(edited by metaphorm.6904)
Now if your condition damage spec, id go with theEarth sigils (bleed) on each weapon
Earth Sigil is chance to bleed on crit. It works very well for a Precision + Condition build. I actually like this quite a bit for PvP. I don’t use it in PvE though (for reasons detailed in my above post).
Thank you for a beautiful and balanced game but... *edited by moderator. staff call-out*
in Thief
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Stealth + Backstab has always been higher damage on enemies > 50% health even with the previous version of Heartseeker. If you’ve been playing intelligently all along you were already not using Heartseeker against high health enemies in PvE. I don’t see what has changed other then people being punished even more for playing badly.
Dagger+Pistol is a weapon set for 1on1 dueling. Its strengths are chasing ability and control with blinding. Why should you expect this specialized weapon set to be good in all situations? It does you no harm at all to equip more versatile weapon set when you expect to need versatile attacking abilities.
How long does the bleed from db last with that build? 1 stack
base duration on a Death Blossom bleed stack is 10 seconds. i’ve got 50% bleed duration (25% specific to bleed, +25% to all conditions due to 25 points in Deadly Arts trait line). so its 15 seconds per stack.
This is sufficiently long that most same-level mobs in regular heart quests or event waves are dead before the stacks fall off. The long duration really starts to be more and more noticeably awesome against high health targets like event bosses, veteran and champion mobs, and any of the mobs in Dungeons.
to contextualize how much damage this is really doing: At level 65 I’m stacking bleeds that do 72 damage per tick per stack. This means that the 3 stacks from each Death Blossom are doing 3240 damage over 15 seconds. Thats for 5 initiative. I defy you to find any other skill that can deal 3240 points of damage for 5 initiative. Now find one that does it in an AoE and evades attacks at the same time.
What they really need to do is, across all professions, make wielding a single weapon viable.
This means, if you have a Sword and nothing in the off-hand, you should get 5 skills, not 3.
thats a far more interesting suggestion. however, it does start to seriously encroach on the territory of 2-handers. i mean, isn’t the whole point of 2-handers that its a single weapon that has 5 skill slots associated with it?
Thank you for a beautiful and balanced game but... *edited by moderator. staff call-out*
in Thief
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
And if Heartseeker was your best DPS against bosses, you should be worrying about something else… lol
Okay, tell me what great and amazing options you have as D/P. You can spend 8 initiative to make a super weak heartseeker through a pointless black powder in order to backstab, but with all the time spent doing that and positioning around to the back I don’t think it’s any better than autoattacking.
in my game there’s this awesome ability called “weapon swap”. i press the ~ key get to use an entirely different set of weapons! amazing!
i’d suggest keeping a set of Pistol/Pistol or Sword/Dagger in your other slot if you want to have a good set to use against bosses.
Cluster Bomb (possible bug) -
occasionally when I fire a cluster bomb arrow the icon will switch directly back to Cluster Bomb and not to Detonate, even though the Cluster Bomb arrow is still in mid-flight. When this happens I cannot detonate the arrow and have to let it land instead of air bursting it. I’ve encountered this bug several times, but I don’t know how to reproduce it reliably. Seems to occur kinda randomly (and infrequently) to me.
Hey everyone. I just noticed that the Necromancer forum has a REALLY helpful, well organized bug list thread
here: Necromancer Bugs Compilation
the devs have already posted saying this is very helpful to them. i agree. this is great. not only should players know about these, but the devs can use this as a tremendous resource to help iron out the remaining bugs.
so please use this thread to post (detailed and specific) reports of bugs related to Thief class skills and gameplay. Bugs people. Not balance issues. Not opinions. Bugs. Things being actually technically broken.
in PvE i’m running a condition damage set. i’ve got a 4 of Major Rune of the Krait (for the condition damage and increased bleed duration) and a 2 of Minor Rune of Affliction (for condition damage and increased bleed duration…) Using Sigils of Agony on my daggers (for increased bleed duration). I think you get the point, right?
Bleed damage attacks scale in three ways so I try to exploit all 3 scaling methods.
1) Scales linearly (more damage per tick) with Condition Damage stat. the coefficient is low compared to poison and burning though, because bleeding stacks in intensity rather than duration. But still, this state does increase its damage so its obviously a primary concern. Doubling your condition damage stat will (approximately) double your additional damage per tick. I say “additional” damage per tick because there is always a baseline established by your player level only, so the contribution from condition damage is a term added on to this baseline.
2) Scales linearly with applying additional stacks. 2 stacks is twice as much damage as 1 stack. 3 stacks is 3 times as much as 1 stacks, etc. Abilities that stack bleeds just keep linearly increasing your damage output in this way, up to the cap of 25x (basically impossible to hit the cap while soloing though). The way to best exploit this scaling method is with initiative generation, since you need initiative to Death Blossom and apply more bleeds. I like traits that increase initiative generation for this reason.
3) Scales linearly with additional duration. 2 seconds of bleeding is twice as much damage as 1 second of bleeding. linear.
So I pick equipment and traits to get all 3 scaling techniques at the same time. Bleed more per tick. Make more initiative to put on more stacks. Increase duration so each stack does more damage.
My observation has been that the duration bonuses from runes and sigils are far more powerful than the bonuses that would effect damage per tick or number of stacks applied. For example, Sigil of Earth gives a chance to apply bleeding on crit. This means you now have to worry about your critical hit rate. My crit rate is low! I don’t have much precision on my gear. Earth Sigil would be a good way of getting some bonus damage for a crit build, but is a bad way of getting more bleed damage for a condition build. Sigil of Agony though basically is just +10% total damage throughput. Awesome. It doesn’t increase DPS in quite the same way (though increased duration will allow more stacks to be ticking simultaneously, so it does increase DPS indirectly) but it just outright increases damage throughput by alot. Its really good.
Thank you for a beautiful and balanced game but... *edited by moderator. staff call-out*
in Thief
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
Dagger/Dagger wasn’t broken. Sword/Pistol is broken. Hundred Blades from warriors is broken. Any class that can end a match in 4seconds using these skills needs to be changed. Combat should require more then one trick ponys. At least dagger/dagger thiefs had to manage stealth and backstab. Sword/pistol thiefs just teleport to you an wack you in the face so easy to use a caveman can do it.
its easy to Pistol Whip spam awful players. non-awful players will use a stun break and then dodge it, and then bash your head in while you’re stuck in the animation.
bad players lose to simple tactics. they lost to Heartseeker spam. They lose to Pistol Whip spam. They lose to Hundred Blades. They lose to whatever easily countered high-damage cheese people can come up with.
All these cheese builds, that focus on quick burst damage to the exclusion of other useful abilities are basically terrible builds that accomplish nothing other than killing bad players in pug vs. pug sPvP. i’d be embarassed to be caught spamming Heartseeker in PvP. I’d be angry at a warrior on my team if he just ran around trying to pop frenzy and then hit people with Hundred Blades.
i can tell you that when i play Guild vs. Guild pvp nobody on my team is using any of those one dimensional cheese builds because we actually try to win the map instead of just grief kill bad players.
these skills are just filler for characters still below level 6 or whatever. there’s no point to them. why waste any time even thinking about making these skills into a thing? do you honestly want to play with only 3 weapon skills on your skill bar?
Thieves Guild is awesome. I know Dagger Storm seems more impressive but I don’t like it. It only looks cool, I never get good results with it. Thieves Guild just works better most of the time, even in the same situations.
I do like Basilisk Venom in one particular build though. Its profoundly awesome in the Backstab Burst Damage build where you get to apply it on your combat entering Steal, stoning the target for a second and guaranteeing that your initial backstab hits. Big damage. Good times.
this sounds silly to me. i honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. i’m able to use Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Arrow to move around terrain just as easily as any other class can.
i really do want to know what it is you’re complaining about though. is it combat mobility? Thief has more evades, more dodging, more endurance regen, and more combat teleports than any other class. is it map crossing speed? Thieves have a signet that grants a passive +25% run speed at all times. This is as good as it gets for any class in the game. Is it literally just that you are bad at putting your Infiltrator Arrow target on the right spot? Have you not figured out how to use one of the best unrestricted teleport abilities in the game?
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
your suggestion is bad.
a Thief’s initiative level changes constantly throughout a fight and all non-trivial fights last a whole lot longer than a single initiative bar.
A finishing move is a move that finishes off weak opponents, not one that gets randomly stronger or weaker based on how much (or little) you spam abilities.
The current design is correct, and in fact improved from the previous design. The new thresholds do a good job of reinforcing the “finish a weakened opponent” purpose of this skill.
i actually am happy with this change.
Heartseeker is intended to finish off low health players. It still does. It is just as effective at what it is legitimately supposed to be used for.
The fact that (bad) players were using Heartseeker against full health targets before was evidence that the game needed an adjustment to prevent (bad) players from playing badly but doing ok anyway.
A design tweak that reinforces the legitimate and useful aspects of a skill while further discouraging the illegitimate and inefficient uses of a skill is a good change.
HS isn’t even viable now as a finisher since it deals less damage than my auto attack crits.
All I have to say about the nerf is that Anet got trolled and paid with their reputation. I know I will think twice from now on to recommend this game to my friends.
do you have reading comprehension issues? the patch notes were pretty clear that HS does the same amount of damage to low health enemies as it used to. how does that affect its viability as a finisher? it doesn’t., it affects its viability as an OPENER. they nerfed its OPENING damage not its finishing damage.
its always been 3.
not sure if this post is serious or trolling. surely everyone recognizes that Death Blossom is easily the most powerful ability on the Dagger+Dagger skillbar, and arguable the most powerful Thief weapon ability period.
edit:
to clarify why i’m confused as to why people wouldn’t understand its power, consider it from this perspective: you open up a fight by Death Blossoming a couple of times. this stacks bleeds that will continue to drain them out for the rest of the fight even while you use your regular attacks. It also gives you a period at the opening of the fight where you basically cannot be hit because you are dancing around with your Death Blossoms. by the time you even get to the part of the fight were the enemy is capable of damaging you they are already at half health and bleeding out.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
this skill, unlike your other elite skills, is just not good without trait support.
however, it becomes AWESOME when supported. traits can give this an extra charge (doubling its effectiveness) and share the venom with nearby allies (which is bonkers strong).
you may be noticing a big difference due to your other stats, not just the weapons themselves.
Sword+Pistol attacks scale very heavily with Power and Crit. more so then daggers. Dual Daggers has noticeably more condition damage (bleeds on Death Blossom, Poison on auto-attack 3rd strike). if you want to optimize damage for Sword+Pistol get as much Power + Precision as possible and exclude condition damage.
there is also the matter of your own technique and trait builds for this. Sword + Pistol tends to use the auto-attack chain for damage more than any other weapon set so it will, in general, have a nice full initiative bar. its a really good idea to take advantage of having a damage source that doesn’t use initiative by spending your init on Black Powder spam instead. you can easily fight mobs in groups of 3 at a time while taking no damage by keeping them blinded like this.
you honestly can’t tell the difference between Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge? play the game more and spend less time on the forums.
Support is the weakest area for the Thief. compared to some other classes a Thief struggles to find good support options where a Guardian or Engineer is just tripping over how many good support options they have.
However, its not impossible to provide useful support.
Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen are two quite useful support oriented utility abilities. They both drop combo fields and dramatically increase group survivability.
The Shortbow is a good ranged support weapon, with a Poison Combo field and alot of combo finishers to synergize with other people’s fields.
Traits can offer additional levels of support but I wouldn’t try to trait exclusively for it or you may end up with a kind of inchorent build. Venomous Aura is great offensive support but it works even better when you yourself are making effective use of the Venoms. A Steal-to-Buff build with the Trickery traits can be useful as well, but the buffs provided are strictly short duration (10 second boons on 45 second cooldown) so its not really sufficient to be a focal point of your group role. Just a nice bonus.
Steal is the difference between pretty good theives and great theives.
quoted for righteous truth.
i’m astonished to see people saying they don’t use Steal. its easily one of the most powerful abilities ANY class has access to. the stolen abilities it provides are INCREDIBLY POWERFUL. maybe people don’t get this because its semi-random what you actually steal. all of the abilities that you get from stealing are really really really strong though.
the trait bonuses to Steal are equally insane. every single trait build adds at least a couple of powerful bonuses here, and some builds add several.
saying that you don’t use this ability is like saying “i don’t understand how to play this game and i’m confused so i’m nerfing myself because this is too hard for me”
the skill just needs a cooldown. 3-5 seconds should do it
thief weapon skills don’t have cooldowns. they just don’t. thats the whole point of the initiative mechanic. a higher initiative cost is the equivalent of a longer cooldown.
there are like 3 abilities that really synergize well with Haste and you can build around them for burst damage.
1. Sword auto-attack chain. it has high damage and can hit multiple targets in front of you, but the slow swing speed is the usual limiting factor. speeding this up is great.
2. Pistol Whip. Haste will both halve the charge up time and double the animation speed so this skill becomes super effective when hasted. you can dump a whole initiative pool into Pistol Whips while hasted for super damage.
3. Unload. the ranged option. like Pistol Whip, this is a channeled direct damage ability so its damage basically gets straight up doubled by Haste. this is another initiative dump for mega damage scenario.
when using Pistol Whip or Unload you basically need to have Preparedness (15 point trait from Trickery line) for the 13 starting initiative.
in PvP i like to use Sword+Pistol for melee weapon set with Shortbow for weapon swap.
Withdraw as heal skill, Shadowstep, Scorpion Wire, and Devourer Venom as utility skills, Thieves Guild as elite skill.
Traits are 30 Critical Strikes (side strike, combo critical chance, executioner), 20 Acrobatics (Vigorous Recovery, Pain Response), 20 Trickery (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft).
playstyle is basically to just be a blur of motion at all times. this build has basically 100% uptime on the Vigor boon so you have nearly unlimited endurance to dodge with. combine that with your shadowstep, infiltrator strike, withdraw, and steal and you can just teleport towards or away from anybody whenever you want.
you have to judge your offensive opportunities very carefully with this build. scorpion wire is there specifically to give you an opening by dragging someone out of a group to you. you then stick them in place with Devourer Venom and wail on them from behind with Pistol Whip for 5 seconds. immobilized characters can’t even turn so this is basically free shots. unloading 13 initiative worth of Pistol Whips kills anyone. this build is all about setting up those kill situations.
if you have to fight more directly you generally just autoattack and use initiative on Black Powder. usually you just get out though, as this build is not designed for crowd fighting.
The let's help the Thief thread ( discussion about what is wrong and what isn't about the thief)
in Thief
Posted by: metaphorm.6904
don’t you think its a little soon or this kind of thing? can you honestly say you even know how to play this game yet, let alone have a deep enough grasp to be able to come up with good design suggestions? i wouldn’t make that claim about myself. i don’t think anyone else is in a different position right now.
yeah i agree with AcidicVision. sounds to me like the OP just made a mistake at the character select screen. just shut up and reroll if you don’t like playing your Thief.
whats really funny is that Heartseeker spam isn’t even good. the skill is useful for bursting down low on health enemies but its pretty dreadful other than that. and killing a HS spamming Thief is trivial. jumping forward with it is NOT an evade. you can still wail on the Thief while he’s leaping at you.
I guess some people find it frustrating because its a “cheese” tactic, meaning its effective against people who don’t know what they’re doing but easily countered and not very strong on the whole.
i’d just say people need to learn to play better.
Shadow Refuge is AWESOME.
start using it. its way better than you think it is. its not just about the stolen abilities (though some of those are very good). its about the traits that make your Steal have some spectacular side effects. its also a free shadowstep. its really strong.
I wouldn’t run condition damage for PvE unless you know nobody else is stacking bleeds in 5 mans. Bleeds only stack to 25 and poison stacks duration.
you’ll have no problem with hitting the stack cap in a 5 man unless your entire party is bleed based (scepter necro, sword warrior, AND a thief?). i’ve never actually seen a mob get 25 capped in a 5 man dungeon. this only happens during Dynamic Events where there’s like 20+ people attacking the same target.
and poison stacking is always useful. it applies the highest damage per tick out of all poisons applied, but the duration for that tick stacks from any poison application, so even weaker poisons can still be beneficial to this stack. getting the duration on a poison stacked long enough to stay on the mob until its dead is very important.
i would suggest this build for Dual Pistols: http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#10|0|2632|2645|6677|134|4485|0|0|0|0|20|1719|2386|0|0|0|0|0|20|2353|1692|0|30|782|1722|2359|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
here’s an explanation of the choices:
Healing Skill: Withdraw
- this is a ranged kiting build so Withdraw is the obvious choice as it creates alot of distance between you and the opponent and it gets you out of cripples/stuns/immobilizes. In this build the short (15 second) cooldown on this skill is important as well to take advantage of 2 of your traits (more on this later).
Utility Slot 1: Caltrops
- no brainer choice. this is an extremely potent cripple and bleed damage skill and kiting people through Caltrops is your bread and butter.
Utility Slot 2: Devourer Venom
- immobilizing people at range is very useful. This can prevent long ranged classes (like Longbow Ranger and Staff Elementalist) from running out of your range or it can keep melee classes at a safe distance.
Utlity Slot 3: Shadowstep
- this is an immensely useful skill with many applications. at minimum its an exceptional kiting skill, allowing you to put 1200 distance units between you and an enemy melee TWICE (once with the step, then again with the return). It can also be used as a chase skill and as an escape skill. Also don’t forget that the shadow return clears 3 conditions from you so this is a great way to drop poisons and bleeds that are draining you out.
Elite Skill: Thieves Guild
- this will work better than Daggerstorm. you don’t want to be whirling around near your enemies. you want to be running away from your enemies while your Thief buddies take potshots at them.
i actually don’t find Shadow Protector weak at all. its downright good, even without alot of +healing stats. Regen is just a powerful boon even at the baseline. Gaining regen to counter bleeding is fine as well. I think the cooldown on that is 45 seconds. more than adequate. the trait is not intended to make you regen permanently (which it would do with a 10 second cooldown on a 10 second length regen). its supposed to help you survive bursts of bleed stacks. it does that job already.
i’m gonna have to vote for Assassin’s Reward (gain health for each point of initiative spent) here actually. you’d think it would be incredibly useful because we’re constantly spending initiative, but the amount of health gained is absolutely tiny. much less than even having a Regeneration boon active.
maybe this trait scales well with +healing on your gear, i’ve never tried that, so its possible i just haven’t unlocked the full potential here. but as is i have no desire to use this. i find that gaining Regeneration (from Shadow Protector trait, for example) to be much more useful. it also scales with +healing gear but just seems more effective in general.
i’d like an off-hand sword. feels thematically appropriate and having another weapon option would be nice.
i think i favor survivability more than most Thieves, since i see many people with glass cannon builds. i’ve noticed that my kill rate is actually higher with more survival stats since i can take on more mobs at once (while doing heart quests) and that my dungeon effectiveness is ALOT higher (since i’m not dead, obviously).
the offensive stats i use are a mix of precision and condition damage. the condition damage ends up being the biggest contributor since i use alot of bleeds and poison. however, the precision plays a very important role as well. it does make my direct attacks do more DPS but the main reason I use it is for triggered effects. the trait that gains initiative on crits is extremely useful. crit triggered weapon sigils are extremely powerful as well. getting extra life drain or might stacks or bleed stacks from crits makes a huge difference.
the defensive stat i consider most important is vitality. direct hits are easily evaded and i rely on dodge, death blossom evade, and kiting to avoid getting smacked directly. it can be very hard however to avoid picking up condition damage so having extra health makes surviving poison, bleed, or burning much more likely. toughness doesn’t mitigate condition damage at all, so gotta just have the raw health to stick it out. vitality it is.
i use Dagger/Dagger and Shortbow more often than anything else and I find myself switching between them quite a bit. Shortbow I find super important for dynamic events with swarms of enemies or bosses that are hard to melee with but the daggers really shine in almost every other engagement.
you’re just wrong about stealth needing a rework. there is not and should not be permanent stealth in this game. it was the correct design decision.
if you are looking for a role in WvW try ranged support with a Shortbow, perimeter patrol (picking off stragglers), or just doing what every character can do and run supplies or use siege equipment. character class is much less important in WvW than in other aspects of the game.