Guild Wars 2

Has anyone tried this (condi guard) in a raid environment?

the build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDZWE6fL_w

Is it a viable option for raids?

Any way for Mallyx to provide a decent condi dps in a raid group?
Decent, not top dps… if you know what I mean.

Stealth is no longer exclusive to Thiefs.

As it is now, IMO, Thief can deliver decent DPS (condi or non-condi) but with low HP (yes Thief has great healing as long as he is hitting something; should he be in a position to run / be away from a target, 10k hp is… not a good thing) and zero team utility(not counting break bar, anyone can do that).

In the past, for PvE, his low HP was balanced by excellent DPS / interrupts. Now, times have changed.

Thief is OK if all you want from a team member is DPS. Should you require more, there are better choices.

Again that’s my opinion; it may be wrong, and if you think it is, do tell me.

this many posts and this many views says something.
people (players) care about this.

some (including me) may be angry/upset because they were waiting a… balance / buff / improvement of the profession.
and as usual we received shait.

a change… for the Greater Good?

for… Balance?

no valid path to target

rejoice! the patch as arrived!

there are those who think condi nerco = crap :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Condition-engineers-in-new-raid/first#post5777965
so where is the truth?

I do see less engies than other professions. Raids have created a demand, because of the condi dps, and many have dusted off their engis for now.

Personally I:
– dislike seampunk.
– think bomb kit is silly: place a bomb at my feet; reaaly?…
– too many buttons

insanemaniac.2456:

i can get ~75% of the way there. and for the record, the autoing necro does more like 25% of the damage i can do. unless hes piggybacking off my aoes with good epidemics (to bring him to at least ~100% of my damage).

you did the math, did you?

GW2 (AN) was saying at one time: build diversity, no gear grind, fun, bring the player not the profession, play what you want, etc.

As Bob Dylan said: ’’I used to care, but things have changed".

If you can’t understand, or don’t want to understand, that’s your… problem.

Yes it’s a minor problem when you remember what others are faced with
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/nov/28/the-20-photographs-of-the-week

but yeah.

Could someone explain or direct me to an in-depth explanation of why Condi Reaper is a good choice?
I fail to understand why the Chill is so good (is the DoT high or?).

doblev.2701:

The thief delivers superior to other DPS classes in the game do not understand what the hatred expressed in previous comments in this forum .

I have seen the thief doing 80 k damage seems like a very good way to contribute to a raid do not understand if there are 9 people providing useful and damage not exceeding the thief and the thief made ??every 48 seconds, a 80 k dps then there I do understand.

Okay troll.
Nn.

@ OP: No, In my opinion Thief is not worth playing at this moment, unless your goal in GW2 is to gather resources fast (lumber / ore / plants).

It’s weapon sets and trait lines are messed up: condi skills mixed with power skills in different weapon sets that make no sense; re-hashed trait lines that are still a complete mess after the June change. The list can go on, but should you want more information I’m sure you can find it on reddit, since this forum is new and it lacks a WORKING FLUCKING SEARCH OPTION.

It’s power damage is decent, and in order to reach high numbers a player must do things like rotating the camera in stupid ways.

It’s condi damage (few bleeds and poisons, no access to burn) is mediocre at best, see the Venom share threads.

In order to reach the highest DPS so that you can contribute Something(your damage) to your group you will have to go full out DPS resulting in having 11k HP. GL with that.

Unless you will do you own testing, dps calculations and raid/fractals / world event monitoring with different professions under different setups (as I did) you can only read different threads to try to form an opinion.

So it is my opinion that Thief is not in a good place now for top PvE (Raids). I see no reason why a group leader would chose a 11k HP DPS-er with no group support. Why not chose a warrior or a Revenant who can output the same DPS by pressing #1, but have GREAT group support, almost Double HP and heavy armor?

I am aware that I may be wrong, and I really hope I am, since Thief is the profession that I enjoyed most in the past. But that hope (that I am wrong) is so tiny that I decided I won’t be a burden for my raid group and I won’t roll with a thief in raids.

We had no issue with interrupts (basilik share and engi oil… boots?). We were able to duo the red one without issues.

I’m interested to see the condi ticks, so if you go to the Value guard again could you make 1-2 screenshots?
Or at random events, say Teq/fractals?

hehe possibly, but I don’t have time to fix it not, it’s 6am and I must get to the office.
I will check again in the afternoon.
something like this:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVnMJCFNhNNBuNB8PhFZCjLQ1D2BzZwQYJUbPNFCAA-ThSAQBRU9nLpEkbWQgNlfR7BA4l9DCo+g+dIAAwJAwDHBASBAzyK-e
Interesting about the 10k poison ticks, I never got so high… I use full ascended viper :/
Maybe might stacks?… not sure what to think.

Since you share poison you should try Superior Rune of Thorns & Sigil of Venom AND Dagger Training.

I would not use Trapper’s respite because I find SoM a better heal; Skelk venom heal is mediocre IMO, and 32s is a lot.

You should first test it in open pve / fractals / etc and see the damage numbers. I have. IMO the damage output of the venom share thief is too low. It has 4-5K spikes of poison ticks every 30+ seconds witch is insulting. With a condi warrior (not even talking about engi) I can sustain 10k burn ticks constantly (should I mention the warrior HP, amor and banners?). But let’s not talk about other professions.

Personally I think zerk thief is a better option for Raids; I stick with my condi setup:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVnMJCFNhNNBuNB8PhFZCjLQ1D2BzZwQYJUbPNFCAA-ThSAQBRU9nLpEkbWQgNlfR7BA4l9DCo+g+dIAAwJAwDHBASBAzyK-e

After a lot of testing and trying Vale Guardian, I won’t take my condi thief there again. It just does not have the tools to deal enough damage compared to other professions.

Cynz.9437:

Wanna have extra fun? Go make a thief and try to join raids or find pvp team xD

made me smile, thx

DeoDose.4237:

its more about personal skill than classes

if only

Hey, since I’m in the same spot as the OP (main thief and looking for an exit) maybe you guys can help me out with this questions:

1). for the encounters where the target moves often, should FT be replace by what?
2). what are the wisest break bar disruption skills? (racials included)
3). how come Concussion Bomb is so high? Is Confusion that good for PvE?

Thank you

completely agree with OP: too much farm for a tiny reward.
this will give a goal for the majority of players who have a lot of discretionary time, so I guess GW2 playerbase will grow.
Yeah…

anything that’s not Thief

Here are all the Vale Guardian kills I could find, for the past week:
https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=week&search_query=gw2+vale+guardian+kill&lclk=week

Unfortunately I found none from a Thief POV, and apparently none of the groups had a Thief… Anyway you can see the players buffs and damage numbers (and HP!).

Compare them to what You can do with your Thief, if you ever been there.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I get the distinct feeling that this is a self-reinforcing problem. People think thieves are “bad” because no one takes them into raids, but no one takes them into raids because people already have the preconceived notion that they are bad.

I was at vale guardian for the past 3 days with my condi share thief.
The damage output compare to <insert anything> is crap.

edit: check youtube and see, if you don’t believe me. You will see dmg numbers pop up.

I see thief having the lowest present, only 3/14 groups had one and IMO for good reason.
Our low HP and lack of group support is not complemented by high DPS or any other utility.

Why Lotus Training? The damage is crap. You take it for the healing?
I just got out from a guild run of Vale guardian. We got close, but we started losing members because of disconnects.
I know what my damage as condi share was like, and my survability.
Then I saw a youtube video of a kill from the p.o.v. of a rev. With his auto attack (sword) he was hitting for 9-10k / swing… now w t f? that’s MILES away of what I could do.
:/

Maybe not the best place to ask, since this sub-forum is browsed by fans of the profession, but still…

Since condi rev is decent/let’s say it works for PvE melee fights, what happens in ranged fights?
Or am I missing the point and this is a PvP focused thread?

Eponet.4829:

The fights aren’t going to be against target dummies, it’s illogical to use target dummy tests to claim what’s best before we ever see the encounters.

True, but it would be logical to think that a 11k HP melee dps-er would not be… the bestest of choices
Is it ‘fair’ to compare a Thief with a 20k HP heavy armor profession that can aoe from 1200 range 13k burn ticks (bow war)?

@BrotherBelial
I know, that was my point.

yeah.. maybe they will ‘fix’ this ‘issue’ when they fix the forum / search

until one finds a place in a DS / AB / TD map…
always hunting the LFG tool, always swapping teleporting and trying.

as a casual player that has a few odd hours to play, HoT sucks: it’s a MMO but I’m always alone and all the “public” events / end map events are out of my reach.

Go F2P, neuter dungeons.

strange (and bad) combination, IMO.

Krag.6210:

What do you think of the new Scrapper icon?

I think it’s terribad.

I consider my ‘testing’ finished, here are my… findings:
- condi options for thief are mediocre at best. There is possible synergy, but it’s too much of a trade for choosing what trait line and what traits at one time. IMO the devs did not put enough thought into ordering the traits / in what trait lines / etc, in order to create a good(fun & effective) enough end result.
- I have tested with and without condi share. Without burning and poison (if no venom share) we can inflict a decent number of bleeds. But: why and when would you spec into this for pve? when you are solo? When does that happen anyway? When you run fractals or events you should go condi share anyway for more damage via poison sharing and sweet CC. I have decided that for me, going to condi thief without venom share is not worth it.
- should you go venom share, for fractals / world events, the damage when sharing poisons is again Mediocre. Our venoms have too long cooldowns and IMO have been designed with PvP in mind. For Pve they are good if you have a mesmer near you for Alacrity.
- and again the hp issue… If I am going in the jungle / fractals with 11k HP I want to REALLY kick some kitten . Which IMO is not the case currently with the Thief / DD.

There is more to say, but it’s already a long post and I doubt many will bother reading it.
I finished the story and I did plenty of world events in the new zones with necro, thief, ranger and mesmer. For each I have tested the best I could different condi builds and setups (viper gear, ascended weapons and partially ascended armors).
In the end I decided to stay with Ranger because I think the condi traits / skills synergyze best. It’s damage is MILES ahead of what Thief can put out.

3 hours wasted.
worst experience I have ever had in a mmo.

portals created outside the platforms
allies dissapear after activating the control portal => boss imune
cannot get into the air during the gliding phase

nothing has been done, and this issues have been reported one week ago.
thank you.

really? no one has any idea?
where are all the meta ice bow users

What numbers should I be aiming for?
A golem has 78870 HP, so I will kill it a few times then divide HP / seconds.
What’s a decent DPS to aim for?

babazhook.6805:

Acrobatics does in fact work quite well Pve with a Condition build.

Trait up Pain response with hard to catch and assassins reward in a D/D SOM build with some healing. The escapists absolution coupled with pain response will tend to keep you condition free. You will have Regen coming in from the Pain response at least half the time and this will add to the SOM incoming heals which are significant when using a combination of dodges with impaling or the attacks themselves.

You will have more endurance overall with the feline grace which will have a hundred percent uptime of vigor and for the GM trait any of the three traits in fact work with the build. Asssasins reward for more heals on the DB, Don’T stop to prevent Immobs and will lessen the effects of cripple/chill and even upper hand to gen INI. Added to this swiftness uptime is very good alloing for more on field mobility.

I have flipped back and forth between trickery and Acro in a d/d daredevil build and find Acro gives much better survival and with the added endurance allowing one to get off more impaling Lotus it does not scarifice damage.

The main advantage of d/d in a condition build for a thief is the base length of the bleed at 10 seconds. This means you do not have to limit yourself to a runeset or food that adds bleed durations. Coupled with 3 bleed stacks per death blossom and you can load on a lot of bleeds in short order even as you heal up with the SOM.

the thing is, IMO, it’s pointless to go Venom share (shadow arts) without Potent Poison (deadly arts). No place for Acro + DD.. What will you share? only CC?…

@ blackdirk.1324 that’a a great combination, but a bit too glassy for me.
Also, did you try the Trailblazer armor stats? (expertise is a waste)

what content are trying to do and what’s killing you?
what gear are you using?

Tested on the golems also:
a condi rev is a faster at killing the golem (20s).
It does this by maintaining 10 might stacks + fury on the party, and just auto-attack + mace skill #2 (so not using that Shiro stance, the fast hitting one).

With the venom share I can get close to 20s (bleed and poison duration sigils) but I’m not going in the jungle with 11k hp (rampager ><)

a small update from a random casual:
I finished the personal story with this setup:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl0MhimYzTwzJw+EHtEiv8958hHLqDcYBA-TxwCgAAnAgb1fKXfAA-e

I had no issues, and it was a pretty smooth experience.
Since I have nothing to compare it to, I keep reading the forum and watching youtube movies.

I did however a small test in the mists at the invincible golem: my build kills it in ~30ish seconds.
Then I tested zerk staff power build: I can do it in under 20s.

In a party / group in pve I’m not sure that the venom share is… the wisest choice.
I will keep testing and experimenting a bit more.
Have fun.

and there’s move speed.
signet of shadows? runes? daredevil dodges?

Shadow Arts
This trait line is always a choice because of the Venomous Aura / might on venoms. I fail to understand the utility of the first tier, I did not use stealths in a venom share build so far, so if you got any tips, let me know. Why and how would I use Shadow’s embrace efficiently?.

Deadly Arts
First tier: Hot brought Trapper’s respite but should we get that we lose Dagger Training (33% chance of poison on hit).
Second tier: not much to chose here, maybe Deadly trapper, but it’s questionable if one will use traps in PvE (and chose Trapper’s respite over Dagger Training. And with what heal skill?).
Third tier: Potent Poison?… maybe if we ignore Trap skills and go dagger training, but still the poison duration will be very short.

Third choice for the trait lines:
Daredevil for 1 more dodge and Lotus Training?… I am not sold on this, it seams a waste.

Trickery : Uncathcable (caltrops on dodge), Preparedness (3 more ini), Trickster (more tricks, removes 1 condi)? As far as I know Lead Attacks (+1% dmg / ini point) does not work with condi, and I will usually have no ini to spare. Tier 3 seams meh also.

Acrobatics
Why… what’s happened to this

Still trying to make this work… let me know what I am missing, or if I should just move on.
Cheers

very useful, thank you.

except engi…

Anyone tried it?
I have seen many staff DDs around, and now I may have time to step into the new HoT zones.
What do you guys think?