Guild Wars 2

Well, it was quite obvious that Guild Wars 2 isn’t the general MMO

I was not talking about using PW while stealthed, I was saying about using PW and than kite the damage with Stealth, Shadowsteps and evades-backward.
You can use Pistol Whip as a safe damage dealer also in PvE, reducing the risk to nearly zero, while most other skills leave you exposed to any form of damage.
It is quite obvious that the time you are most exposed to damage is the time in which you are dealing damage, but PW hasn’t this downside because of the evade, and this means a lot both in PvP and in PvE.

Agenteusa.6380:

Exactly for which reason if an autoattack hits harder than a certain skill something is wrong?
There are plenty of examples of autoattacks that hits harder than another skill in the same bar, but it doesn’t mean that this skill is weak.

Your perception, in my opinion, is biased. The nerf were fair, you also obtained buffs to strategic skills like smoke bomb, scoprion wire or smoke screen, so it is quite clear that ANet has no hate against your profession.

Let me tell you I’m not biased cause I play all classes except the ranger and dedicate time to each of them. In fact the thief is not even my main.

Second I really don’t think CnD nerf makes a whole lot of change. I know my numbers it’s not because of 3k you’re going to avoid that but that is a different debate and I don’t want to go there. And if you need a HS might as well just auto attack and save the initiative (depending on how your AA hits).

The reason I think an AA should’t hit harder than PW for instance is basically cost. Why you ask, if PW has an evade and a stun. True that but in a perfect world (and god know I don’t play with Toughness or Vitality on my thief in pve for instance) I wouldn’t want to have mob attention on me. So why should I use PW if it’s situational and hits for less than a skill that costs 0 , also applies debuffs and even refunds initiative if specced?

Again, some bomb, meh, scorpion wire, even more meh since lots of mobs are linked anyway, smoke screen was a nice buff I agree. This in pve.

Pvp wise SW is quite good, smoke bomb is still a bit short imo and smoke screen is also highly situational because of positioning issues.

What I meant is not that the thief is nerfed to death at this point. We are still very good if played correctly. I just feel from past mmo experiences that we are disliked and will be given a nerf bat in the following months but that is speculation.

ArenaNet has proved many times that they nerf based on accurate analiysis rather than preferences, so I think that your concerns are unfounded.

About PW, don’t understimate the evade and the stun. In fact, PW allows you, in combination with shadowsteps, stealth or evade-backward skills (I’m talking about Roll for Initiative-like skills) to burst out decent damage without getting hit. While your autoattack leave you exposed, which is a really bad thing when talking about thieves, PW damage is nearly risk-free. This is the added value to PW, which explains why autoattack deals more damage. Obviously there are situations where using your autoattack is a better choice, but isn’t that as it should be? Isn’t right that any skill should have its place and its situation when it is right to be used, autoattack also?

Galsia.4102:

sorrow.2364:

Galsia.4102:

sorrow.2364:

I’d suggest you to go for some Emerald jewels.
Vitality without Toughness is worthless.

’Cause Toughness helps a lot against condition damage, amirite?

What do you mean with your post?
Do you really think that stacking vitality and having no toughness is a good way to gain survivability?
Thieves have lots of skill and traits (mostly in Shadow Arts) to clean up conditions, but they have almost no way to mitigate the damage.

I’m saying having just Vitality or Toughness isn’t worthless. If you aiming for the highest survivability, then yes, it would be better to have both. However, they’re not useless on their own; they each mitigate different types of damage.

You answered yourself.
Since the op said he already has some Valk equipment, the best thing to do is to put some toughness to mitigate the raw damage also.

Agenteusa.6380:

CnD nerf was useless. It won’t change anything.
SB nerf was useless and to be honest incomprehensible. That ability is a piece of kitten in pvp mainly due to how it works (feels like a kittening longbowman in the medieval era) and in large groups you can’t even see where the kitten arrow is so you can blow it properly.
PW has been mentioned lots of times and when AA hits harder than PW something is wrong.

It’s clear to me that ANet doesn’t like thieves and are shooting blank rounds trying to nerf it to the ground. At least that’s my perception.

Sadly, they keep missing and this time they hit at least 2 specs that weren’t the target of the complaints.

To me the thief only had 2 issues. 1 has been partially fixed and I’m not going into it since it has been discussed extensively and that was haste + PW.

The other imo is the precast CnD, Mug combo. That’s what pisses off people. I mean basically with it (if you spec all out around BS) you arrive stealthed at your target while making him hit a Steal (which doesn’t hit for a low amount), possibly proccing one or both of your sigil of airs (also nerfed last patch) , getting stacks of might and being at someone’s back stealthed so you can hit a backstab fully buffed possibly with the power signet on.

So the issue is no individual skill, it’s a combo that happens to be very effective although it’s not really fun since you need lots of downtime to pull it off again.

I think BS is fine on its own. I just think the synergy between those abilities needs to be reworked. I also think Stealth by itself is fine but again the synergies allow for thieves to pull of things that piss of people.

So until ANet wants to take a deeper look at synergies this problem won’t be solved and possibly we will see further nerfs that will kill thieves a bit at a time without addressing the real issues.

Actually, the CnD nerf made a bit of difference in the BS build.
The damage of that skill passed from 5k to 2k around, making not only the full backstab combo weaker, but also the CnD→Backstab chain.
Now it is a bit harder to kill someone with the only backstab combo, an additional heartseeker is nearly mandatory, giving the victim more time to react the burst.
Obviously it doesn’t destroy backstab build, but it was quite weakened.

Exactly for which reason if an autoattack hits harder than a certain skill something is wrong?
There are plenty of examples of autoattacks that hits harder than another skill in the same bar, but it doesn’t mean that this skill is weak.

Your perception, in my opinion, is biased. The nerf were fair, you also obtained buffs to strategic skills like smoke bomb, scoprion wire or smoke screen, so it is quite clear that ANet has no hate against your profession.

Galsia.4102:

sorrow.2364:

I’d suggest you to go for some Emerald jewels.
Vitality without Toughness is worthless.

’Cause Toughness helps a lot against condition damage, amirite?

What do you mean with your post?
Do you really think that stacking vitality and having no toughness is a good way to gain survivability?
Thieves have lots of skill and traits (mostly in Shadow Arts) to clean up conditions, but they have almost no way to mitigate the damage.

Devildoc.6721:

Not yet, but backstab nerf is in the works, the C&D nerf was just the first step. the nerfs are coming. I actually called the DD, Cluster Bomb, and C&D nerfs.. and I’m actually sad that I was right.

Have you got any proof in support of what you are saying or is that your apocalyptic view of ArenaNet plans?

The point is that it is always subpar compared to other professions mobility.

The bad thing about Necromancers is that they have low mobility but it isn’t compensated by high damage mitigation.

Warriors and Guardians have so-so mobility, but they have great damage mitigation and toughness.

Thieves are the best at mobility, Rangers are full of evades, leap and so on.
Engineers have quite meh mobility, but they have heavy control and great defendive capability.

Elementalists have great mobility while retaining great damage mitigation and heals.
Mesmers have quite good mobility and lots of invulnerability and visual confusion for enemies.

What about Necromancers? The defensive capability is subpar compared to other low mobility professions (almost no protection, no stability, no invulnerability, cloth armor, no damage reduction, low healing etc), so it isn’t compensated in any form.
It is true that we have high health pool and Death Shroud, but with no damage mitigation and no damage cancelling skills, it doesn’t help in any form. The only way to get some extra toughness or damage mitigation is to spec into minions, putting trait points into Death Magic, and we all know how broken Death Magic and minions are.

RhysSebastian.7651:

That is true that we cannot move into an unplanned direction quickly, but we can move to a previously visited place quite quickly. Intelligent use can make this an offensive tool, providing a terrain advantage. (and no spectral walk is not perma swiftness, but its a sizable amount) I mean you can run from one edge of any spvp map to the other before it vanishing.

So while everyone else is quick at getting to points they havent been too yet, we are good at getting to points we have been. Which sort of gives us more of a defensive/roamer role.

Actually, Spectral Walk is quite weak as a “comeback” skill, because its trail lasts only few seconds (6 if I’m not wrong), which is anyway too low to have any decent use excluding the swiftness.

Necrotic Traversal, on the other hand, relies on a physical entity which can be killed quite easily if spotted, so it is anyway subpar compared to portal.

RhysSebastian.7651:

Eh depends on what you define as mobility, Necromancer has the potential to have excellent burst mobility through spectral walk and flesh wurm utilization. Heck flesh wurm is basically a must have to counter trebuchet mesmers as I support mid.

Well, they have quite weak mobility.
Flesh Wurm relies on… Flash Wurm. If you get the wurm killed, you can say bye to your teleport.
Spectral Walk can’t grant you perma swiftness.

With mobility, I mean skills like Infiltrator’s Arrow, Ride the Lightning, Shadowstep, Blink, Burning Speed or everything which repositions you into the field faster than walking.

I’d suggest you to go for some Emerald jewels.
Vitality without Toughness is worthless.

Yiyojin.3241:

There are so many thief haters. There are so many people taht actually are not playing a THIEF!! So you clearly don’t understend things that I’m speaking about.
2x dodge, 2xskill evade + 1attack up of 50% weak attack =no attack option for atlest 3 seconds. After that you have 1 attack again.
And if in this time you get plenty of damage you are in trouble.

So many people talking about other builds.
1: you don’t know my build, and i will never tell about it.
2:Try to play a thief for 1 month + and you will see that what you tough you know, was just 5%.
3: I tryed a lot builds and finaly came up with the best possible build for thief FOR my kind of playing. The way i love to play is this build the best.

Someone up there wroten that i should L2P because I’m in trouble with decent warriors now.
Try to imagine a warrior that hits you down on hp for 1/4+ of hp every time you get attacked.

So, you are claiming to be a good thief player, but it looks that you lack the base knowledge of the design philosophy behind Thief.

The thief is all about not taking damage at all, not tanking damage. You have all the tools to avoid high damage skills and mitigate the overall damage output (see dodges, stealth and shadowsteps). Also, if you spec correctly into toughness and shadow art, you are able to survive to 3+ players on a node in tPvP for an huge amount of time.

Obviously, like every profession, if you put all your stats into Power and Precision, you are going to die in few hit if you don’t succed to avoid the damage.

It is the same thing about warriors if they spec as glass cannon. It’s true that warriors can take few more hit before being downed, but it is also true that warriors have less ways to leave fights or avoid damage.

If you feel uncomfortable to be hit for 1/4 of your hp bar, probably you should either change profession or change build.

s/tPvP is all about high mobility, high damage or high defensive capability.
In all the cases, Necromancer perform subpar compared to other professions.

The mobility is almost non-existent, the damage is way too low and we have almost no damage mitigation.

Simple.
Because the other skills are worthless, so you can have great fun bursting enemies down with your powerful autoattack.
But don’t worry, Thieves can actually stack more damage booster via trait than Necromancers, so their autoattack is still stronger than the Necros’.

Well, the only counter to AoE is to get out of AoEs.
Most of Ele and Necros AoE are point blank, so switch to your secondary weapon set, kite them and kill them from range if you see that you can’t handle the damage.

Marduh.4603:

sorrow.2364:

No one said that Blurred Frenzy is a bad skill because it deals low damage.

Pistol whip http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol_Whip 0.75 cast without evade
Blurred Frenzy http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy 0.5 cast with evade

mesmer have 2 second immobilized
thief only 1 second

You’re right.
0.75 seconds will surely get you killed.

Pistol Whip evades the whole channel time, the time in which the thief swings his sword exactly.
The evade is quite long and reliable. The stun, also, makes sure that about an half of your whole channel time lands, it isn’t meant to be an interrupt.
The only skill which is similiar to Pistol Whip is Blurried Frenzy of Mesmer, which deals less damage, has no stun, roots you in place but has a bit longer invulnerability. No one said that Blurred Frenzy is a bad skill because it deals low damage.

Devildoc.6721:

They want autoattacks

Lots of autoattacks

They want you doing nothing but autoattacks

Because the whiners from outside of the thief class want us doing nothing but autoattacking, and their voices are heard.

People like you make the community thinks thieves are a bunch of noobs.
Backstab build was barely untouched, it wasn’t what community asked for, so it is a clear proof that ArenaNet doesn’t give a kitten to what people say in the forums.

Stop with those kind of posts, you just make yourself look ridiculous.

Probably you are dying hard in PvE because you play a thief like it is a guardian.
As ArenaNet stated, thief defensive capability isn’t about taking lot of damage without dying, it is about not taking damage at all.

Also, have you ever heard something about balanced builds?
Use Emerald/Ruby jewelry, run 10/30/30/0/0 and enjoy your amazing survivability with high damage.
Thank me later.

As far I know, Vitality increases the overall life force pool.

Pragmatist, you should learn some concision when posting your thoughts.
Honestly, that wall of text let people lose the will to discuss.

Anyway, the fact that a skill gives you pretty long evade, stun and high damage as it was is out of any form of balance. If you add that this skill is on a thief bar, so it can be used more than one time in a row, makes the balancing way more difficult.

The autoattack has lower dps than Pistol Whip, of course. Just test it out.
Also if Pistol Whip had lower dps compared to autoattack, it would have meant absolutely nothing. Bunch of autoattacks in this game have higher dps than other skills in the same bar, but that other skills have some utility built in that compensate the lower dps.

Pragmatist.1349:

Laughable, just because a skill is worth using it does not deserve a buff? If something is worth using but abit substandard and was nerfed for highly questionable reasons then buffing it is completely justified. And no, it wont become better than Black Powder in most situations at all seeing as though Black Powder serves basically a completely different purpose, namely, Blind debuff damage mitigation for your entire party as opposed to a damage evasion that only works for yourself.

Arenanet wouldnt have nerfed PW for pvp only seeing as though they only started doing that this previous patch after finally listening to the Thief community about seperating pve from pvp like they did in GW1. Until this previous patch Arenanet tried to create a balance without seperating the pve/pvp spheres, that attempt failed, so they finally listened and resorted to seperating pve from pvp so that some class balance can finally be achieved.

Beforehand PW did not somehow outperform other pve builds in terms of effectiveness. Quite a few other builds were highly effective, if not just as effective. But obviously each build serves a different purpose and achieves that in its own way.

A skill which is underpowered isn’t worth using because you have better alternative to that skill. A skill which is worth using means that it has its place on your bar and you are able to use that skill effectively, so it doesn’t need a buff because it is enough powerful.

Black Powder isn’t exactly for your party considering its radius, it is most likely a defensive skill from melee enemies only for youself.

The S/P build is a more defensive oriented weapon set, the damage PW had was extremely high considering its benefits. So yes, overall the damage nerf was fair, because it highlights the fact that PW isn’t meant to deal massive damage but it is meant to be a skill which sacrifice raw numbers in order to have better defensive capability in return.
Before the nerf, PW had the same dps of Hundred Blades. You would agree with me that it was quite unbalanced considering that Hundred Blades doesn’t have all the benefits PW has.

Pragmatist.1349:

I did not state that pistol whip was not worth using after the patch, infact i stated exactly the opposite :P. i regularly use both pistol whip and black powder, they are both great skills in many different situations. Im not asking for an overbuff at all, im simply stating that the 15% should be refunded back to pistol whip for pve purposes, as that was the figure that was unjustly removed from it. A dual skill like that should not have lower dps than autoattacking. And once again, the pistol whip skill was not nerfed because it was somehow magically OP in PVE, it was nerfed due to haste PVP issues, therefore if arenanet really disliked that they should nerf it in pvp only (or even better rework Haste, which is the real issue here), not in pve where, as Arenanet themselves stated, Thief needs higher constant damage. And im not talking about Necromancer signets or thief venoms or traps etc etc etc. here because this forum is about refunding Pistol Whip its 15% back. Simple as really.

And ontop of that Unload for dual pistols should be refunded its 10% in PVE, seeing as though that was only nerfed because of haste pvp issues.

The point is that as long as the skill is worth using, it doesn’t need to be buffed.
Once PW will get its damage back, probably it will be better than Black Powder in most situations, creating unbalance.

If ArenaNet thought that PW needed to be nerfed only for PvP, they would have nerfed his damage in PvP only, like they did with many other skills. Probably PW needed a nerf in both PvP and PvE, because it outperformed in effectiveness other thief builds.

Pragmatist.1349:

I agree that Pistol Whip should be granted the 15% damage back that was taken in a nerf a few patches ago for PVE purposes only, im glad Arenanet has began to seperate pve from pvp.

Pistol Whip and Black Powder are both great, the only real valid point to comment on here is that Pistol Whip was nerfed because when stacked with haste the burst was insane in pvp. In PvE that does not even apply, therefore the nerf is totally unjustified in terms of PvE. (I would even add to this that the 15% nerf was unjustified altogether given that the burst only really worked against noob glass cannons who didnt know how to dodge and didnt take a single stunbreak, in other words, didnt know how to play pvp, pistol whip even WITH haste is perhaps the most predictable ability ingame)

Give us the 15% back in PvE, and if you wanted to be really nice you could slightly increase the size of the Black Powder circle. :>

And yes, Black Powder and Pistol Whip generally apply to different scenarios. Black Powder is very strong for most trash pulls to basically nullify all damage if they can be grouped up. Against bosses however Blind has basically no effect, so time Pistol Whip correctly as your damage evasion and also remember that your auto attack can apply a small window of weakness/fumble which is nice on bosses if timed correctly. If specced correctly, on trash pulls you can basically spam both black powder and pistol whip due to insane initiative regen. Anyways, all that being said, what i said above still stands and the 15% should be added back to pistol whip in pve.

Of course you want a skill to be better as it is now, but Pistol Whip is worth using after the nerf, that means that it was overpowered and now it is fine.
Looks like you are asking to overbuff your profession, not buffing something which is weak or doesn’t have any use.

If you want to figure out what kind of skills need a buff, just take a look into Necromancer signets.

I agree that probably CnD nerf wasn’t the best thing to do. Nerfing Mug would be way better, but anyway the backstab combo damage was lowered and that’s what matters.

Ichishi.9613:

For what reason might one be leaving ranged mobs at range? You can come to them or ball them with los, blind them. And melee mobs will follow you anyways

You are not going to ball al the ranged mobs in the same place, that’s the point.

Hi everyone.
Since I’ve noticed that ArenaNet seems to not get the real point of the Necromancer weakness, I want to make a compendium here about all the traits which are useless, situational while being a minor trait or makes no sense at all to me.
I will not refer to bugged traits.

Spite:
- Parastic Bond: this trait is extremely situational and worth using only in PvE because of the low kills amount in sPvP and WvWvW. I don’t know what is the amount of heal this trait is supposed to give, because it looks like it is bugged. Anyway, the best think to do is to make this trait as a Major trait, while moving a trait like Spiteful Spirit as a minor trait.
-Spiteful Removal: this trait is quite similiar as Parastic Bond, but 1 condition removed doesn’t make this trait useful compared to Reaper’s Might in any situation.

Curses:
- Terror: deals way too low damage compared to the average fear duration on Necro. It needs a substantial damage buff.
- Focused Rituals: why is this trait in Curses? Should it supposed to be into the Blood Magic traitline?
-Withering Precision: the weakness duration or the chances to cause it should be buffed. It isn’t worth using compared to Lingering Curse.

Death Magic:
- Reanimator: pretty obvious. This trait should be buffed and moved to a major trait.
-Protection of the Horde: same as reanimator. It could use a buff, but the important thing is that this trait shouldn’t be as a minor trait because doesn’t fit into every build.

Blood Magic:
- Dagger Mastery: should be merged with Quickening Thirst. Those traits are quite useless but if combined together they should be a good choice to a Necro running daggers.
- Blood to Power: the damage bonus should either be increased to 10% or the requirement should be lowered to 50% hp. Now it is quite weak compared to any other damage booster.
-Deadly Invigoration: the heal amount should be buffed.

Soul Reaping:
-Speed of Shadows: the amount of speed increase should be buffed. Looks like it isn’t worth chosing over any other Soul Reaping trait.

That’s all guys.
All opinions and considerations are well accepted.

Edelweiss.9815:

In most situations it’s better to use Black Powder and autoattack. Especially in group situations.

Well, no.
There are very few situations were there is absolutely no enemy attacking from range, probably in low level area, and Black Powder make you exposed from long range attacks, which is a big downside in most cases.

Pistol Whip makes you unattackable for the whole channeling time. This means a lot.
It is like making a comparison between invulnerability and AoE blindness, you would prefer invulnerability in most cases.

Ichishi.9613:

Building around stealth? And what is the purpose of stealth in sPvP?

Was that sarcasm or are you actually serious?

ZLE.8293:

Oh but it HAS recharge.6 initiative are regenerated for 10 seconds….
Imagine a skill,that has a hidden cooldown of 10 seconds ,which also is applied to all other weapon skills regardless of weapon change.

Get the picture?

It means absolutely nothing.
First, I’ve said that it will cost only 4 initiative if you spend just 10 trait points in Shadow Arts, which are recharged in 6 seconds, without considering all the traits or skills which gives you initiative like Roll for Initiative (or any skill which stealths you if you have that trait) or Opportunist.
Second, you are still able to use that skill again if you need. It is always available, obviously if you have the right amount of initiative and that’s a great plus considering that all the stealth skill you have are locked on a cooldown.

At least, do you know what recharge means? Means that, once you used the skill, you can’t use it again for the amount of the recharge time.
This is obviously not the case of CnD because, once you used it, you are able to use it again (after the 3s revealed buff if you used backstab) if you have 6 initiative left and that means a lot.
On the other hand, if you want to play it defensively, you can just use CnD, wait for the stealth ends (3s or 4s if traited) and use CnD again, giving you great survivability and nearly permanent stealth.

You are hardly going down initiative if you build correctly around stealth.

Kensei.6197:

Mind if i ask you which part of a 6-initiative-33%-damage-off-skill you consider CHEAP?

Probably has no recharge?
Probably you can get back 2 initiative if you have an Adept shadow art trait, so it is actually 4 initiative?

Stin.9781:

Backstab nerf wasnt too bad but other builds with dagger offhand got hit rly rly hard.
Mainy S/D

Other builds which has CnD on his bar never relied on his damage.
At least, when I play S/D I’ve never felt to use CnD to pop out damage, but only to have a cheap stealth and that’s probably what ArenaNet wants this skill to be.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Without raw damage, most scenarios favor the use of Black Powder over Pistol Whip. In fact, this is one of the biggest issues with the kit currently: now that Pistol Whip is no longer considered a damage dump, it directly competes against Black Powder for a role in our arsenal. Most situations will favor Black Powder however, especially since it’s a combo field. PW doesn’t really have a well defined use anymore now that it no longer does relevant damage, outside of getting health back via signet (which is very niche).

Honestly, I still use PW quite frequently on my thief.
The evade is pretty awesome and allow me to do quick in’n’out fights with Infiltrator’s Strike without getting any hit at all thanks to the evade, while Black Powder still leave you exposed to ranged attack from arcers or mages around your target, pretty risky btw.

Obviously there are situations where Black Powder+Autoattack performs better than PW, but isn’t that meant to be right? I mean, every skill should have its use according to situations you are in and that’s the case of PW and BP.

About the root in place point, I doubt the mobs you are attacking evade any part of your PW. It never happened to me, neither in PvP with human players against. I don’t see how it can be happened to you.

Stin.9781:

kenshinakh.3672:

I think Anet lowered Dancing Dagger’s damage by so much because it was being used for it probably isn’t meant to do. I know that whenever I see two people or more, my first thought is usually “Spam them to death with Dancing Daggers”. If specced right, that can hit up to 5k-7k when bouncing off targets (it’s not strong if it didn’t have multiple targets to bounce). Maybe it was meant to just be a multi-target cripple, not a damage ability?
Maybe it’d be more balanced if they lowered it to 3 initiative because it’s just used for cripple now, and 4 seems to cost a lot for such a cripple attack.

Look : Against single target

Infiltrators strike 1.5 snare, gap closer, can be falowed up by condition/stun removal for 2 innitiative.

Dancing dagger 3 seconds snare. No gap closer nuthing else.

It completely lost its value against single target, Against 2 targets its ok now against 1/3/4 its meh.

Please, don’t manipulate reality in order to make your arguments look founded.

Infiltrator’s Strike is 1s immobilization on 5 initiative (you need to return back in order to use it again), while Dancing Dagger is a 5s snare (10s potentially if it bounces between 2 targets) and it bounces also, all this in 4s initiative.

Probably that skill wasn’t mean’t to do high damage but it was meant to be used to snare the opponent to don’t let him escape the fight. Have you guys never thought about this? That probably you can have also utility skills on your weapon bar other than damage skills?

evergreen.2438:

I don’t understand why always somebody appears and cover ANET on topics? I don’t wanna create alternatives. i set my gears for my backstab build and c&d is the key point on this build. we have already less hp because we preferred to do higher damage. why they are ruining all the time?

they say; all class are equal, your builds will be determinative.

but when a build forge ahead they are nerfing it.

anyway….

Don’t take into account the less HP topic which is still a joke said by a thief.
You have the highest mobility in the game and stealth; you are able to take no damage at all if you play well.

Backstab build was overperforming all burst builds in the game, that’s the point. You are still able to run your backstab build, but a single chain now probably won’t kill your target and you have to use some other skills. Crazy, uh?

Backstab damage is the same, Mug damage is the same. Only CnD damage is 33% less (2-3k about). Will this ruin your build? I don’t think so.

The point of dancing daggers is that it bounces between 4 targets.
Its damage for a bouncing skill, considering it can be used 3 times in a row, was absolutely insane. Just imagine 3 DD used on a guy who is ressing his mate… That was absolutely crazy.

Now it is inline with the other bouncing skills, fair nerf after all.

Ichishi.9613:

Like gun 5 providing longer, more mobile protection for same cost and auto keeping weakness and cripple on top.

But deals no damage and doesn’t protect you from ranged attacks.
PW is worth using, if you are actually using it in PvE, I’m sure you use that skill over Pistol 5 for sure.

You what?
Dude, come on. There are plenty of viable builds, backstab is still viable but not insta-kill as it was.

I know that earning kills with your ability can be a weird concept for someone who has always played backstab (as I am assuming reading what you wrote), but this is how this game work.

evade+stun+more dps > autoattack

Damage is fine, it can still melt mobs’ hp bars. Obviously it won’t kill anyone with 2 casts of PW, but the evade, the stun and the faster attack rate makes that skill better than your autoattack.

It isn’t all about raw numbers guys, there are more factors that make a skill powerful.

http://i47.tinypic.com/nywfns.jpg

Reyka.8965:

Do you think they are gonna nerf your build if you say it before the patch?? lol

Yep, looks like the OP has found a perma invulnerability build.

Wow. Interesting.
You came here saying Necro are OP because you found an incredibly strong build you won’t tell to anyone. Seems legit.

Rayya.2591:

sorrow.2364:

So, as you don’t need my joke (which is intentionally stupid and worthless), so other people don’t need that kind of stupid jokes, like the one in the op. Plain and simple.

OP joke was an response for all the flame topics over thieves.
Anyway why an necro / warrior / mesmer /ranger /guardian have more posts on thief forums , that on own forum ?
Cause they like to troll
I am guardian , thief backstab me 20 k damage
I am warrior thief backstab me 15k damage
When rarely an backstab reach over 6 k damage on 3000 defence, and that is from full glass cannons who take 3-4k damage from auto attacks.
So why you present interest for thief forums anyway ? because you like to troll them.
Does thieves go on necro’s forums and spam, we were 3 thieves and got owned by an condition necro ? please nerf . Should we go ? condition necro is good counter for thief, we should make 30 topics requesting nerf. But no we stay on our corner, so why you read topics with title "buff thief " . Cause if it was actualy an topic that requested an buff you would replayed with thief is already OP , learn to play

Condition Necro isn’t a counter to Thief.
Trust me, the guys who are playing thief aren’t different from the others playing the rest of profession.
If there is a class they consider overpowered, the complain will start also against that profession.
Do you remember the complaints against Guardian? They were coming from the most part from thieves who failed to kill them, then they realize that to counter them a boon removal or conditions were enough and then complaints stopped.
The situation about Thieves is different, because also ArenaNet stated that something is wrong, but you guys keep saying that people who complain about the profession are troll because they don’t agree with you.

Anyway, most people are not complaining about backstab only.
If you bothered to read the complains, you would know that most of them are related to the Backstab combo, which really deal 16k+ damage in a tiny window of time.

Eduardo.4675:

Yes i did. U said: “what about if thief power matched their brain capacity, so that they become UNDERPOWERED?”
Than u proceeded to inform us later that “i play both necro and thief”…
Not really smart, is it? Hence, my joke…
But keep going, this pvp is far better than gw’s ingame pvp.

I will not answer you until you read my post with your brain set “On”.

Adaneshade.2409:

Pigeon-holing all thieves into one specific build is a very narrow minded approach. There are, in fact, many of us who choose to build in such a way that we do really need to reach a high skill cap to succeed. (i.e. any non stealth-oriented build, any sword build[post pistol whip nerf])

Yet, whenever I win a fight with a difficult build, I’m still subjected to hate spam about OP thief. While there may be some legitimate complaints about certain builds, there are just as many made by people who can’t accept they may just have lost to a superior player.

That is another inconvenient effect to play a profession which has some overpowered builds.

People who are actually enjoy playing thief and like the challange, don’t run the gimmick build which is around and don’t cry about the past nerf (which were fair to be honest) or any future nerf, but still they are subject of the rage against a profession which is considered overpowered in common sense. Nerf to backstab combo will only help good players to stand out, while hurting only players who are abusing an overperforming build and will probably reroll to the next FotM profession once the nerf has spoken.

Rayya.2591:

why don’t you take your jokes to necromancer forums ?
cause your forum is clean , and you can actualy have decent discution regarding builds and counters , but no all the trash comes to thief’s forums.
Cause all the QQ’rs come and cry here on thief profesion forums, all the flame.
Did it ever come to your mind that we had enough and we don’t need your jokes ?
Pathetic.

I attend both Necromancer and Thief forum because I play them both.
Since this forum isn’t something like “The Thieves Refuge” but it is actually a place where people discuss about Thieves, than I don’t understand your attitude.
Also, if you are concerned about the trash, you should also be concerned about people making threads like “Nerf bat incoming”, “Backstab is OP but 20k dmg from 1200 range is not?”, “Backstab is fine…”, “Let me explain it to you: The backstab” and so on.

There are people trying to discuss about the thief state, but you guys look more concerned about preserving the status quo instead of actually talk about changes or balancing.

Each time there is a discussion about balancing, there is always a storm of “l2p noob”, “you’re bad” and so on, which is a clear index of the mental maturity of people hanging around here. And here we come with the same, stupid statement, based on the assumpion that everyone who criticizes the thief state is either a noob or a bad player.

So, as you don’t need my joke (which is intentionally stupid and worthless), so other people don’t need that kind of stupid jokes, like the one in the op. Plain and simple.

Malicious.6742:

Wait, he’s dominating BS thieves using all the different means of utility he got. How is that proof of the game’s imbalance? I don’t know why you’re bringing up raw dmg numbers here. If the thief hits a 6k Crit every 5s while the necro hits ~1.5k every second the necro’s overall damage done respectively DPS is significantly higher. (those numbers are just made up to make my point clear)
It’s a pity this vid hasn’t been done earlier. I would’ve posted it on every single QQ thread about BS thieves telling people to get better and play like this.

Just pay attention also to the enemy, not only to the op.
Op is actually good, but he risked to be downed many times in that video (just notice how many times he had his hp at less than 3k) by people who were actually throwing their skill and dodges (if there were some) randomly.

I love to see how you was playing hard, timing your dodges and using all your skills into the right time and, still, you was put in difficulties by people who clearly were using their skills at random.

I also love to see also how your skills crit for an huge 1,6k (or 4k when channeled) when you were getting 6k+ damage from any thief critical.

Good video and nice gameplay, but it is a proof of the imbalance this game has.

Archaon.6245:

reduce dmg would lead to something like…i’m a bunker guardian and i’ll rule you all…

actaully the best burst combo is mesmer’s mind wrack spam…if you can’t avoid BS you’re probably going to explode with mind wrack

I’m not going to explode to a mind wrack because I usually clean up the mesmer clones/phantasms. Is there something I should clean to reduce the thief burst?

So what? Bunker guardians are now an hard counter to backstab as they are an hard counter to almost every burst/raw damage build. Conditions and boon removals are the way to kill them fast.

Archaon.6245:

if in the other team are totally noobs…because if good players spot a thief first of all they’ll daze, cripple, chill and everything him as soon as he gets visible or just in range…if you mind waiting for him to stealth again and maybe letting him to get steal again well….maybe someone deserves what he gets…and i play ele, guardian, mesmer and cond dmg thief…and i can’t avoid HS spammers PW and BS pretty much everytime…if i get killed it’s because i made a mistake or i have stuff on cd, not because it was impossible to counter

I don’t want to get in arguing about good players and bad players.
All I want to say is that BS is way harder to counter and has the lower risk than any other high burst combo/skill in this game and that’s why it should be nerfed.
Either increase of risk or reduced damage or increased ease of counter is needed.

I’ve never said BS combo is uncounterable, what I want to say is that compared to its damage and its risk, BS combo is by far too hard to counter. It has almost no downsides. It is fast, risk free, hard to counter and with a huge damage.

Archaon.6245:

c&d BS alone means that you must stay in melee range…and you’re probably going to die before landing the first c&d if you are stupid enough not to get the crap away very fast….only a crazy glass thief would stay in melee range just to land a c&d..on the other hand with a warrior with invulnerability, more armor and way bigger hp pool you can stay there and keep on fighting

Please, stop with those untrue statements.
Everyone is able to survive for 3 seconds to vanish in stealth again. A dodge just cover half of the time.

You’re right, by the way. None is that stupid to wait 3 seconds to perform another backstab combo when Heartseeker is more than enough to finish the job.

So, you said that actually thieves have better survivability because they can easily get out of the fight after the burst is done. Warriors, on the other hand, can’t leave the fight and are forced to be visible after the HB burst, ready to take all the damage and die (yes, a glass cannon warrior is almost as squishy as a glass cannon thief). 3 seconds invulnerability can’t save their kitten

Archaon.6245:

With bull’s charge, bolas or both you’re going to get an hb on your face just like BS (Not…because if you get a BS on your face it deals half dmg)…or you can use a stunbreaker and evade it…just like BS..

If lots of people can easily avoid BS combos it means that you can actually counter them..or there are so many superhumans out there…

The fact is that any unhasted BS combo is 2x faster to perform than an hasted HB.
This means, roughly, that an unhasted BS combo is 2x harder to counter than an hasted HB combo.
Plus, once you performed your hasted BS combo and you succeded to avoid it, you are forced for 60 seconds to perform only unhasted HB, which is actualy 4x slower than an unhasted BS, so roughly 4x easier to evade at least.
With your thief, on the other hand, you are still able to perform an half version of you backstab combo with CnD+Backstab every 3 seconds, which still deals pretty decent damage in 3/4 second.