Azure The Heartless.3261

?

/+9charrs

You knew this would happen.

On topic: Capes. We can do tintable capes now so lets kitten give people capes.

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> You ignore the point and post something to push your agenda. League has had one shot builds well before the point of whatever you have posted. The whole assassin category of champions is designed to do this.

> And despite your paragraph league continues to be one of the most competitive games out where despite having and continuing to have one shot mechanics.

I'd advise against arguing with Burnfall, he's been doing the same song and dance for years now. Just appreciate his consistency.

> @"Daishi.6027" said:

> I think we may disagree on the standpoint of visibility in regards to health of the game. But the biggest difference (that you even pointed out) between this game and that game, is when a Hero whiffs; you get to punish him. GW2 whiffs are way to safe.

That's fair. We don't have to agree on everything, but whiffs being punishable is usually acceptable to me, and as long as it is system wide I will likely agree to balancing in that direction. That's a thing that can't be lopsided though. You can't punish some classes hard for missing/failure to dodge, then handhold other classes, and then give them the same damage output (even more egregious, giving the handheld class more damage than the one punished for whiffing). Classes should output damage relative to how vulnerable they will be if they miss.

I too hate being interrupted when I'm attacking, nerf interrupts 2020

Outstanding post nerf Charr 2020

It needs to be telegraphed for high damage. Either the move can be telegraphed or a particular situation can be used as a telegraph. (Being marked, then enemy vanishing for example)

Also, if you run a glass build with no defensive option to block or escape a oneshot, it is your hard counter and reasonable in that situation as well, and you waive your right to complain about taking heavy damage.

As long as "You can clearly see/hear this, and this is going to kill you if it hits" and "You have an option to realistically reflect, destroy, interrupt, block, or evade this that is well within human reaction time" I don't mind things doing absurd amounts of damage with big combos.

> @"Burnfall.9573" said:

> Healthy Competitive Gaming Experience Games, does not tolerate +1 shotting

> **NOT EVER!!**

Nah, Touch of Death can be balanced.

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> So how would you class LoL since it has 1shot mechanics under certain circumstances.

Agreed that LoL is balanced (largely). Evelynn in particular has a rather healthy take on stealth - play spike damage, and she doesnt get killshot happy until late in the game. You have lots of opportunities to see her and expect to be ganked by her later on.

It has some rough patches but those usually get ironed out pretty reasonably.

> @"Daishi.6027" said:

> In addition I'd like to point out the existence of Dragon quest's "Hero" in Smash, and shooters with low TTK (time to kill).

Agreed. Thwack, Whack and (occasionally) Magic Burst can all instant kill you, but they are randomly generated, require the character to stand still before using them, and the attack name is clearly visible as possible in that situation before it comes out. It is also blockable/reflectable/dodgable and the rest of the character's moveset is highly telegraphed/punishable to compensate for how absurdly strong that can be.

Its frustrating to get hit by, but I'd consider that balanced mechanically.

> @"Daishi.6027" said:

> * Also this is a double standard.

> If you can't avoid/survive a backstab combo from any thief, a DE snipe, a one shot ranger build, or a meditation guard porting to you through a wall. Then you cannot survive this. If you can survive any of the above, you should have an even easier time since this does not delay in stealth to pressure cooldowns in a game of "will they, wont they?"

This is another thing of note that I mentioned before.

The people getting blown up, are they getting blown up because mesmer without fail deletes any class (or any variant of a class) it unleashes the gank combo on, or are they blowing up because they specced as glassy as possible for omegadamage, and then didn't take any damage mitigating trait or instant cast protection/ werent paranoid about getting blown up to prevent being instagibbed?

Context changes how strong it is. If you're getting erased because you specced zerker on ele and didnt take final shielding because you thought you were super good, that really isnt the fault of the mesmer that you got wiped.

Its really important to consider -who- is the most offended here and why they're offended. Otherwise, when/if this is patched theyre just gonna move on to worldly impact soulbeasts, killshot warriors, DJ Deadeyes, backstab thieves and anything else that challenges their glass build.

> @"Ubi.4136" said:

> > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > @"Ubi.4136" said:

> > > I would bet 90+% of the instakills would vanish from all competitive modes if the game just disconnected a player the second they hit a macro.

> >

> > It's not that hard, especially if you have a decent gaming mouse that you can assign your key buttons to. If you can play thief not-atrociously you can core shatter.

> >

> > I'm not saying macros shouldnt absolutely be punished or that people absolutely don't use them, but I'm not sure its as prevalent as 9 out of every 10 core mesmers, especially with all the kitten that can go wrong if you get +1 during your burst or an AOE gets laid under you and you need to bail.

> >

> >

>

> I'm not saying that 90% of the mesmers playing are macro'ing, I'm saying that 90% of the insta-deaths would not happen. I main a mesmer, the combo is fairly easy to do. But, due to the current server lag (which appears from time to time) there is no way to be perfect every time without using a macro. Sometimes I blow people up, often the shatter lags behind and the damage is abysmal. If the game disconnected a player the second a macro was used, I'm betting a ton of these insta-deaths would go away (and so would the complaint about the build).

Ah, that clarifies things. I agree with that for the most part.

> @"Killthehealersffs.8940" said:

> > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > > Basic tip: Before whining about what makes a class OP or not, actually make a character of the class and play it until you achieve some moderate competency.

> > >

> > > If you played thief for even a few games, you would know that spamming a skill over and over often just wastes initiative. This idea that thieves are somehow not punished for skill spam is ludicrous.

> > >

> >

> > It's fine, let them push to nerf it so it can't be spammed, then have to learn how to vs it anyway because the decent thieves don't spam it.

> > This is just the unload thing again. I'm tapping out.

> >

> > > @"Killthehealersffs.8940" said:

> > > If the community had problems with the other 3 specs , they would come in the forums to whine :P

> >

> > A fair assessment. Let's hope it ages well.

>

> If it doesnt help the 6-7 sec battles , then we ramp up the Poison and introduce traits that decrease healing every sec to both (enemy+victim) like Battlerite

> Which can only be dispelled , when you get attacked by 2 players , while the first enemy that isnt getting attacked by 2 , keeps stacking more to hiself (or until he goes out of combat)

> When 2 defenders /1 attacker(which has the trait) => the attacker removes the debuff , and he can stack on both defenders slowly

Nobody's going to let thieves ramp up poison. People would immediately argue that the thief is too hard to catch/you shouldnt need a +1 to counter, like they've always been doing, and necro -still- suffers in the matchup. All it does is make them annoying. What's to stop a thief from just playing DE and not only tanking your heal, but taking potshots at you till you die? Is that fairer than PW?

It's whatever though. Just be careful that the metric with which you are advocating for balance doesn't break your class as well. I'm wayyy too bitter about this for how not serious it is.

> @"Zephoid.4263" said:

> Thief sustain is bad if you are running actual damage stats. You can survive the opening rounds of a fight by dodging, but once your dodges are expended you have to disengage or reset (hence why dagger storm is so popular, its a damaging reset that gives you time to regain energy). That isn't sustain. You can't hold a point for more than 15s. You end the fight in short manner or you disengage.

And this is why, if PW gets nerfed, we're going right back to stealth backstab builds. I play Zerk on thief, getting cleaved twice by anything worse than knight ammy takes 75% my hp. I will not play Sword Pistol if there's no mitigation on it post nerf, if that is indeed its future. I will lean into 20k backstab even though it's less fun.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> It would have been called healing, if only healing mattered.

> Sustainability is preety much how well you can stay in a fight.

Leon's right but ~~here we are trying to nerf pistol whip which is functioning as sustain~~

Sorry had a frog in my throat.

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> So, apparently S/P builds have been taking off for thieves thanks to the visibility the build has gained through Sindrener and it's got me wondering if there are any other off-meta builds out there that people may be overlooking.

>

> Posing this question to the community: Do you think there are any other builds that are very strong, but aren't commonly known about in the current meta or was S/P just a very rare case?

-"VERY strong?" no. "Kinda strong?" yes. It's not a rare case.Them becoming commonly known is usually what gets them killed so forgive my silence.

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> kitten they are tanky. What's the best way to deal with them?

Stuns.

You interrupt a scrapper underneath half HP, and they will almost always panic. As long as you dont get thunderclap dropped on you while you're doing that.

Apart from Defense field, they struggle vs long range as well, but that isnt really relevant in conquest since the whole name of the game is about setting up shop on a zone and not moving until its capped.

Tl;DR bring a warrior.

> @"Ubi.4136" said:

> I would bet 90+% of the instakills would vanish from all competitive modes if the game just disconnected a player the second they hit a macro.

It's not that hard, especially if you have a decent gaming mouse that you can assign your key buttons to. If you can play thief not-atrociously you can core shatter.

I'm not saying macros shouldnt absolutely be punished or that people absolutely don't use them, but I'm not sure its as prevalent as 9 out of every 10 core mesmers, especially with all the kitten that can go wrong if you get +1 during your burst or an AOE gets laid under you and you need to bail.

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> Basic tip: Before whining about what makes a class OP or not, actually make a character of the class and play it until you achieve some moderate competency.

>

> If you played thief for even a few games, you would know that spamming a skill over and over often just wastes initiative. This idea that thieves are somehow not punished for skill spam is ludicrous.

>

It's fine, let them push to nerf it so it can't be spammed, then have to learn how to vs it anyway because the decent thieves don't spam it.

This is just the unload thing again. I'm tapping out.

> @"Killthehealersffs.8940" said:

> If the community had problems with the other 3 specs , they would come in the forums to whine :P

A fair assessment. Let's hope it ages well.

> @"viquing.8254" said:

> I'm laughing, because that's exactly what happend for CI on mesmers :

> * Exists since rework.

> * Someday someone pop it in mAt stream (note that he didn't win the mAt.).

> * Everyone play it.

> * Forum spammed by interactives "cheesy", "no brain", "broken", "unfun", etc.

> * => Trait deleted.

>

> Have fun =)

Chaotic interruption got buffed when they added elite specializations and had no telegraph on the skills it often synergized with. Nontelegraphed condi loading =/= attack you can walk out of.

but w/e

> @"SeikeNz.3526" said:

> this will fix thiefs spamming the same skill forever, add +1s for every cast of the same skill, they need to be more skilled and use other buttons

Maybe give us other skills to use that let us contest points instead of nerfing all our options then getting angry when our playstyle gets less and less variant?

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> Thief has 450hp heal on every evade

> Low cooldown, healing skill that is impossible to interrupt

> Thief having low sustain is a lie.

**my guy no**

Its 450 on a **successful** evade

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Escapist%27s_Fortitude

Why is 450 HP heal on a successful evade being considered sustain. most autos hit you for three times that.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"Vagrant.7206" said:

> > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > > @"Vagrant.7206" said:

> > > > > @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > > > > Is the PW build making people that mad? ?

> > > >

> > > > For me the problem isn't isolated to thief. It also includes mesmer, rev, and ele builds that are particularly heavy on evades and can stall captures for very long times with specific skills.

> > > >

> > > > Part of the problem is that, unlike blocks, there's not much you can do while an enemy is evading. There are a few, very select skills (primarily AoE CCs) that can effect evades, but they're rare and usually on long cooldowns. Evade is effectively an invuln in most cases, so why not treat it like an invuln? :smile:

> > >

> > > lol bunch of bunker standing on the node and facetanking damage, if you DARE to dodge anything you lose the node.

> >

> > The two dodges everyone gets aren't the problem. The problem is offensive skills with evade frames in them (IE pistol whip, blurred frenzy, surge of the mists). It's having your cake and eating it too. You can stall a point with offensive equipment even if you aren't a bunker.

> >

> > Better skills that make more sense include withdraw, riposting shadows, illusionary riposte. These skills are intended as defenses or counters.

>

> Good? having people able to contesnt nodes is good.

> What the hell do you want to happen, have 3 weaver on each team just afking on a node or what ?

>

I'm telling you that people want bunker meta more than they want to learn to fight pistol whip or anything like it. Whether they realize that or not.

Bunker meta is stupid guys. Anet tried E-sports during one and they've never smiled since.

> @"Ysmir.4986" said:

> I would agree to make daggerstorm not being able to cap / contest. I think that's reasonable.

I lean toward agreeing with this, but I'm a little upset that it's not a true invuln and still has to get that treatment.

Then again, Renewed focus doesnt even allow attacks so I suppose It's fair.

> @"Dhemize.8649" said:

> If Anet would simply remove the added evade functions from pistol whip it would be enough to get rid of the cheese meme matches we've unfortunately been plagued with.

No. Thief has the lowest health pool of all the classes, and rooting a thief is one of its hard counters. That's why so many of their skills break immobilize if they can use them. There would be no point or practical application to use a skill that roots the thief if it did not offer some kind of mitigation. It would be heavily detrimental to them in almost any reasonable situation.

> @"Dhemize.8649" said:

> No thief in platinum league is going to die in one second. Quit with the hyperbole.

That doesn't mean anything/isn't what he was getting at. Thieves **absoulutely will** die in one second if they are rooted in place with no mitigation for that long. baseline thief HP is 12k. Some classes can output three times that amount in less than one second.

> @"Asuran.5469" said:

> It's real simple: **No attack should ever be a hard CC, with an evade on it, that has extreme damage output, and is spammable 100% uptime.**

It's not spammable 100% uptime. It has punish frames before and after, and costs 5 init per use. A thief can at most use it 3 times on you back to back before he is tapped out.

You can also walk out of the damage. The stun lasts for .75 seconds.

The game is chock-full of skill combinations that lets classes deal hard CC while not taking damage, and most of them can move large distances on top of that. Be careful when you're arguing that a skill that allows both shouldn't exist. Bulls Charge, Mirage cloak, and combinations made with Arcane Shield and Signet of stone all fit that bill.

> The most problematic aspect of this build is that when you go to bait the thief into damage when you know he's going to teleport in, you can't.

?

If you know hes going to teleport in, evade or block, or interrupt him as hes winding up. If they're daredevil, you cannot block/use a casted block, so walk out of the tail end of the damage and start cleaving. Or, before that happens, move > 600 units away then block to force them to sword 2 if they want to hug you.

>The pistol whip stuns you before anything you do lands. Then if you move backwards to counter play the pistol whip and try to counter strike, he has evade so you can't.

?

Attack/Stun after the pistol whip finishes. It's not seamless. They'll have to burn an evade or stunbreak to get out of disadvantage.

>Then the thief disappears again during any phase of vulnerability and comes back to reengage you when he knows he's safe to do so. Over time it dwindles you down, you lose, and there isn't anything you can about it.

It sounds like you'd be upset vs any thief build. All thief builds have that kind of playstyle, regardless of what weapon they use. They all hit you with damage then leave, and come back when it's safe. Ideally they are supposed to dwindle you down, but there is always something you can do about it, especially when the skill keeps the thief visible, has explicit points where you can inflict stun or damage, and uses up a third of the thief's attack resource pool per cast.

Claiming otherwise is defeatist.

> The best example I can give as to how over powered and too utilitized this build is, is a few days ago when an AT team I was on almost beat Team USA. Two or three players on my team were using pistol whip thieves, and they were just shutting down Team USA members. We were leading Team USA in point value up until about 300 points. then Team USA swapped characters and brought in 2 pistol whip thieves and a herald, and then came back and beat us in the end. This is not something that normally would ever happen, but that pistol whip spam build is so strong, that if decent players are wielding it against great players, the decent players will beat the great players if the great player aren't wielding it themselves. That's way too much inherent class/build strength.

**That's really funny.**

> 1. Remove the evade frame from pistol whip.

No.

> 2. Or remove the stun. No, I don't mean turn stun into daze, I mean remove the CC entirely if the evade frame is to stay.

Fine, but the evade should start immediately.

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> I dont think necromancer needs a total rework it just needs a few missing tools and QoL changes to make its ideal as a damage soaker

This. Necros have no way to take 0 damage or block or otherwise mitigate damage in a way that isn't strippable, kitable, or otherwise negatable. And thief does all of those things by nature.

Most of the players coming here with a permanent chip on their shoulder regarding thief play Necro, and I get why they're upset. Thieves **abuse** necros mechanically.

Can we just buff Necro's damage mitigation so thieves don't have to keep getting nerfed when they find a necro alone and are mechanically stacked against them?

I shouldn't have to be defending pistol whip because Sinderer used it and suddenly everyone found out its a way to not die while you're trying to contest that doesn't involve abandoning point progress.

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> Builds become problems as they become problems. Right now the two most omnipresent builds I'm seeing in ranked are Core Chaos Power Mesmer and Pistol Whip Daredevil and by a huge margin.

Be careful that you do not misconstrue the prevalence of a build as "that build has become problematic" when the cause of that builds prevalence could be **lack of resources to fill a needed role.**

Shatter mes is back because chrono is useless pvp wise and condi mirage takes longer to put out its damage rampup, which makes it susceptible to +1 more than before.

Pistol whip thief is back because Staff and its associated traits, the Dagger Pistol line, and the S/D line have all been nerfed and the only other option requires barely interacting with a contested point at all.

I can understand the frustration with both of them, and the need for telegraphs in the former case, but it seems spiteful to go after the most visible thief line when it hands you frames you can punish it on.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"reikken.4961" said:

> > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > Stop with the mesmer mobility meme, if you were to run forward for1min nonstop, you would cover more ground on meta reaper then on meta mesmer builds.

> > as if _that_ means anything

> > You're not running laps in pvp. Burst mobility is what matters. You're moving around in combat, and you're moving from one capture point to another. Even in the longer distance, from one point to another, mesmer does it faster. And in combat, mesmer is like an order of magnitude faster.

>

> ofc it does, reaper has perma upgraded swiftness, recall with spectral, and 1200 blink. followed by LOW COOLDOWN dash on shroud. people that say reaper is not mobile are delusional.

Just wanna point out that its a stretch to consider recall and wurm blink mobility because they require you to have either recently been the place they want to port to, and both of them are telegraphed with the latter being cancellable by external sources. I wouldnt consider those skills free enough to be considered mobility. Your point on swiftness is fair though.

I'm otherwise not in that argument.

> @"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:

> yeah but that build can decap just as much as d/p AND hold/win nodes far better than any other thief build, pretty sure thats why people are upset.

Just want to point out that any other thief build is either directly against holding nodes or can only hold them very minimally, so that bar isn't exactly high to begin with.

> @"bluri.2653" said:

> > @"xardan.2874" said:

> > Also Anet should make pistolwhip cost initiative at the start of the cast. This stowing is dishonest gameplay.

> > Remember stowing sword2 on mesmer and how quickly it got fixed after Helseth made guide showing it? But thiefs skills abusing same things are totally fine and balanced :)

> > Ok, i see, i see.

>

> Because blurred frenzy had no wind up and was an evade all the time, stowing the stun part of pistolwhip is like stowing any weapon skill which add mindgames and complexity. The cast of the stun is not an evade fyi

>

> Some of u should not be near any balance discussions whatsoever

>

I'm super glad that the balance team doesn't just use forum opinion as a balancing compass sometimes, at least not without aggregating it and examining its potential first.

People would have nerfed the fun out of this game then quit from boredom long ago.

> @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> Actually I’d like to point u can jump right when animation starts hence canceling but it does first strike which is a stun and probably an evade also

If thats true:

its a bug and needs to be fixed so it costs initiative if you do an effect with the skill.

it should only be a stun. the evade is not applied until after that animation follows through.

Okay but also do the same for blocks

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> Is the PW build making people that mad? ?

This is a bait topic obv but theres a hint of truth in it.

People would rather have bunker meta than allow thieves to have any kind of relevance, no matter how telegraphed it is.

Telegraph or not, a thief just being borderline viable outside of decap duty is too much.

> @"Sailorz.4270" said:

> My stab got nerfed so I need to think, nerf it for everyone else so I don't need to think

> :^)

*salutes*

got it

> @"Shao.7236" said:

>**Bursts of any sort on Warriors don't require CC to setup**. Anything a Warrior does hurt, CC doesn't change that fact.

Big Lies* Detected, especially if you play zerker and cant just autogen bursts. Nobody with swiftness, or superspeed is going to stand there for their damage. That is precisely why Zerker is struggling right now.

*sarcasm

> @"Stephen.6312" said:

> I knew I should've kept my kitten thoughts to myself.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> You only need a hotkey set to "Target Next" and it will automatically look past the clones at the human target, every time.

Its better to speak, be corrected, and learn something in this situation. Don't ever be sorry for that. We're at each others throats a lot but if a pvper learns something and improves as a result, that's always good.

Don't be afraid to debate and voice your opinions, as long as you do so respectfully.