saerni.2584

A nice summary.

IMO, Anet should remake EBG from scratch and implement alliances simultaneously. That can come with rebalancing siege, rebalancing upgrade times, rebalancing NPCs, rebalancing rewards, etc.

It may seem like more work, but actually what we need is a WvW refresh and not just cosmetic changes that only address one or two minor issues.

Siege damage is very easy to change. HP scaling is very easy to change.

And, with a third expansion coming, now is the time to be asking for bigger stuff that takes expansion levels of funding to support.

And Trapper runes are still a dominant mode of play. Both rangers and guardians run them as a common choice in roaming. Usually as very glassy in the case of the DH roamers because you can't just step on the trap to reveal them if even a single hit will chunk your HP. That was, sadly, never a risk for thief traps because the damage was so low.

I'd say Preparations are fine as a replacement because honestly, only bad players died to permastealth condi trapper thief. They "fixed" that, not by removing traps for preparations, but rather by adding a small power damage component to the traps. But, that change made the traps, otherwise useless, completely useless. Leading to Preparations, which at least have some better uses in terms of Shadow Portal.

I just wish the Preparations did more actual damage. It's a trap that the thief has to trigger. It should do something big in exchange for being visible (maybe only when the enemy walks into it).

Most of the people running Condi builds that’s do serious damage are actually running hybrids that do significant power damage.

If you look at the condi tanks, like necro, the amount of tank is less about Dire and more because necromancer already has significant HP and mitigation methods. Core shroud is very good at mitigating power damage.

And the damage isn’t that much unless you are very glassy and don’t have that much cleanse yourself.

I kill those tank necros all the time. They are super tanky but their damage is nothing like Holo or Soulbeast or Power guardian. Those burst hard and can usually sustain nicely but hit 4 or 5 times the burst.

Necro, if they win with condi, does it by wearing me down over time. That’s actually what condi is meant to do.

And, I need to repeat this again every time this topic comes up: balance issues with particular builds or professions are not issues with condi. It’s an issue with those builds. Balance isn’t about removing an entire damage type when you are actually complaining about one profession.

Sustain is fine: thief can’t do damage or thief can’t sustain. The complaints always add up to thief must be terrible or it’s OP.

SA is fine and, really, do you want SA to be another damage bonus traitline? Sure? We can live with bonuses to stealth attacks instead.

How about 20% bonus to stealth attack damage? That sounds thematically appropriate.

Stealth off stolen skills and the bonus torment including bleed from Malicious Sneak Attack makes DE more correct for condi (pure or hybrid).

The use of Repeater isn’t so much peculiar as a natural kiting skill similar to Death’s Retreat on rifle. What you lost is needing to hit versus getting more condi than DR provides.

> @"ArielRebel.3426" said:

> > @"saerni.2584" said:

> > Depends on your weapons. DE is very good for ranged builds in general and adds in torment which is a nice bonus.

> >

> > DA condi DE has its strengths but I find you want Trickery involved for better overall sustain. That leaves either a lower initiative build or you drop DA for a more hybrid approach.

> >

> >

> >

> > This is an example of what a hybrid approach looks like.

> >

> >

>

> Thanks for the reply. Was curious to know what gear prefix and traits are you using for hybrid build? I actually never even thought of trying out hybrid build... always thought that it would be mediocre (instead of being great at one thing, it would be meh at both).

It’s a combo of carrion/grieving with some rampager thrown in. SA, Trick, DE

Estimated stats (in a fight) are 2.3k power 1.7k condi, 95-99% crit (depending on local auras the crit may hit 100% during bursts).

It hits hard. But the condi is supplementary so you don’t end up higher than a net 4k condi tick (with no cleanse and a lot of stuff hitting perfectly).

Especially the best thieves take every advantage they can, SA is no exception.

I don’t expect them to handicap themselves. I run a build that can’t handle permastealth well. But if I run into it I just leave. Why fight something that I cant kill?

I don’t get this ego trash talking. You may be good at the game but don’t assume everyone else is bad because their play style doesn’t mesh with your preferences.

Depends on your weapons. DE is very good for ranged builds in general and adds in torment which is a nice bonus.

DA condi DE has its strengths but I find you want Trickery involved for better overall sustain. That leaves either a lower initiative build or you drop DA for a more hybrid approach.

This is an example of what a hybrid approach looks like.

There’s a few kinds of commanders. I see all kinds and that’s as a current low tier server link fighting outnumbered most of the time.

I don’t really see how WvW isn’t like WvW anymore. People organize, or don’t, to play the mode for whatever reason.

I’ve run with organized open tags from pug guilds. They are doing what they can to train people and win fights. I don’t usually run with zergs these days, but there are all kinds of groups at various times of day.

No commander? Get a discord and tag up.

While the repeatable reward tracks in WvW give only 2 clovers the first time you run through those tracks gives a larger number, as do the non-repeatable reward tracks.

If you make sure you’ve done all the reward tracks at least once you should pick up a lot of clovers.

As a thief, of course stealth is defensive. It’s also offensive. I use it to attack and reposition so I don’t get hit by those AoEs and other attacks.

Just because stealth isn’t a perfect defense like invuln doesn’t mean it isn’t a defense. And good thing it isn’t an invuln because I use it a lot more often than other professions are allowed to use invuln.

> @"Levinus.6532" said:

> > @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > Condi is fine. Cleansing is a thing. Take away cleansing and armor vs. Condi could work. Until then, it's a hard no unless you want condi to become completely irrelevant....which is, I think, exactly what a lot of condi whiners want.

>

> I want to argue that cleanses are like blocks that completely negates incoming damage, but for this case its just a removal of the applied dots.

>

> But yes, it is right to take more vitality against condi players, but there are many instances where condi-damage is hard to remove as the the enemy wear bunker armor builds ...

> i guess not wearing any skills or traits that removes conditions and apply some resistance is a foolish move...

>

> i guess im learning now, im just in the mindset that conditions are just backload damage, but its i guess this is fine now.

>

Blocks work against abilities that apply conditions. So it’s not really equivalent to cleanse.

Cleanse is the “ unique mechanic” which mitigates conditions. Just like armor is the unique mechanic that mitigates power damage (and the weakness condition or protection boon to an extent). Armor versus cleanse is the correct comparison.

Cleanse is always something you have to build for—like extra toughness or protection. The problem is that a lot of the meta or high end builds assume the person playing them is able to handle the build at a high level. This means that the amount of cleanse in the build is sufficient for above average players and potentially insufficient for average players.

For example, I run a targeted cleanse on all damaging conditions except torment (24 second cooldown) and a second ability can cleanse three generic conditions on a 40 second cooldown). This is generally enough for me to sustain through the condition application of condition based opponents. But I’ve been told I’m wrong and that level of cleanse is too low to work. The difference is that I know how to play my build and avoid getting hit by all the enemy condi applying skills.

Login servers are back up for me.

> @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> > @"noot.8641" said:

> > Playing SA in general is so cheesy, i have no respect for SA thieves, it’s the ultimate carry traitline.

>

> Everyone else in the game uses the "carry" or "cheese" options, so I don't see why I shouldn't.

It's just a nonsensical position. If you play a stealth oriented build there are a lot of natural synergies with SA. Basically, anyone who tells you not to run SA in a build that benefits from it is saying "thief is OP if you run an optimized build so run a suboptimal build to not be unfair." But everyone runs what they imagine to be a good build (whether they think that is metabattle or their own personal variation).

I say, play what you want and don't worry about people who will either tell you your build isn't good or that it is too good to be fair. You can't win those arguments so just play what is fun and works for your play style. It's not up to the players to play worse specs in an attempt to balance the game. That's the devs' job.

Seems to be a connection problem being widely experienced according to DownDetector.

Build: 105843

Error Code: 58:11:5:535

> @"Swystix.7459" said:

> Mistlock Sanctuary Pass

> Armistice Bastion Pass

> Character Slot

> Bank Slots again

I second the request for permanent passes generally and more specifically the Armistice Bastion Pass.

You can usually blame Trapper runes if you are talking about "stealth being overused." Course, you can just run into the trap and reveal them.

I'd like to know why a couple of problematic builds (from your perspective, not necessarily from a balance perspective) warrants changing stealth itself rather than just adjusting the build specific issues.

It's easier to suggest small balance changes that don't require a larger redesign of the entire game.

Best way to gear for WvW is probably to just play WvW and do the armor/weapon reward track to earn the exotics you want. Buy the trinkets from the Trading Post then get ascended over time.

It won’t be the last gear you earn but is enough to get started. Everything else is build and skill.

As a thief main, this kind of topic is pretty typical. And I get it. Stealth is psychologically difficult to deal with. Especially against experienced thieves.

Stealth is something I fight on a daily basis. Thief is just as vulnerable to a stealth attack as any other player. You see someone stealth up and you you have to focus on where they were, where they went, what cooldown they are on until they pop up again.

Then, you learn how to predict your opponent. They just burned half their cooldowns. They are completely invisible but you start kiting a little and get your own defense ready. If they engage, now they are the ones with no cooldowns ready and a serious problem if you have a decent build. If they don’t engage you are ready when they come back to try again.

If they engage, then you strike back and force them to chase you. No matter what they are running, their build needs initiative to maintain their pressure on you. But needing to chase you is what will wreck their momentum. They can’t spend initiative on chasing and damage.

I doubt Anet would, because the PvP and WvW armor were more to give those players an alternate path (and skins to some extent) to the singular raid legendary set.

With weapons there is no gate keeping behind raids (which not everyone plays) and weapons are plentiful in terms of gen 1s (which anyone can buy directly or effectively buy through precursors and crafting the rest) and gen 2s and 2.5s that come with collections and require more actual PvE to complete unlike the gen 1s.

In a semi-related note, we are still missing legendary infusions. If they ever implement legendary infusions (with stat swapping and both Agony Resistance and WvW bonuses) then we might see a two tier setup with a WvW set and a PvE fractal set, with a third version where you combine them to get both bonuses at the same time.

I'd rather that EotM be upgraded and then integrated into "real" WvW more effectively.

EotM 2.0:

* Matches last for 1 hours and occur every 3 hours (1 per WvW skirmish).

* Matches reward bonus WvW experience to the winning players.

* Entrance to EotM is only through regular WvW spawn points.

* Kills in EotM reward additional bonus points to WvW server.

* PPT values in EotM are reduced.

* A maximum of 40 players per side can participate at any time.

* There are no waypoints available if you die, to respawn you must return to a regular WvW map and re-queue.

What this does is, if EotM is popular it can produce lots of bonus score for your team. Individuals are motivated to get the personal rewards of participating and the group rewards of winning the match. If EotM isn't that populated it will have less impact on the score (because most of the score bonuses come from player kills). You also can't easily game the system, because other players will replace you if there is a queue and you are intentionally dying to give another server score.

It’s not overpowered. It’s just different play styles.

The source of thief permastealth is often through the use of combos off smoke fields. SA doesn’t increase those (although it can help with initiative gain in stealth so that is one advantage).

DA is a huge bonus to damage. I don’t think Executioner or Potent Poison or Deadly Ambition need to be buffed and those are the reasons people take the traitline.

Acro is mainly bad because It has a direct parallel to Daredevil. Daredevil has all the good bonuses: an extra endurance bar, extra endurance on steal, making your dodge into a combo finisher (great for stealth play) or a removal of hindering conditions. You even get a better cleanse than the two choices in Acro that scales better with more enemies attacking you. If Anet really wanted to make Acro better they would swap traits with Acro so Acro had some comparative advantages.

CS is great but overshadowed by Trickery. CS provides a lot of the support traits that a thief might want (lots of Fury and either bonus damage or healing, extra effects with signets). It’s just that Trickery can provide Fury and Vigor (more dodges means less to heal) and also has more initiative and initiative generation.

A lot of what defensive lines you choose is very play style dependent.

* Daredevil is ultimate for people playing evade. Acro is either redundant or is used as a third support traitline for ultimate evades with Trickery. Most people run DD, Tr, X with the X either being a damage line or SA if they want more stealth play.

* SA is primarily used for Stealth heavier play styles that can’t rely as much on combo fields for stealth. As I said, this can also be used with Daredevil for a Hybrid stealth-evade style. Or you can use this with Core and DE to play more pure stealth focused builds.

* If you want to play with yolo higher damage you can drop your additional support lines (SA, Trickery, or Acro). This lets you do a lot of damage (it’s actually quite a lot) but unless you manage to pull off the kills you need you will be very vulnerable to counter pressure. Core gets to take a support line where the elite specs are limited to whatever support the elite spec offers (more evades in DD, more stealth in DE). These builds are also gimmicky in that if you don’t build Trickery into your build (still possible in Core) you lose the benefit of the lower cooldown Swipe/Mark which boosts your initiative gain rate from Trickery.

It’s complex because I think the south camp is easier to defend on east side and harder to defend north side.

Hills has a longer distance to cover so you can get more out of speedy yaks. Bay you get more out of packed yaks with the escort from SWC being very short.

Personally, escorting yaks is pretty easy if you bother with it.

DE is good if you bother to play it with weapons other than Rifle. Of course it still needs to be played synergistically but the fact remains that players who get stuck in Rifle as the be all end all of DE miss the huge advantages that the rest of the spec provides.

Rifle is ok. You can do something with it. That doesn’t mean you should camp rifle.

I took a nice break to do a lot of WvW and...I live for these threads.

@"Ghos.1326" care to comment?