Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

> @"omgdracula.6345" said:

> > @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

> > > @"omgdracula.6345" said:

> > > So is action cam still garbage on a thief? I know it was bad to use pre Heartseeker change due to not being able to modify distance with camera tilt. Is it useable now that HS range cant be modified with tilt anymore? I already hold down mouse buttons to move the camera a bunch already.

> >

> > I use it in pve and pvp. It's nice on thief for a few reasons and bad for a few. Mostly it's super helpful when you're using mobility skills to get closer.

>

> I never thought of using it for mobility skills. But then again my biggest enemy there is no target in line of sight xD

Oh yes, when you need to get that angle juust right to cut someone off while using heart seeker. Or you need to quickly climb onto a platform with infiltrator's arrow. Well it takes too long to swing your camera, let go of right click, and left click the platform. When I can actually just swing my camera and press five then click immediately.

> @"omgdracula.6345" said:

> So is action cam still garbage on a thief? I know it was bad to use pre Heartseeker change due to not being able to modify distance with camera tilt. Is it useable now that HS range cant be modified with tilt anymore? I already hold down mouse buttons to move the camera a bunch already.

I use it in pve and pvp. It's nice on thief for a few reasons and bad for a few. Mostly it's super helpful when you're using mobility skills to get closer.

> @"Tora.7214" said:

> the new bundles are very welcomed, i believe though that thief should be able to support its raid/group a bit more between steal CDs, my suggestion is that Arenanet make the Grandmaster buffs on the daredevil dodge to apply not only to the daredevil, but to atleast 5 more other people around the daredevil. a good Daredevil is able to esily keep these buffs on at all time, and it would be easy to apply to the raid since they are usually stacked togueter

No the power Daredevil has the dodge as part of the damage rotation. I don't recommend ever designing a support feature to ever support something within the highest damage rotation

> @"RSLongK.8961" said:

> Create your own group. manege 9 other people you dont know what skil level they are, what they are bringing to the group and let us know how it went. how long it took for the first vale guardian kill.

> Meta is not a imposition, its a conclusion after many trials and errors and people not wating to spend more time for thing they already did many times over. /hugs

Did this vale guardian went down in second try. The failure was due to no one having boon strip.

Really, I am sick of being shoe horned into the meta myself. We know the DPS requirements are low. But everyone in pugs insist that anything out of meta is doomed for failure.

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> Leo i'm just more used to playing d/p i'm not used to the other builds, but i never claimed to be the best.I haven't pvped in a while, and with new builds to learn to counter, its no wonder i died.

>

> Every time you change something add a new elite spec or something, it means you have to relearn how to play.

I don't think I said you were the best or the worst pvper. I only said "giving you a little more help". There's things and tricks that people either never knew about, or forgot about in the moment. You mentioned that you were having a hard time running away from Guardians, and I told you how to quickly get away from them in a way where they can not chase.

The most often selected Armors for powerThief in PVP tend to be Marauders, Assassins, and Valks. Toughness is not often taken for thief as thief has a number of ways to avoid taking insane burst direct damages. Your usual killer is going to be condition damage. You'd want to take toughness if you're fighting someone who's incredibly hard to get off of you, and are able to hit you fast and hard. Taking Berserk is a good way to ask for trouble.

All damage you'd normally receive is DIVIDED by toughness. This means that arguably, having higher toughness against direct damage is far better than having more health against the same damage. But consequently, anything that ignores armor will kill you very quickly.

There's nothing really wrong with taking high toughness builds however, unless you're fighting condi. Toughness builds are often augmented by Shadow Arts, and Deadeye. I've used Knights, and Crusader to pretty strong effect with Deadeye. In PVP.

For PVE, a lot of people will tell you to just go Berserker and get good. But I want to point out some flaws with this thinking.

1. A lot of the enemies HoT and PoF expansions can deal a shit load of damage to you in short notice. Many can actually one-shot a thief.

2. A lot of the enemies have some form of absurdly long CC and agro range.

3. There are a lot of areas where there is a massive shit storm of mobs. Dealing with one or three won't be an issue for a thief. But when the thief is swarmed by a mix of ranged, melee, AOEs, and CCs... you will really feel your lack of defensive stats.

I'd recommend taking Marauders. Which will see you safely through a good chunk of content. That's what I currently use.

If you're doing Solo Dungeon runs, survivability becomes far more important. Because you'll be taking a shit storm of damage... you want something with healing power, or defenses. Preferably, toughness as you'll find yourself getting hit pretty god damn hard without it. To put it in perspective, a dungeon boss has chunked my 11,000hp arse in zerks for 9000 damage.

Knights would have reduced that to 6777.

Commander

Knights

Valks

Crusader

> @"Auturgist.8256" said:

> > @"Faaris.8013" said:

> > Thanks for the reminder (/sarcasm). I still don't see the point in Marauder stats, why not use some Valkyrie gear? I actually use a Valkyrie staff and accessory in fractals most of the time, it gives me more than 14k health without losing any damage at all (because of precision coming from fractal pots). Even in open world content, I would prefer that over adding toughness to my build. It just draws unwanted attention from mobs that can get you killed more likely than a one-shot. Also, I hate to say this, but if you don't stand in AoEs or in front of mobs in open world, you don't get one-shot at all. I rather slot invigorating precision and use health leeching food to keep me alive.

>

> Wait... what does Toughness have to do with mob aggro?

In some PvE content, Toughness determines how badly you piss enemies off. In some Raids, enemies will attack characters with the highest toughness stat. This does not necessarily mean everything follows this rule. As a large majority of enemies are based on proximity, and who attacked what first.

> @"Auturgist.8256" said:

> > @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

> > Someone complained before learning how to play.

>

> Actually, I complained AFTER learning how to play five years ago, coming back to the game, and finding kitten changed for the worse. It wasn't like this before, and it was better.

I know, I've been playing Thief since day one. I'm not calling you out XD. I'm saying that someone complained about thief being too good, and we've been getting hit for five freaking years.

I really wouldn't redesign it much.

Just get rid of most of the unneeded/now-redundant nerfs. Fix bugs within their skills. Make their underwater game more enjoyable. And add some better synchronization to their weapon kits.

And most importantly. Remove "No valid path to target"

I've noticed th that players in both WvW and PvP Taking snipers cover, and trying to use it as a quick access to stealth, but get rofl stomped or don't get the most out of the time because they take too long to stand up.

If you take Snipers cover, and intend to use it this way. HOLD DOWN 5.

You will crouch down, and the moment Free Action becomes available, you will immediately get back up. This means it only gives you the half a second pause, instead of having the player spam 5 and fail to get up fast enough.

> @"Auturgist.8256" said:

> If I use Steal and Hidden Thief to stealth behind someone and attempt to Backstab, and they are out of range, why do I lose any chance to do it? I feel like I should be able to spam my first attack and the Backstab should go off as soon as it possibly can -- I shouldn't lose the chance just because someone moved out of melee range when I hit the button. Considering Necros get to drop AoE literally all over the kitten map and I need to blow every dodge and Shadowstep to get out of it, it should be easier for me to land a kitten Backstab.

Someone complained before learning how to play.

Not necessarily. As Turk has stated, Thieves requires a higher skill floor than other specializations in PvP.

The Sword Pistol would likely be recommended because it offers a pretty strong flury with evasion frames. An interrupt, and blind.

But against a Guardian, I'd take a Sword Dagger. The sword its self offers decent damage, the third skill is the most useful. It offers an on demand evasion. And if the back stab lands, it gives you a boon strip which applies the boons to yourself. This QUICKLY turns the tables on Guardians and Necromancers.

But if you are having problems running away from Guardians. Something tells me that you're missing some foundational knowledge for thieves. I'm not trying to be offensive, I am just giving you a little more help.

The reason why everyone takes shortbow on thief as their second weapon is due to the Shadow Infiltrator skill on 5. But there's probably something you, and a lot of thieves don't actually know about this. Shadow infiltrator will work as long as there is a VALID WALKABLE PATH. If a player is forced to jump to that location. It will fail immediately. But if a player can walk there (it doesn't matter if it takes 10 minutes), then you can shadow step onto it.

That being said, the thief has a MASSIVE escape option, as you're able to shadow step onto balconies walls, or catwalks from the ground. No other profession really can do this, except mesmer(?), and Scourge (requires them to burn an ult).

Continuing on... both Daredevil's Staff Vault , and Deadeye's Rifle Death's Retreat offers very similar advantages. Daredevil's staff alows them to jump across gaps that can not be pathed. And Death's Retreat is Shadow Infiltrator in reverse (you need to aim backwards).

Honestly, I wanted a horn. Make the Thief into a Bard-like support heavy spec. The unique armor item would be a back piece that is an instrument.

Honestly, there's quite a bit Anet could have done to make GW2's raids more unique to the game, instead of making them generic and comparable. For example instead of focusing so heavily on the group, add a strong focus to the individual and force them to actually KNOW their professions.

My favorite raids were always the ones that were escorts, or had the players running around the map rather than fighting the bosses.

Make a map where players are encouraged to spread out to conquered objectives, make this more apparent by starting them off forcefully spread out so they are isolated or in tiny random groups. Make it so each profession is capable of taking unique paths, but only if players actually pushed it to the limits.

For example, PvPers may know that Professions like Mesmer, Thief, and Engineer are completely capable of crossing large gaps. The thief and mesmer are even able to climb onto walls, or teleport across large gaps as long as there's a walkable path to it. Why not make it so that these specs are rewarded for pushing themselves in such away by enforcing unique paths?

A Ranger can easily attack two targets at once, so let a ranger be able to open paths.

A warrior, and an elementalist are incredibly capable at cleaving. Make paths filled with low health enemies with insane damage to make it risky for other specs to charge through this area, but not these professions. Those with cloaking abilities are able to run through this place ignored. Same with those with access to fear.

Necromancers can corrupt boons or dump conditions very easily.

The list goes on.

Not only would you put the player's knowledge to the test, but you'd also make it so players used gear that they're more comfortable with and put speed clearing times on how well they know the map.

To be fair.

Weakness is counteracted by a few things. Condi swaps, Condi Cleanses, Resistance, And you can continue your damage via dumping condi onto someone else. If Weakness is a severe problem, run away and avoid engaging again till it breaks.

DD never really had any problems after launch, and is arguably overloaded as all hell.

I'm honestly fine with thief being weak when down. A good thief is usually a pain in the butt to knock down in the first place.

As for Necros... well there's a joke that tends to actually be true about this. A necro generally feels at their strongest when they are lying down.

The one suggestion I'd make here... is to change the invisible to a camoflauge state that NPCs have, where you're invisible indefinitely as long as you don't take another action.

This seems overpowered, but a little more justified than you'd think.

A warrior can immediately get back onto his feet and do a lot of damage to rally.

Ele can get up and run for a pretty good distance, so they can go through doors and even round corners and jump off of ledges.

A Ranger has his pet to heal him while he heals.

A Guardian is able to heal people while he's on the ground.

A Revenant can forcefully reposition people, which is actually more useful than shadow stepping yourself.

Mesmer better damage than thief on the ground.

Honestly... Thief should be more slippery on the ground, but you got a 1sec stealth and a short ranged teleport.

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> > @"Gravenz.6258" said:

> > To be frank this is one of the aspects that bridle the raiding potential of Guild Wars 2.

> >

> > It might be a design choice which I thought understandable at first, but being clamped up with your raid constantly, on any boss, even when you're a range capable class feels atrocious on the long run.

> > This said, as much as it ruins team composition and boss abilities diversity, most of Guild Wars 2 spell mecanics simply not work with distance, a range class will always do more dmg at close range because of multi projectile spells and most of buffs can only be provided in more or less 300 range aoes.

> >

> > So yeah I'm not sure if removing this aura would be relevant in the end since there's no real reason to leave the pile anyway ~

>

> That just needs to change by changing the rules on range of boon provision.

>

> Even then, the problem would be healing, as healing is also proximity based.

>

> The fact is, GW2's combat is way too binary because of the dodge system. Being able to completely negate damage through a single frequently available key press is rather stifling of how ranged vs melee DPS would be balanced. Ranged would be too safe unless encounter designers started operating like WoW and designing mechanics that target different specs.

>

> I mean, we might see a hint of this with Deimos and Sabetha. What if most fights had elements like these affecting multiple people so comps were forced to bring a mix of ranged and melee specs? It would have to definitely be more complex than just the "stand at range to drop a void zone here", but it would open up the design space for combat encounters.

>

> It might even make the job of the healer even more interactive as you would force them to reposition depending on which group needs healing.

>

> Matthias also has a sort of preview into what forcing players to adjust their range could feel like. They just need to take further advantage of it.

I honestly like this idea.

For PvE, I just use Mauraders, same as my WvW gear, and do well enough with it. Most things die very fast.

With Deadeye, you don't need the precision as much as you'll cap it very quickly on your own. And how quickly you stack might will blow things up. The main reason why I take Mauraders into PvE is because of the assload of CC, and burst enemies in the new expansion.

> @"Alehin.3746" said:

> I can imagine anet removing the aura because of complaints like this, then healers stop being a thing and the same people that cried about the aura will complain because theres no healers to heal them after failing mechanics. kek

Aren't there players who complain about the bosses mechanics already?

> @"harris.7964" said:

> > @"saerni.2584" said:

> > Nothing should be 100% up to date given the patch was yesterday.

> >

> > That said I don’t foresee much changing other than a possible boost to Deadeye rifle and improved functionality for existing specs in raids due to the new stolen skills.

>

> Do you think the buff for rifle will make a build able to replace the staff meta?

Yyyyyeess and no.

I don't raid often, so I've probably got no authority compared to someone with like 400Li or some shit. I've taken the Rifle into raids already after this buff patch. I've noticed cases where the Rifle would be infinitely better than staff regardless of staff being able to output more raw DPS. And cases where taking rifle would be a bad idea.

Rifle has a number of advantages over the staff in my opinion. But also disadvantages.

The first is the rotation. The biggest problem with the DD rotation is there's a lot of movement involved in it, and it requires the use of your dodge. Players will miss strikes pretty damn often once the battle gets rolling and the boss starts shifting around, if not ever so slightly. Not to mention the added complexity of needing to manually target landing locations and keeping track of events happening around you. The rifle combats this by turning one of the weaknesses in the kit into a surprising advantage. You don't need to move around much, and in the event you do, a well timed dodge roll from anything (utils, heal, or endurance dodge) will reposition you into a more favorable place pretty quickly. Next, with the size of raid bosses, a rifle shot is pretty much guranteed to hit at all times. The hitboxes are massive, and while crouched the projectiles are very fast. A good deal of player error is removed here.

Second is target acquisition. There's a number of raid bosses where DPS needs to suddenly swap targets to burn something down. The problem here isn't relocating to chase a moving target, though it is a part of it. The main problem is that players often drop a lot of damage when they turn their cameras to see a new threat. (again, DD requires a lot of movement). Deadeye, as long as you have the boss targeted you will keep hitting. Finally, when you do swap targets, you don't need to actually move. You can quickly spin around and start hitting things that other players normally can not, if not with a decent amount of damage.

The third is bosses with burst phases. Keep Construct for instance will take an INSANE amount of damage from the deadeye alone thanks to M7 powered DJs.

Fourth, though now slightly changed after the patch is that the DE is able to provide support functions without suffering a massive loss in DPS. Most of the lower tiers are completely up to the player's choice on what they want to use.

Fifth, faster burst. The rifle is able to burn single things down in a much shorter time span than a Staff.

The disadvantages are...

Mobility. So most of the raid bosses do not move much at all. But this becomes a major problem when the tank is unable to keep still and feels the need to run around. Stronghold of the Faithful Escort will not prove a problem for mobility, but Sea of Souls may due to the player needing to keep up with the moving shield. Cairn, where people may argue that mobility is necessary isn't really so. You can stay near your druids and dish out tons of hurt no problems and at minimum risk of being teleported away. The shit it often sends at you can be easily dodged.

No Cleave: You have a line AOE, and that's pretty much it. It can only hit 5 things at a time and burns through your init fast. Unless you put a bursting rune (one that gives AOE explosions) on your gun... you ain't gonna be much help in sloth.

Latency and Action Delays: latency hits DE harder than a DD. This is because sometimes your command for Free Action may not go through. Or worse, the command gets completely ignored or overwritten due to you mass spamming your keys.

Failure to keep a rythm results in shit DPS: DD staff is fairly forgiving in that if you screwed up your init and blasted your cool downs. that's fine. You can just auto attack and wait. Unfortunately, doing that with Deadeye is pretty hurtful.

Damage Aura: you're gonna feel this the hardest if your Druid forgot about you. Or you did not get up to stack in with the melee fighters.

> @"Cyrini.1256" said:

> I know these questions are done to death but sure 1 more won't hurt.

> Question is this is there a build for a dagger/dagger thief that works for the POF story and general solo roaming, I know the general statement for soloing PvE content is play what you want but I am finding that's really not the case here. At the moment I am using the beserker staff meta build but I'm just not finding staff fun anymore yet d/d just seems too squishy for everything that goes on in POF between massive amounts of condition attacks and all the ranged stuff as well. Is any using the d/d thief or anyone got a decent build that might be able to handle the fights that are in the new zones or am I gonna have to stay with my big stick?

> thanks in advance for any comments and such.

D/D isn't tanky, but it's not particularly squishy either. With the zerker staff, you're able to constantly regenerate health and blast things apart in a few hits. With D/D you can blast things in fewer blows thanks to Backstab burst, but you attack slower so you don't generate as much HP back from critical strikes.

The secret to staying alive with D/D in any build is to simply keep moving around, and lining up your Death blossom to hit as many as possible. It sounds stupid, but the enemies have to take a moment to completely reorient themselves to actually harm you. As a player, you're typically able to react faster, thus mitigating the damage, and doing more damage for being able to get behind others.

> @"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:

>faster to fail and faster to practice.

I love that. It almost sounds like inspirational words to tell people who quit the group after the first wipe.

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> > @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

> > There's other ways to make healers relevant without forcing it down your throats.

> >

> > Changing boss mechanics to deal with players in 'safety'.

> > Adding some environmental hazards.

> > Giving bosses cleave.

>

> It's not just to force healers, its to make sure you don't just have 10x tanks/DPS and attrition till enrage....That being said, this part of design missed the ball since they wanted "soft" enrages for most fights. Could still be remedied by having a scaling enrage.

Most tanks don't even stack health, just toughness. From what I've been told, and haven't accepted as fact yet, is that most of the raid bosses deal max-health percentile damage. And they hit hard enough that toughness won't keep you alive for long.

There's other ways to make healers relevant without forcing it down your throats.

Changing boss mechanics to deal with players in 'safety'.

Adding some environmental hazards.

Giving bosses cleave.

My only gripe with the charr is...

The huge fricken shoulder pauldrons. Oh my god you look like a football player on roids. And some of them just float off the character's body.

And the running animation looks slow at times, but once you speed up just slightly, it looks natural.