Make the Thief Great Again!

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Define "we" and stop with the faulty generalizations, many builds play so different from each other that they might as well be different "classes". A profession is nothing but a collection of builds with some common aspects (like traits) anyways. Build X "doing fine" says nothing about how the rest is doing.

>

> P/P has lower DPS than even power necro and everyone always "complains" about them being "too weak". Not that is matters much because "certain builds from other classes not doing well" is beside the point to begin with. "Let our buffs be in the nerfs to other classes." is just a bad way to tackle these problems since (ignoring the fact that you don't seem to have any idea just how much you would have to hammer down "the rest" to bring various stuff on par with everything else (at least I hope you don't cause otherwise you're essentially asking for the vast majority of the playerbase to ragequit)) it's not going to fix gamplay realated issues with skills like cluster bomb.

>

> Also, are you even listening to yourself? If one plays a P/P build then these "certain aspects" profoundly affected the entirety of the gameplay. Maybe you should stop being such a hypocrite and stop "cherry picking" certain builds to attack valid critism of the things that actually should to be adressed.

 

You can't really call P/P a build when all you donor spam #3 90% of the time

[Tails.9372]

> @"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:

> > @"Tails.9372" said:

> > Define "we" and stop with the faulty generalizations, many builds play so different from each other that they might as well be different "classes". A profession is nothing but a collection of builds with some common aspects (like traits) anyways. Build X "doing fine" says nothing about how the rest is doing.

> >

> > P/P has lower DPS than even power necro and everyone always "complains" about them being "too weak". Not that is matters much because "certain builds from other classes not doing well" is beside the point to begin with. "Let our buffs be in the nerfs to other classes." is just a bad way to tackle these problems since (ignoring the fact that you don't seem to have any idea just how much you would have to hammer down "the rest" to bring various stuff on par with everything else (at least I hope you don't cause otherwise you're essentially asking for the vast majority of the playerbase to ragequit)) it's not going to fix gamplay realated issues with skills like cluster bomb.

> >

> > Also, are you even listening to yourself? If one plays a P/P build then these "certain aspects" profoundly affected the entirety of the gameplay. Maybe you should stop being such a hypocrite and stop "cherry picking" certain builds to attack valid critism of the things that actually should to be adressed.

>

> You can't really call P/P a build when all you donor spam #3 90% of the time

Of course you can, that's like saying the shooter genre doesn't have gameplay because people are just pulling the trigger over and over again. Besides most players are just spamming their AAs anyways but that's somehow "different" but let's be honest, the ini system thief is using is designed to make a weapon set more like a "tool box". You take what you need for a given situation and "spam it" (which has its own set of unique disadvantages).

 

I don't even know why thief has cost free auto attacks to begin with, cost free AAs make sense to bridge downtimes if the class uses a CD system but "mana" based systems are all about resource management and since there are no "mana potions" in this game we have other ways to recover ini in order to prevent downtimes like succesfull execution of skills (unload), stealing (in combination with trickery), roll for iniciative... the list goes on. The reason P/P thief almost exclusively uses "3" is simply because everything else about this weapon set is either to situational or redundant. Essentially the whole weapon set except for unload and maybe headshot (which only need slight adjustments) should be redone.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

To be honest, with the way the DE malicious sneak attack now works for pistol mainhand I don't see them bringing back ricochet. The only way I see it coming back is if they tack it onto unload, which would generate it's own set of salt. It's a shame as it's a cool idea.

[Kageseigi.2150]

> @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> To be honest, with the way the DE malicious sneak attack now works for pistol mainhand I don't see them bringing back ricochet. The only way I see it coming back is if they tack it onto unload, which would generate it's own set of salt. It's a shame as it's a cool idea.

 

Instead of Malicious Sneak Attack applying Torment, I wish it would restore 1 initiative per malice.

[Straegen.2938]

> @"Tails.9372" said:The reason P/P thief almost exclusively uses "3" is simply because everything else about this weapon set is either to situational or redundant. Essentially the whole weapon set except for unload and maybe headshot (which only need slight adjustments) should be redone.

 

D/P has Headshot along with a significant amount more utility so Unload is pretty much the only reason to run P/P. P/P has almost always been a "fun" build but not particularly effective. They set about destroying it though all the way back to the Ricochet days which is need now more than ever with Mirage running rampant.

[Tails.9372]

> @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> The only way I see it coming back is if they tack it onto unload, which would generate it's own set of salt.

But why tho? Stuff like a warrior or a holosmith couldn't care less about ricochet if you're up against them in one on one combat. It's not even that good for group fights either, the AoE isn't that big and every subsequent person is only taking like half the damage the previous one had to endure (which isn't even that high considering that P/P isn't exactly known for having high DPS to begin with and the first person dodging would also be a "dodge" for everyone else). I guess the only ones actually being annoyed by ricochet "enhanced" unload spam would be mesmer but I suppose their not really in the position to complain here.

 

> @"Straegen.2938" said:

> Unload is pretty much the only reason to run P/P.

Well the main reason you would want to run P/P is having a mid range focused build which uses some kind of "mana" based system instead of the usual CD based stuff. There is no practical reason to use P/P on deadeye because rifle does pretty much the same thing but better. Unload by itself isn't even that great of a skill but people using this set have to rely on it because it's the only skill this weapon set has to offer which isn't hyper situational or tries to accomplish the exact same thing. They should just redo the whole weapon set TBH, make Unload weapon skill 1 (keep the iniciative costs for all I care (the ini cost increase for PvP should be reversed tho)) and give us 4 new ones. People always whine about how P/P is "only spamming unload" but this obviously wouldn't be the case if the weapon set actually had some utility to offer.

 

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

>People always whine about how P/P is "only spamming unload" but this obviously wouldn't be the case if the weapon set actually had some utility to offer.

 

I mean it has most of the utility of D/P with Headshot and a ranged blind which in it of itself is what makes D/P played more than D/D and P/D.

 

Unload is just almost always the best option because it's got absolutely silly amounts of damage to it with little setup required from relative safety. Why bother interrupting your enemy or trying to play into a sustained damage denial game if you can just kill them outright?

 

 

[Tails.9372]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> Why bother interrupting your enemy or trying to play into a sustained damage denial game if you can just kill them outright?

The thing is youre not going to kill your enemy "outright" if he has somewhat of a brain. The damage of unload is spread over 8 hits and all the enemy has to do is dodge to avoid most of them. If the P/P thief is going full burst then he is only capable of firing two unloads before running out of ini, tree if you want to waste a roll for initiative / less then that if you want to use something else. And define "absolutely silly amounts of damage", for an offensive build the damage isn't anything special (some of the AAs do more). The skill is increadibly high risk with medium rewards, you get punished if the enemy dodges your attacks, you get punished if you dodge the enemies attacks. The reason you don't want to play "a sustained damage denial game" is first and foremost because you don't have the resources to spare (which is an issue you don't have with other builds), not because "unload is just too amazing" and increasing the ini cost of unload is just making the problem worse.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > Why bother interrupting your enemy or trying to play into a sustained damage denial game if you can just kill them outright?

> The thing is youre not going to kill your enemy "outright" if he has somewhat of a brain. The damage of unload is spread over 8 hits and all the enemy has to do is dodge to avoid most of them. If the P/P thief is going full burst then he is only capable of firing two unloads before running out of ini, tree if you want to waste a roll for initiative / less then that if you want to use something else. And define "absolutely silly amounts of damage", for an offensive build the damage isn't anything special (some of the AAs do more). The skill is increadibly high risk with medium rewards, you get punished if the enemy dodges your attacks, you get punished if you dodge the enemies attacks. The reason you don't want to play "a sustained damage denial game" is first and foremost because you don't have the resources to spare (which is an issue you don't have with other builds), not because "unload is just too amazing" and increasing the ini cost of unload is just making the problem worse.

 

If the enemy is going to dodge/negate then you could say all skills in the game are bad because they won't deal damage.

 

You end up wasting initiative for no effect which affects your subsequent ability to deal damage by using the objectively strong utility options on OH pistol, anyways.

 

With natural initiative regeneration which occurs while you're casting skills, accounting for the cast times, you get three consecutive unloads with Trickery traited, even if they all miss (1.5s cast*2 =3s = 3 init + 15 base = 18). After the third cast, a total of 9.6 coefficient damage excluding the mightstacking has been attempted, which per unit of time is better than anything the class is capable of doing anywhere, and better than nearly all other professions' builds in the game.

 

To say P/P is high-risk suggests you've not played other kits extensively. P/P is one of the safest and simplest options thief has. Its only weakness is projectile denial. Which other kits still suffer from due to shared utility on skills 4/5 or intermittent necessary ranged pressure on Dancing Dagger or anything but CG on shortbow. It's just that projectile denial is so common and screws it over as hard as it does, and in conquest, you can't play without shortbow.