapons. There are additional issues related to projectile travel time. For example, if I have fired a Pistol Shot and it is in mid-flight when I Steal, my shadowstep will actually cause me to outrace the bullet at hit the target a fraction of a second before the bullet arrives. The bullet in-flight then arrives after stealthing and breaks the stealth as if I have attacked.
I’ll try to do some more thorough playtesting of this later but for now I’m fairly confident that there are at least two separate issues causing this trait to bug with ranged weapons. Auto-attack problems and the projectile flight time problem are both causing issues here.
In PvP you cannot do sufficient damage at ranged to actually kill people. Main hand pistol and shortbow are not efficient weapons for dropping players. they are good at ranged harrassment. you can weaken the other team by a significant amount with your ranged attacks but its really a group support thing, and not viable as a primary damage dealer.
To efficiently drop players in PvP you really have to melee with either Sword+Pistol or Dagger+Dagger. the auto-attacks from either set do pretty good damage but really what you’re looking at is the high burst damage from these sets. Pistol Whip, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, and Backstab are the really effective PvP attacks and are worth building your traits and utility skills to support.
against regular attacks (not condition damage) you’ll get the highest effective health pool by mixing Toughness and Vitality. the exact formulas for the way Defense (the stat increased by both Armor equipment and Toughness stat) reduces Damage are currently unknown so i couldn’t tell you the optimal values yet. however, i’d suggest mixing close to 50/50. maybe 60/40 with more vitality than toughness.
Condition Damage (bleeds, burning, and poison) is totally unaffected by Defense so you’ll need raw health to survive this. Vitality stat has an edge here.
Healing received can be thought of as scaling with your Defense stat, which is another consideration. The most efficient way to increase your health gained from healing (including direct heals, the regeneration boon, and other effects) is to increase your +healing and toughness stats.
my personal preference is to mostly ignore toughness and healing though and just stack vitality. i avoid direct damage mostly by dodging it. its surviving area damage and condition damage that worries me more and Vitality is more useful for this in my experience.
Its not THAT easy to escape if you set it up. Devourer Venom, Basilisk Venom, or Infiltrator Strike will pin someone in place long enough to land PW. your opponent will have to be able to remove disabling conditions and then immediately dodge roll away to avoid this. it takes some real effort on his part.
I agree 100% with the assessment of problems in the weapon sets. I don’t agree with all of your suggestions, but i’m not under the impression that we (the players) can come up with better ideas than the developers. We can, however, more easily identify what is good and what isn’t. So yeah, excellent job identifying what is not good enough right now.
Its important to note the intended roles of various weapon sets though and the major differences in performance between PvP and PvE. Your analysis seems focused on PvP and it is absolutely 100% on the mark for that context. PvE is a bit different though.
For example, Sword+Dagger is so terrible as to be unplayable in PvP but it is actually one of the better sets for PvE. Flanking Strike does a great job against Champion Mobs and Dungeon Mobs.
Another example, Pistol+Pistol is in many ways a much better ranged weapon set for PvE than the Shortbow is. It certainly has much higher single target DPS and stacking vulnerability in a 5 man party situation is quite valuable. Providing a Smoke Combo field for your party to shoot through is probably also more valuable then the Poison Combo field from Shortbow. In PvP I absolutely 100% want that Poison Field over a Smoke Field, but the reverse is true in PvE. That said, the damage on P+P is still too low even in PvE. Unload is underpowered basically. Should either cost less initiative or do more damage.
this is one of the hardest parts of the learning curve in my opinion. some builds really do make alot of summoned minions and being able to target the player in the middle of all that mess requires practice.
i used to play this map to the end just to try and learn it and figure out if there were some redeeming features to it. after about 20 tries i’ve determined there are none. its an unfun map. i now quit it immediately.
anybody else has this opinion?
i agree. i HATE this map. its extremely unfun and i almost always quit when it comes up.
Terrain Issues with Scorpion Wire:
the pull behavior of this skill is sort of unpredictable. it seems to always correctly trigger a short knockdown (if it connects, unblocked, unevaded) but whether or not the enemies will be pulled to your position is very unpredictable. even on flat pieces of terrain the pull doesn’t always occur. chances of success are even lower with differences in elevation.
Cluster Bomb’s tooltip says it should stack 3 bleeds, yet it only stacks one. Surprised this wasn’t mentioned with all the attention the skill is getting here.
the tooltip could use clarification but i believe the bleed stacking component of this ability is not bugged. a mid-air detonated cluster bomb does indeed stack 3 bleeds. it only stacks a single bleed if the arrow hits the ground without detonating.
Needle Trap absolutely does not do 4x the damage of Caltrops. don’t be misled by the tooltips. Caltrops will stack a bleed EACH SECOND on every enemy in the radius. it will quickly rack up enough stacks to far outdamage Needle Trap.
another major concern, since this is for sPvP we’re talking about, is that a player dodge rolling through a trap just wastes the trap. it triggers but doesn’t affect them (they get an evade). dodge rolling through caltrops won’t cancel the caltrops. if they roll out of the area they’ll be ok but if they just randomly roll around in caltrops and come out of the roll still in the area, they get snared and bleed just the same.
The sword has weakness on auto.
so does dagger if you have 15 points in Deadly Arts for the passive Lotus Poison (enemies are inflicted with 3 second weakness when you poison them). the dagger’s 3rd strike in the 1,1,1 chain inflicts poison, so there you go.
What sword really has, that dagger absolutely doesn’t have any equivalent of, is Infiltrator Strike. If you open all of your fights from range and close the gap with Infiltrator Strike you can gtfo anytime you want by tapping 2 again. This is unbelievably useful for succesfully staying alive while melee attacking hard hitting dungeon mobs.
I keep a Shortbow equipped at all times in dungeon runs. I don’t open fights in melee. I always start in range until I can judge whether or not its safe to melee. Stay at range against mobs with powerful point blank area attacks or melee knockdowns or other things that will get you killed quickly.
I also find that its really important to have at least one “oh crap” button on your utility slots so you can avoid getting insta-gibbed if something goes bad unexpectedly. I tend to use Blinding Powder for this as its totally instant and even works when you’re knocked down or stunned. You could use Roll for Initiative or Shadowstep or something similar as well.
most importantly though…just pay attention. dungeon mobs deal ALOT more damage then outdoor mobs. you really have to pay close attention and dodge their hits. cripple them and kite them around, keep them blinded and weakened. really just take them seriously.
Engineer rifle spells and warrior rifle spells seem to be backwards.
in Engineer
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Engineers are the only class who can’t reliably fight at 1200 range without using traits.
Thief has nothing with range 1200. Shortbow and Pistol are both range 900 weapons. There are no Traits or anything to extend that range. There are no Thief utility skills that can do damage at range either.
Necromancers have very limited options for 1200 ranged as well. The staff is the only Necro weapon with attacks at this range but most of those attacks are actually AoE ground target marks that don’t really function as ranged attacks, and rather are intended to be placed in close quarters fighting.
Hundred Blades needs a nerf for the overall health of the class
in Warrior
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Lets be clear about this:
The ability itself is pretty ok. Its largely mitigated by being slow and rooting you in place while it channels.
It is the interaction between this high-damage channeled ability and the Quickness boon that makes it really scary. I think there was a bit of a miss in general with the way Arenanet decided to have channeled abilities work with Quickness. They get a bit too much benefit from it. The same issue here applies to Pistol Whip, for example. There is a slightly broken interaction that allows for very easy access to extreme burst damage that can just level someone in about 1.5 seconds.
Flanking Strike is most useful as a dodge that doesn’t use Endurance. I find it extremely good in 1on1 fights for this reason. It lets me keep evading while my endurance is still regenning.
The ability itself is just ok though. It actually does pretty high damage so no complaints there. It also has the unique property of stripping a boon off the opponent, which is yet more emphasis on its strength in 1on1 dueling situations.
I see plenty of usefulness for this ability in the right context but that context is maybe a little narrow. 1on1 duels don’t happen all that often really. It is very good at its job though.
There’s a separate issue related to terrain modelling and all automatic movement abilities (leaps, evades, shadowsteps, and teleports are all affected by this) where if you are on the border of two “tiles” of terrain the auto-move ability kinda screws up and gets stuck on the tile border instead of crossing the border properly and ending up a the spot you think it should. This issue does detract from the usefulness of Flanking Strike, but its not specific to Flanking Strike. its a problem with alot of abilities.
Thieves can be extremely valuable in dungeons but they do provide the kind of support that seems to obviously fall into the support category the way a Guardian or Engineer does.
In a dungeon the Thief can perform any of the following roles (usually more than one actually).
1) Offensive Support. Thief is good at improving the offensive abilities of other party members. Thrill of the Crime trait provides powerful offensive group buffs on Stealing. Venomous Aura allows you to share your Venoms with the entire party. This can produce some INSANE results when used with Skale Venom to get everyone stacking Vulnerability.
2) Control. Thief has some amazing blinding, crippling, and weakening abilities that can make your enemies almost trivial to defeat. These abilities don’t work as well against bosses (due to Unshakable buff most of them have) but can still be absolutely crucial for controlling adds and summoned minions during boss fights.
3) Reviving. People go down during fights. They just do. If you can get them up again quickly and safely the fight will still be under control. Its only a wipe if nobody can revive them. Thief is great at reviving due to stealth. Shadow Refuge in particular is ideal for safe reviving. Its basically designed for that.
4) High Damage Attacker. Not all Thief builds have high dps in dungeon situations, but many do. Double Daggers condition damage can do extreme damage in dungeons with Death Blossom. You’ll have large stacks of high damage bleeds ticking on 2 or 3 opponents at once in the typical dungeon pull. You’ll probably be the highest damage throughput member of the whole party.
5) Rock Tosser! sound silly i know, but there are several dungeon encounters where the use of environmental weapons (like boulders to throw, or other similar things) is a major part of the fight. Thieves are inherently good at doing this because of the mobility offered by Infiltrator Shot, Shadowstep, and the ability to dodge alot.
Issue with Shadow Shot -
the animation for Shadow Shot includes a dagger swing when reaching the target. this swing animation seems to halt movement and briefly (1/4 second maybe?) root the Thief in place. this sort of works directly against the purpose of a skill that seems to be intended as a gap closer. getting rooted (however briefly) after closing a gap gives the enemy an opportunity to open up the gap again.
I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended behavior but it is a bit awkward to be sure. The other gap closers on Thief skills either incorporate an immobilize (Infiltrator Strike) to the opponent, or they don’t have a follow-up swing animation (like Steal or Shadowstep).
from a pve perspective its just plain bad damage nerf with absolutly no compensation to a spec thats already hard pressed to perform well in dungeons.
how is this a PvE damage nerf at all? auto-attacks have ALWAYS done more damage than Heartseeker a mob > 50% health. they did before the change. Anyone Heartseeker spamming a mob at any point before getting the enhanced damage tier (33% before nerf, 25% after) was doing it wrong and actually spending initiative to do less damage then auto-attack.
regeared a bit tonight with a bunch of Carrion stuff. managed to get it up to 84 per tick. pretty sweet.
leap skills have a travel time, and i’ve yet to see one with range greater than 600. shadowsteps have truly instant travel and are available from much longer range (900, or even 1200 for one of them). its not an inferior leap. its a shadowstep. its similar but different.
yeah, the dagger swing animation after the shot keeps you standing in place while its swining. not quite half a second, but some noticeable fraction of a second. its not always an issue but it can whiff if your target is already running fast (like with Swiftness buff or something).
would be good if the dagger swing animation was performed while moving instead of while standing still. good suggestion.