Guild Wars 2

Despite the fact that I still believe that those patch notes are fake, I like how people complain also when they buffed Steal that much, considering that some of the best Thief’s skill come from Steal.

When fully traited, Steal recharges in 15s, daze your target, is on 1500 range and gives you the environmental weapon (like 3s fear, uh?).

But I know, people needs to always complain.

bladie.5084:

Not according to the “leaked” information :9 And yes I do keep in mind of that.

Leaked information are fake. 97% sure about that, so don’t really trust those info.

bladie.5084:

I’m skeptical if the build has any use at all but the fact that you don’t have any break stuns (other then shadow return on infil strike) you’d lose to a decent thief or ele in the long run. Which i wouldn’t play because those two are the ones i hate losing to, the most.

This is just a concept.
Keep in mind that when you’re running S/x you have always a stunbreaker.

Did you guys (DanH and Zepidel) at least read the OP?
The base concept behind the build isn’t Venom Sharing, but just using venom for the thief. It can be also shared with 30 points in Shadow Arts.

I’ve already pointed out that the heal is 320 HP at least scaling with Healing Power.
The damage, on the other hand, is 317 at least scaling with Power. And those healing and extra damage activates each time you trigger any venom.

Venoms are actually quite useful also when not completely traited. Basilisk Venom and Devourer Venom are always really useful, while Spider Venom is great for poison stacking AND for the fact it triggers 6 times when traited.

I’m trying this build with D/P, which it seems to works quite good.
30/0/30/0/10 looks failry effective (without venom sharing but with Shadow Renjuvenation), expecially when you consider that D/P thief is forced to stack low duration stealth with triggers multiple times the might stacks.

Also, Devourer Venom, Basilisk Venom and Ice Drake Venom seems to work extremely fine with Shadow Shot, overshadowing the lack of any immobilization/snares of the D/P set.

Zepidel.5349:

no it sucks i didn’t even have to read it. Venoms are terrible.

Mature and insightful comment.
Thanks for your contribute.

Hi everyone!
I want to share with you guys just a concept of a build I’m working on, which is based on Venoms’ ability to stack high-duration mights.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VeF3V;1Rw-d0W5BPFd0;9;4T-OE-37B;148-1;9;0CoV3Hgk18BK

Basically, the rune set are like the ones of any HGH engi (so 60% might duration).

The might sources are:
- 20s x 2 from any venom used
- 15s * 2 anytime you stealth
- 15s * 1 anytime you dodge

Also, each time a venom is triggered, you deal ~390 damage due to Steal Health and you’re healed for the same amount of health.

So, stacking up 25 stacks of might and maintain them sounds possible.
You can also put 30 points in Shadow Arts for Venom Sharing to give those high-duration might stacks to your party members too.

The weapon choice is still not sure, as I’m not sure about the jewelry and the main stats spread (conditions or raw damage)?

Any suggestions?

Kaon.7192:

It’d be most likely out-of-date by the time the changes are released, but I wouldn’t be so quick to declare it fake judging from the level of detail.

And some of the changes are actually pretty nice like the new Shadow Trap and Sleight of Hand (others, not so much…), so personally I’m hoping it’s the real deal. Just disappointed they haven’t gotten around to changing Last Refuge yet.

Check the Necromancers change and the topic in the Necromancer’s forum.
There are several proofs of why those patch notes are fake.
If they were true, they are going to make Necromancer the next FotM OP profession.

Those patch notes are probably fake, so chill out.

Zepidel.5349:

you realize there is no Power-Power-Power gear right? Ofcourse power is great but after power you have a choice between precision/crit dmg/ and condi damage for offensive stats. Guess which 2 are better?

and again I’m not bored enough yet to actually do the math on venom share but there’s no in hell its even close to 25-30-x-x-x.

25 in the 1st tree gives a permanent 10% damage increase and 30 in the 2nd gives 20% after 50% hp (again 10% more damage). Not to mention the increased dps from the passive Power and crit/dmg + the talents like +5% dagger damage (250 power is around 13-15% increased damage across the board alone). And of course that tree has TOUGHNESS which is something you want nothing to do with since it effects agrro, something you will have unless there’s a full zerker 100 blade spammer in the group. If you do want to do the math please do or at least get it started and we can all finish it together.

I guess I could start on it later just post the build you use for venom share and ill work off that vs a 25-30-0-15-0 build that I use (yes I realize that 25-30-0-0-15 is more "zerker but all you gain is 3 initial inititiave and 2.8% more crit for your party (fury every 40 seconds or so for 10 seconds when you steal) or like what +8 more power for your party from might it adds?

Venom Share build is usually 30/0/30/0/10.
The only thing you’re giving up to is the 20% damage boost form executioner and 30% critical damage which is easily compensated by the higher might stacking capability (might on stealth + might on venom + might & fury on steal), plus the higher damage venom shares give. Plus you get healing capabilities and conditions.

Also, if you run a build with Might duration runes, your venoms will work just like HGH engies might stacks (20s), except that you have more Venoms and on a shorter recharge.
Plus you have toughness.

Just try it out.

Puru.4217:

30 points in soul reaping = potentially 3s of stability every 5s.

Yeah, without considering the perma-weakness due to Weakening Shroud (which won’t get any change according to those patch notes).

leman.7682:

My builds are getting so strong as well.

This Axe Mastery + Close to Death combination or perma DS Life Blast spam with no points in Curses.

Tainted Shackles will help any build there is with its utility. I can already see locking groups of enemies in Well of suffering on a 28s CD.

Spectral Effects now work in DS – thank Jon Peters, the messiah of Necros.

Spectral Wall + Terror

My head is exploding from the excitement.

Don’t get your hopes high. It will be a delusion once you’ll find out those aren’t the real patch notes.

Also, how it is possible that Death Shroud does not cancel Spectal Effects?
That means that if you enter in Death Shroud with Spectral Armor, the more you take damage, the more your Life Force raises making anyone with this combo unkillable.

Spectral Wall fear on pass? Man, this sounds like “YOU SHALL NOT PASS”. With Life Force too!

Also, where are the changes to Corrosive Poison Cloud? That utility is capable to harm the damage output to a whole team…

Another proof those are fake.
In case those patch notes are real, well… Necromancer is going to be a beast again.

Too good patch notes to be real.
Those are fake for sure… A well made fake, yes, but fake.

Zepidel.5349:

Venom builds suck because the amount of damage you, yourself lose is not even close to what you would add to the parties over damage. If only this game had damage meters…

The PvE meta is all about doing content as fast as possible, since no one ever really dies or needs support. Really go ahead right now and ask yourself whens the last time you thought “We might not be able to finish this dungeon due to our group composition / specs”, you can beat a lvl 50 fractal with 5 bunker guardians or 5 zerker thiefs…

As long as there is no challenging content or a dps meter it wont matter if you spec 0-0-0-0-0. You CAN do venom share but we all know its not as optimal as a pure power damage build.

Lokheit
>Precision is a garbage atribute to get Direct Damage, really, absolutely terrible on its own

you realize how dumb that sounds?

Actually, it is a matter on how you want to deal the damage.
To be honest, if you do the math, the damage output of heavy zerker build and zerker thief with venom share is pretty much the same.

The damage you lose by not having those 30% critical damage and 20% of executioner are spread between condition damage and venom damage (which is also dealt by your teammates).
The fact that you don’t see numbers as high as you’re running full berserker does not mean the damage isn’t there.

frans.8092:

Yesss, I can see it now, “Hey guys, stand all around me for a few secs so I can heal you for 400 and buff you for 2 stack of might”. Wow man, so good.

Did you at least read what I wrote?
It is:
- 2 stacks of might
- 800 to 2600 hp healed (depending on venom)
- 800 to 2600 more damage dealt (depending on venom)
- Conditions applied on every skill used
And this is for each ally affected by your venom and for each venom you use. Also if you succed to use it on just one ally, it is still not bad at all.

I don’t know how you depicted in your mind venom share builds and I can imagine how it is hard to put away your prejudices about this build and the usual stupid sarcasm which is around in the thief forum, but try to think for a couple of seconds about it. Just a couple of seconds.
You’ll realize that it isn’t that bad at all.

To be honest, I don’t see that new conditions given to Mesmers and Thieves as a problem as long as burst builds can’t benefit from it and other professions are effectively put on par.

Condition builds on both Mesmers and Thieves are fairly bad and not that common. Adding a new condition to their arsenal will make them more used and will give those profession a valid alternative to burst builds.

Obviously, I’m hoping that this new condition given to mesmers is coupled with a decent tuning of their burst damage.

Yeah, heals should scale with HP if we want higher HP pool to be a real advantage and I’ll explain you why.

Let’s assume that higher HP pool is given in order to compensate for some lack of other defensive mechanic.

The concept behind Effective HP is that your HPs are more valuable the more you’re capable to defend them. Same can be said about Effective Heals, since the amount of HP restored are better if you lose less HP over time. Basically, the amount of HP and Heals is multiplied by a coefficient which represents the amount of “defensive capability” someone has. We can say that two professions have the same survivability if their EHP (the overall HP pool value) and EH (the ability to restore the HPs) are the same.

So, usually professions with higher HP pools lacks of defensive mechanics other professions with lower HP pools have. So, their coefficient will be more likely lower than the other professions. Let’s say, for instance, that the defensive coefficient is 1.2 for Necros and Warriors (NW), 1.3 for Rangers, Engineers and Mesmers (REM) and 1.4 for Guardian, Thieves and Elementalists (GTE). Other values does not affect the reasoning.

So, EHP-wise, GTE’s lower HP pool is compensated by the higher defensive coefficient, which makes the EHP of all the professions basically the same.

What about EH? The heals are the same on every professions. So, while GTE and REM have an higher coefficient on their heals, NW suffers from a lower defensive coefficient making their heals less effective so, overall, EH of NW professions is lower.

While EHP are the same on all professions, EH are higher on professions with higher HP while it is lower on profession with less HPs.

The solution? Make the heals scaling accordingly with the base HP value.

How can people say Venom Share build is bad?
You are essentialy giving your allies Might stacks with each venom used, plus a bunch of conditions on mobs (expecially weakness, poison and vulnerability).
Plus, each time a venom is triggered, it heals the ally for ~400 hp (depending on YOUR healing power) and deals ~400 more damage (depending on power).
That means that a single Spider Venom is ~400 × 6 heal and more damage, which is 2400 HP healed and 2400 more damage dealt for each ally who gets the venom.
Consider also that you probably have 4 venoms with relative conditions.
And you also deal decent damage, since venom traits are in the power traitline.

Yeah, pretty bad… LOL

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Deathmatch was working in GW1 because of the trinity.
In GW2 classes are too independent. Damage can’t be protted/healed. This mode would have no depth. The only thing I can think of is the healing-book of the guard.

This is absolutely untrue imho.
Take random arena, for instance. That was way way worse than what it could be if it was implemented in GW1. Pretty much you can get many wins if you are lucky enough to get a good monk in your team.

In GW2, Random Arena will work just fine just because the lack of trinity.

Actually, Necro do extremely good in AoE damage while pretty much sucking at single target.
Also, keep in mind that as a Necro it is extremely hard to leave a fight once you engaged it.

Zepidel.5349:

ya i forgot about SR, blinding powder isnt so good its like 1/4 of a SR

But it is instant.
Incredibly useful when panicing or to help an almost dying ally.
To be honest, Thieves have more useful utilities compared to some other professions in PvE.

Venom Share is a good support build in PvE. Not as good as a guardian, sure, but since you’re still able to deal decent damage when running support, it makes that build worth taking.
Don’t understimate Basilisk Venom when shared, neither the permaweakness and the high vulnerability stacks Skale Venom gives.

Roll for Initiative is extremely useful. Who wants some extra initiative to burst down a boss and a “save your kitten ” ability on the same skill?

Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder I think it is pretty hard to argue against their usefulness.

Signet of Agility and Assassin Signet, useful. As you said.

Smoke Screen is a projectile block skill. Extremely useful also considering it is a smoke field.

Ambush is half a Thieves’ Guild with lower cooldown. How can you guys think it is useless?

Shadowstep saves your kitten and cleanse you up. It is useful in some hard situations and I can’t live without it.

Haste is quickness. Quickness is always useful. Always.

The count of useful skill is 13 on 20. I think the situation is not that bad considering we are talking about PvE only.

Also, I think it is irrilevant thatn spamming 3 is not as effective as playing S/D properly when you can get good results also when spamming 3, which is the real issue.

Oidmetala.8426:

oh sorrow, but you have start with this..
well to bad

yes im play always just my op guardian and random dodge at midfight.
i dont finish ppls, also i dont clean condis from my team or safe them with aegis, i dont bubble enemys away from them, i also dont immobilize, rez or give any support to them… also i dont care about the point to dont get a neutralize.

no i just dodge around with my never ending vigor op guardian and never die.
vigor is so kittening op man… and this with only get vigor when i crit with my 5% chance as guardian

but yes, better we have not much dodge, because hgh engi and all the aoe should hit nearly all the time…
lol man i rly dont get what you whant to have, its like talking with a baby
you whant to say all bunker players are noobs or whats the reason of this topic?
maybe you are necro and whant more dodge too?

when you whant less dodge at all, then give me a real reason because why
and say me what to do against this much aoes and burst attacks then,
because they allrdy hit rly much time and they hit hard. i have not perma dodge rdy and i also use this 2 op energy runes.. just lol…
maybe we play different games, then sry for my messages
but you know when you are get a target above your little had, you should be happy about all dodges you have

i also dont talk about ranger, i talk about that vigor and dodge time is well balanced in this game, there is no change need.
and when i was speak about ranger then,
that ranger and thief are the only one who can dodge rly much, the other classes dont have “dodge spam”

just dont know why you dont start to play one of this mighty vigor specs

btw its a good idea with just play the main class 1000 tournament games…
you should do that, because its maybe enough to be able to handle nearly each situation with you class and feel safe with it

also dont get whats the real problem at this topic, because when all have vigor rdy, why its not fine then?

atm all classes are tournamet viable
only hard to go with is warrior

ah and i also whant more build viable, but less vigor or dodge at all is just lol…
also nerfs are fail… because nerfs are the reason why ppls stop to play this game…
buff bad builds whould make the game interesting

if anet is stupid enough to do a dodge or less vigor change,
then i look for next game where i can have fast and dynamic fights
dont need a slow stand around game

and pls stop read or understand my messages just like 50% sorrow…
your answers me things i have never write-.-
maybe my engl or your engl is to bad

Man, you are talking about perma vigor given to professions like Guardian, Mesmers and Elementalists like they don’t have any other defensive mechanic.

It’s kinda ok when a Thief, which doesn’t really have any other defensive mechanics, have more dodges than other professions. But it is sad when Elementalists, with all their boons, damage mitigation skills and heals have their ridicolous access to vigor too. Same we can say about Mesmers (with their 20% invulnerability uptime thanks to BF), stealth, clones and boons or Guardians.

If you don’t see the problem, you might want to try out the Necromancer.

Nerf is not the reason of why people stop playing this game. Nerfs are the reason of why people keep playing it. Just imagine if Thieves did not get their nerfs. Hell, we would still see instagibs thieves all around tournaments, hotjoins and WvWvW. Nerfs are needed as are buffs. Your vision of balance is incredibly spoilt.

Fast dynamic doesn’t mean spamming dodges. Spamming dodges mean just… spamming dodges. It is harmful to the competitive side of this game.
The game needs to reward well timed dodges, not people who just get their endurance bar always empty and when dodges are that easy to access, they usually reward the latter kind of players.

Oidmetala.8426:

so at first i dont play bm ranger at tpvp, i dont care any more what anet do with this class, because ranger will be patched into ground for only reason all hate this class and dont know how to handle it. so my post is not to defend ranger how you think

where i have write evades are not important in high level play?
i have write evade is important and its most important for the ranger because its only good skills he have.
and thats why i think ranger is not so good in a tourny team, because its easy to play out. just dont give him the 1vs1 he whant. pet is only dmg and need to long for kill most builds… in this time the team have win the midfight what whould be nice
or they lost it and enemy team come back and kill this ranger at there home.

yes im random forum folk, and im happy about that to dont waste so much time like the guys you know meanwhile.
i prefer to play instead talk so much in forums.
but kitten topics like this makes me hate, and how you talk like knowing all classes and builds well and the game mechanic, no sry, but never
well look at eu ladder u find me there… so im not random hot join guy like you for this point…

and i dont missed the fail theme of this topic..
you guys whant less dodge for play your burst classes with less brain use…
you whant nobody can dodge your standard dmg combo… so u dont have to think how to attack enemy players… you dont whant to use the brain and think about what skills enemy player can use and dont look when the enemy player used his skills for attack with the burst at right time

No, man. No.
Nobody cares about what you are and what rank you have in the ladder, since having a high rank in the ladder does not mean you have a thinking brain and that you can see the situation without any bias.
One can just play its OP or FotM profession all the day long, getting tousands of tournament wins and, still, say “this game is perfectly fine, no need for balance as long as I play my profession”. So, better you keep playing instead of delighting us with such a pearl of worthlessness and forum rage.

The topic brings a real issue of this game, which is how vigor is easily available to most the professions and how dodging is cheap, which encourage spamming more than timing.
The topic isn’t more about rangers, as you understood, which makes dodging and evading one of their main defensive mechanics, than about Guardians, Elementalists, Mesmers and Engineers who all gets perma vigor up allowing to spam dodges on demand. The title of the topic isn’t “nerf rangers”, neither “remove evades from rangers” or “rangers OP”.
The title is “Is dodge rolling too accessible?”, which pretty much sums up what the OP want us to discuss about.

About the latter part of your posts, your logic is kinda broken.
I don’t see how burst profession need to use twice the brain because dodge-tank professions can just spam their evades like no tomorrow. We don’t want burst professions to have easy life, we just want that evade-tanks needs to work as hard as burst professions to get the same results.

Legacy.7360:

I totally agree with revisiting Class Traits. Keep things fresh, keeps the game feeling “new” and interesting. Coming back to the same Cookie cutter builds for all Classes cause the other traits are really useless in comparison shows lack of ingenuity and creativity Anet.

I hope for the sake of this game, when the big patch you supposedly will announce with Class balance and trait allocation/renewal. It isn’t bland and just focused on 2 classes.

Every Class and some weapon sets needs help/adjustments. Lets Keep this Game Fresh.

/Sign The Community

This is true.
Back in GW1, when the balancing approach was different (huge balance patches and whole profession reworks in some), I found it extremely more entertaining.
Each balance patch made it looks like to play an entirely new game, built a whole new meta and kept the game fresh, as you said. You can experience entirely new builds and gamestyles each month after the balance patch.

I don’t know why they left this way to balance things. Now the game feels old, the builds are always the same, the traits worth using too… ANet done a lot wrong in this game, despite its huge potential, imho.
Let’s see and wait, maybe they change their mind.

Oidmetala.8426:

yes thats true
its nothing for soloq and hot join players

No, because it is only a barely-readible ranger rant with from poor to no logic behind it bringing pretty much nothing into the discussion.

I don’t care, as I think none do, how you think that evades are not important in high level play and how weak and joke-ish rangers are if you don’t give any kind of explaination or reasoning of what you say. Your personal experience isn’t really a reasoning. You’re just a random forum folk nobody knows like everybody here.
To my eyes, you can be also the most casual player in this world who enjoys to go rampant and elitist in the forums.

Also you completely missed the point of the whole topic, since it isn’t really tied to ranger in particular, but how vigor is easy to access to most profession and how dodge went from a precious resource to a spammable and noob-friendly defensive mechanic.

That’s why your huge wall of text isn’t worth reading.

That wall of text above isn’t worth reading. Trust me.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

As easy as it is to dodge C&D, I really don’t see how that is cheap access to stealth. Maybe hitting crates in Khylo or the treb, but C&D is 6 initiative, and you have to use on someone to access stealth. BP + HS, is an easier way to get into stealth but harder on your initiative.

Also, D/D doesn’t really bring any team utility. The least D/P can give to a team is a blind stomp. That is more viability than D/D, and a better reason to bring D/P over D/D.

It’s a matter of choices. Both have its advantages and disadvantages.
D/P has more pricey stealth access, while D/D is cheaper but it requires a target to be performed. Honestly, I don’t think it is that hard to land a CnD. This game is full of AI controlled entities. You can land your CnD or ranger’s pet, on mesmer’s clones, minions, spirit weapons, turrets, ranger roots… Pretty much everything that can be hit. You don’t necessarily need to land it on a playing character.
CnD is actually 4 initiative if you succed to land it (2 initiative are given back once you succed), while the Black Powder combo need at least 7 initiative (6 for powder, 3 for heartseeker and 2 given back) to have only 3 second of stealth, one less compared to CnD.

I don’t really think you can call Black Powder a proper “team utility”. Most profession have access to their safe stomp abilities, they don’t really need you to use Black Powder on a downed guy. To be honest, none asked me to use it to get a stomp and it probably would sound silly…

D/D isn’t unviable. I still use it over D/P because it has easier and cheaper access to stealth (4 ini when traited vs 5+ ini) that means easier and faster backstabs, plus the snare provided by DD.

If you want to know what unviable really mean, try Necro’s Axe MH.

Travlane.5948:

from the videos ive gathered this is what i see: (first off cant tell if thats sarcastic as it loses tone and depth due to plain black and white reading) but anyway what i gather from the official videos/interviews is that they usually hypothesize and run numbers etc but never use the scientific method or use controls etc very “observational” only. the actual test comes in once they form a general consensus and put it into effect. the actual community is the test. kind of like when they nerfed stealth :P didnt work so well. or rather too well. and had to revert it in some areas. not only that it killed spvp stealth builds. hence why they are really ever played.

I guess that HB got nerfed, because ArenaNet listens to the community and people said HB is OP the first months.
Also, I guess Necros will have vigor and more mobility next patch? It’s not like ANet said “we are not going to give mobility to necros anyway” despite the fact that anyone agrees he needs it.
Also, why Moa Morph is still there? I think that anyone except mesmers agree that skills shouldn’t be in the game at all.

So no, ANet doesn’t balance around what people say.
They just check if something everyone is complaining about is really overpowered and nerf it accordingly. They can be right, they can be wrong. But, usually, when they’re wrong, they fix the problems the next patch.

Thief was nerfed probably because people complained for a real reason, not because “bads QQ in the forums, L2p”.

Travlane.5948:

you guys wanted so many nerfs….this is what u left the thief class with. a roamer build. and a spam 3 3 3 3 3 in spvp build….and thats nto what was left its what was given to us bc of our nerfs.

Like thief was nerfed because community asked for it…
It’s not that ArenaNet nerf and buff things according to their testing…

ensoriki.5789:

Not really feeling you here. While I agree with all the skills they touched being touched for a reason. That doesn’t mean it was done well. The circumstances that justified some nerfs have changed. PW nerf? Quickness has now been nerfed, Mug has been nerfed. The PW +Mug & Haste build has had all 3 aspects changed as of the previous balance patch.

Venom share is niche and it is not S/P exclusive you can run it with S/D. It’s hard to slot yourself in as a venom spec.

This is not a balanced environment, it is quite clear that it is not and if “Competitive means that the only thing which matters should be skill, not your class” then you still cannot say this. Your builds are tied to your class, and weapons are a part of that. Weapons clearly becoming niche/underpowered how can you stand by your statement that Competitive means only thing that matters is skill when it clear isn’t and underpowered specs are the flip side of the coin to overpowered specs in balance.

In addition as far as weapons themselves, skill usability should not decrease as it has. In efforts to balance dancing dagger they’ve practically taken it out of use, the skill is heavily unused, not for lack of wishing we could use it but this profession is based on opportunity cost for weapon skills and it is seldom worth it. If we had 100 initiative then sure tossing out Dancing Daggers is no problem, but we do not and throwing out Dancing dagger can literally cost you a fight.

I’ve said that I still think that this game isn’t balanced yet.

I’ve also said why I think Pistol Whip was a fair nerf.
Pistol Whip, back prior to nerf, had the same DPS of HB (keep in mind that PW takes less time to channel) while having also a stun and an evade. There was no reason that a skill with so much utilities was able to deal that damage, it’s simple.

Dancing Dagger was completely broken before the nerf, not only overpowered. It was pretty obvious.
Right now, DD has its use which is the real use it was supposed to have by design: a snare. You don’t want to use DD as your damage skill, neither to finish off a target. You would use it just to cripple a running away target and it does its job fine.

randomfightfan.4091:

Lol, looks like you just want every class to be the same and have no diversity in this game then. We can do that too and sound just as silly.

Mesmers and guardians need nerf. They have too much access to aiges and invulnerability. Not to mention mesmer has higher hp and guard has better armor! Mesmers also get a TON of summons to dish out damage and confuse their enemies. Both get zounds of boons and share them with friends! This game won’t be balanced until thieves get the same supply of sustainable summons as mesmer, tankyness as guard, and boons of both!

Sorry to burst your bubble but that’s class diversity. Thieves have more stealth, mesmers have more clones and invuln, guards have more tank, support, and passive damage. Mes and guard have copious amounts of aiges and block while thieves have a healthy supply of evades. You’re hating on class diversity and it’s making you look like a troll.

I wonder why people jump into topics without reading the setting in such an aggressive way.

I repeat this another time, once for all.
I DID NOT ASKED TO NERF THIEVES STUNBREAKERS.

All I said in this topic is answering to someone who said thieves are susceptible to CC, saying it was a lie.

Understood?

Azraeel.1238:

@Sorrow, there few issues that you might encounter using that build, as you spread yourself a bit thin:
1- You won’t be able to heal effectively in stealth (Missing 30 points in SA), and so you will need to be quick with your skills for not to lose major health chunks once you are exposed.

2- To be able to perform a backstab, you need a D/x with the S/x set. If you engage with D/x, switching back to S/x will get you nowhere, you are exposed to burst damage, and if two people have immobilize they can make your fight pretty tough, and you might end up with not enough initiatives to perform your stealth combo (D/P) or CnD (D/D) once you switch back to that set. So I believe you are way better off with one specific set, unless you need S/x to remove boons, then go for the kill with other set. But to have S/X only for the shadowstep, is kind of futile in my opinion.
3- In zergs, without a Shortbow and healing in stealth, AOE will make it very tough for you to engage in close combat. Even if we suppose you managed to go in, attack few, then back out. The number of people you will tag is nowhere close than shortbow.

In theory, the way you put things up sound good, however, how feasible and effective are they when you try them out all together? Do you actually use this build?

I don’t need the D/ bursting capability.
I usually run 0/30/15/25/0 with Shortbow + S/D or D/D according to the enemy you’re facing (so if you’re facing a team with many Eles/Guardians, I switch to sword, dagger otherwise).

30 in Shadow Arts isn’t really needed that much.
The heal you take from stealth is easily balanced by the lower cooldown of Withdraw, with also its ability to disengage the fight.

It’s just a matter of choices. Either you run a more stealth-reliant build with 30 in Shadow Arts or you invest your traitpoints in Acrobatics renouncing to some stealth capability, but, still, you can have a bit of them both.

lLobo.7960:

There is no way a thief can survive fights in wvw without 30 in shadow arts. Yes, you can go full GC and get some unaware lonely wanderer, but you won’t be able to keep yourself in a fight that last longer than 10s (against minimum decent opponents) without the health regen in stealth. You dont have enough HP to stay in combat.

I tried 0/15/30/25/0 (s/d//d/p), and while it has great survivability it lacks dmg burst to get people down. And in bigger fights you cant do much without a shortbow. Its a great build to just survive untill your opponent gets bored or help arrive. I’ve fought good d/d eles and bunker engies/guards for more than 20min with this.

IS and SE are not really reliable as cond. cleanse. They work great, but if you get unloaded by a cond ranger, engi or necro you cant afford to stealth for the next 30s to remove it all, or spam IS untill you use all your ini. HiS is the best cond cleanse thiefs get, besides runes of Lyssa. The biggest threat to a thief is dmg conditions as we have really low HP, when you have all that bleed/poison/burn ticking you need to get it all out ASAP and not one by one over the next 10-20s at the cost of your ini and/or escape utility.

And hiting a CnD requires as much skill as it takes to dodge/block it. Even more when you are in a lagfest with the zerg nearby…

And not to mention, if you change swap your weapon from s/x to d/x in combat to get a burst out, you are out of your stun breaker for the next 10s and might have to set it again when you get back to s/x.

As I said, you’re not running both weapon set. S/x bursting capability isn’t bad in any form.

Also, you can live without 30 in SA. Withdraw is a great escape healing skill which can easily overcome (with also the vigor it gives) to the absence of healing in stealth.
IS+SS+stealth is reliable to cleanse you up just like HiS+Stealth.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I am going to put this Caltrops and DD thing to rest.

What I do know, is they said maybe in the 1st or 2nd SOTG, that they wanted to take priority of feedback, or most of it from the players that get invited, or players that are high ranked on the QP Leaderboard.

I keep bringing this and the Mug nerf up because one of the guests said, and this is a partial quote "I feel bad for beginner players that get bursted by that combo, and they don’t even know what to do. It’s so sad…”. At the time whoever said it, I agreed, because I am guilty of going in hot-joins and finding low rank players and just spiking them.

As you said, they use player feedback as something to look back on, knowing players considerations, and their feedback.

Well, this isn’t exactly true.
They take the feedback from the whole playerbase, both high ranked, newbies and WvWvW players, because everyone needs to be listened as everyone plays this game.

Don’t forget also that this is a game. A game has to be fun. So, if there is something not fun to play against, it is fair and right to take a look at.
Also, this game in particular, aims to be a competitive game. Competitive means that the only thing which matters should be skill, not your class. So if a build is too much effective at lower skill levels, it should be adjusted to be rewarding if played right and punshing if played wrong.

I think nobody can deny that thieves prior to nerfs were extremely easy to play and extremely effective at the same time.

lLobo.7960:

This is like saying that a warrior can have the best burst with axe while keeping the best mobility with GS//Sw/wh and still have shield stance and endure pain, while ignoring conditions from traits and food/runes.

A thief that goes 15 in acrobatics will have lower burst due to not having the 30pts on CS or lower survivability for the lack of 30 in SA.
If a thief has sword MH for the “endless” stunbreaker it won’t have dps from dagger main hand (and BS).
Using withdrawn on WvW makes you very vulnerable to conditions as HiS is the only (dmg)cond. removal most x/d builds use. Also, you loose one more source of stealth.
And yes, avoiding swings is hard when you need to be in melee range to get your BS or CnD off. Thats the real advantage of d/p, stealth away of melee range.

But no. there is no 30/30/30/30/30 build with s/d//d/d//p/d//sb having endless dodges, stunbreakers, stealth and 10k bs crit with mug + CnD and tons of hp/armor…

You don’t need to have 30/30/30/30/30 to have the best of all traits.
30 in critical strike is more than enough to have good damage.
15 on Acrobatics are more than enough to have almost endless dodges.
15 in Shadow Arts are enough to have longer stealth times and condition cleansing on stealth.
Still, you have 10 traitpoints left to spend where you want to.
As you can see, you’re able to have the best of the thief defensive capabilities with 70 traitpoints.

You have access to two weapon sets. If you want the damage of BS and endless stunbreaker, take them both as weapon sets. Obviously you’re renouncing the shortbow, but you have to renounce something for both endless stunbreakers and high burst capabilities. Anyway, S/D does deal good damage, don’t make it look it isn’t true.

Having Withdraw doesn’t necessarily mean you have no condition cleansing.
Don’t forget that IS, Shadowstep and Shadow’s Embrace are still there offering condition removals.

As for CnD, I think it doesn’t require to much skills to land your CnD then get away of the place you stealthed. As for D/P, as you said, you can stealth out of melee range if it is a problem.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

There was definitely complaints about backstab, but that was not the problem. The complaints about mug outweighed the ones for backstab.

I can only think of 1 maybe 2 builds that use C&D. P/D condis and D/D burst (if it still exists). There are so many better options for a gap closer than DD, it is just a waste of initiative. 4 initiative for for 4s-6s cripple, might as well use heart seeker, or use infiltrator signet.

Caltrops is just bleed and cripple. In a tPvP setting that won’t work in the thieves favor when their team is going to have 101 ways to clear condis.

And my point with this thread was their balance philosophy is a little off. They know they should be taking feedback from players that have been playing the game for a long, but they still neglect more than half of feedback.

The recent change to mug was done to cater to beginner players, I have said this…5 times now? It had very little to do with tPvP balance. S/D was given viability to buffer. D/P still suffers from trying to be a part of team. Where does a thief fit in? I need a S/D ele to burst with (from stealth) me or a mesmer to make it look like I am doing something.

Actually DD is more useful than heartseeker. Sure, you can spam heartseeker or Infiltrator’s Signet to close the gap, but as long as you have no swiftness (or you both have swiftness), the enemy will still be out of melee range and you’re forced to use heartseeker again or another gap closer, making the initiative cost way higher compared to the DD. DD works as it is supposed to be: a snare to cripple running away targets.

Caltrops is bleed and cripple without you needing to use any attack to apply them.
Condition cleansing isn’t that prominent as you’re depicting it, otherwise I think that we wouldn’t see any HGH engineer or BM bunker ranger.

They take feedback of players, but you’d know that single players are sometimes biased. They both listen to the community and high-end players but at the end of the day, they do what they thing it is the best balance-wise, considering obviously the feedback.
If Mug didn’t really needed a nerf, we wouldn’t see it nerfed. Just look at Hundred Blades. How many complains were about it at the first months of the game? Still, Hundred Blades is untouched.

I think no profession is supposed to burst down a point holder alone that quickly, especially if it is a good one. Mesmer right now are on the very strong side of balance, I would bet they will be adjusted soon or later, because they pretty much took the role of a Thief in tPvP. As you can imagine, if the thief has no role isn’t always linked to the fact that thief is weak, but because probably someone else stronger has taken his role.
Buffing the thief will make the thief meta rise again (you know how popular were thief prior to the nerfs), which is someone none wants, just like the mesmer meta which is going on these days.

Nerfs were fair, buffs also more or less, it’s just that the game isn’t balanced yet.

Youkay.5294:

Thieves have access to a few stun breaks.

How many times do we have to do this discussion again? This is false, false, false, false.
They have the best access to stunbreakers in this game.

Youkay.5294:

All they have is stealth, and they can still be hit easily while in stealth.

False.
They have also insane dodging capability (15 points in Acrobatics, Withdraw and Vigorous Recovery).
Also, it is false that they can be hit easily while in stealth. A thief who doesn’t want to be hit while stealthed, doesn’t get hit. You make avoiding blind swings and random AoE looks hard.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Okay, I was pointing out that they have constantly nerfed thieves. I know that C&D and DD were too strong for where they were at. But look at them now? In sPvP, they are practically useless.

Caltrops cannot/did not do that. Any team that had one condi clear removed them. D/D Caltrops is all bleed damage, it was not that strong. Pistol Whip was and is very linear.

S/P was used for Venom Share, and controlling a target with basi venom. Mug is instant burst damage, you are right. And again, the only players that complained about this skill were the ones who didn’t know how to play against thieves.

I am not crying, I am just stating the above. Constant nerfs/buffs does not help. Listening to a specific crowd of the community doesn’t help either. Whether that be the oldest or newest players. The worst or the best players. Everyone should feel free to express their feedback and feel like it is being heard.

Oh and S/D, to be straight-forward and honest, if this ability gets nerfed with out something to buffer, thieves will effectively have one viable build again.

They aren’t that useless. CnD is still the most cheap source of stealth thieves have, while DD is good as a snare, as I said, which thieves lack in any melee weapon set.

Caltrop is constant bleed application.
It pulses every second applying bleed, which is the main source of damage of condition builds. Having it on a node will force anyone inside that node to go away, because condition cleansing isn’t enough to overcome the constant bleed application. But the most important point is that you did not need to expose yourself to constantly apply AoE bleeding.

People did not complained about Mug. People complained about backstab. If ArenaNet really listened to the community when balancing the game, you would probably have your backstab damage nerfed now.
Point is that an huge portion of people has more chances to be right. So, it may happen that ArenaNet take decisions that looks like influenced by the community complains, but that’s probably because it is the best thing to do, not because they base their balance decisions of what the community says.

S/D needs either to steal a single boon, or to remove only the boons or to have its initiative cost increased.
The buff to FS pathing is huge by itself (it pretty much works like a leap now), I don’t think it will fall underused if it will have some adjustments.

data.4093:

sorrow.2364:

How stupid thief forum frequenters are?

Please, tell me another profession which has a stunbreaker on no cooldown (Shadow Return).

It isn’t on no cooldown, you have to have shadow return ready. And swap works the exact same way on mesmer.

Tell me another profession which has the same access to no-casting-time teleports which save your kitten when you are under CC.

Mesmer and guardian both do.

Tell me another profession with the same access to stealth (you cannot be CCed when in stealth unless the CC is AoE and nobody wastes an AoE CC if they aren’t entirely sure they will hit the target).

Mesmers don’t stealth?

This whole thread got kinda weird. Regarding CC- no profession is going to get bogged down by 1 person casting CC, that would make CC broken. When a thief gets hit by a group casting CC, that’s usually it unless the thief acts quickly. It’s just that some of you seem to think CC should be the end of everything. “Yes I stunned him! Now I’ll just- HEY no fair!”

You missed a part in both of the quotes. SAME ACCESS.
The fact that mesmers have 2, maybe 3 stealth skills or Guardians have maybe 2 teleports does not mean they can stealth and teleport as much as a Thief.

Regarding Shadow Return, you want to have it always up in order to be able to retreat and stunbreak when needed so, essentialy, it has no cooldown.
Use it to engage, keep it up while you’re fighting and, once it expires, use it again and keep it always up to save your kitten when needed. It isn’t had to have it always available.

In my opinion, all the nerfs were right. So are the buff (excluding FS).

1. Pistol Whip: it isn’t all about damage. Pistol Whip has also two utilities. It was able to deal the DPS of Hundred Blades (obviously considering its shorter duration) while having an evade and a stun in it. That skill pretty much had anything. They decided to nerf the damage while mantaining its utility. Now the damage of Pistol Whip isn’t amazing, just average, but the utilities make the difference. An all-in-one skill isn’t healthy in any skillbar.

2. Dancing Dagger: that skill was ridiculous prior nerf. A couple of DD thrown at someone ressing another player were able to completely wipe them both. They nerfed the damage to be consistent on what the skill was supposed to be: an utility, a snare.
It is pretty useful against the one who are running away, especially when you consider that D/D lacks any form of movement impariment skills. The fact that the damage is insignificant now doesn’t mean that the skill hasn’t it’s use.

3. Cloak and Dagger: pretty much what I’ve said about DD. It is an utility and dealt also amazing damage. It was also the skill present in the backstab combo. Considering that an UTILITY SKILL was able to deal 5k+ damage prior the nerf, the damage adjusting seems fair to me.

4. Caltrops: be serious. That skill allowed to wipe an entire group of enemies while staying in stealth. It was incredibly easy to play and incredibly effective plus, when traited, any thief would be able to mantain caltrops on the floor almost 100% uptime. Adding this with the uncatchable trait, any bleed thief would wipe you while not going out of stealth a single time. The nerf was needed and thank god it came.

5. Mug: that skill dealt 5k damage instantly. Coupled with the backstab combo, any thief would be capable to deal 11k+ damage in a fraction of a second and then finish the target spamming heartseeker. That was sick. While they did not made Mug useless (2k heal is useless?), they just decreased its offensive capability (which thief surely doesn’t lack) while giving some devensive use.

Now Flanking Strike is too much effective. It completely punish the use of ANY BOON in this game and some professions completely rely on them to be effective.
An S/D thief has more boons of a Guardian, an Ele and more might stacks than an HGH engi.

Nerfs are as needed as buffs. If ArenaNet left the game as it is, we would see only the same overperforming profession in both PvP, WvWvW and PvE, killing, in fact, any form of game variety.

So stop cry about nerfs and get used to play into a balanced environment.

Scylas.7692:

I have recently formed a new sPvP team with the aim if competing at the highest level of play. I truly enjoy the feel and play of the Thief class but many of my teammates are concerned that thieves are slightly weak after recent nerfs. I do not feel this is true but am not quite knowledgeable enough to be sure of myself.

So my question to you knowledgeable sPvP’ers; are thieves viable and if so, what role do they fulfill?

As a side note; how are Mesmer’s doing and what role are they filling?

Any info, builds, etc will be much appreciated! Thanks for sharing your wisdom:)

Thieves are far from weak.
They still retain the best mobility in this game, so they are amazing roamers, while being the best boon-hate profession.
Run 0/30/15/25/0 or 0/30/20/20/0 with S/D and enjoy some stability and protection of that guardian you always hated or those delicious 25 might stacks of that HGH engineer.

Mesmer has always been the most used profession in this game in PvP. Pretty much because while Thief burst was nerfed, Mesmer shatter burst is still there.
The build which is rampant (and with rampant, I mean 98% of the mesmers run that), is S/x + Staff shatter. Must have traits are Mental Torment, Deceptive Evasion, Precise Wrack, Critical Infusion. Other traits are of your choice.

Sol.4310:

If you want them to change the CD and nerf everything to do with our tank, give us more damage to make up for the lose of tank.

Reason we need the heavy tanking skills is we DO NO DAMAGE…..

No. It’s because tanking is overpowered, so there is no point to run something which is less performing.

Buffing damage to compensate the tank build nerf will make another OP build raise. Balance doesn’t exactly works like that.

Ranger damage isn’t overall bad. Point is that tanking is better, period.

Arganthium.5638:

If you guys really can’t catch a stealthed thief in WvW, after all these months…

… I usually try to avoid saying this, but really, L2P.

Actually, the situation is quite different.
The one who needs to learn to play is the Thief who gets hit by random swings and AoE, not the one who can’t hit an invisible entity.
Just half a brain is needed to avoid the damage dealt by some people throwing their skills randomly, not even skills.

It is actually harder to get permastealth combofinishing into smoke field than avoiding the attacks.

Stealth.9324:

Well, put all the argument aside, please tell us how to survive as an Eles while we are not as healthy as Warrior, not as tanky as Guardian, not as mobile as thief nor as burst dam kittenter. We are squishy as a Fish, deal dams as wet noodle, with Health pool as low as a joke whilst being forced into meele. So please tell us Eles how to survive with the idea??

I bet Ele will survive also without the dodge spamming-vigor.
It’s not like he has the best heals and condition removals in the game, a fair amount of evades on the weapon set and some nasty defensive skill (see Auras).

LumAnth.5124:

You have a point there.

I guess I’m looking at it in a bigger picture. (Theoretically) if a yak does get in SM/Tower/Keep, the enemy has more supply. More supply = better defenses. Although, we would have to factor in randoms taking supply to repair a wall that is constantly being trebbed.

Also, when I know I can’t win, or have attempted an attack and lost, I won’t come back. I don’t mind giving them loot. It’s just I’m wayyyyy to lazy to run back from a Waypoint. In my mind, they won, I lost, I’ll stop hitting them.

A thief who escaped isn’t a dead Thief.

In WvWvW, he’s still in the area. He doesn’t lose 5-10 mins of its time to come back again to annoy your Dolyaks.

He’s still there, roaming in your territory. You saved one yak, sure, but now he’s probably going to kill the next one, probably heading to your keep instead of the SM.

Same applies to PvP. You manage to repell your enemy but he’s still there around the corner. You did not gained any point for your team. You did not definitely repelled the attack. You did not forced your enemy to stay down for 15s to wait the respawn counter.

You didn’t win. You just had the grace to be left alone, which is way different from a win.

It is more or less like, during a chess match, your opponent leaves the match when he’s with only the king and a rook alive, saying “Sorry, I’ve got to go. We’ll do this match again later”, then he scrambles all the pieces on the chessboard.

You don’t know how I’d like a 5vs5 HA.
If they make that, I’m probably going to lose my social life.

Jack of Tears.9458:

And they shouldn’t be able to, they got their strengths and weaknesses, we got ours. If it’s just a matter of feeling cool, if the Thief has to run away because ya beat her down to almost nothing, you still won.

Win is subjective. In fact, if the thief manage to run away:
1. He isn’t locked to respawn time to be useful again to his team. He would probably run to another node in tPvP/sPvP or he can just wait to re-engage with more manpower.
2. He doesn’t give you badges and he doesn’t have to pay the repair costs in WvWvW.

I can’t really see how this can be considered a win. Psychological win, maybe?
To my point of view, Thief won.

Geff.1930:

Here is the rest of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceXrxaU-V08

Didn’t know rangers were capable to mantain that amount of bleed stacks only with autoattack. I’d like to know your gear and trait setting.
Guaranteed it is not possible on other professions. As I said, SB ranger is an exception.

Geff.1930:

Here is video proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHZL1ZzE8

Note I did not use haste or sharpening stone, just normal basic attack.

Those are 4 seconds. I bet the 11 bleed stack will surely vanish an instant after you ended the video.