DeceiverX.8361

Needs to be posted on the ele forums where so many are absolutely insistent the class as a whole has zero chance to beat DE. Nice play, though.

CS/Tr/DrD with berserker gear on D/D with Assassin's Signet and Signet of Shadows is theoretically the best you can do in the shortest amount of time. That said, it's a horrible build and still won't burst most small-scale oriented builds unless you're lucky, and there's no real form of escape or "to not be seen." Your combo gets absorbed, and you die. This will force you into strictly a 1v1/gank position only, and only against certain builds. Your goals of not being seen and delivering OHKO hits are contradictory. All variants of the thief currently have to pester for several attacks to down pretty much everyone except maybe the squishiest of eles and other thieves. I'm not really sure why you mention wanting to play P/D condi. It has no relevance in a decision of playing power/burst. You'll have to have a duplicate set of every piece of equipment to play both builds and there's just no wiggle room. If you want actual efficacy on a burst spec, play D/P Daredevil or SA DE like everyone else, because those are pretty much the only power builds on thief that don't outright suck, and are arguably fairly OP in good hands. Race doesn't matter in this game. They all have identical ranges and hitboxes. Likely you're just stepping closer when playing an Asura due to its relative size.

>it is INCREDIBLY easy to wreck unprepared/prepared people on deadeye, and its moderately easy to wreck prepared people on daredevil. Yeah I'm sorry but you very clearly have no idea what you're writing. D/P DrD is the hard fight and DE is often downright weak into ele due to your reflect/crit immune access and sustain beyond the initial combo. Thief is straight-up carried by Daredevil more than anything else. I literally have 1v2'ed Deadeyes on my reaper of all things, which has enough projectile denial to deal with rifle for the most part. It's only fairly menacing when terrain is heavily abused and is played quite well. Half the time it consists of camping earth/earth shield and laughing at the fact that they can't deal meaningful damage since almost all if it comes from easily-blocked crits with tons of negation. You'll just grind them down or can walk away from the fight if they continue to try and kill you. Unless you're playing zerk staff, there are ample ways to burst them down pretty easily and sustain through most of their damage on an offtank roaming build on S/F Weaver. You have to either learn their patterns and just counterburst accordingly, and/or know when to get ready to deny their damage by sustaining correctly and whittling them down. Like superspeed engineer or soulbeast, they can run away and reset if they really want, but that's not exactly them "winning" either. Is it easy for them to reset? Yes. Is it good design? No. But the class is hardly an unstoppable killing machine. Maybe you should post your build and preferred style of play and let people help you fix it.

> @"RedShark.9548" said: > > > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said: > > > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > > > > @"Fat Disgrace.4275" said: > > > > > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > > > > > > @"RedShark.9548" said: > > > > > > Is bandits defense still a thing? Last time i seriously played gw2 pretty much every thief ran that kitten op skill with low cd, stunbreak, block and knockdown. > > > > > > > > > > > > Impossible to lockdown when that thing is on 16s cd > > > > > > > > > > I honestly never encounter it, and I fight a lot of thieves in WvW. Its all shadowsteps and Assassin's Signet. > > > > > > > > Theres a lot of them using it now, that or roll for ini. > > > > > > Hmm not the ones I've fought recently. It's a great skill to be honest and I wish warrior had it instead. > > > > I don't get how its great lol, I rarely see thieves using it cuz the 1 1/4 length block. If it was 3 secs or so similar to Ranger or shield block maybe. I'd way rather have bandits defense work like shield block or rangers gs skill where u can block for a duration instead of having to block right as the damage is occurring. Knock downs great but I think most thieves would give it up for a longer block duration or a block like rangers with push back, even with loss of the stunbreak. > > If it was longer then it would be absolutely busted, its already stacked with different mechanics, id rather have this on warrior shield than the 3s duration. > > Against smart player you dont even use the full 3sec. A good enemy will stop attacking or use unblockables after a single hit wull get thrown into the block. > > Bandits defense has/had (not sure if they changed it) shorter cd than warrior shield 5,while having a much more versatile use. > > Its absolutely stacked, how can you not see the use of it? It's crazy powerful in a vacuum and would especially be so on most other classes, but historically for thief it wasn't always amazing just because when you really think about it, it's a low cooldown stunbreak and very little else in the greater context of the class. At best it's 1-2 initiative recovered during its duration and can be used to avoid a major nuke. It otherwise doesn't stop most CC's and halts stealth/reset efforts as a utility slot since it doesn't offer any mobility. Does this buy the thief space or time to reset? No. Does it buy it a weapon swap/skill use? No. It's why BP and Shadowstep have always had so much historical use and precedence. The last spot has some contention now and a lot of those skills have undergone nerfs, so it's being played a bit more now, but not because of any amazing new power, and it did phase out of previous builds entirely. People running it now mostly do so because so many of the other stunbreak options on core have been nerfed so aggressively (RFI cooldown nearly doubled and ISignet basically made worthless in WvW with the ambient creature removal and the global increase for WvW/PvP) or because a lot of players find they have to stay in melee more often now anyways with the shortbow changes. Much like giving a warrior a blind/smoke field, it can be independently strong in some regards, but mostly not super busted by virtue of the fact it doesn't have a ton of innate synergy. Really this thread comes down to the fact the warrior has difficulty with meta D/P Daredevil, which is honestly the case for most professions just because of how much control the build has over a duel and how Shadow Shot's already-insane damage was not reduced in February because ANet knows the class would bu trash without it. Otherwise if equipping other weapons or trait lines, the thief as a whole is mostly very much even or even hard-countered by warrior.

It was fine before the expansions but the powercreep phased out the assassination and need of periphery in the old glassy DPS in front-to-back teamfighting like in old metas. With the boonball and so much defense on so much ranged/AoE DPS it's hard to really actually route/flank anyone or make meaningful burst attempts. Unfortunately the thief just can't be given the damage or support capability enough to support a zerg so long as it has the stealth and evasion/mobility it does in smaller fights on D/P DE/DrD. It'd just become way too OP for anything otherwise.

It's fine. Boon spam letting people instantly recover their lost stacks or simply just having too many other effective boons permanently is a way more significant part of the problem.

With Roaming/Havoc dead in most scenes as a method to PPT, it'd fail miserably due to the obvious consolidation it encourages, which means we're probably nearing its release with EoD.

> @"Jski.6180" said: > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said: > > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > It needs to stop coving over movement speed effects. The endless means of immunity to cripal and chill is not good for the game. > > > > It doesn't cover over them. The superspeed buff itself boosts mobility to the in-combat movespeed cap by brute force due to how much it provides. > > We don't actually see the effects a true 100% bonus would have because OOC is capped at what swiftness offers and the in-combat movespeed maximum is just a lower number threshold. > > > > Only way to make it less potent is hit the numbers, and I completely agree with OP that speed rune is also utterly broken and provides way too much for how easy it is to get permanent swiftness. > > > > Swiftness - or the 33% number it provides such as traited SotL and the likes, should be the best you can get for pure landspeed. > > > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > Guess who this will hurt the most? > > > > > > Hint: its not the zerg. > > > > Good. The disparity in smallscale that this effect and RoS produces is honestly way bigger than in zerg play where so much harass happens at range, anyways. Any build lacking a ton of mobility and swiftness uptime is absolutely crippled in viability as it stands because of these effects being so prominent in-combat. > > Does not grant any movement speed increase while backpedaling or strafing. > Only provides the 100% increase to movement speed while in combat. Outside of combat it provides the same 33% increase to movement speed as Swiftness. > Makes target ignore chill and cripple movement slowing effects. > Superspeed does not stack duration and new application will remove the old one even if it is longer duration. > Affects Siege Golem in World vs World. > > From wiki. Weird, I'd just looked prior to posting and didn't see mentioning of it, however, the math does check out thinking about it in hindsight. Either way, I still support its removal.

> @"DoomNexus.5324" said: > > @"Ragazm.6018" said: > > Basically i got lose strikes where i got -16 -15 and then i got "win" strikes where i got +12 +13. > Yea, so your rating is higher than your/the opponent's team average. Don't see the problem with the numbers. The low population just forces the MM to match guys together with too much deviation. It's garbage but we can't change it... Gaining +0 when winning is actually a thing btw. This. MMR algorithms are weighed with gains/losses based on your opponents' likelihood of winning based on a collective history of who beat who. If you lost to people you're expected to lose against (they consistently beat people who you lost to previously for example), then you will lose less for losing to them, because it means you're performing exactly as expected. In VERY big games with a ton of games played, this can even result in -0/+0 losses/gains if the game thinks you're exactly where you're supposed to be with a near-perfect assumption. However, if you beat them, you also gain more because the algorithm is now adjusting for your play being better than theirs despite you being predicted to lose. When you start, you usually have big gains because the system makes the assumption you're new, not very good, and volatile. So the more people play and the closer the matchup, the less you gain. What's happening to the OP is the system thinks they're better than they are, so they gain less for winning and lose more for losing. At the perfect mark, this will even out to 0 on win/loss, however the sPvP community is quite small where these numbers can fluctuate on the daily.

> @"Jski.6180" said: > It needs to stop coving over movement speed effects. The endless means of immunity to cripal and chill is not good for the game. It doesn't cover over them. The superspeed buff itself boosts mobility to the in-combat movespeed cap by brute force due to how much it provides. We don't actually see the effects a true 100% bonus would have because OOC is capped at what swiftness offers and the in-combat movespeed maximum is just a lower number threshold. Only way to make it less potent is hit the numbers, and I completely agree with OP that speed rune is also utterly broken and provides way too much for how easy it is to get permanent swiftness. Swiftness - or the 33% number it provides such as traited SotL and the likes, should be the best you can get for pure landspeed. > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > Guess who this will hurt the most? > > Hint: its not the zerg. Good. The disparity in smallscale that this effect and RoS produces is honestly way bigger than in zerg play where so much harass happens at range, anyways. Any build lacking a ton of mobility and swiftness uptime is absolutely crippled in viability as it stands because of these effects being so prominent in-combat.

Ah yes, let's ruin the gameplay integrity of a game mode and queue other people out of their map's content so people can get their legendaries faster on multiple accounts. No. Legendaries aren't meant to be grinded out, and this would be like if ANet added map queues to PvE zones instead of creating instances megaservers. It actively denies people content that they want to play. The game mode is also team-based PvP and I know for a fact trying to fight in PvP boxed up means the per-character skill is extremely low making you actually a downright liability due to PPK if someone or some people engage to fight or stop a cap. Because honestly, you're going to die on a lot of those characters very easily. Honestly I think it's dumb ANet put the GoB into the game as a requirement for legendaries because it gets so many people bringing PvE ideology into the competitive modes. They should have just let WvW players actually get the legendaries rather than sitting on an endless dump supply of GoB and no collections/pres/gold/loot to actually afford to unlock them.

I only play necro for Reaper. I still preferred it as it was prior to the SR/R reworks with SoS on 7s shroud cooldown and better shroud mobility, but it's easily the spec I enjoy most as of today. Simple, but with great depth of gameplay, and most importantly, a lot of damage with committed engages. I find core and scourge absolutely incredibly boring for long-term play. Especially Scourge. Thief, then ranger, then warrior. Thief is my former main with thousands of hours over reaper and the class I enjoy most when my preferred styles are even somewhat viable, but I dislike Daredevil, D/P, and SA because I dislike running from fights and chipping away at people slowly (I'd rather just blow them up and focus on surviving at a disadvantage and then repeat the process), so it's basically no fun these days if I want to win at anything except cannibalizing other thieves that I can't catch on my reaper. Ranger's alright but soulbeast feels like a dumbed-down thief for its DPS builds, and its superior boon build is a rotation-based snooze-fest which is why I hate engi and ele. I'd put warrior which has my most PvP wins across all classes above ranger if the builds I enjoy were viable like HF GS wombo combo or S/S condi parry. It's just too dependent on shield and chaining defenses right now that I don't really enjoy aesthetically and from a playstyle perspective. I like to be aggressive as hell on the field. Probably mesmer, guard, and rev next, though I'm not particularly good at any of them due to lack of practice hours, and nothing about them really stands out as "awesome." I used to play S/S mesmer and warrior a fair amount years ago, but the riposte builds just don't deal the damage or provide the defenses they need to in order to succeed in the modern powercreeped game. It's a middle-ground between rotation-heavy gameplay from the below classes and the above, which is why I'm indifferent. Ele, then Engi dead last, and by a lot. I absolutely suck on both of them, hate rotational play patterns, dislike the theme and patterns of both, and am fine never seriously touching these professions ever again as they are after my initial attempts at playing them. I get some people like these play patterns, but I just don't enjoy them at all, and am almost always looking to find ways to NOT play them as intended, which usually results in me dying. They're very strong classes, but I'd rather go play another game than play them, and I'd rather focus on what my enemy is doing than a rotation that I have to uphold.

Kinda defeats the purpose of stealth though considering the summon AI simply follows the player around. You can already track other players in stealth by their minis.

Depends heavily on the context of the fight. Since the nerfs to Sap which used to be my favorite just for its damage alone, I generally favor Tuft and Seed the most since I don't run DA to really make use of Plasma anymore. Seed is damned good since it's a leap finisher heal which you can spam HS in + condition cleanse. Axe is my go-to if there's a soulbeast around since it reflects, which is pretty frequently. It's also a safe stomp on a warrior in a duel you down them since it'll reflect their hammer downed skill. The fear's okay for duels into core necro or scourge sometimes, but a good reaper can counter it, and in group engagements/supported damage dealer scenarios it's often useless since there's so much shared stab. I prefer MHC because it's fast enough to interrupt with in brief windows of an enemy lacking stab. Since I play power, gunk is useless (but amazing for condi P/D) and I only use it for down stomps like guard, ranger, and warrior since it applies blind after a few ticks. Since I play D/D Ice Shard is pointless since honestly, if they use a mobility skill, they're getting away regardless.

Warrior for me. The fun builds like S/S and HF wombo GS all suck. Also my ele, which I'm mostly using to collect anniversary gifts because it turns out I get bored as hell playing rotation-based anything. > @"KrHome.1920" said: > Thief - I grinded every crafting discipline to 500. > > I don't play it anymore, because I don't like the niche ANet pushes this class into (hit, run and hide). > > If once ever crafting becomes accountwide (personally I doubt it since you can level up characters with it) this will be the day I finally delete my thief. Even as a longtime main I can't help but feel this a lot, and it's why I switched to Reaper. Something that can focus on offense and not need turtle strats.