Wintersday Balance: Condi Thief Edition

[saerni.2584]

In anticipation of the patch at roughly 12pm EST im starting this thread to discuss whatever changes impact this niche portion of thief builds.

 

For the unfamiliar, overall thief in condition builds has classically applied conditions through steal, utilities, weapon skills and dodge. Steal is usually one of the more important aspects because that is a core game design feature.

 

So, keeping in mind the above, in a few hours we will have the opportunity to discuss the patch notes. Thief may not be touched , even at all, given the prominence scourge and mirage have in the condi build scene. Then again, we did have S/D condi as the number one hated on build pre-PoF—despite thieves pointing out the fundamentals of the build had been available long before the immobilize-poison change in Deadly Arts.

 

Specially, I want to emphasize that thief has little access to high stacking conditions on single skills. So, the trade off can’t be stacks for duration in many cases. If anything thief has always suffered from low duration conditions except for a few limited skills.

 

So what would you nerf? What would you buff? And what would you leave the same? And in a few hours: what was missed?

[godmoney.6025]

Give thieves a health buff, so I can run berseker gear and have ~17000 life without having to go marauder.

Condi is for nerds.

[Shirlias.8104]

> @"godmoney.6025" said:

> Give thieves a health buff, so I can run berseker gear and have ~17000 life without having to go marauder.

> Condi is for nerds.

 

This could be the idea.

Zerk is slightly better than marauder, and medium armor class with high hp pool is still missing.

[MUDse.7623]

last time i played condi thief was within first months of the game, was really fun playing with d/d and the people all stand in caltrops without any condi removes, but didnt touch it for very long time - maybe if it gets buffed i will try. else probably not.

 

> @"godmoney.6025" said:

> Give thieves a health buff, so I can run berseker gear and have ~17000 life without having to go marauder.

> Condi is for nerds.

 

thief with high hp still hitting 20k+ backstabs(WvW) out of permastealth would be kinda too strong as the time frame a thief is visible if choose to be stealthy is really short and would turn thief into a 0 risk, high reward class. sure invisible is not invulnerable and i kill alot of thieves during their stealth but you can avoid most damage with stealth, especially if you stealth more than 3s regularly during the fight. i would rather have the thief gain access to more unblockable stuff like replace the crit chance of hidden killer with an unblockable buff than a higher base HP. but i dont know what thief base HP has to do with the upcoming patch concerning conditon ramp up time, thief already has very decent condi clear traits so doesnt need too much hp as defense against it.

 

[Cirrion.8951]

I doubt that we'll see more than minor changes today, if anything. Condi thief damage already has to ramp up by repeatedly applying low numbers of stacks of bleed and poison; other than steal we don't have any skills that land a big burst of condis at once (other than shared Spider Venom, and that requires allies nearby).

[saerni.2584]

Spider Venom was ironically almost designed to burst, contrary to what they seem to want conditions to do.

 

Shared to five with the thief as 6th. Each dealing six stacks of poison worth up to 2k damage depending on boons and such. Over 70k damage every button press within a relatively short duration.

 

I would like to note that the following condi weapons have all been viable to some degree:

 

D/D, D/P (less so), P/D, P/P (less so), S/X and Shortbow (mixed).

 

Of those, I’d say D/D and P/D offer the most condition application. Shortbow and S/X in second place with more mobility. P/P and D/P in third with a more hybrid focus baked into the sets.

[Cirrion.8951]

And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

[nortask.8351]

> @"saerni.2584" said:

> Spider Venom was ironically almost designed to burst, contrary to what they seem to want conditions to do.

 

poison didn't stack when the game was made. It was made to increase damage by reducing healing potential.

 

[saerni.2584]

I mean in reference to the stacking changes. They buffed Spider Venom at that time to six stacks. So yes, the balance of that skill is intended.

[saerni.2584]

I like how they buffed Shadow Strike in PvE (2 for 6 seconds from 5 seconds) and ignored that SS does 4 stacks in pvp.

[Genesis.5169]

Theres nothing wrong with thieves atm, if they get a nerf to there non existent condition damage and condition builds in spvp/wvw i would be surprised like the rest of the non necros.

 

 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

> @"Cirrion.8951" said:

> And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

 

spamming shortbow on condithief in raids with grievers stats and Impacting disruption? I.D scaless off power alone and nothing else.

[saerni.2584]

> @"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:

> > @"Cirrion.8951" said:

> > And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

>

> spamming shortbow on condithief in raids with grievers stats and Impacting disruption? I.D scaless off power alone and nothing else.

 

Yeah that should make a hybrid Daredevil build more powerful with poison and throwing down consistent coverage on Sb 4.

 

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:

> > @"Cirrion.8951" said:

> > And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

>

> spamming shortbow on condithief in raids with grievers stats and Impacting disruption? I.D scaless off power alone and nothing else.

 

In Game terms Pressure strike is in the same position as traits like Quickpockets and Concealed defeat. It real hard to take over the other options. THAT said, this tactic in fact works very well with SB and grievers and especially when you mix up CG with Cluster Bomb which provides that added weakness to the bleeds, poison and very decent damage.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

> @"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:

> > @"Cirrion.8951" said:

> > And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

>

> spamming shortbow on condithief in raids with grievers stats and Impacting disruption? I.D scaless off power alone and nothing else.

 

If that is all the Thief is doing then it will be one of the Lowest DPS’ers in the raid fulfilling he role of DPS..... Smh.

[Crinn.7864]

> @"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:

> > @"Cirrion.8951" said:

> > And the patch notes are in. Slight changes to some skills, either keeping the same damage (but over longer time) or slight increase in damage (over longer time). Pleasantly surprised to see some rifle damage and initiative cost improvements, but disappointed that they are PvE only. Also good to see that on-interrupt skills work against enemies with defiance bars now.

>

> spamming shortbow on condithief in raids with grievers stats and Impacting disruption? I.D scaless off power alone and nothing else.

 

Both Viper's and Grieving gear have majors in power.