Guild Wars 2

Bring contemplation of purity.
Now Corrupt Boon is insanely weak.

It’s not like that Thieves have Larcenous Strike on no cooldown and Mesmer have Arcane Thievery…

Lafiel.9372:

Considering moa has a super long CD and that it has a relatively short duration, I think it is working as intended.

Yeah, you’re probably right.
I think, in this case, they should give Necromancer an elite skill which transforms the enemy in a little ambient Spider Hatchling (you know, the ones who gets 500k damage on any hit).
OP? No, you silly boy! It would be on a 5 minutes cooldown and 3 seconds duration! Perfectly fine and working as intended.

evilapprentice.6379:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAsYlYmKOHcS6E/5Ex2jdKUeqVgmdP4qVrKA-ToAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNIY+B

Recall how I’ve said, time and time again, that CS and LS are the only skills that hit hard? I hope so, because it’s about to come up.

Please compare the numbers you made up to the cold hard facts I’ve provided in the above link. “1.5k average” (especially against a bunker) is a pipe dream, and silly to just make up considering anyone has access to gw2skills. Also note most S/D thieves don’t run 10 points in DA and Assassins sig (preferring 10 trickery and Inf sig), so 90% of the S/D thieves are hitting significantly weaker (280 power weaker, to be clear) than the above link (which still isn’t striking for “1.5k average”). I suppose a 1.5k Slash crit on a target under 50% and at around 2000-2200 armor is pretty doable, but not “Average”.

You shouldn’t just be dodging – you should be trying to fight them in between the dodges. Bunkers win fights due to attrition… is this your first day? You’ve grown too accustomed to spamming boons because pre-patch, they had absolutely no downside.

Also, If you’re fighting multiple people, tough kittening luck. By your argument, any strong but avoidable skill needs a nerf because other people might be fighting around you. Bola->HB’s /Eviscerate is broken, Swap->BF is broken, etc etc etc… Prioritize your dodges the way you want, but no crying one skill isn’t worth dodging and yet still too powerful.

I’m sorry you don’t like the initiative system. I’m sorry you don’t like that there are no longer 0 downsides to maximizing boons/duration. Now that there are opportunity costs associated with spamming boons the game is better for it – I’d suggest getting used to it, because ANet agrees.

In case you missed the post, I don’t play any boon-based Bunker.
By my argument, it doesn’t mean that any strong but avoidable skill needs a nerf, it only means that any strong and spammable skill needs a nerf.

There were downside into spamming boons also before the FS path. Those downsides were called Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption.

Now, tell me how it is worth to even think to use those skills over FS spamming Thief as a counter to boons.

I’ll help you. Let’s compare just corrupt boon (more similiar to FS due to the fact they are both single target):
1. LS has higher boon removed/time ratio.
2. LS is more reliable and forgiving. Once you miss the first or it gets dodged, it can be used again because the boon removals are split into multiple, lower costing, casts.
3. LS deals more damage compared to Corrupt Boon.
4. LS is a weapon skill, that means you have one more utility slot.
5. LS can be also used for devensive purposes due to evade.

You can compare this also to Spinal Shivers and you can find that most the points applies to that skill too, with even more downsides.

Now that we compared LS to another boon-hate skill, which is from a profession that is supposed to be the bane of any boons, how can you say that LS isn’t overperforming?

Balancing isn’t only about having a counter, it is also about how it performs compared to similiar skills.

Caruz.6389:

I still really unable to comprehend how does ANet consider what and which to be nerfed. How they approach in making the decision to actually implement it. But Alas; it is their decision and we can not do anything about it. We could only enjoy the game which is provided by Anet itself. May it be the favourable content or unfavourable content. So be it. Just enjoy the game.

I can guess that the “balancing process” is more or less this (as it is the only possible hypothesis imho):

1) Individuation of an imbalance
This is based around community feedback, high-level players’ feedback, stats about utilization and meta diffusion.

2) “Validation” of an imbalance
Once a possible imbalance is spotted, they have to realize if it is really an imbalance or not. To do so, I think they do mathematical comparisons between similiar builds/skills, they test the incriminated spec into different environments and, finally, lead to a final sentence about the case which can lead either to a balancing measure (nerf/buff) or to just move on.

3) Balancing measures testing
After they realized the imbalance, they needs to scratch up some possible balance fixes to the skill. They make different hypothesys and test them to finally find the best solution to the problem.

4) Patch

This is pretty much what I think there is behind the balance process (and, actually, behind any problem solving).
Some of the steps I’ve quoted are confirmed (like the internal testing of the balancing measures), the other are pure speculation but they are most likely to be true.

RoterFuchs.9216:

sorrow.2364:

Seriously people, if ArenaNet nerf Thieves it is probably because they need a nerf.
It’s not like that such a big software house buff and nerf professions based on sympathy.

That argument… oh geez. Because big companies always know whats best. Especially in any rpg-like games. It has never ever happened in any such game that something was nerfed or buffed too hard. Never. No. Of course not. ._.

I’ve not said that. I’ve said that is stupid to remotely consider the hypothesis of anet balancing professions based on sympathy. It may happen that something is overnerfed or over buffed, but it rarely happens that something is nerfed when it didn’t need a nerf.

The kitten in this topic is strong.

Seriously people, if ArenaNet nerf Thieves it is probably because they need a nerf.
It’s not like that such a big software house buff and nerf professions based on sympathy.

I also laughed at the “golden child” sentence in the OP.
You really need to read the definition of balance change.

evilapprentice.6379:

I agree “Just dodge it” is generally a poor argument – You usually have incentive to dodge a whole bunch of things, and pointing out “you can dodge X!” does nothing in particular for how you’re supposed to deal with the rest of the abilities. This case however is different – you can literally ignore every strike that isn’t LS or CS, for a variety of reasons – they do awful damage, leave the thief open for counterattack, cost way too much initiative, etc…

If you only have a single animation you have to watch out, which has kitten cast time (in this case just 1 skill, we’re talking specifically about LS since your argument is that 3 spamming is too strong), you can reasonably say “just avoid that skill”.

Please explain how FS isn’t limited. Also, while AA is “unlimited”, it does require striking the first 2 swings and 1.5s. You only really have to dodge LS, though you probably want to dodge CS because it does considerable damage and comes with weakness/cripple.

If you’re running a “bunker” without access to enhanced endurance regeneration and some CC, you’re not really running a bunker now are you. Your low power bunker should still do considerable damage to a GC thief.

Any thief just spamming 3 should be a joke to you – the fact that it isn’t makes me think you don’t really know how to play your bunker class.

Ignoring the fact that I don’t know how you can define “awful damage” the average 1.5k thief deals per sword hit, also if you want to dodge only LS and you are a really good dodger, there is always a LS you CAN’T DODGE for the simple reason that endurance is lower then initiative.

Using all your dodges on a spammable skill like Flanking Strike is a waste. You know that after you dodged the first, the second will come and so on. I prefer to use my dodge to avoid an Updraft, Backbreaker, Bull’s Rush, Corrupt Boons and Moa Morph. Those skills are powerful, but once you dodged them it is GUARANTEED that the caster isn’t going to use that skill again until the recharge time has past. That is a well spent dodge and a balanced situation.

How can you bring the “you can dodge” argument on a skill that can be used on average every 4 seconds?

I’m not considering FS for WvWvW, of course. If you’re saying that you see more D/P thief then S/D, I wonder it you’re talking about WvWvW, since they are quite popular there, while in PvP I barely see one per day.

No. Dodge isn’t a counter.
Justyfing something with dodge is a very poor argument.

Dodge is available as a counter to everything, even an one-hit-kill skill. Does it mean that if there were an one-hit-kill skill it would be balanced? No.
Does it mean that if there were a “Steal all boons” on initiative it would be balanced because it can be dodged? No.

Also, dodges are limited. AA chain or FS aren’t.

If I give the time to a glass S/D thief to land on me LS 6 times, probably I’m a boon bunker with not that much damage (Oh! Look the coincidence!) or I probably ran out of endurance on the first 2 LS.

evilapprentice.6379:

It does not clearly mean that there’s something wrong with the set, persay. That’s a possibility of course, but it’s not clearly the case, and I disagree with you.

Another possibility is that Boons are too strong and prolific (it’s more of a fact since ANet has acknowledged it), and a set that denies them while remaining viable (but not as strong) outside of just denying boons is a smart choice for anyone trying to win a game.

Another possibility is that most of a thief’s weapon options are garbage/subpar – D/P , SB, and S/D are the only things you’ll see 9 times out of 10 because they’re our only competently designed weapons. Instead of nerfing S/D, perhaps we can bring P/P up from the bottomless pit its currently in. Make it so that P/D isnt a 5-1 trick pony that’s insanely easy to counter because all its damage is stacked into 1 easily cleanable condition. Do something to give me a reason to take S/P over S/D, because even pre-patch I didn’t want to rely entirely on my AA for damage. Do something to D/D to give us a reason to take it over D/P, because currently there is none.

Also, I see plenty of thieves still running D/P. In fact, I rarely see other S/D thieves – they’re almost all D/P. Does that set need to be nerfed too, just because its part of the 2 (Pre S/D patch it was the only) non-sb sets we have that you weren’t at an automatic handicap for taking?

Do you usually play WvWvW? Are you NA or EU? Because D/P is a rare sight here.

Regarding boons, if they really were overpowered, then S/D is far move overpowered because it not only removes them from the enemy, but it also applies them to you on the same duration!
So no, it isn’t a matter of boons being to strong. I refuse to believe ANet is that stupid at balancing.

I see it as an attempt to give more counters to boons because they were too widespread. Fact is that they succeded in that they wanted to do, but the counter is too strong and it needs a futher balance.

evilapprentice.6379:

Just because you can’t think of anything doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

It’s called Dodge. You dodge when the thief pulls his arm back, and he does laughable DPS, and can’t steal your boons. You obviously can’t dodge everything, but you can eat every Slash, Slice, Infiltrators strike, Flanking Strike, Dancing Dagger and Cloak and Dagger he throws your way – as long as you don’t get hit with Crippling Strike and LS, You. Win.

You also have the option of any control-denying CC – that’s not quite as universal as dodge, but any bunker has at least some at their disposal. You’ll probably want to save those for when the thief uses Inf Strike to lock you down for the LS.

There you go, I just won you the game.

I KNEW IT!
I knew you would have brought into the discussion DODGE, the mighty counter of everything and the justification of every OPness.

You can dodge the first LS and you can dodge even the second one.
What about the third? And the 4th? Yeah, you may have enough endurance to dodge the 5th also. But what about the 6th?
Be careful! If you fail to dodge any of the LS, you are essentialy buffing your enemy!
No. Dodge isn’t the answer to everything.

evilapprentice.6379:

That’s a question that’s impossible to answer with the information you’ve given me- we’ve established that the thief is playing poorly (since he’s just spamming 3), but we haven’t established if the bunker guardian knows what he’s doing.

Noob/Inexperienced player vs Noob/Inexperienced player? Who cares who won, both players could stand to gain some experience and a better grip of the mechanics.

Noob Thief vs Bunker guardian – The Guard wins hand down, because 3 spam is not a substitute for knowing how the game works, no matter how hard you try to sell that angle.

Skilled thief vs Skilled bunker guard – Probably the thief, since ANets thought process behind FS-LS was to bring some counter play to the rampant boon stacking/duration maximizing specs that were dominating the meta.

I get why people hate Mesmers and Thieves – their mechanics were designed to be confusing. They’re the class you’re going to have the hardest time with if you don’t know what they’re capable of ahead of time. Mind you, that was a conscious decision by ANet (if you don’t believe me, please see the entirety of the Mesmer class). Being confusing to fight is part of the design, you’re supposed to learn how to counter it, not come running to the boards to cry for nerfs.

Pretending you can thrash people just by spamming 3 was probably true for the first 3 days after the patch, when people were caught of guard. They had minimal experience against S/D, FS finally pathed correctly, and Anet made the smart decision to split the strikes so the thief wasn’t a sitting duck for half the duration of every FS (So even those who knew how S/D worked were in for a surprise). Now that people have had a week (way longer than that, but It didn’t take more than a week) to play against it, it’s just a strong spec with applicable counters like any other.

Actually, I fail to see any counter to S/D thief. The only counter I see is not running boons. Period.
It isn’t a matter of getting better or I don’t know what, any S/D thief who is just pressing 3 and weapon swap sometimes will melt any boon-bunker, the skill level isn’t that relevant.
You can try that build by yourself in t-sPvP, it is too easy to kill boon-bunkers compared to the efforts you put into doing so.

bobross.5034:

sorrow, after reading some of your other posts, I’m sorry for attacking your thief credibility. you obviously do play thief, and are often helpful to others on these forums.

so, addressing your point, I think for me, at my moderate skill level, playing vs random moderately skilled players, I don’t see an issue. I imagine, like all things, it may scale differently with play level, so I won’t try to speak to its effect on high skill play, which may be very different.

one thing I do think is important to consider though is that it will take time to determine whether it is op’d. in every skill level of play, people need time to adjust. thieves need to come up with all the ways to abuse the skill, and other classes need time to get used to countering. Same as things like 100 blades, even if OP’d, there are counters, and as people know how to play against it better, it will change how it plays, and its impact on the meta.

So my suggestion to people complaining about the change is to wait, see how the community and metagame reacts and then in a month or two, we can have this discussion with more than just theory-craft on both sides.

I made a sort of prediction about how the change will affect the meta and it isn’t that good. I’ve wrote it some posts ago.

I like the thief, don’t get me wrong, and for that reason I don’t want it to be considered the noob-friendly profession, neither I want the build variety of the profession being destroyed (which is a known effect of having an above average weapon set).

Right now in PvP every thief you encounter is running S/D, which is sad other then harmful to the health of the game. This clearly means that there is something wrong with that set and it should be looked at as fast as possible.
Being slow with fixes and waiting the meta does not help. The meta after little balancing patch grow up quickly, what you’re seeing now is what you are going to see till the next balancing patch.

I’ve explained what is wrong in my opinion and how to fix this because, to be honest, it can be denied that there is something wrong.

Defektive.7283:

If you have to use a heal to get out of a snare then you’re going to get slapped down even harder because now you have no heal to fall back on.

I consider that trait to be counter productive to the Warrior class in general. Along with causing confusion on interrupt.

You are going to heal up anyway, obviously you are not going to waste it to remove a cripple. For that purpose, there is “Shake If Off”, which, I think, it is a skill that most warriors should run.

If you have more than one condition, you probably need to heal too, so…

Kyrion.2749:

I assumed, since we were talking about DPS comparisons between WAR and THF. D/P is not usually seen in dungeons, because:
- The stealth chain is more expensive than D/D or S/D and takes a bit longer to perform, thus, less backstabs per minute = less DPS.
- Having to use Heartseeker to stealth in order to get your backstabs is contraproducent DPS-wise on bosses at +25% life.
- The dual skill is not used much, since monsters don’t kite you… they come to you!!!, thus, making it very situational at best.
- And of course, the blind field is useless on bosses, albeit somehow decent vs trash mobs. Anyways, if you’re spamming Black Powder, you’ll scarcely have initative to do anything else, including the needed heartseekers for stealth.

P/P is more common in dungeons than D/P because you have ‘Unload’, which is not spectacular to begin with, but at least is ranged and safer for the thief.

Actually, the most common combination in dungeon is S/P.
Most of the PvE thief video I’ve seen are people running that set.

Dahkeus.8243:

Whatever you claim your incentive is, you can still get a challenge easily:
– Don’t equip an offhand
– Invest in bad/lackluster traits or don’t use all your traits
– Don’t use sigils/runes or simply remove a piece of armor
– Use badk/lackluster support skills or don’t use any

And if you still aren’t getting a challenge, then you, sir/madaam, are simply too awesome for the internets.

You are suggesting me to play a soccer match with half the team because my players are on steroids. Does it makes sense to you?

evilapprentice.6379:

Or perhaps fight some opponents with half a brain. Anyone who dies to 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 from an S/D thief is either new or awful – anything was going to kill them.

Who is more bad? A thief that spam only 3-3-3-3-3 or that bunker guardian who is in difficulty against him?
Who deserves to lose the encounter?

There is also a trait you guys are forgetting about: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Strength

It is also on a good traitline spot.
I think it is there for a reason.
Mending+Restorative Strength is capable to almost cleanse you all, unless you are completely overwhelmed by conditions.

Dahkeus.8243:

If you’re not getting the ego boost you need from playing at a disadvantage, then just unequip your offhand or something.

lol.

It’s not about ego, it is about challange.
Have you idea of what a competitive game is? Is a game where there isn’t a build when you can press 3-3-3-3 and win. And GW2 aims to become a competitive game.

What you said looks pretty much like it is a problem of some classes being too much powerful in something more then Warriors being weak, but probably they are two sides of the same coin.

Scoobaniec.9561:

For me that enough to not even listen to u. New vs someone that have played close to 2k hours on warrior( i can even show ss). If u think that everyone was running nothing else than gs/axe+shield with 25/25/0/0/20 then i feel sorry for u, i don’t have anything else to say.

Just came to say:

Anyone with stability boon = ur done
Anyone with high condi burst = ur done
Anyone with high burst = ur done
Anyone with decent sustain dps = ur done, as mending has crappy healing

Hope i helped as its was my first and last post here, play against premades and come back with results

I really don’t know what has been done to you guys, did you got kitten d by someone or what?
I came here asking why you consider Warrior weak, saying that to me it doesn’t looks like weak.
I got some nice posts, like the one of silentnight warrior, but overall I don’t understand these kind of posts saying “Hey, you are new to warrior, you know nothing” or “ugh, go play turneys”.

Seriously guys, I came here seeking for a peaceful discussion, not some forum trolls.
If you like go rampant and elitist, then YOU have nothing to say here.

Enmity.3428:

Hot-join heroes make me laugh. sPvP is full of low rank players, the inexperienced, the casuals and the downright skill-less and quite frankly, even poor players can have a limited measure of success here. Any class playing in these random rabbles, (as they mostly are,) can look good as there’s no real coordinated tactics, no communication and mistakes frequently go unpunished. It’s like a group of hooligans on a messy, free-for-all rampage. Sure, the Warrior can be fine when you’re surrounded by allies and when the enemy you’re facing has as much chance of being a rank 5 as a rank 35, but to use hot-joins to kitten a class is crazy.

Tournament play is where we should be looking if we want to critically appraise a class, and the fact that Warriors are so under-represented in tournament play and in high-end tournaments speaks volumes. In tPvP you’re generally facing more experienced players who know their class very well, know their role and are often well coordinated. Mistakes are more often punished. In short, there’s a higher standard of play here and this is what we should hold the Warrior class against, not the random free-for-all of sPvP.

So the question is, if there’s no problem with Warriors in PvP, why aren’t they wanted or used by experienced, high-end teams?

EDIT:

I don’t think anyone is running with pets in PvP.

What can I say?

I like how you take out a sentence from the context and build you own glass castle over something I’ve never said.
Please, tell me where I’ve said I play only hot-joins. In the name of god, please, TELL ME.

Do you want to know why there aren’t so many Warriors in tPvP? I’ll give you the answer: meta.
It is all about on how people fell about the class, not how the class effectively is.
Once upon a time, Warrior ran full glass cannon with GS/Axe. That was an horrible choices, but it was that popular to the point people linked that build to Warrior itself, then they start to become considered weak from the community to the point nobody wants them. This is the meta.

Did you remember the old times where tPvP was full of Guardian bunkers, Mesmers and Thieves with no Elementalist at all? Well, how did the Elementalists get so popular all of a sudden, then? They did not received any buff, as far I remember.
The answer to my question is the answer to yours.

silentnight warrior.2714:

First of all @ the OP.
Against normal/good players (even in sPvP)
1) You got a build that is almost CC. If you get some enemy with stability you will do nothing to them (you should have also stabilty otherwise its you you are stunlock to dead by other classes, but now thieves can steal even that from you).
2) Gap closers – Warrior gap closers are afected by snares (and they miss a lot of times). If you try to use earthshaker or any other movement skill when you are snared you wont reach your target, so you will spend most of the times chassing (and never catching) your target. Other classes can do way better.
3) Condition removal – you clean your snare and you are snared again in 1, 2 sec max. And the other conditions will eat you alive.
4) Damage – Warrior can do some good damage but as i said above he will never reach his target to land enough damage to kill him. Landing the damage a warrior can do is a big chalenge.
5) High risk/Low reward – Warrior needs to be in mellee range to use almost all their weapons skills, puting the warrior on the fields, marks, traps other players left there. Once you enter probably you wont get out of there. (just for spaw point of course)
6) defenses – Having a good health pool and high thougness without invulnerability, blinks, clones, ports, protection is just a way for last about +5sec (endure pain can give you +4 sec of life if you dont have contitions only) in battle. You cannot escape a battle when you are in disadvantage, you will die and give points to the enemy.
7) Conditions damage – Warrior dont have enough conditions to be viable as a condition damager class.
8) Warrior dont have good healing abilities. (they are between weak/average). This with the low escape abilites and the low damage avoidance is truly bad)
9) Warrior fights against multiple enemys at the time (ranger and his pet, necro and his minnions, thieve and his guildies, mesmers and their clones, Guardians and their spirit weapons, enginier and his turrets) All of them only have to worry about one target only – The warrior)
10) Weak elites in PvP (warrior dont have a single elite that can use to give him advantage in a fight like other professions have).

There are more points but these should be enough to clarify some things about warriors in PvP.

I play a Necromancer and about mobility, they are way, way worse then warrior. I’ll answer all you points.

1) I use stunbreakers, not stability. Few people bring stability over stunbreakers.
2) Every gap closer is affected by snares. It is a problem of every melee class, not only warrior.
3) Shake It Off is on 25 seconds cooldown. Mending is on 25s cooldown. Average Chill (I don’t believe you consider Cripple as an incredibly hard snare) is on 4s. Just wait till it finishes or use your condition cleansing and carry on. 2 condition cleansing on 25s is quite much for every profession.
4) Read above.
5) Rifle do sweet damage too, I heard.
6) It is the same about Necromancers, with the only difference warriors have some invulnerability and blocks.
7) Sword has the longest lasting autoattack bleed in the game. Warrior have also the longest lasting “bleed on critical” trait. Impale and Riposte also gives some sweet bleed stacks. Rifle’s Bleeding Shot’s bleeding isn’t also that bad. Warrior have also access to burning (quite reliable also), despite Necromancers.
8) Mending and Healing Surge doesn’t look that bad to be honest. What do you mean with “bad”?
9) I don’t think anyone is running with pets in PvP. I still have to see any Guardian with spirit weapon or Necro with minions. Also, 30s of thieves guild every 180s is that gamebreaking?
10) Is Signet of Rage weak? :O 30s fury, might and swiftness is weak?

silentnight warrior.2714:

Engeniers
Rangers

False. Prove me that.

Kyrion.2749:

Yeah please, do the math and do yourself a favor.

Oh! and I forgot ‘Black Powder’ which is = ‘Stand motionless just auto-shooting (with the all-known famous and powerful pistol autoattack) because you don’t have initiative for anything else’. And of course, you will still eat those AoEs and ranged attacks.

PD: The part about ‘powerful pistol auto-attack’ was irony…. just in case.

There is quite a long post about math, you should check it out.

Who said you should use Black Powder with pistol mainhand?

Kyrion.2749:

sorrow.2364:

Avoiding damage doesn’t necessarily means dodging.
Guess what, thieves can do damage while evading!
It is called Pistol Whip, Flanking Strike and CnD+Backstab chain (since Stealth is almost invulnerability in PvE).
Oh, they can also do damage while blinding your melee enemy with Black Powder!

So you think no Thief charge to monsters screaming “I’M THE UBAH WAARRIAHHH!!!! UUURGHH!!!!”? Yeah, you’re probably right.
They usually scream “’I’M THE UBAH THIEEEEF!!!! UUURGHH!!!!” when they are charging mindlessly to monsters.

Pistol Whip = Nerfed to same damage (if not less) than autoattack, eats initiative. Besides, if you main-hand sword, you already lost the DPS race against a warrior.

Flanking strike = The evade part is movement, so you are not attacking… Exactly the same as if you dodged. Lacernous Strike hits for about the same as the #3 autoattack, so again, you lose DPS against a sustained auto-attack chain. Besides, if you main-hand sword, you already lost the DPS race against a warrior.

CnD & BS = Ha ha, Quite on the contrary. Stealth is anything but invulnerability in PvE. To begin with, to sustain the C&D+BS chain you are in stealth like… 0.5 seconds, since you want to BS as soon as possible to keep high DPS. If you remain in stealth, the mob won’t target you, true, but surprise!! surprise!! you won’t do any damage as long as you stay on stealth. Furthermore, unlike players, mobs are smarter and keep doing their attack routine, regardless of seeing you or not, and you will eat all their AoE attacks, and attacks aimed to teammates if you are close, stealthed or not. In PvE, and specially in dungeons, Stealth is only an anti-aggro tool at the cost of ZERO DPS.

Since many people have difficulties to grasp the concept, here is a quick, easy to figure chart:

STEALTH —-———— MOBS don’t do damage —- YOU DON’T do damage
INVULNERABILTY—— MOBS don’t do damage —- YOU DO damage

I said ALMOST INVLUNERABILITY.
Unless you stand in the AoE of mobs, they won’t attack you. Simple and easy. They aren’t human who knows you still are there and keep using their skills in the air.
You just need to put those 10 leftover traitpoints into Shadow Arts and you can easily chain CnD+Backstab every 3 second for massive damage, excluding the autoattack.

Also, please, avoid misinformation.
- Pistol Whip deals considerable more DPS compared to autoattack.
- If you have Sword mainhand, you deal more DPS compared to Greatsword (do the math and find it by yourself)

BossFi.6917:

Full berserker Mesmer can take 2 enemies down and survive longer than a warrior.

Ok, let’s say Mesmer can.
Who else can do that?

BossFi.6917:

Holding 2 players off is one thing but being able to kill them as well is a different story.
Other classes do it sooooo much better.

Warrior vs 2 rangers – yeah id like to see that fight!

And, exactly, which profession is capable to HOLD AND KILL two professions at the same time all by himself? I think none (obviously excluding the case that both the enemies’ you are facing are bad as hell).

XII.9401:

I agree with you..we should leave the broken warrior class as is..

/sarcasm off..as for people ‘crying’ about the warrior..how come the other classes recognize how weak it is? Are they ‘crying’ as well?

For the OP -weak troll?- , wait till you run into players in higher end tourneys before judging.

I think anyone thinking that a class is fine based on hot joins against weak pvpers should seriously rethink their general outlook at life.

I like how you avoided to bring something useful or any reasoning into the discussion.
I think that saying “try touneys” isn’t a valid argument to prove me warriors are weak tbh.

Don’t forget that people thought Elementalists were weak as hell for a period, so, probably, people are wrong sometimes.

XII.9401:

Mending and shake it off won’t help you against a good condition engy. They will eat you alive. I don’t think you ran into one, yet.

Destruction of the empowered against boon classes? Did you read any of the discussions regarding it after it was added?
It can’t even break through protection. Try it on a good bunker guardian and see if it helps you when they boon up. You will still get destroyed if you are on them.
It is a TERRIBLE ability..look at what the thieve’s got..boon ripping on a weapon skill with zero cooldown AND they evade while doing the 1st portion of it
Mesmers have an AOE boon ripping/condition removal
Necros can rip all boons
And you are happy with increased damage that can’t even break through protecition with ALL the guardian boons up? Imagine how much damage it will do against eles …not much..and you will have increased damage from retaliation as well

The way to combat boons is not to increase damage -since it is still negated by protection- but to rip the boons off. A necro can destroy a good guardian but you can’t. I encourage people to try these ‘amazing’ traits against good players before judging.

Soldier amulet won’t help you against one good player so how about two? toughness/power won’t help against spike damage. protection does.

I did met an HGH engineer.
I just used Mending and Shake It Off to remove the right conditions.

About Destruction of the Empowered, protection is a boon that usually lasts few seconds. Most the times, bunkers will have boons like Might, Fury, Vigor, Regeneration and Retaliation up, which means 15% damage boost. Not worthless.
I agree that Flanking Strike is too much, I’ve already opened a topic in the Thief forum. About boon ripping, they are usually on high cooldown. You can’t strip Protection always, it is better to let it ends.
Also, Retaliation does not inflict damage based on how much damage you deal. It is a fixed amount scaling on the caster’s power.

You know what helps against spike damage? Endure Pain and Shield Stance, not protection.

randomfightfan.4091:

And if you go through my math you’ll see that I excluded them from the final numbers at the end. That’s why there’s 2 different final numbers for axe/mace and gs builds.

Sorry about that.

Opynn.2936:

Warrior don’t have easy access to protection, regeneration and other “bunker” boons. Also to deal with conditions easily Warrior need to spec to do it (soldier runes, warhorn with Quick Breathing, invest trait points into tactic line).
IMO Warrior shouldn’t have easy access to “bunker” boons because that will change warrior into Guardian. I also accepted that that conditions are hard counter to Warrior.
Also you need to remember that people like to cry and it happens all over the forum.
Glad you enjoy warriorhood. If i may suggest: discipline trait line have nice traits but 3% to burst damage is a sad joke that all warriors don’t laugh at anymore- invest only 15 points for fast hands and take unsuspecting foe from arms line since you run weapons with stuns, also sigil of paralyzation in nice for longer stunlock.

I don’t think Warrior were supposed to have access to bunker boons. There are several professions who have poor access to protection and I don’t think it is a problem considering that Warriors have a nice amount of damage cancelling skills, defensive CC and toughness stacking traits. They have also heavy armor like guardians, but with a considerable higher HP pool.

About conditions, I usually bring “Shake it off!” and Mending, which I find them more then enough to deal with any form of condition. Considering that Warriors have an huge HP pool, bleeding isn’t that much of a problem, I just use those skills when I realize bleeding stacks are getting too high.

I spend traitpoints into Discipline for a simple reason: Destruction of the Empowered. That trait is a bane on any from of boon-bunkers. I also like the faster weapon swap, because I usually do that often to properly stunlock targets.

BossFi.6917:

You used the word player. Warriors fine vs one player but when up against multiple players the warrior drops within seconds while every other class has survivability 10x better than the warrior.

This isn’t true.
A warrior with soldier amulet is capable to hold on 2 people easily, obviously with the right selection of traits. 30 points in defense and Mace+Shield is capable to give quite a good survivability in groups, not less then any other profession in this game.

Plus, I’ll never stop saying how good Earthshaker is. People should use it more often.

Kyrion.2749:

Nosense. No one who plays a thief charges to monsters screaming ’I’M THE UBAH WAARRIAHHH!!!! UUURGHH!!!!’ Nobody does that. That’s nothing more than another of those prejudices spread mostly by thief haters.

However, you are right in only one thing: thieves are different from warriors, Yes, they have to dodge in combat and disengage from time to time to stay alive.

While dodging/disengaging they are not attacking, thus, not DPS.

So, even if in the ‘DPS-meter’ thieves were remotely close to warriors in the theory (which is highly arguable), in practice, they will end up doing less overall DPS anyways, because they suffer much more ‘time-outs’ from dodges, stealths, and disengages. A simple as that.

If thieves had more base damage to compensate for the extra time-out or if they could keep doing damage while evading, then, we could truly start speaking about DPS equality in dungeons.

Avoiding damage doesn’t necessarily means dodging.
Guess what, thieves can do damage while evading!
It is called Pistol Whip, Flanking Strike and CnD+Backstab chain (since Stealth is almost invulnerability in PvE).
Oh, they can also do damage while blinding your melee enemy with Black Powder!

So you think no Thief charge to monsters screaming “I’M THE UBAH WAARRIAHHH!!!! UUURGHH!!!!”? Yeah, you’re probably right.
They usually scream “’I’M THE UBAH THIEEEEF!!!! UUURGHH!!!!” when they are charging mindlessly to monsters.

randomfightfan.4091:

@ sorrow

warriors bleed on critical regardless of weapon Precise Strikes 33% chance to cause bleeding on critical hits.
you didn’t mention Forceful Greatsword Gain might on critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skill [sic] recharge 20% faster.
Rending Strikes 33% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.
Dual Wielding Damage is increased by 5% when wielding an axe, mace, or sword in your offhand.
Axe Mastery Improve critical damage by 10% while wielding an axe in your main hand.
Heightened Focus Gain a 2% critical-hit chance for 1 stage of adrenaline, 5% for 2 stages, and 9% for 3 stages.

For thief I’m going to assume 25-30-10-0-5 or 25-30-0-0-15
Thief does more damage with daggers than sword pistol so 5% dagger damage will usually be better. I get that you’re mostly comparing in aoe terms but there is almost no bosses in this game where you need aoe. The only real exceptions are Lupi but only in phase 1 and Alpha but only when you need to break someone out of a crystal. Never had another situation where I thought to myself “a sword would be nice right now” over daggers.
You also forgot these traits for thief
Keen Observer Critical-hit chance is increased by 5% while health is over 90%.
Infusion of Shadow Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you. – You can now perma cnd-backstab chain and never lose that 10% damage bonus from 6+ ini
Kleptomaniac Stealing gives you 3 initiative.
Flanking Strikes Increases damage by 5% when attacking a foe from behind or the side.
Combo Critical Chance Dual skills have a +5% chance to critical hit.

A general 20-25-0-0-15 warrior will have 32% damage bonus + might and vuln on crits. Axe mace will have 27% damage bonus and10% crit damage bonus. Vuln on crits but no might. They also only have 200 power, 250 prec, and 15% crit damage from traits.

A general dps Thief will have 50% damage bonus and a high ini pool OR 45% and never have initiative sustain problems. They both have situational +12% passive crit chance (possible 17% if you’re using pistol whip and trait). 250 power, 300 prec, and 30% crit damage from traits.

tldr~ the long and short basically is that both classes have a lot of ways to get high coefficients and they both do a kittenton of dps. The warrior does more in terms of vuln and might but thief can take advantage better if they have all the same boons/conditions.

Some of the traits you listed about the Warrior are mutually exclusive, like Dual Wielding, Axe Mastery and Slashing Power.

Doomdesire.9365:

Thief Sword has lower DPS than a Warrior GS

It isn’t exactly true.
On Warrior GS you see bigger numbers due to Hundred Blades being longer channel time and thukitten for more damage, but Pistol Whip can be used twice or even more times in a row.
Talking about raw autoattack base damage, Sword autoattack has still better DPS compared to GS autoattack, just check the wiki.

So no, Warrior GS haven’t better DPS then Thief sword.

We aren’t even considering all the side utilities of S/P, like AoE blindness, extremely useful on mitigating damage, and the fact that you are destroying defiant stacks while bursting down your boss.

Plus, thieves have more and better damage boosting traits.
Let’s consider only the damage-oriented traitlines:

Warrior:
- Stick and Move: 3% when endurance is not full
- Berserker’s Power: 12% when full adrenaline
- Slashing Power: 10% on GS
Total: 25%

I don’t consider Attack of Opportunity (cuz if you’re running on GS, you have no bleeding) neither Destruction of the Empowered, because boss usually have no boons.

Thief:
- Exposed Weakness: 10% damage if the enemy has a condition
- Combined Trainin: +5% damage on dual skills
- First Strikes: 10% damage if initiative is over 6
- Executioner: 20% damage if enemy is under 50%
Total: 25% and 45% if the enemy is under 50% hp (half the boss fight).

Consider also that Thief has Precision and Critical Damage on the same traitline, so while Warriors have to chose between Precision and Critical Damage, thief can have them both and also spend some points into Shadow Arts, Trickery or Acrobatics.

Doomdesire.9365:

Ultimately warriors have better DPS in dungeons. Reason being is because they can hit multiple targets with their GS(3, I think, at least that’s what my guardian hits). Thief has more single target DPS, but the dungeon designs focus around mobs of multiple monsters, not a single monster. They are also much more tankier and have better support.

As far as the thief goes…it’s a solo class and always has been. It’s also decent for skipping mobs, but I don’t think the thief’s strength should be

‘that class you rely on to skip that one monster you encounter once in a dungeon’

That’s why thieves in dungeon run S/P.
Pistol Whip is AoE too.

Hi everyone.
I’m relatively new to Warrior, I used to play a Necro for a very long time, then moved to Thief and now considering to master the Warrior.

I have to say, I’ve never played it that much. I’ve played just few match in PvP ages before, just to try it out.

I have to say that I’m aware that people consider Warrior as overall weak in PvP, but as far as I’ve tried, I can’t understand exactly why.

In PvP, I usually run a Mace+Shield/Hammer build, 10/0/30/0/30 and soldier amulet.
I find incredibly ilarious on how effective this build is against any player, bunker or whatever you’d like to say.
I can easily stunlock people to death while having great survivability, good condition cleansing (not that awesome, I have to say), 2 stunbreakers and 2 burst mitigation skills (Defy Pain and Shield Stance).
Not to say how Earthshaker is a wonderful skill in point holding due to AoE massive damage + Stun.

I’d like to know where people think the warrior lacks and why, because I can’t understand where the real UPness is.

No bunker lasts forever.
Dueling in GW2 is actually quite slow if made good.
Obviously, if both the contenders run berserker gear, the duel will last few seconds, but if they both are built with good defenses, the duel will last quite much but always leading to an end. It is just a matter of using your CC at the right time, stripping the right boon, using your burst skill at the right time… That’s all.
Obviously, if both the players are running bunker and mashing their buttons randomly, the duel won’t end until any of them have enough luck to find the good combination to beat the enemy.

DanH.5879:

Travlane.5948:

Anubarak.3012:

Stop saying warriors out-DPS thieves, it’s not true. We have the strongest single target DPS in the game. It is your fault if you are not able to reach it.

Why should we tank? why should anyone tank, use your skills and your brain. We can dodge everything, so what is better: healing 20k dmg or completely evade it?

At least thieves can support very well since damage is the best support… btw we have smoke screen and black powder and signet of agility if you don’t use them its your fault

check this out https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thieves-suck-in-PvE

why do all groups in cof elite only run 4 warriors 1 mesmer? why not 4 thieves 1 mesmer? plz answer this

i would also like to know the answer .

The answer is simple as daylight.
Thieves are different from warrior.
PvE-wise, they are way less forgiving compared to a warrion because their defensive capabilities rely on avoiding damage more then tanking it.
While warriors are more noob-friendly, because they are capable to hold more hits compared to Thief when running full zerker, thieves just die in a couple of swings.

People take time to understand this simple thing and run dungeon on Thief just like it was a Warrior, they fail hard and harder, to the point they created prejudices like “Thief is bad in PvE”, “Thieves are squishy” and “Warriors are better”. Those are bullkittens.

Play your thief as it is supposed to be played. Dodge damage instead of just swinging your sword and forget about it, that’s all.

Well, to be honest it isn’t only a Thief problem.
Mesmer is way, way more annoying then Thief. Not only he has stealth, but it also relies on bad targeting system, laggs and huge visual confusion. They are pretty much more annoying to face compared to thieves. No wonder PvP is full of them.

evilapprentice.6379:

The point isn’t “you can always dodge it”. No one dodges infinitely. The point is that the skill isn’t instant cast or a very quick cast (like .25s), and it has a fairly distinctive animation (IE, if a Sword MH thief pulls his arm back, you know for sure its a skill you probably want to dodge). You always know when the skill is coming.

Yes, Inf strike is an option, but at the cost of 3 init – 5 if they have to clean up an SR to gain access to IS again. When you consider that you need to spend 3 init for FS every time you want to LS and at minimum another 3 init for IS (if they don’t have SR up) it’s a reasonable combo, rather than something a thief can spam endlessly.

Something nobody mentioned is that LS is incredibly similiar animation-wise to the 3rd sword autoattack and, you know, nobody wants to dodge the autoattack.
Also, consider that arm animations are fairly hard to notice, expecially if the Thief is an Asura which has a model 70% smaller than any character, which bring us to another flaw of this game.

Honestly, I hate when I see “Inflict Bleeding on Critical Hit”, I pick that trait and then find out that the bleeding was only 1s.
I hate also when I see “Gain vigor on healing” and I have no idea on how much vigor the trait gives and I have to check the wiki to be sure.

I think everyone agrees that traits need better descriptions to fully explain what they do and what to expect.

bladie.5084:

Then why is it that yourself, is the only person whos posted about this on the forums? Surely it’s so bad to the point where you will see multiple posts about this issue? Perhaps you’ve noticed this being so OP that it literally shuts down bunker builds. Or perhaps it doesn’t affect them to that degree where they feel they have to post about it?

There are people who are saying that LS is a bit too much, there are also some topics into the sPvP forum.
Anyway, it isn’t that gamebreaking OP, like the guardian’s blocking bug was, I never said that. I’ve just said it is a bit too much and it would ruin the meta and destroy variety, as any imbalance do.

I don’t know if you played PvP recently, but about 80% of thief players are running S/D.
Once the number grows and people realize it, you’ll see the number of elementalists/guardian decrease drammaticaly and ranger bunker being the most overused bunkers because they don’t need boons to tank.

We moved from the Elementalist meta to the Thief/Ranger meta. In both cases there are imbalances and denying there aren’t doesn’t help.

My suggestion is simple. Either increase the initiative cost to 5 or reduce the number of boon stolen to 1. Does it make S/D worthless? I don’t think so. Does it help to balance the meta between boon-stripping and boon-reliant professions? Yes, it does.

Stardrift.7360:

sorrow.2364:

Seriously, making FS stealing only one boon means making thief obliterated?
How are you guys scared about balance?

Ummm… FS stealing was the revamping attempt of a weapon set that had well…almost nothing. Coupled with the fact that d/d takes a beating with every patch, giving something mediocre in return, then reducing it to almost nothing is silly. You have to be REALLY slow to react if someone can FS you more than once AND kill you with those boons. Personally i don`t use S/D, cuz it`s not that spectacular. Oh yeah i`d advise you against the use of words like “balance”, it doesn`t mean what you think it does

And exactly what does it mean “balance” to you?
Looks like that, for you, “balance” is some sort of punishment everyone is forced to take. If D/D was overperforming, you just tone it down, you don’t deserve some sort of refund for the nerf you got. Same applies to buffs. If something is underperforming, it should be buffed. Period. You don’t need to nerf something else in return.

And please, please, stop with the dodge argument, seriously.

bladie.5084:

Why try balancing an already balanced skill? I don’t doubt you being among the thief community but i really question your gameplay time on a S/D. There is more to S/D thieves then FS. You are honestly looking in the wrong direction to balance the thief class.

S/D isn’t balanced at the moment. The simple fact that most thieves are running that set now is a symptom of something which doesn’t work.

FS would be balanced if it stole only one boon of if it had its initiative cost increased.

Actually, excluding P/P that may need some work, every thief set is worth running, making thief one of the most balanced class the game has right now. If they only didn’t messed with S/D, of course.

bladie.5084:

Obv the “you can dodge” argument is not valid in the case of thieves since they can spam the exact same skill. But what happened to the unique-ness of Sigils, Runes, and foods? What about all that CCing other classes bring to the table that thieves lack?

Don’t forget that on the same bar of S/D there is Shadow Return, which is the only stunbreaker in the game which is also a weapon skill. Also, it costs initiative too!
I don’t think the CC other classes bring to the table are a real problem to thieves, neither I think that the lack of CC on thieves is a good reason to justify the insane amount of boon stripping FS guarantee.

Stardrift.7360:

Oh brother…i`m sure any other “spammable” skill from any other profession is nowhere near as hated. It`s like 90% threads in the thief section is either by people who clearly state they are not thieves and want this profession obliterated OR people like you who “play a thief” #wink wink# and want it obliterated. I play a thief and i want it to be easy mode. Since that won`t happen i want it to at least not be the laughing stock. Spammable boon stealing is OP… C`mon man, you`re not even trying here!

Seriously, making FS stealing only one boon means making thief obliterated?
How are you guys scared about balance?

Evilek.5690:

Nice Thief dude, he must be your main charracter.
33% map complete and nice green armor

FS is easy to dodge with same damage as does your autoattack.

1. It isn’t green armor. It is transmuted exotic set to sylvari racial.
2. Does map completation really matters? I didn’t even completed the main story, does that mean that I haven’t played thief? I just play dungeons, WvWvW and s/tPvP. I don’t care about map completation.

And to all those “you can dodge” arguments.
Assuming you succed to avoid the first Flanking Strike and let’s say you succed to avoid the second also. Now you have empty endurance bar and your enemy with 4 initiative left.
Obviously this is a fringe case when you are playing 1vs1, without any other enemy’s skill to avoid and without considering any initiative regen skill/trait, in a real situation avoiding all the FS is impossible due to the frequency it is casted, that means that once you are against an S/D thief, you better have no boons at all.

bladie.5084:

While i agree with what you have to say on some parts, Flanking strike is not overbuffed. The damage went from below average, to Satisfying numbers. In reality you’re not goin to connect both stabs 100% of the time and when you steal boons from other players, they’re usually bunker builds and they can just reapply. What’s wrong with that?

There are two things wrong:
1. On bunker builds, as long as the boon is reapplied, it is stolen again. You need only 5 seconds to regain 4 initiative, without considering all the initiative-regen traits. Considering that bunkers haven’t an infinite source of boons and they are usually linked to a recharge too, you are essentialy becoming the boon-bunker yourself when you are facing one, while removing all their protection. It is a too hard counter to be considered balanced.
2. LS hurts low-boon reliant professions like warriors even more then bunkers. Being able to strip, let’s say, the effect of Signet of Rage with 2 LS is even more game-breaking then constantly strip boons on bunkers.

bobross.5034:

not sure what your point here is, is it:

ANET is always right, so when they nerfed stealth, it proved that stealth needed a nerf?
if thats the point, well then why are you arguing with ANETS decision? they buffed this, therefore it must’ve needed buffing.

or maybe your point is that thiefs always need nerfing.
if that’s your point then it leads me to one of two conclusions;
1-you’re on here complaining because this buff hurt your favorite build…maybe d/d ele. and rather than openly complain about it, you decided to pose as a thief player demanding a self nerf…if that’s the case, you should just switch to the newest OP’d class…I hear s/d thieves are pretty good.

or

2-you play thief and are just so tired of it always being so easy, so you want ANET to nerf it into hard mode. if this is the case, you can always just ditch your gear…try playing with lvl 20 weapons, or if you’re playing pvp, steady weapons are a nice change. if that’s not enough, you could play with no armor.

I’m not saying ANet is always right, I’m saying that probably the huge amount of people who complaiend about Backstab combo were a right after all and we all remember how the Thief community responded to every Backstab combo complaints. So I’m trying to say that about 80% of the Thief forum attenders, the ones who justify everything with “you can dodge”, “thief has nothing but X”, “thief is squishy” and so on, pretty much the 70% of the posts we can see in this topic, probably don’t know that much about balance and are too much biased toward their profession. That’s all.

And yes, if you read the OP, you should know that I understand a little buff to Flanking Strike to increase the S/D utilization, maybe to the pathing, but not this kind of buff.

As I proved, I play no boon reliant profession.
Is that strange to you if someone wants to have his profession to be balanced and rewarding skills instead of mindless spamming?

Daecollo.9578:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Change-Flanking-Strike-to-Vampiric-Strike/page/2#post1147711

The flanking strike change was partly ONE of my “Balancing Suggestions.”

So they actually made the skill stronger then you suggested but you still think it is fine? Well…
Why am I still arguing with you?
Your posts were just “FS is fine”, but I still see no reasoning, no answers to the points I’ve raised but only personal attacks. Is that the way you usually have an argument?

Daecollo.9578:

This skill is FINE.

I would rather fix Necromancer and Warrior then fight Thieves for there dwindling tools. However your constant complaining is getting on my nerves, Necromancers are an amazing class if you know how to play one.

Man, it isn’t my fault if you can’t see when something is too powerful.
And please, don’t let me dig your posts because I remember some of your “balancing suggestions”…

Daecollo.9578:

I play Spvp and WvWvW and I still don’t see many S/D Thieves.

Most of the thieves I see are heartseeking cloak and dagger and P/D, D/P Infinite stealth thieves.

Just
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/showposts/sorrow-2364/9
You: The pathing of FS is fine. The first strike always land if you are in melee range, the second one needs you to get closer to enemy if he moved, not to hard anyway. I don’t see any problem here.

This is from a long time ago when flanking strike was absolutely horrible, a lot of your posts are NOTHING but about trying to get thieves nerfed. Your posts not only /FLAT OUT LIE/ about our class, your blatantly constantly assaulting it in hopes it gets nerfed.

Pages 1-7 are constantly being asked for thieves skills to be nerfed, complaining about stealth, asking for things to be nerfed.

Do you ever take a break? If you hate thieves so much why don’t you play one instead of complaining about them?

Attachment.
So the fact that I play a Thief means I have to cry like a baby and start hating when someone says “nerf” and “thief” in the same sentence and only suggesting buffs for my dear, beloved profession?

You guys are seeing the situation in the wrong direction.

Let’s consider the facts.
Flanking Strike can be easily spammed. Period.

It is on 4 initiative which is quite low, also most thieves enjoy run S/D+S/D to get initiative regen on weapon swap, allowing them to have almost unlimited initiative to better spam their FS.

It is an issue. I know you are enjoying your newfound FotM skill, but you have to stop to see the situation as a Thief player and look the picture as a whole.
Every thief said that the backstab combo wasn’t powerful; there was NO ONE who said it can use a little nerf, everyone said “if can be dodged”, “l2p” and all the BS we are seeing here again over and over. Fact is that it was overpowered and it was nerfed. So, probably, you should adjust your point of view and stop justifying any flaw with the more of the same arguments. Or, if you like, you can just say “ANet hates thief”, “just remove the thief class from the game” or any of the average whine we daily see in the Thief forum, then come back into your little corner of the world and start crying about how unfair the world is.

If is fair and right that Thieves have access to some boon stripping skills, but that boon stripping shouldn’t be that much powerful for two simple reasons:
1. There are profession who completely relies on boons. Being able to constantly strip boon moves any form of boon build into the unviable category, which isn’t exactly a symptom of an healthy meta. This is actually what’s happening.
2. Any other profession which is specialized into boon control is overshadowed by FS Thief, another symptom of bad meta.

And please, please, don’t start again with the “you can dodge” argument, because it is an horrible one. Everything in this game can be dodged, this doesn’t mean that you can justify something which is too much powerful.

TheGuy.3568:

Imho its not necessarily OP. Classes like ele and guardian have strong access to boons so stripping them often becomes a necessity and it will not alwaykitten. The problem is classes with weak access to boons are punished too heavily in a fight. A class that can get swiftness every ten seconds isn’t going to be as affected by this as a class that gets it every minutes. Also because the timers to not reset to base you can literally have thieves with buffs times they were never supposed to get access to. However, considering what flanking strike used to be I think the change was necessary. They may need to nerf it in the future. That being said I do not think they will because it is important to meta.

I know what they did, they buffed Flanking Strike to tone down all boon-heavy professions like Elementalist and Guardian, but right now they did a bit too much.

I mean, they were supposed to give tools to play against those profession, not tools to completely destroy their mechanic. You can easily use a flanking strike every 4-5 seconds or less, which means 2 boons stolen every 4 seconds, which is HUGE.

Eugenides.1274:

I think your first little bit there is exactly the reason why S/D needed a buff. You were nerfing yourself if you use S/D anywhere. It’s actually sort of viable now in PVP and WvW.

I also disagree with your second paragraph. The old Flanking Strike was a poorly designed skill that lacked polish. There was too much random chance surrounding it. You shouldn’t have to cross your fingers every time you use a skill and hope that the pathing didn’t send you out of range of a target instead of behind them like the skill states.

Splitting the skill into two attacks was also a move in the right direction. Look at the Ranger and how many of their melee attack animations are locked. It’s horrible. You lose control of your character.

Does the damage need some balancing? Absolutely.

I wasn’t nerfing myself to be honest. There is a thin line between underpowered and balanced. Underpowered is that no matter what you do and how good you are, you are still performing subpar. That wasn’t the case of the old Flanking Strike. It was good if used properly, extremely good.

Also, I’d like to point out that the old pathing wasn’t random. It just followed a circle with a lower radius tollerance; essentially, you needed to be in the right position to hit. Right now it is autoaimed. No matter where you are, you alwaykitten, somethimes it eventually follow a linear pathing instead of a circle. It can be even used as a gap closer!

Also, I don’t understand why adding the steal boon effect and also adding another boon stealed. They should be more careful when balancing no-cooldown skills.

style.6173:

To the poster of the “culture” thread:

See, this is one of the examples that I mentioned. Someone comes here, claims to be a thief and asks for a nerf. While they may have a thief, they are most likely somehow who just got pwned recently and want to feel better by thinking a skill is OP.

Flanking strike isn’t OP in any way. It is easy to counter and no good thief is just going to spam it.

It is BS posters like this one that causes everyone to attack.

Seriously, this is why I hate thief forums, because of people like you.
I tried to start a discussion about the skill, but there is always the rampant kitten who says “everything is fine, you are a baddie, l2p”. Are you not interested into starting a constructive discussion? Fine. Just move away and don’t delight us with your useless posts.

swinsk.6410:

Flanking strike is not overpowered. It’s only useful against classes with lots of boons. Moving on.

Yep, it is useful. Probably too much?
It isn’t a counter to boon-reliant profession, it completely wipes away any chance to have boons up, which is different from “being useful”.
Corrupt Boon is useful. You use it, all the boons get converted then the enemy has the chance to build them up again until Corrupt Boon is recharged.
With Flanking Strike you get all boons stolen as soon as you get them up.

Obviously I’m talking PvP-wise, I don’t know how you can consider Flanking Strike a good PvE tool, it is actually useful only against some boons mobs like dredge, otherwise it is no more useful then Pistol Whip.

Thieves have some good builds in dungeon, it is called Venom Sharing. AoE might, fury, lifesteal and tons of conditions including Weakness to reduce the damage input. What else do you want from a PvE thief? Anyway, I’m not talking about PvE neither I want to go off-topic.

Fact is that Flanking Strike is easily spammable, anyone without infinite dodges will get hit from Larcenous Strike multiple times (it is unblockable, did you know that?) and it is on an incredible low initiative cost.

Elm, you answer is simply pointless. Seriously, why do you think that “anyone worthwhile will deny your larcenous strike”? You know it is impossible to deny any LS.