Unload speed is fine as it is, with a bit of luck it can proc Opportunist twice in a row, if you make it faster it kinda makes it more expensive in the long run.
Oh you’re Slashlove, i fought along with you a bit and noticed you were running dual pistols too, interesting to see another p/p fellow thief who is actually running a very different build.
I guess this proves p/p are kinda underrated.
You don’t seem to understand. Removing the ability to stealth for thieves and alike is giving way too much of an advantage to other classes once downed.
Spamming HS won’t save you from rangers pets, mesmers clones and so forth.
You have to undestand that any downed opponent is still a important threat to fragile classes, being hit for 1k out of 15khp by a downed opponent is not rare with my thief and stealth is actually our protection, otherwise we likely have to fight anyone twice.
I lack the knowledge about the class since i know them from having to fight more and more against them but i think there is an actual middle ground between all out glass or tank.
My main complain in the end comes from stacking so many defensive, healing and steady dps abilities that i find to be too forgiving, evading the whole rotation only ends up with yourself exhausted, in the end it is more a kind of attrition fight except the d/d ele on his side is nowhere near exhausted, see what i mean ?
Evading the usual ride the lightning and so forth is as easy as evading a BS burst except a thief will either shadow refuge to try again (without haste- assassin’s signet and basilisk venom, whole rotation on 60s CD) or switch to shortbow and usually infiltrator shoot his way out of the death area (if he’s not a brainless 2222er), and trust me the retaliation hurts, i’ve been on both ends of the stick.
The elementalist will switch to water and cc+absorb+full heal or keep a steady pressure under earth or fire until RTL is ready again, which comes especially fast, way too fast.
I know d/d is considered to be the only effective set for eles but you know, since people tend to say p/p is worseless on thieves and i actually get great results from it i tend to believe the other sets haven’t been exploited enough yet.
My bad for the projectile reflect but there isthis shield or aura that blocks projectiles, it’s not an issue by itself, it’s more of a problem stacked along with all the other defensive abilities and huge healings while still being able to maintain a steady pressure.
As for the frost aura it comes from unload i believe, and i swear i’ve already been frozen for like 10-15 seconds a few times, it should seriously be capped.
I understand the need of temporizing but it is simply not an option since the next heal back to full health gets closer every time i delay.
…says the thief about his counter class….
Actually, not, don’t assume every thief out there is rolling backstab / can’t do anything better than 2.
As a matter of fact i rolled a p/p build two weeks ago (and i am looking forward to see what the 14th brings on the table) because
a- i was bored of d/d Backstab
b- Necros and Eles are underrated classes and i needed to adapt to whaty is coming. And now that the cool kids learned it (not necros yet though), it will spread like the plague.
Simple exemple, like someone said, a few weeks ago one ele in a team was already a lot (spvp wise).
Today from all my spvp games i could count at least 5 of them every game. And of course, all of them rolling d/d.
As for the thieves, this is the ele forum so i’ll just say that i deplore how effective 222 is, and that i’m all for tweaking BS burst as long as tanks get tweaked along the way.
Which actually concerns this particular elementalist build.
Most eles assume i will be easy pray since they don’t even think i’m rolling pistols to start with, and yes, most of them aren’t really an issue.
But i’ve also met a few that do master the build and no matter how much death i would throw at them they would keep coming back 4, 5 times and just finish me because my CDs and initiative were all blown, and theres kept reloading way too fast for how effective they are.
This goes along with being able to dispel most conditions, reflect projectiles, resist interrupts and that horrible ice shield that stacks frost for kittening ever.
See i’m not saying it’s easy mod, i’m actually saying it’s godmod placed in the right hands.
edit- oh and don’t get me wrong, i took duels as an exemple but i’ve seen the same scenario 1v2, 1v3 and even sometimes 1v4 although i wouldn’t vouch for my team’s effectiveness.
(edited by muscarine.5136)
As much as i agree with you, imagine how many time you would read “kittening noobs /ragequit” per game.
Personnaly i’m already losing my patience, been there since launch and people keep on zerging the kitten out of any random enemy player while the other team owns the three nodes.
Zerg Deathmatch.
I think Anet knows how egoistical most players are and decided to make the reward system based on this behavior.
ANet just needs to follow these practical rules when balancing:
- Remove unfun elements
- Increase variety of good & viable classes/builds/weapons/skills.
- Reward skillful play (bearing in mind “Skill” in GW2 is mostly about how well you coordinate with your team, rather than how well you fight and kill.)
Props ~
This is a very simple request.
Please, change the traps so they don’t miss if you’re blinded.
Some of them like tripwire often activate without even doing anything, but blind making trap miss is just… ahhhh…
Oh finally someone noticed the rise of the d/d /godmod eles ?
Maybe people will get off thieves back a bit.
Who am i kidding of course they won’t.
Pistol Mastery – Increases Pistol Range to 1200, pistol attacks have a 100% chance to pierce.
“Idea also from Gunslinger.”
This is way too powerful man, it’s like 2 traits in one, plus even if they made a trait so that it gives pistol piercing, they would probably not make it a 100%, imagine an unload (4-9k damage) into a group of opponent, add to it a fire sigil and, well, you see, not gonna happen.
Headshot is delayed despite fact I clicked it, and hits after the target heals.
So, please make Headshot instant and not dependant on animations, like dodge roll.
Along with this one there are a few frustrating issues while using pistols that can turn out to be fatal.
Sometimes, while in a totally opened and flat field shooting at an opponent, some of your shots will count as obstructed for no apparent reason.
I guess this isn’t only a pistol issue though.
Cancelling an auto attack when needed can turn out to be very tricky when you’re not on a WASD hotkey setup (i know i’m part of a minority but i’m on numpad and accessing ESC is not wise) since left clicking anywhere on the screen doesn’t work.
I can still disable auto attack from vital shot but i’d love to be able to left click like it is possible with shortbows for exemple, instead.
I don’t know if other classes have the same issue with some of their chanelling skills, but using unload will be canceled immediately if you aren’t facing enough your target, but you still lose the whole 5 initiative.
Maybe it’s intended and i would understand this is a way of rewarding positionning and evading, although i would suggest to make it consume initiative gradually instead, from the number of shots you really fire (even if they miss though).
Black powder is really expensive, it is indeed a good utility but you can’t mitigate its cost through the Opportunist trait unlike unload.
I made myself a nice P/P build i’ve been using for a week in pvp now, was kinda bored with d/d backstab, except the issues mentionned above i would say that vital shot is the culprit if you’re looking to buff the damage capacity, be it with a damage or condition build.
I would not suggest to improve the raw damage, you may want to make it attack a bit faster instead so it benefits both damage and condition builds.
Of course there is still the matter of body shot but honestly i never use it, except sometimes on svanir and the chieftain because all our zerg is on it (and i still wonder if auto attacking wouldn’t end up dealing more overall damage anyway), so i don’t really have any idea of what to do about it.
(edited by muscarine.5136)
So how many people here have accidently hit Death Blossom and launched themselves off a cliff and fallen to their death?
Lets here some funny DB stories!
Mine: I came apon someone struggling with a Skill Point mob, so I come running up to save the day (I had already gotten the point). I pop my Venom skill, pop Caltrops as I am closing to melee range, strafe to the side of the mob to avoid going over the cliff only to find out I did not move over enough and before I knew it I fell to my death. To make matters worse the guy I was trying to save sends me a tell afterwards saying that was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen in this game!
Ah man this is priceless, i can clearly picture the scene, thanks for the laugh.
Doesn’t matter the afker’s or the bunkers, there is always a way to prevent this, the current reward system is just horrible and almost all players are nothing but zerglings going A>B>C>A>B>C all games long with no sense of tactics whatsoever.
Oh, except on Capricorn where it’s actually A>C>A>C because most of them are too lazy to even pay attention to the ruins.
Currently spvp should be called zpvp as in zerg vs zerg.
It just has to change i’ve been into it since launch and every day it gets worse.
Bump, this is really starting to grow on my nerves and actually causes me to die way more often than not, it needs some tweaks, make it reset blinding powder CD or something instead of this automatic thing that just screws us at the worst possible time.
Ralathar and all you folks saying about the same things, you should really consider learning about the class before writing such assumptions on the forums, thieves have access to what you describe, although you make it to good compared to what it is, but we don’t have access to all of it at once by any mean.
Come on. Be for real man.
Teabaker, trickery already offers a lowered CD on steal as well as a short stun at mastery, although i find the trait distribution very awkward as i stated before this would have to go along with a revamp of the trickery line (which could be a good thing, actually).
Anyway from here i’ll try to sum up :
-The current dynamics force thieves to rely on heavy burst because no matter what you’re still one of the most fragile classes out there, and trying to play anything that a ranger or a warrior does better ends with terrible consequences.
As in, trying to spec deep into pistols, for instance, or anything that rely on you staying out in the open to keep the pressure up, where a sneeze will put you down.
-It’s been a long time since any decent player figured how to protect themselves against a mindless BS burst. I think any capable thief out there will agree with me when i say shortbows are our actual main weapons, we switch on D/D when we managed to create the right opportunity to use it.
-Pistols. You want more diversity, then do something about it. At the very least increase the bleeding duration of vital shot and sneak attack, but, also, you should consider increasing the base attack speed of vital shot, if not of the whole pistol skills.
-HS. I am at a loss of word when, after all this time i still can see most of my fellow thieves relying on 2222222222222 and still get good results from it. It’s just plain sad.
You make weak skills like unload empty your initiative bar in no time, but you still haven’t considered increasing the initiative cost of HS ? 3 Initative, come on… I don’t know how to put it, just, don’t let them turn into spam bots, it’s bad for your game’s reputation. Make it cost 5. Make it a real finish move, that you have to use at the right time.
-Finally : trait distribution forces us into huge bursts revolving around quickness. Don’t invest into lethal arts or critical strikes and you lose so much damage you aren’t even a threat for any minion, clone or pet, out there.
Stacking DoT as in putting 30 points into trickery is just plain stupid since, yes, you will get a boost on your DoTs but the bonus that come with are just so not adapated to a DoT build : why in the world would i want an initiative bonus on a pistol build where my only decent attack, sneak attack, doesn’t cost any ?
This is SO important to me, a lot more than debating of anything else about thieves, the trait distribution is NOT adapted.
There is no way i’d put 30 points, not even 20, into either acobatics, shadow arts or trickery because it comes with a huge damage sacrifice for choosing survivability or DoTS, which in the end does NOT apply since you aren’t made to stay and fight, and the longer you stay in a fight, the more you actually LOSE survivability despite thinking you spec’d for it.
Please if you read anything, this is what you should have.
I could go on for some time but i think i’ll stop here for now, looking forward to see what you will bring on the table for us thieves.
I am late for this , i doubt i will say anything that wasn’t already said but…
Here are my observations as a thief doing mostly spvp since the release.
I’m at r40 currently, doesn’t make me a pro it’s not the point, it means i had a lot of time to evaluate my own class.
I think i figured the BS Build since day two or three, true it wasn’t hard to just pack up with everything that hit the hardest.
Over the last months i’ve seen arise more and more smart players playing a lot better than they used to as opposed as how i would exterminate anyone at the start.
As a thief too i can easily survive a BS burst if my roll for initiative is up, otherwise it’s true most of the time i’m dead meat but, as a glass canon i try to avoid situations that would leave me with no choice but sit and endure, so it really doesn’t happen a lot of time.
As i got destroyed a few times too by the very same build i use, i can tell you i also died as fast to some warriors, mesmers, eles and necros, even a few engies gave me a hell of a hard time. And it’s not a question of toughness or vitality, it’s a question of positioning, awareness of which foe is where on the map, saving the oh kitten buttons for when you really need it and so forth.
From what i can tell now, there is not a single class that doesn’t have anything in stock to prevent getting instagibbed within the 4 seconds of my haste. Even rangers, with skills like protect me and such, so please anyone, avoid trying to get the monopoly of suffering it’s just dishonest.
Actually the easiest class to destroy with that build is eventually the thief class, considering so many of them still rely on 22222222222. Except this, anyone who isn’t packing any defensive will die and i’m really sorry but it’s how it should be, as much as i die in secondswhen exhausted and still sitting in the heat of the battle while i should at the very least lineback with my shortbow if not gone for a safer node.
Now for the review of the thief class itself, here are my observations :
First of all i figured very soon that spvp was all about who can endure the most / who can burst the most. This is how the dynamics are in spvp, and as long as it will, i will stick with this build.
I tried many times to go for something else, dual pistols, pistol / dagger, dagger / pistol, not a fan of sword myself but as it stands it’s the only dcent alternative to dagger/dagger.
Sure i managed to get something out of those other builds but they were in no way as effective as the BS build.
As a BS thief i can burst and immediately switch on my shortbow, which is actually my main weapon, and reposition as fast as i came in because BS doesn’t consume much initiative, which i use then mostly for infiltrator’s arrow. Repositionning. Something that eludes sooo many players in spvp.
I don’t stay and spam HS, as a matter of fact i think i use HS 2-3 times a match at most, maybe a bit more since the C&D nerf.
I would so love to be able to run an efficient build that involves pistols but the trade off is way too huge. Huge loss of damage capacity for about the same survivability, except your foe will absolutely not die if he’s a minimum decent, so you will still be showered with death like fire on paper.
Why ?
Because either you spec with about the same traits, doing the same rotation just to end up with just a subpar BS build, replacing BS with Sneak Attack, dealing about half the damage, a part of it being DoT which is so easily cured, and guess what, you still rely so much on haste to do anything decent anyway.
Either you try to capitalize on bleeding and you get to lose so much direct damage you can’t even kill a mesmer clone within 5 seconds, for a petty bleeding stack that gets of in 4 seconds with which you can count on vital shot to fail to keep stacked.
Sure i’ve played the stealth game and reapplied sneak attack everytime i’m no longer revealed, but it’s just mind blowing how weak you end up, like you’re a glass canon without the canon part.
(more)
You must play a thief to ‘not see a problem’ with taking 20 THOUSAND damage in mere seconds with no chance to react from 3 abilities. Or that a face-roll auto-attack ability crits for 3k….twice.
Let me put it another way.
Steal →5 → 1 = 20k in 1.5 seconds
Show me another class that can do that and I’ll eat my shoes. “Warrior with hundred blades, man!” Nope. Requires a 40second CD to initate, a 60 second CD to haste, and then you have to be dumb or unlucky enough to stand there and get hit by every swing while it channels. No comparison.
Fix this ez-mode thief BS please before every PVP game winds up like …
I’ve been lurking the endless river of tears for a while now, gonna react this once and leave it at that…
I’ve been playin on my sin since day1 using and refining my build revolving around the whole backstab rotation.
Since day1 as in, before it became known.
Since that time, i’ve encountered every type of players.
To sum up :
The most of them, clueless, rushing straight to me, not packing any kind of defensive utility, free food. Sadly yes, this is the majority of the players and this is actually what is sad, the terrible players.
The minority of them, reactive and smart, always react properly to my rotation. And these guys are NEVER “bunkers”. I’ve fought necros, eles, mesmers, engies, and even a few rangers who gave me a hell of a hard time. Some i could beat, some i couldn’t.
But none of them for kitten sake, read this for once and try to think outside the OMGOP box, none of them felt for the standard rotation.
Funny part is, my main weapon is actually my shortbow, D/D pops only when i know i have an opportunity, and the better the player, the thiner it is.
Of course when i see some headless chicken randomly looking for mushrooms i just harvest him. Like anyone. Especially a warrior or an ele.
When i’m saying “minority” that is still a certain number of players considering i do pvp since gw2 was released.
So what ? They survived, you don’t, thieves should get the nerf ? Is there any kind of logic behind this ? Do you ever consider adapting ? Do you realize that it will help you do better against anyone, and not only thieves ?
Also, note that i didn’t include warriors neither guardians in my list.
So let’s put it that way : maybe you guys need to be looked at and buffed OR maybe you shouldn’t go all berserk soon as you see a thief, unload everything you have on me while i lazily evade everything you throw at me and wear you down using my shortbow, and burst you down while you’re still under frenzy.
I am trying not to be patronizing here but every single time i’ve fought warriors, and thats a lot of them (excuse me but i could take some meaningless screenshot too showing 50% warriors or guardians or mesmers too) it’s always the same.
Also, why is it that me, along with the players of various classes i mentionned above, never die to this rotation unless exhausted from previous fights ?
Grab that panick button skill remember it and soon as you get stunned from basilisk venom, press it… And it works against 100b, and eles, and mesmers, and, well, yea, it’s a stun breaker.
But in the case of a thief you evade it, he should die or at the very least run away if you fail to mop the floor with his head.
I’m running with 900 toughness and 14k hp and never died to it unless completely out of options.
Oh and on a side note all of those screenshots, everywhere showing how INSANE backstab is, i’d love to see along with the numbers, how bad you guys were debuffed before you ate the rotation.
Now on a final note and i’m done throwing more water into water, stop comparing rotations when you don’t have a clue of what you’re talking about.
I’m glad you realize there is a CD ont the whole 100b rotation but why do you even use it as an argument against the BS rotation ? Don’t you know steal and assassin’s signet are on a 45s CD, and Haste on a 60s CD… ?
Why would you even defend 100b this way… ?
I really don’t understand what’s going on. I can fight it and i’m on the extreme end of the squishy side, i’ve fought against many players who can stand their ground before it (and actually that made me improve my shortbow skill), so, in my experience, it is fine, what is not fine is how unwilling the player base is to get better.
TL;DR ~what can i say, yea, that’s some sort of a l2p wall of text, sorry about that.
I would simply add reward for defending points over time, to start with.
Make it something like earn 3 points for every 10 seconds spent on a point your team owns, with a limit of 30 or 60 points per match (or more, i dunno tbh, just start with giving point, for instance defending the ruins in raid of the capricorn is capital but can be pretty dull on top of the 0 reward.)
Sure you still wouldn’t go for 400-500 a match but i think this way people wouldn’t be forced into joining the zerg wagon if they want their share of the loot, and i believe the overall dynamic would change.
It may promote leeching though, so this would have to be paired with a better victory reward / lesser defeat reward.
Now, as for giving rewards only to the winning side, it starts with a good will that aims toward pushing people to do their best, but since you mention gw1, this is also what made RA a premade slaughter fest, or a quit fest where pugs would rarely last more than one round, if some players didn’t already quit as soon as they saw their group didn’t have a chance to go for 20 anyway.