Strange new world- META ANALasys

[Urejt.5648]

Here we are looking at strange new world of gw2 ladder, where thieves try to live honoest life. I ll try to show what ppl are playing most often on ladder and serius tournaments for 100$.

 

We had recnt mothly ladder report which stated that 98% ppl play daredevil, 1% core (vallun) and 1% deadeye (Urejt the Painal). Report indicates that most ppl still play dp, however in my recent games i see equal amounts of dp, condi and sd. matchbox plays condi, sizer sd, SINdrener plays sd since ugoro tournament.

 

Ugoro tournament showed thief is less and less popular. In the finals only sindrener played thief and it was sd.

 

Is this the end of thief and begining of wars, necro, guard, druid, mes meta?

[Cynz.9437]

Well, DE is trash so we lost powercreep race with PoF (not to mention UC nerf).

From my perspective d/p DD is not as effective anymore due to scourge/FB + sb combo. It is really hard to effectively +1 anyone when they are facing those.

d/p DD also doesn't fair well vs scourges imo, core done better for me but core lacks moblity.

S/D is great vs boonspam but gets shut down by enemy d/p (if they have one).

 

Thief is definitely in rather odd spot atm. At one side one can say "yay more variety" on other hand i feel like in s1-2 where you could replace thief with about any class and have more optimal comp. Not saying thieves are bad, you can make them work just fine, it is just once again the issue of too much effort vs little reward while for other classes (you know the offenders) little effort -> huge reward.

[Urejt.5648]

Also there is the fact that Sindrener lost monthly automated tournament playing dp vs vaans team.

[TreK.3794]

I have been playing thief since I started playing gw2, so nearly 4 years. Back then during vanilla times thief had its distinct characteristic by providing stealth to the team and being the fastest and most mobile. However, nowadays what I see is that the class got stripped from this role slowly as anet started introducing more versatility to all classes. Right now it kind of feels like certain specs are trying to take over other classes' roles, and some managed to outperform other specs, leaving those specs inferior to them.

 

I like the idea of versatility and the fact that you can play different weapon sets in different game modes and be useful. But I don't like how one spec or class simply "takes over" another classes role in any game mode. A good example of this would be when HoT launched and power shiro basically took over the role of thief in pvp, simply cause it outperformed it. Didn't require that much skill, while it was still very mobile and provided better team support.

 

If you look at all the thief specs and weapon sets, there's only one weapon set (IN MY OPINION) where all 5 skills are actually worth spending initiative to, and that's d/p. No wonder it's still the most popular choice. The reason why DD worked is because it sort of "extended" the core d/p build, making it stronger. The problem with DE is that the specs is not compatible with the core class, whereas (AGAIN, IN MY OPINION) DD is.

 

In my personal opinion, I think the main reason why d/p outperforms other weapon sets is because it provides one of the best utility options for thief while being offensive at the same time -> blind. Well timed blinds and the ability to perform combos are the main reason why this weapon choice is so popular. D/P provides more utility for the class than any other weapon setup, and I think this is what anet needs to realise if they are to introduce more offensive utility skills for the class.

 

Hope my argument makes sense, it's kinda late in here and I'm just jotting down my thoughts haha.

[Dahkeus.8243]

The root of the issue is definitely scourges. Firebrands make them much worse, but at its core, scourge is really what has broken PvP post-PoF.

 

Other balance problems, such as Daredevils not doing well is mostly a side-effect rather than an issue with thieves.

 

And yea, Deadeye sucks, but I don’t think there’s any way to balance a stealthy ranged sniper role.

[Asur.9178]

> @Dahkeus.8243 said:

> The root of the issue is definitely scourges. Firebrands make them much worse, but at its core, scourge is really what has broken PvP post-PoF.

>

> Other balance problems, such as Daredevils not doing well is mostly a side-effect rather than an issue with thieves.

>

> And yea, Deadeye sucks, but I don’t think there’s any way to balance a stealthy ranged sniper role.

 

Which is why it was an awful idea to start with...and they even admitted that they simply did it to please the vocal minority that desperately wanted rifle on thief.

[MrForz.1953]

> @Asur.9178 said:

> Which is why it was an awful idea to start with...and they even admitted that they simply did it to please the vocal minority that desperately wanted rifle on thief.

 

Really?

 

[Zacchary.6183]

> @MrForz.1953 said:

> > @Asur.9178 said:

> > Which is why it was an awful idea to start with...and they even admitted that they simply did it to please the vocal minority that desperately wanted rifle on thief.

>

> Really?

>

 

Rifle was actually the majority. There the only group who beat Rifle were the ones who wanted anything other than rifle. Axe, warhorn and mace lacked any decent ideas.

 

EDIT: Offhand sword was close to rifle in popularity, but again there were very few good ideas.

[Elxdark.9702]

meta is the same and actually it's better for thief in general, why? because you can now play s/d and d/p depending of what you're facing.

We all saw at UGO EU that sind couldn't do much when he was d/p vs a mirage/druid/war comp, why? because d/p can't +1 as fast as before so everytime a d/p +1 those builds it will be really easy for the enemy team to make the 1v2 a 2v2 thus making dp thief useless.

 

With s/d that whole situation changes, you don't +1 you go for 1v1 and 2v2 you can just 1v1 every class and if you can't win you will be able to hold until a teammate comes to +1 you. Also s/d is much better dealing with FB imo, double steal + unblockable spam it's really strong against an already pressured fb.

 

So thief will remain meta, s/d is strong in this meta because it has better matchups and deals better against fb/scourge and d/p is strong because it negates every other thief build :)

Imagine next patch deadeye gets some juicy buffs and becomes viable, we would have core/hot and pof builds viable at pvp.

[babazhook.6805]

> @Elxdark.9702 said:

> meta is the same and actually it's better for thief in general, why? because you can now play s/d and d/p depending of what you're facing.

> We all saw at UGO EU that sind couldn't do anything when he was d/p vs a mirage/druid/war comp, why? because d/p can't +1 as fast as before so everytime a d/p +1 those builds it will be really easy for the enemy team to make the 1v2 a 2v2 thus making dp thief useless.

>

> With s/d that whole situation changes, you don't +1 you go for 1v1 and 2v2 you can just 1v1 every class and if you can't win you will be able to hold until a teammate comes to +1 you. Also s/d is much better dealing with FB imo, double steal + unblockable spam it's really strong against an already pressured fb.

>

> So thief will remain meta, s/d is strong in this meta because it has better matchups and deals better against fb/scourge and d/p is strong because it negates every other thief build :)

> Imagine next patch deadeye gets some juicy buffs and becomes viable, we would have core/hot and pof builds viable at pvp.

 

I am finding that if you spec into SA and face a d/p daredevil , a DE thief can come out even in any fight against the same. The blinds you can steal in addition to the ample stealth (CIS or Rejuv traited) goes a long way to mitigating a lot of that damage burst. Needless to say that thiefs own stealth and dodges mitigate a lot of your damage. You get a lot of draws or waiting on a mistake.

[Cynz.9437]

> @babazhook.6805 said:

> > @Elxdark.9702 said:

> > meta is the same and actually it's better for thief in general, why? because you can now play s/d and d/p depending of what you're facing.

> > We all saw at UGO EU that sind couldn't do anything when he was d/p vs a mirage/druid/war comp, why? because d/p can't +1 as fast as before so everytime a d/p +1 those builds it will be really easy for the enemy team to make the 1v2 a 2v2 thus making dp thief useless.

> >

> > With s/d that whole situation changes, you don't +1 you go for 1v1 and 2v2 you can just 1v1 every class and if you can't win you will be able to hold until a teammate comes to +1 you. Also s/d is much better dealing with FB imo, double steal + unblockable spam it's really strong against an already pressured fb.

> >

> > So thief will remain meta, s/d is strong in this meta because it has better matchups and deals better against fb/scourge and d/p is strong because it negates every other thief build :)

> > Imagine next patch deadeye gets some juicy buffs and becomes viable, we would have core/hot and pof builds viable at pvp.

>

> I am finding that if you spec into SA and face a d/p daredevil , a DE thief can come out even in any fight against the same. The blinds you can steal in addition to the ample stealth (CIS or Rejuv traited) goes a long way to mitigating a lot of that damage burst. Needless to say that thiefs own stealth and dodges mitigate a lot of your damage. You get a lot of draws or waiting on a mistake.

 

Yeah the only problem is mobility. Anet handled it to other classes like candy so core is ironically not mobile enough in a lot of cases to outrun certain classes for decaps and +1. This is still probably the biggest slap in the face Anet did to the thief community - on one hand they nerfed everything on thief because thief should be "mobile roamer" on other hand they handled crap load of mobility to other classes which kind of made whole justification absolute lie. Just like UC nerf while EM is a thing.

 

And as i said, atm we are lucky that revs are barely played. If rev was a thing again, core d/p definitely would be deleted from pvp again.