Follow Up to my Original Post, "The Death of Thief"

darren.1064

The original post if you happened to miss it: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/103453/the-death-of-thief/p1

Honestly. I'm not even going to say much because obviously if ANet has no intentions to fix the current balance then why should I even waste my time honestly. Since I first posted the original thread, thief got a buff in the condi department and now has a nearly unstoppable condi build. Which I don't really care for-- it is absolutely brain dead and should be nerfed to the ground. Power thief has never been in a worse state however. The only thing saving daredevil right now is dash and shadowsteps. Aside from that, thief is without the worst class in PvP as it cannot team fight or 1v1. In either category of fights, thief does 300-700 damage autoattacks and not much better for skills that cost initiative as other classes with more health, armor and overall survivability (ranger, all necromancers, holosmith) do umpteen times more damage. The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward. Aside from decapping (and the condi build) it's a dead class that has had every good build scrubbed. And please don't mention mobility as every class has found shadowsteps/high mobility onto it's meta utilities, so the excuse of "thief can't be good because of it's incredible mobility" needs to be dead.

Moving on, thief isn't my only complaint. Many builds need to be buffed and many builds need to be nerfed. Holosmith should not rule PvP; Warrior shouldn't be a forbidden class in PvP. This support/bunker meta sucks and caters to certain professions like Necromancer, elementalist, guardians, while other professions fitting specific niches were absolutely destroyed. Warrior and power thief are two classes in particular that were absolutely wrecked as their damage was dismantled. Soulbeast however can still dominate 1v1s with their cheesy power builds, and do nearly as much damage as pre-February. Don't get me started on reaper and holosmith.

In short, I guess this is a rant post and as somebody that has played since launch: I think I'm done with Guild Wars. I dedicated my time to crafting 10 legendaries and being top 100-250 every season, but this game isn't even worth the headaches I get from games anymore. I think I can safely say that not only is thief dead, but Guild Wars 2 PvP is dead unless necessary balance patches occur. At this point, I don't think I see the necessary patches occurring.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684

I don't blame you. I us-to main thief and looking at the damage they do now makes me wonder why people still want this class nerfed. I stopped maining Thief 2 years ago.

The problem is that Anet does not have a sound balance philosophy...It was flawed to the very core from the beginning of this games inception, and it has culminated into taking the most drastic measures, measures in which are built and still based on something that is still fundamentally flawed.

Me and a few other people saw this coming months before the February patch, and we discussed it...I remember the fanfare when the patch dropped...

"We love you CMC this is the best patch ever!"

I can understand...People were sick of the powercreep meta as well. So was I...But what they were given was a trade...to trade of one evil for another evil under the guise of a truce. Nobody could really understand that this nerf meta philosophy was just as bad as the power-creep meta philosophy, and it's now gotten to a point where it's so bad that it's just depressing to even play this game.

Dantheman.3589

Thief damage is actually good right now- it’s just front loaded into certain skills- heart seeker, sword 3, sd 5, vault and rifle 2 to name a few. I personally don’t like it as it didn’t used to be a skillful way to play and kindof killed S/d becuz front loading the weapon damage into the back line skills reduces the actual pressure of the build, but that doesn’t mean thief players are less skilled for using new builds that take advantage of this- that’s just adapting to a new meta.

Wrain.6792

Its a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE class...PERIOD. I quit this game years ago decided to come back. Thief STILL BORING, no dmg, total chore to use; was just like man this game still sucks. So somehow I finally just said screw it i'll roll a new class. Went guardian. NOT EVEN A COMPARISON. I can WvW, I can PVE, I can PvP...the game is actually fun. The thief class is BROKEN, NO DMG, and just POINTLESS in WvW unless you want to "scout" and run..and why the hell do that when you can just kill. Reroll, trust me, you will NEVER go back.
P.S. Good Job Anet, you got me to blow $100.00 bucks for the new class. (although I should NOT have had to do this)

Leonidrex.5649

thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

silklash.6154

Oh yes thief is dead.

So dead that every conquest game must have two - one on each team.

So dead that every MT winner and most AT winners have one thief.

So dead that just by existing, a person who has never played thief but can just decap and not fight at all can potentially salvage a game if the enemy team doesn’t have a thief.

Yea, thief isn’t meant to 1v1. If you want to duel, don’t play the class. But don’t say thief has no rewards, it’s ROLE in conquest is still broken. It has no risk of dying with shadow arts. It’s the only class that can have impact without FIGHTING the whole game.

Not to mention that’s sure, it has no roles in a wvw Zerg, but it’s just one of the best roamers who literally can’t die. Can’t unless you’re being dumb.

Where is this high risk with shadow arts?

masterofdisaster.4591

u are delusional

Psycoprophet.8107

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
I don't blame you. I us-to main thief and looking at the damage they do now makes me wonder why people still want this class nerfed. I stopped maining Thief 2 years ago.

The problem is that Anet does not have a sound balance philosophy...It was flawed to the very core from the beginning of this games inception, and it has culminated into taking the most drastic measures, measures in which are built and still based on something that is still fundamentally flawed.

Me and a few other people saw this coming months before the February patch, and we discussed it...I remember the fanfare when the patch dropped...

"We love you CMC this is the best patch ever!"

I can understand...People were sick of the powercreep meta as well. So was I...But what they were given was a trade...to trade of one evil for another evil under the guise of a truce. Nobody could really understand that this nerf meta philosophy was just as bad as the power-creep meta philosophy, and it's now gotten to a point where it's so bad that it's just depressing to even play this game.

Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying. They want all classes but their own nerf hammered so they can feel far more skilled than they actually are on their loaded class. It's no different than the pve scene, gw2 is literally braindead easy,even HOT yet people complained it's to hard. Then u get to pvp and the players want tons of passives, spammy low risk high reward play and any time they have issues with a class they spam nerf threads. Gw2 pvp population is not the type of population that enjoys challenge nor do the find it enjoyable to learn how to fight certain classes, its oh I got killed 3 times by this class its OP pls nerf. I remember post feb patch probobly a week after there was a thread thief BS is still doing 4k pls nerf more lmao, perfect example of the pvp community when most the heavier classes were bursting 10k+.
The balance and the games own pvp community drove most players off. Gl to the game but doubt even expacs gonna save it except maybe few month people will return to try out the new specs then leave again cuz in the end the expac wont fix any underlining issues that plague the game, actually may make it worse.

UNOwen.7132

First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for years.

jwhite.7012

@UNOwen.7132 said:
First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for years.

shortbow 5 doesn't offer that much mobility tbh.. rangers have some pretty insane mobility. Soulbeast with a bird, and it's on a pretty short CD. Pair that with warhorn for swiftness and sword for leap and you're hauling kitten across the map. I can usually outrun thieves on my warrior as well. Sword leap, gs charge can get me away pretty easily.

edit: the biggest perk of sb 5 is the vertical aspect of it, and being able to quickly move to higher ground. Although there's only a few maps where that would really benefit you.

KrHome.1920

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying.

PvP would actually be a better place if the thief class did not exist. Its mechanic reduces the whole combat mechanic to absurdity.

That's why I stopped playing it. It is an outlier in the game. Playing it feels like it doesn't belong there because it can control every single fight. And this does not mean win every fight, but determine the reward for the opponent.

People started to tell to themself they won when the thief runs away to keep the frustration low. That sums up how ridiculously dumb this class is.

Psycoprophet.8107

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying.

PvP would actually be a better place if the thief class did not exist. Its mechanic reduces the whole combat mechanic to absurdity.

That's why I stopped playing it. It is an outlier in the game. Playing it feels like it doesn't belong there because it can control every single fight. And this does not mean win every fight, but determine the reward for the opponent.

People started to tell to themself they won when the thief runs away to keep the frustration low. That sums up how ridiculously dumb this class is.

Yeah some would say so about ur necro, especially players that play along side ur classes espec scourge in wvw but doesn't make it true. I bet u think scourge and their 1000 carpet surrounding every zerg is a fine design right? How many threads u post in about its absurdity in such a mode, prob non cuz u play it. For few yrs scourge was thee braindead spam and get free bags class in wvw, is still now.

UNOwen.7132

@jwhite.7012 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:
First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for years.

shortbow 5 doesn't offer that much mobility tbh.. rangers have some pretty insane mobility. Soulbeast with a bird, and it's on a pretty short CD. Pair that with warhorn for swiftness and sword for leap and you're hauling kitten across the map. I can usually outrun thieves on my warrior as well. Sword leap, gs charge can get me away pretty easily.

It does. And while youre right that rangers (And warriors) have insane horizontal mobility, this is where sPvP map design comes in. Because sPvP maps are usually pretty vertical, or have inclines to port up. Thats where thief critically pulls ahead, and ranger/warrior fall behind. If we had a perfectly flat map, Id probably drop thief for a soulbeast.

edit: the biggest perk of sb 5 is the vertical aspect of it, and being able to quickly move to higher ground. Although there's only a few maps where that would really benefit you.

Id argue every map benefits from that, just to different degrees.

Highlie.7641

Thief has been dead for years, And it's the fault of player's like you. build > skill.

Trevor Boyer.6524

Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

Highlie.7641

Load of kitten...

Translation: Meta = Most Effictive tactic available.
Which for thieves is to what again? oh right Not interact with other players at all. keep trying man, thieves are very dead.

Let's keep ignore the fact that there are maps designed that completly invalidate thieves (Raid of capicorn, any tiny map ect) and look at Z axis, as this is there way of deflecting. You can gap closer leap the ZAxis port in Arena. And the Steps leading up are right beside the Zaxis port in another (making the time gained small). There are also multiple profession that can also Teleport, while still doing damage + sustain. and there are tons of 1200 range attacks at this point.

They are also forgetting to mention access to Swiftness and superspeed, Core thieves have less access to swiftness then most other professions at this point. (acro is only for trolling while in a group, so you ain't getting it there) your only source of swiftness is Steal traited.
They also conviently forget to mention that the "Speed test" which they all refer to was done in Wvw near launch by a bunch of diffrent people (including me) and the only reason s/d thief (which somehow became all thieves) came out as "the fastests" was because of all the white critters on the map, which they removed for server performance...

Shiyo.3578

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying. They want all classes but their own nerf hammered so they can feel far more skilled than they actually are on their loaded class. It's no different than the pve scene, gw2 is literally braindead easy,even HOT yet people complained it's to hard. Then u get to pvp and the players want tons of passives, spammy low risk high reward play and any time they have issues with a class they spam nerf threads. Gw2 pvp population is not the type of population that enjoys challenge nor do the find it enjoyable to learn how to fight certain classes, its oh I got killed 3 times by this class its OP pls nerf. I remember post feb patch probobly a week after there was a thread thief BS is still doing 4k pls nerf more lmao, perfect example of the pvp community when most the heavier classes were bursting 10k+.

Amen.

What really broke thief for me was just the slow dismantling of the flow of mechanics for the class. It started with Blinding powder gaining a cast time...then it culminated with the range reduction of Steal being the final nail in the coffin. Icing on the cake was increasing initiative cost to skills on a class that's forced to take Trickery because no decent builds can be made with only 10 initiative.

When the damage reduction patch hit, it had killed what was already dead and you have a class that is a mere specter of it's former self. Back in it's Hay day before Sindrener was a common house hold name, Thief had 4x more evades, 4x more damage (6-12k backstabs, with no cooldown) and had a combat flow that was so smooth it was one of the best classes to play. The kids today won't even remember some of the thieves that were literally unbeatable like Min Scherzo or Kronos. If anyone thinks thieves are OP now, then they have no idea what OP really is...because these players would have showed em' the true meaning of overpowered.

The balance and the games own pvp community drove most players off. Gl to the game but doubt even expacs gonna save it except maybe few month people will return to try out the new specs then leave again cuz in the end the expac wont fix any underlining issues that plague the game, actually may make it worse.

Ya i agree. I don't even know if i'm gonna buy the game. I am moving on to Cyberpunk when it comes out, and i'll probably just read up on the new specs from the wiki and watch some videos. It's a shame because this game really is fun combat wise, and it's just been years of watching them taking it apart piece by piece.

Shiyo.3578

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

Ranger is utter trash in SPvP due to all the passive aoe blind spam going around. You don't have the tools to deal with being perma blinded and every S tier build passively spams AOE blind all the time for no reason. The fact that a thief can beat a ranger 1v1 unless it's a bunker ranger is actually absurd and shows how utterly broken thief is in it's current state. You have to be 10x better than thief as literally everything in the game besides condi bunkers or menders bunkers to not be free food to thief in 1v1. It's insane.

Anet doesn't seem to understand how strong blind is and just puts it on everything.

Sifu.9745

I play Staff + P/P or SB Thief and my survivability is quite high thx to infinite dodges and Stealth (much higher than Repaer with zero survivability), but dmg on Staff is a bit low, lower then double Pistol dmg lol. Anyway Staff is the most fun Thief's weapon imo and is easy to play for a casual like me.

Edit: About "Thief has no dmg": yesterday a stealthy dagger/pistol thief deleted my Thief three times in a row within 3 -5 seconds in unranked pvp! I didn't even realized what's going on. 50% + health gone from a stealth attack (backstab i guess), another 50% in next 3 to max 5 seconds before i was able to react (it was night and i was a bit sleepy with low concentration but anyway, dmg was just absurd) I have never experienced such a brutal burst before. Show me any other profession that can burst you down so quickly, with exception of burn Guardian.

Arklite.4013

Wondering what game you guys are playing where thief sucks. The class has bonkers mobility, can hold its own in 1v1s, and if it isn't winning, it can easily disengage and apply pressure somewhere else, or poke at you/wait for CDs, and engage again. If you play thief, you can entirely avoid other players and just stand on nodes and have a significant impact on the game because of how quickly they can rotate.

UNOwen.7132

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

In a purely horizontal race (i.e. flat ground with no inclines), Ranger and Warrior both outpace thief. We know that because WvW exists, where there are large flat areas, and we know warrior and ranger outrun thief. Not that thats much help in sPvP, because none of the maps are completely horizontal.

UNOwen.7132

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

Ranger is utter trash in SPvP due to all the passive aoe blind spam going around. You don't have the tools to deal with being perma blinded and every S tier build passively spams AOE blind all the time for no reason. The fact that a thief can beat a ranger 1v1 unless it's a bunker ranger is actually absurd and shows how utterly broken thief is in it's current state. You have to be 10x better than thief as literally everything in the game besides condi bunkers or menders bunkers to not be free food to thief in 1v1. It's insane.

Yeah except Thief doesnt beat a ranger in 1v1. Ever. In fact it seems you think (for some inexplicable reason) that thief wins 1v1s when it specifically loses all of them. Thats why you dont see top thieves go for 1v1s except maybe against non-reaper necro (and mesmers if those were around). Didnt you try to claim you were a thief main?

darren.1064

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

Shiyo.3578

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

You didn't read my post correctly. The classes design intention is that it's bad at 1v1 but it can escape easily and come back when you're low on CDs/low hp. However, it's so absurdly overpowered AT THIS MOMENT that new and bad thieves are so used to winning 1v1's due to the classes absurd power, so they stay and fight like they're a duelist because they've been conditioned to believe it's a duelist due to it being brokenly strong.

Psycoprophet.8107

I wouldn't argue with these players, they lie constantly and it's literally the same few every thread lmao. Just move on and ignore their biased dribble which I know is hard since theres only like 10 people that continue to post in this games pvp forums, can u guess I e of the reasons why? Lol

darren.1064

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

You didn't read my post correctly. The classes design intention is that it's bad at 1v1 but it can escape easily and come back when you're low on CDs/low hp. However, it's so absurdly overpowered AT THIS MOMENT that new and bad thieves are so used to winning 1v1's due to the classes absurd power, so they stay and fight like they're a duelist because they've been conditioned to believe it's a duelist due to it being brokenly strong.

lol no, that isn't the classes design

Psycoprophet.8107

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

You didn't read my post correctly. The classes design intention is that it's bad at 1v1 but it can escape easily and come back when you're low on CDs/low hp. However, it's so absurdly overpowered AT THIS MOMENT that new and bad thieves are so used to winning 1v1's due to the classes absurd power, so they stay and fight like they're a duelist because they've been conditioned to believe it's a duelist due to it being brokenly strong.

lol no, that isn't the classes design

No it's his take on the classes design. It has always been a +1, decap class yes but also had spikes to quickly dispatch any class even very tanky classes in those +1 but was always on the weaker sides in 1v1 except vs mesmer which it counters hard. Can u guess what most thief hater play lol. But teefs been so nerfed it takes far to long to +1 most classes and ur better off a pure decap bot... fun. A lot of thief players have left the game, which puts a smile on these players face cuz they cant see past their bias and see player loss is killing their main mmo, and their helping Kill it fue to a simple biased against a class they dislike.

Trevor Boyer.6524

@UNOwen.7132

You're doing that thing again where you keep adamantly stating things that are wrong.

Rangers & Warriors cannot keep up with or beat a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race.

Let's look at what the Thief is working with here:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows <- that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth if it really wants to. After the traits through Shadow Arts, the heal skill alone grants 6s of stealth = 6s of 50% movement speed. And that's not to mention other sources of stealth adding on to the 50% movement uptime, like steal when it's traited or Blinding Powder, ect ect.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator's_Arrow <- that's 900 range instant teleportation at a cost of 6 init. The pool of init is expanded from 12 to 15 with trickery and init replenishes at +1 per second. So even with a base 12 pool, the Thief gets 2x free 900 range ports = 1800 range, which is farther than Shadowstep. It then gets another SB#5 every 6s thereafter.
3. Then it has https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep a 40s CD 1200 range instant teleport. So at the beginning of a race, a Thief quite seriously gets an immediate for free +3000 range on anything attempting to to chase it or keep up with it. 3000 range dude. 3000 range is twice as far as a Ranger can fire a Longbow. A 3000 range difference is something like the distance between mid and far in Legacy.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skill teleports alone will provide a distance gained something like this: 2x Shadow Steps = 2400 range - 2 initial SB#5s which will take about 2s to complete = 1800 range - now we have 58s left and the SB#5 is usable every 6s thereafter, which will be about 9x uses = another 8100 range. So without ever using the WASD keys at all, the Thief can move 12,300 range. Now remember that during its teleportation CDs while init is recharging and it needs to use WASD keys to move, it can use stealth skills to benefit +50% movement during that time. Then of course it also permanently has Swiftness.

Now let's take a look at what Ranger is working with:

1. Greatsword https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop which is about a 10s CD after traited = 1000 range. And remember that this skill isn't an instant teleport but an animation that requires about 1s to gain that 1000 range. So you've got to understand that a skill like GS#3 that requires an animation to achieve a 1000 range gain, will arrive at a position slower than an instant teleport 1000 range. Keep this in mind.
2. Swoop on bird is now 18s in pvp. If you're talking a horizontal race you'd want Rock Gazelle in this patching F2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_(soulbeast) which is the same 1200 distance as Swoop but on a 12s CD
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet's_Prowess <- 30% movement speed, which is less than normal 33% Swiftness, and certainly less than stealthed Thief 50%. Soulbeasts don't cast Swiftness for WASD movement. They rely upon this trait while merged for general movement speed.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skills alone will grant the Soulbeast a movement distance gained something like this: The 10s CD on GS Swoop is more like an 11s CD because once the skill is used it takes an animation time of about 1s to complete before it goes on CD. So while keeping this in mind, roughly 6x GS Swoops could be used for a distance gain of = 5000 range. The Gazelle F2 is the same idea. It has an animation time of 1s so the 12s CD is really more like 13s when chaining skill use like this. So the Gazelle F2 can be used roughly 4x for a distance gain of 48000 range. Without the use of WASD, A Soulbeast can move 9800 range in 60s. A Soulbeast has no access to Super Speed or any similar movement buffs for +50% or even any consistent Swift buff outside of Zephyr 4s Super Speed on a 32s traited CD. So other than Zephyr per 32s, when it must use WASD during CDs, it's working with that Beastmastery merge trait for only 30% movement.

And then Warrior:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush after traited it's 18s CD but it has a 2s animation so it's still 20s in between uses because the skill does not go on recharge until the animation ends. 1200 range.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull's_Charge 24s after traited and has a 1s animation so 25s in between uses. 900 range.
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rampage usable only once during the 60s foot race. A player would be able to use Dash twice during the transformation for +2000 range, and Seismic Leap once for +600. In other words, the single Rampage use is worth a travel distance of 2600.
4. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior's_Sprint <- only 25% movement. If a War wants a function build they can't bring Swift spamming skills so they pretty much have to rely on this trait.
5. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the War gets to use: 3x Rush = 3600 range - 2x Bull's Charge = 1800 range - 1x Rampage for + 2600. So the War in 60s with no WASD movement, can travel about 8000 range. Then in between that he's working with 25% movement.

In no way does Ranger or Warrior keep pace with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. And none of the above had even mentioned the use of Steal for further increases in distance traveled when it's convenient for a Thief to target a rabbit or a deer or some player standing on a node. <- Even without the use of steal or inf sig additional ports, a Thief is still clearly faster than a Ranger or Warrior in a horizontal foot race.

Hollow.5382

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

I thought I was going crazy for a second, considering that post is heavily thumbs up XD. I personally think thief is OP but its hard to take their arguments seriously when they can't even remain logically consistent within the same paragraph.

Dadnir.5038

Let's correct the OP: "Thief's one hit KO build is dead!"
Thief itself isn't.

Leonidrex.5649

I dont understand how you can consider mandatory class " dead "
can someone enlighten me ?
there is 5 spots on the team and 9 classes, at least 4 classes are not picked, and thief is not one of them. consider those not picked " dead " and not something you have to have or you automatically lose a game.

UNOwen.7132

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132

You're doing that thing again where you keep adamantly stating things that are wrong.

No, Im doing that thing where Is tate things that are simply right. I mean its not like this is something people in WvW know and have known for a while.

Rangers & Warriors cannot keep up with or beat a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race.

They outpace it.

Let's look at what the Thief is working with here:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows <- that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth if it really wants to. After the traits through Shadow Arts, the heal skill alone grants 6s of stealth = 6s of 50% movement speed. And that's not to mention other sources of stealth adding on to the 50% movement uptime, like steal when it's traited or Blinding Powder, ect ect.

Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference. Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point.

2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator's_Arrow <- that's 900 range instant teleportation at a cost of 6 init. The pool of init is expanded from 12 to 15 with trickery and init replenishes at +1 per second. So even with a base 12 pool, the Thief gets 2x free 900 range ports = 1800 range, which is farther than Shadowstep. It then gets another SB#5 every 6s thereafter.

Yup, this is their main method of movement.

3. Then it has https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep a 40s CD 1200 range instant teleport. So at the beginning of a race, a Thief quite seriously gets an immediate for free +3000 range on anything attempting to to chase it or keep up with it. 3000 range dude. 3000 range is twice as far as a Ranger can fire a Longbow. A 3000 range difference is something like the distance between mid and far in Legacy.

50 seconds. Not 40. And youre not gonna be using shadowstep for moving around the map because its your single most valuable utility skill. It would be a waste. So lets go back to 1800 range. Oh but that 1800 range isnt instant. Infiltrators arrow has both a cast and a flight time. The troubling part is, I cant tell you exactly what that cast + flight time is. From a few tests Ive made it seems to be around 0.9-1 second, but I cant 100% guarantee there is no delay involved. Flight time is about .6 seconds for sure however.

4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skill teleports alone will provide a distance gained something like this: 2x Shadow Steps = 2400 range - 2 initial SB#5s which will take about 2s to complete = 1800 range - now we have 58s left and the SB#5 is usable every 6s thereafter, which will be about 9x uses = another 8100 range. So without ever using the WASD keys at all, the Thief can move 12,300 range. Now remember that during its teleportation CDs while init is recharging and it needs to use WASD keys to move, it can use stealth skills to benefit +50% movement during that time. Then of course it also permanently has Swiftness.

We are still not including shadowstep, because its too valuable. But also, what an arbitrary cutoff. Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep (but I wont include it. Feel free to add 1200 range at the end if you want). So at the start thief gets 2 shortbow 5s, in which he moves 1800 units in 2 seconds. Then every 6 seconds he moves 900 units in a second. Thats 6 times. So 5400 in 6 seconds + 1800 in 2 seconds = 7200 in 8 seconds. Otherwise he moves at 400 units per second (the cap. Also, movement speed boosts do not stack). Total distance covered is 7200 + 32*400= 7200 + 12800 = 20000. In 40 seconds. Pretty good.

Now let's take a look at what Ranger is working with:

1. Greatsword https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop which is about a 10s CD after traited = 1000 range. And remember that this skill isn't an instant teleport but an animation that requires about 1s to gain that 1000 range. So you've got to understand that a skill like GS#3 that requires an animation to achieve a 1000 range gain, will arrive at a position slower than an instant teleport 1000 range. Keep this in mind.

Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further.

2. Swoop on bird is now 18s in pvp. If you're talking a horizontal race you'd want Rock Gazelle in this patching F2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_(soulbeast) which is the same 1200 distance as Swoop but on a 12s CD

You get both, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second.

3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet's_Prowess <- 30% movement speed, which is less than normal 33% Swiftness, and certainly less than stealthed Thief 50%. Soulbeasts don't cast Swiftness for WASD movement. They rely upon this trait while merged for general movement speed.

You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same.

4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skills alone will grant the Soulbeast a movement distance gained something like this: The 10s CD on GS Swoop is more like an 11s CD because once the skill is used it takes an animation time of about 1s to complete before it goes on CD. So while keeping this in mind, roughly 6x GS Swoops could be used for a distance gain of = 5000 range. The Gazelle F2 is the same idea. It has an animation time of 1s so the 12s CD is really more like 13s when chaining skill use like this. So the Gazelle F2 can be used roughly 4x for a distance gain of 48000 range. Without the use of WASD, A Soulbeast can move 9800 range in 60s. A Soulbeast has no access to Super Speed or any similar movement buffs for +50% or even any consistent Swift buff outside of Zephyr 4s Super Speed on a 32s traited CD. So other than Zephyr per 32s, when it must use WASD during CDs, it's working with that Beastmastery merge trait for only 30% movement.

Now lets fix this. First, Swoop gets it cooldown after half a second, though the skill continues past that. But sure, lets go with 11 seconds. So we have 1 second of 1200 every 11 seconds. We also have 1 second of 1200 every 18 and 1 second of 1200 every 12 seconds. You could add sword for another 600 over a second every 8 seconds, but as well see in a bit thats completely redundant. So, lets compare. We get 4 charges off of swoop, 3 off of bird swoop, 4 off of gazelle charge. Thats 13200 over 11 seconds. You notice the issue, dont you? But lets continue. Over the remaining 29 seconds, the soulbeast moves 11600 distance. Thats 24800 over 40 seconds. Even if you slap that one shadowstep in, thief is still behind by 3000 units. And thats without using sword.

And then Warrior:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush after traited it's 18s CD but it has a 2s animation so it's still 20s in between uses because the skill does not go on recharge until the animation ends. 1200 range.

A few things wrong here. Rush is a 1.7-ish second animation (I tested it), and the cooldown is 16 seconds, not 20. But yes, lets say 18 seconds.

2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull's_Charge 24s after traited and has a 1s animation so 25s in between uses. 900 range.

About right, I suppose.

3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rampage usable only once during the 60s foot race. A player would be able to use Dash twice during the transformation for +2000 range, and Seismic Leap once for +600. In other words, the single Rampage use is worth a travel distance of 2600.

40 seconds, but yes. You get to use dash thrice actually, its a 4 second cooldown in non-pve gamemodes. So its 3000 and 600 off of seismic leap.

4. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior's_Sprint <- only 25% movement. If a War wants a function build they can't bring Swift spamming skills so they pretty much have to rely on this trait.

You got 13 seconds of swiftness from rampage. You also get Burst Mastery, which you get to use about twice. Now lets add what you forgot. Breaching Strike, 450 over 0.75 seconds. You get to use this once. Whirlwind attack, 450 over 0.8 seconds every 8 seconds. Not a whole lot, but its something. Shieldbash, same distance in same time, but 20 second cooldown.

5. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the War gets to use: 3x Rush = 3600 range - 2x Bull's Charge = 1800 range - 1x Rampage for + 2600. So the War in 60s with no WASD movement, can travel about 8000 range. Then in between that he's working with 25% movement.

Again, going with 40. In that period of time Warrior gets to Rush indeed thrice, for 3600 range over 5.1 seconds. 2 bull charges for 1800 range over 2 seconds. Rampage for 3600 over 3 seconds, 5 whirlwind attacks for 2250 over 4 seconds. A breaching strike for 450 over 0.75 seconds. 2 shieldbashes for 900 over 1.6 secondsSo this is 12600 over 16.45 seconds. This leaves about 23.5 seconds of running. Now, 10 of those are under rampage swiftness. 6 of those are under burst mastery swiftness. Oh but Warrior uses 15% boon duration runes. So thats 16*1.15= 18.4 seconds. If you add balanced stance, thats perma-swiftness. So, thats 23.5*400 = 9400. Meaning warrior in 40 seconds moves 22000. even with shadowstep added, warrior pulls just ahead.

Now what I didnt mention here, because Im not sure about it, is quickness. Could be that Warrior pulls ahead even further with quickness (since thief is unaffected by quickness). But I dont actually know. Lets put a pin in that.

In no way does Ranger or Warrior keep pace with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. And none of the above had even mentioned the use of Steal for further increases in distance traveled when it's convenient for a Thief to target a rabbit or a deer or some player standing on a node. <- Even without the use of steal or inf sig additional ports, a Thief is still clearly faster than a Ranger or Warrior in a horizontal foot race.

Yeah except, as I just showed, they do. Warrior is barely (I admit, not by as much as I made it seem), but Ranger is comfortably ahead without even exhausting its options. Oh and steal (rather swipe) would not save thief.

jwhite.7012

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132

You're doing that thing again where you keep adamantly stating things that are wrong.

Rangers & Warriors cannot keep up with or beat a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race.

Let's look at what the Thief is working with here:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows <- that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth if it really wants to. After the traits through Shadow Arts, the heal skill alone grants 6s of stealth = 6s of 50% movement speed. And that's not to mention other sources of stealth adding on to the 50% movement uptime, like steal when it's traited or Blinding Powder, ect ect.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator's_Arrow <- that's 900 range instant teleportation at a cost of 6 init. The pool of init is expanded from 12 to 15 with trickery and init replenishes at +1 per second. So even with a base 12 pool, the Thief gets 2x free 900 range ports = 1800 range, which is farther than Shadowstep. It then gets another SB#5 every 6s thereafter.
3. Then it has https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep a 40s CD 1200 range instant teleport. So at the beginning of a race, a Thief quite seriously gets an immediate for free +3000 range on anything attempting to to chase it or keep up with it. 3000 range dude. 3000 range is twice as far as a Ranger can fire a Longbow. A 3000 range difference is something like the distance between mid and far in Legacy.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skill teleports alone will provide a distance gained something like this: 2x Shadow Steps = 2400 range - 2 initial SB#5s which will take about 2s to complete = 1800 range - now we have 58s left and the SB#5 is usable every 6s thereafter, which will be about 9x uses = another 8100 range. So without ever using the WASD keys at all, the Thief can move 12,300 range. Now remember that during its teleportation CDs while init is recharging and it needs to use WASD keys to move, it can use stealth skills to benefit +50% movement during that time. Then of course it also permanently has Swiftness.

Now let's take a look at what Ranger is working with:

1. Greatsword https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop which is about a 10s CD after traited = 1000 range. And remember that this skill isn't an instant teleport but an animation that requires about 1s to gain that 1000 range. So you've got to understand that a skill like GS#3 that requires an animation to achieve a 1000 range gain, will arrive at a position slower than an instant teleport 1000 range. Keep this in mind.
2. Swoop on bird is now 18s in pvp. If you're talking a horizontal race you'd want Rock Gazelle in this patching F2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_(soulbeast) which is the same 1200 distance as Swoop but on a 12s CD
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet's_Prowess <- 30% movement speed, which is less than normal 33% Swiftness, and certainly less than stealthed Thief 50%. Soulbeasts don't cast Swiftness for WASD movement. They rely upon this trait while merged for general movement speed.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skills alone will grant the Soulbeast a movement distance gained something like this: The 10s CD on GS Swoop is more like an 11s CD because once the skill is used it takes an animation time of about 1s to complete before it goes on CD. So while keeping this in mind, roughly 6x GS Swoops could be used for a distance gain of = 5000 range. The Gazelle F2 is the same idea. It has an animation time of 1s so the 12s CD is really more like 13s when chaining skill use like this. So the Gazelle F2 can be used roughly 4x for a distance gain of 48000 range. Without the use of WASD, A Soulbeast can move 9800 range in 60s. A Soulbeast has no access to Super Speed or any similar movement buffs for +50% or even any consistent Swift buff outside of Zephyr 4s Super Speed on a 32s traited CD. So other than Zephyr per 32s, when it must use WASD during CDs, it's working with that Beastmastery merge trait for only 30% movement.

And then Warrior:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush after traited it's 18s CD but it has a 2s animation so it's still 20s in between uses because the skill does not go on recharge until the animation ends. 1200 range.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull's_Charge 24s after traited and has a 1s animation so 25s in between uses. 900 range.
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rampage usable only once during the 60s foot race. A player would be able to use Dash twice during the transformation for +2000 range, and Seismic Leap once for +600. In other words, the single Rampage use is worth a travel distance of 2600.
4. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior's_Sprint <- only 25% movement. If a War wants a function build they can't bring Swift spamming skills so they pretty much have to rely on this trait.
5. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the War gets to use: 3x Rush = 3600 range - 2x Bull's Charge = 1800 range - 1x Rampage for + 2600. So the War in 60s with no WASD movement, can travel about 8000 range. Then in between that he's working with 25% movement.

In no way does Ranger or Warrior keep pace with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. And none of the above had even mentioned the use of Steal for further increases in distance traveled when it's convenient for a Thief to target a rabbit or a deer or some player standing on a node. <- Even without the use of steal or inf sig additional ports, a Thief is still clearly faster than a Ranger or Warrior in a horizontal foot race.

That's hardly a realistic breakdown. The thief is moving while using the SB 5 (arrow travel time). Plus there is nowhere in the game that is truly flat. SB 5 requires LOS, which means going over hills can actually harm their travel time. SB 5 is very strong when crossing ravines or between hill tops. In that same logic, the jump from Ranger and Warrior both allow you to gap cross much more efficiently than thief. Thief teleportation is also hindered further by requiring a route to get to. Can't remember the exact wording, but something along the lines of "no path available".

Don't get me wrong, I like that you broke down every ability, but it doesn't truly account for environment, and manipulating the environment to the classes benefit. Thief cannot out pursue a warrior or ranger in escaping.

Bigpapasmurf.5623

I encounter DPS thieves almost a often as condi. Imo thief isn't in a terrible spot atm. Ivr seen some blow up condi builds really fast. Most dps ones i see are sword spamming DrD

Raiden The Beast.3016

Just B.U.F.F. teef 👾

• reduce substain from SA
• give us back our dmg ... AA is noodle dmg, BS ...lul...
• swipe 900range
• give us back skillfull play PI
• delete all these anti teef mechanics, CD after a missed backstep, cmon all and everything is kitten blocks, invus, evades, all the reveal kitten in wvw as well ofc and mounts this is already clear and not open for discussion
• and nerf all this kitten (nades, lol still around kitten)
• new xpac balance will be again kitten for at least 2 years...

Trevor Boyer.6524

@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.
2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.
3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.
4. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.
5. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.
6. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.
7. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.
8. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.
9. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.
10. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

@jwhite.7012 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132

You're doing that thing again where you keep adamantly stating things that are wrong.

Rangers & Warriors cannot keep up with or beat a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race.

Let's look at what the Thief is working with here:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows <- that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth if it really wants to. After the traits through Shadow Arts, the heal skill alone grants 6s of stealth = 6s of 50% movement speed. And that's not to mention other sources of stealth adding on to the 50% movement uptime, like steal when it's traited or Blinding Powder, ect ect.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator's_Arrow <- that's 900 range instant teleportation at a cost of 6 init. The pool of init is expanded from 12 to 15 with trickery and init replenishes at +1 per second. So even with a base 12 pool, the Thief gets 2x free 900 range ports = 1800 range, which is farther than Shadowstep. It then gets another SB#5 every 6s thereafter.
3. Then it has https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep a 40s CD 1200 range instant teleport. So at the beginning of a race, a Thief quite seriously gets an immediate for free +3000 range on anything attempting to to chase it or keep up with it. 3000 range dude. 3000 range is twice as far as a Ranger can fire a Longbow. A 3000 range difference is something like the distance between mid and far in Legacy.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skill teleports alone will provide a distance gained something like this: 2x Shadow Steps = 2400 range - 2 initial SB#5s which will take about 2s to complete = 1800 range - now we have 58s left and the SB#5 is usable every 6s thereafter, which will be about 9x uses = another 8100 range. So without ever using the WASD keys at all, the Thief can move 12,300 range. Now remember that during its teleportation CDs while init is recharging and it needs to use WASD keys to move, it can use stealth skills to benefit +50% movement during that time. Then of course it also permanently has Swiftness.

Now let's take a look at what Ranger is working with:

1. Greatsword https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop which is about a 10s CD after traited = 1000 range. And remember that this skill isn't an instant teleport but an animation that requires about 1s to gain that 1000 range. So you've got to understand that a skill like GS#3 that requires an animation to achieve a 1000 range gain, will arrive at a position slower than an instant teleport 1000 range. Keep this in mind.
2. Swoop on bird is now 18s in pvp. If you're talking a horizontal race you'd want Rock Gazelle in this patching F2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_(soulbeast) which is the same 1200 distance as Swoop but on a 12s CD
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet's_Prowess <- 30% movement speed, which is less than normal 33% Swiftness, and certainly less than stealthed Thief 50%. Soulbeasts don't cast Swiftness for WASD movement. They rely upon this trait while merged for general movement speed.
4. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the movement skills alone will grant the Soulbeast a movement distance gained something like this: The 10s CD on GS Swoop is more like an 11s CD because once the skill is used it takes an animation time of about 1s to complete before it goes on CD. So while keeping this in mind, roughly 6x GS Swoops could be used for a distance gain of = 5000 range. The Gazelle F2 is the same idea. It has an animation time of 1s so the 12s CD is really more like 13s when chaining skill use like this. So the Gazelle F2 can be used roughly 4x for a distance gain of 48000 range. Without the use of WASD, A Soulbeast can move 9800 range in 60s. A Soulbeast has no access to Super Speed or any similar movement buffs for +50% or even any consistent Swift buff outside of Zephyr 4s Super Speed on a 32s traited CD. So other than Zephyr per 32s, when it must use WASD during CDs, it's working with that Beastmastery merge trait for only 30% movement.

And then Warrior:

1. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush after traited it's 18s CD but it has a 2s animation so it's still 20s in between uses because the skill does not go on recharge until the animation ends. 1200 range.
2. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull's_Charge 24s after traited and has a 1s animation so 25s in between uses. 900 range.
3. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rampage usable only once during the 60s foot race. A player would be able to use Dash twice during the transformation for +2000 range, and Seismic Leap once for +600. In other words, the single Rampage use is worth a travel distance of 2600.
4. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior's_Sprint <- only 25% movement. If a War wants a function build they can't bring Swift spamming skills so they pretty much have to rely on this trait.
5. So in a 60s horizontal foot race, the War gets to use: 3x Rush = 3600 range - 2x Bull's Charge = 1800 range - 1x Rampage for + 2600. So the War in 60s with no WASD movement, can travel about 8000 range. Then in between that he's working with 25% movement.

In no way does Ranger or Warrior keep pace with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. And none of the above had even mentioned the use of Steal for further increases in distance traveled when it's convenient for a Thief to target a rabbit or a deer or some player standing on a node. <- Even without the use of steal or inf sig additional ports, a Thief is still clearly faster than a Ranger or Warrior in a horizontal foot race.

That's hardly a realistic breakdown. The thief is moving while using the SB 5 (arrow travel time). Plus there is nowhere in the game that is truly flat. SB 5 requires LOS, which means going over hills can actually harm their travel time. SB 5 is very strong when crossing ravines or between hill tops. In that same logic, the jump from Ranger and Warrior both allow you to gap cross much more efficiently than thief. Thief teleportation is also hindered further by requiring a route to get to. Can't remember the exact wording, but something along the lines of "no path available".

Don't get me wrong, I like that you broke down every ability, but it doesn't truly account for environment, and manipulating the environment to the classes benefit. Thief cannot out pursue a warrior or ranger in escaping.

1. I already just explained to the other guy how arrow travel time doesn't effect the Thief movement because the Thief WASD movement doesn't actually stop while it is casting in the same way that other classes have movement skills weird weird flat-footed wind up times of 3/4ths a second or 1s where their WASD movement actually stops completely while an animation begins before they jolt forward.
2. No where in the game that is truly flat? What? Just no. I'm not even getting into this with you.

But w/e, believe what you want. I'm done with this discussion.

Psycoprophet.8107

@Hollow.5382 said:

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.
The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.
excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

I thought I was going crazy for a second, considering that post is heavily thumbs up XD. I personally think thief is OP but its hard to take their arguments seriously when they can't even remain logically consistent within the same paragraph.

Also, the notion that a thief should never beat a sidenoder under any circumstances is ridiculous. A thief's niche is supposed to be high single target damage. If a thief couldn't kill a sidenoder in a 1v1 THAT would be a problem as it would make the thief nothing more than a glorified decapper.

Lol exactly! And it's the same few that spout this nonsense, literally just I dont like the class nerf it biased backed by hyperbole statements. Get used to it, all forum is these days.

Naqam a.6521

I believe Thief can also use :
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dash_(trait_skill)
/Unhindered Combatant

Or try to stealth and change directions , while the opponent will keep riding the sunset like Lucky Luke

For some strange reason i remembered and WoW old video

UNOwen.7132

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

Naqam a.6521

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .
b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat
c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you
nor you cannot kill the Warior or Druid , so its a draw

UNOwen.7132

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .

So I didnt. Although its 5 times, not 6. 3 at the start, then one every 10 seconds, but you dont start with dash. Thats 750 units. Less far behind, but still behind.

b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat

Well, I did say "its about 10 units or so". 9 to be precise. You throw in about, idk, 110 units. Its still behind.

c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

Nah, if you combine those 2 thief still falls behind by a lot.

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you

Thats not how outrunning is defined.

Naqam a.6521

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .

So I didnt. Although its 5 times, not 6. 3 at the start, then one every 10 seconds, but you dont start with dash. Thats 750 units. Less far behind, but still behind.

b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat

Well, I did say "its about 10 units or so". 9 to be precise. You throw in about, idk, 110 units. Its still behind.

c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

Nah, if you combine those 2 thief still falls behind by a lot.

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you

Thats not how outrunning is defined.

Yeah it seems both of us haven't played much GW2
Daredevil has 3 dodges from the start + once per 10 sec . So in total is 7 in 40 sec
In an combat race , you start with the more easy available spell , in our case is Dash . Otherwise the delay from switching weapon + use the Arrow can be fatal . You can equip it while on the Dash animation

The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat
Druids and Warriors with swiftness its 33%

I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled

UNOwen.7132

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .

So I didnt. Although its 5 times, not 6. 3 at the start, then one every 10 seconds, but you dont start with dash. Thats 750 units. Less far behind, but still behind.

b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat

Well, I did say "its about 10 units or so". 9 to be precise. You throw in about, idk, 110 units. Its still behind.

c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

Nah, if you combine those 2 thief still falls behind by a lot.

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you

Thats not how outrunning is defined.

Yeah it seems both of us haven't played much GW2
Daredevil has 3 dodges from the start + once per 10 sec . So in total is 7 in 40 sec

Wait did I mess up my math? Oh its 6. Not 7. You dont start with dash. You start with shortbow 5, since initiative is more important to recharge.

In an combat race , you start with the more easy available spell , in our case is Dash . Otherwise the delay from switching weapon + use the Arrow can be fatal . You can equip it while on the Dash animation

Nope, see above.

The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat
Druids and Warriors with swiftness its 33%

Percentage is meaningless, you want the real unit. That is a difference of 9 units per second. So after 40 seconds of running, youd barely be at 360. Its not much.

I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled

He wont actually. And this is not what the race is about. And the 50% speed is meaningless, as seen above.

ArthurDent.9538

The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

UNOwen.7132

@ArthurDent.9538 said:
The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

Which part of "perfectly horizontal" are you not quite getting? The point was that specifically sPvPs non-horizontal map design is why thieves mobility beats ranger and warrior, while WvWs perfectly flat planes make warrior and ranger win.

ArthurDent.9538

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ArthurDent.9538 said:
The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

Which part of "perfectly horizontal" are you not quite getting? The point was that specifically sPvPs non-horizontal map design is why thieves mobility beats ranger and warrior, while WvWs perfectly flat planes make warrior and ranger win.

If running across foefire using a path that avoids cliffs the thief could port up is not horizontal enough for you then I have no clue why you even tried to make this argument as there are no extended stretches in pvp that are more horrizontal then that.

RedAvenged.5217

@ArthurDent.9538 said:
The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

This is vital for balancing purposes

Trevor Boyer.6524

@ArthurDent.9538 said:
The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

I am willing to stream it as well. I'll play the Thief. And yes, I want to put gold down on this.

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ArthurDent.9538 said:
The obvious solution to this is get Trevor on thief and unowen on ranger/warrior in the same foefire custom arena together and have them foot race from one Lord room to the other (no porting over the cliffs in the middle). As for me I'll gladly bet 100g on thief winning, any takers?

Which part of "perfectly horizontal" are you not quite getting? The point was that specifically sPvPs non-horizontal map design is why thieves mobility beats ranger and warrior, while WvWs perfectly flat planes make warrior and ranger win.

We can do it in pvp, in wvw, in a pve dungeon, in a plane, on a train, it won't matter. The Thief will always win.

Naqam a.6521

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .

So I didnt. Although its 5 times, not 6. 3 at the start, then one every 10 seconds, but you dont start with dash. Thats 750 units. Less far behind, but still behind.

b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat

Well, I did say "its about 10 units or so". 9 to be precise. You throw in about, idk, 110 units. Its still behind.

c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

Nah, if you combine those 2 thief still falls behind by a lot.

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you

Thats not how outrunning is defined.

Yeah it seems both of us haven't played much GW2
Daredevil has 3 dodges from the start + once per 10 sec . So in total is 7 in 40 sec

Wait did I mess up my math? Oh its 6. Not 7. You dont start with dash. You start with shortbow 5, since initiative is more important to recharge.

In an combat race , you start with the more easy available spell , in our case is Dash . Otherwise the delay from switching weapon + use the Arrow can be fatal . You can equip it while on the Dash animation

Nope, see above.

The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat
Druids and Warriors with swiftness its 33%

Percentage is meaningless, you want the real unit. That is a difference of 9 units per second. So after 40 seconds of running, youd barely be at 360. Its not much.

I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled

He wont actually. And this is not what the race is about. And the 50% speed is meaningless, as seen above.

a) Nope see above , you start with the Dash , you will waste 0,5 sec by equipping the shortbow and till the arrow its traveled .
Its more scientific acceptable to do that while you are on the Dash animation
edit: With my method (7 dashes) , i can use 2 Dash to give my resources time to recuperate + travel 900 more yards

b)Its not 9 units .
Its 3% difference movement increased x 40 sec = the number will be inflating even after that = they will never catch you

c) I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled will travel even more distance

UNOwen.7132

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Naqam a.6521 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
@UNOwen.7132 lol you just say things that are wrong man.

1. Rangers and Warriors do not outpace thief in a horizontal race. I don't understand how you can possibly argue with the breakdown that I presented.

Because the breakdown you presented is incorrect, leaves out a lot of things.

2. You said that: "Out of combat, 33% or 50% doesnt make a difference" which is silly because in pvp you're always in combat. Even if we were talking out of combat, the DP Daredevil is still clearly faster. As much can be viewed from the breakdown.

We were talking about a horizontal race. That does not include in-combat. And if we talk out of combat, Ranger is clearly much faster, as you can see from the corrected breakdown. Oh and fun fact: If we were talking in-combat, warrior actually pulls ahead a lot, because they spend less time just running and more time in movement.

3. Then you say: "Additionally in order to obtain anything close to permastealth, thief has to slow down a lot. Far more than they get from it. So, not a point." It's not about permastealth, it's about the small stealths like their heal skill, which is 24s CD traited for a 6s +50% movement, or Steal if it is traited to grant stealth with significantly large reduction in CD. Between just the heal and steal, not counting any other sources of stealth, a PD Core or DP dd is essentially getting 9s of +50% movement per 24s. That's something like 40% uptime of +50% movement my dude. So if they cycle the usage wisely, they use the porting during the 15s that the 50% movement is on CD, and run with the 50% movement for 9s while init is building back up. There is an extremely small margin of time where the thief has to WASD with only 33% Swift, very small margin of time. So yeah, that +50% movement from stealth is extremely significant in this breakdown, whether you look at from in combat or out.

"that's 50% movement on a class that can perma stealth". Quite literally what you wrote. Dont complain that I point out something you say yourself. Its not significant at all, because out of combat 33% and 50% is nearly identical (its a difference of 10 movement speed or so), and in-combat its inferior to spending more time in movement skills (if you want, I can break down in-combat movement as well. Just as a spoiler: Warrior and Ranger are faster).

3. Shadow Step is 40s when traited in Shadow Arts my dude.

Ah, right, fair enough.

4. You said: "Lets put it to 40 seconds, shall we? So, we get at most 1 shadowstep" No you get 2x. You use Shadow Step immediately at the start of the 60s timer, as well as 2x SB#5s. I already pointed this out in the breakdown. You do this early, first skills used, so that they come off CD faster during the 60s timer. My good bro, you get to use Shadow Step twice in the 60s race. And don't worry, I already calculated the rest of the breakdown for Range/War in the same way with their skill usage.

And even with that, Ranger is ahead. Without even using sword. And no, you didnt. You forgot a lot of things, as I pointed out, and made a lot of wrong assumptions.

5. Then you go on to say: "Infiltrators arrow is not instant either. Theyre both about a second, but swoop carries you a tiny bit further." again, you're not noticing something important for this comparison. The SB#5 does have an animation time but it DOES NOT stop your WASD movement walking speed while casting it. So the Thief is still moving with WASD while the animation begins, an when it ends it instantly moves him with no interruption to the WASD movement. Swoop and Gazelle F2 or Bull's Charge or Rush, REPLACE all WASD movement and actually cause small pauses to it before and after the animations. A Swoop may be 1000 range but it is on a 10s CD that is effectively an 11s CD because the recharge doesn't begin until the 1s animation ends. The Sb#5 on the other hand, does not interrupt the initiative regen whatsoever and maintains a sound 2x 900 range uses per 12s = 1800 range per 12s, all the while not interrupting the WASD movement of the Thief at all, nor does Shadow Step or Steal.

Why does it stopping WASD movement matter, exactly? After you use Shortbow 5, no matter how or where you move, your location is locked in. You will always travel 900 units from your original point. Thats 900 units per second. Meanwhile Rush and swoop and whatever all finish their full animation also in a second, and you can move freely instantly. Thats 1200 units per second. Thats more distance covered in the same time. That is all that matters. I get what youre trying to do, muddle the waters to hide important aspects that dismantle your argument, but it doesnt work.

6. And then this here is just entirely and completely incorrect in every possible way. You said that: "You get both Bird Swoop and Gazelle Charge, actually. You cant swap pets in-combat, but were not looking at in-combat. So thats 1200 on 12 seconds and Swoops 1200 on 18 seconds. Theyre also both about a second." OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting. When you're talking about things chasing each other and running from each other, that's what's happening, people in combat. When a Soulbeast is in combat it can't swap pets. Even if we were talking about out of combat, you are seriously not understanding some things about Ranger here. Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills. It relies on Beastmastery trait merge for a flat 30% movement speed WHILE MERGED. When you try to swap pets, they go on a 9s CD and during that 9s you do not benefit the 30% movement. Even if you were using Swiftness from the bird when it was unmerged, it only lasts 10s and it takes time to cast. Then when you swap to the Gazelle the pet swap goes on 9s CD and merge will be on a 10s CD after you left bird. So now you swap to Gazelle and you have to stand there and wait for the merge CD to come off timer before you can even get into the Gazelle to use the F2. So theoretically I see what you're trying to argue but it doesn't pan out in the way that you were thinking because of merge timer. In other words, without writing a thesis on this one aspect, you'll make better distance by camping beast mode in Gazelle for the 30% movement baseline and F2 Charge on a 13s cycle. Trying to swap pets and adding in that 9 to 10s buffer to wait to remerge will kill your skill usage cycling & distance.

Lots to unpack here. Let me just copy the important parts and address them one by one.

OK so first, we are looking at in-combat because that's what happens in a pvp setting

No we arent. Were talking about a horizontal race. You dont have a race in-combat. And the original context was about cross-map movement. You know, going to decap and +1? You also do that out of combat. So already youre very wrong.

Again, Soulbeast does not use Swiftness skills

Oh, do they now?. Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

7. Then you say: "You get swiftness from owl + your choice between stances, warhorn, or whatever. You hit the max cap all the same." OK first of all, whatever you're referencing is not going to be any faster than any other Soulbeast build aside from some +3% gain in movement from having Swiftness over merge trait. Upon that, using warhorn and stances and owl on a Soulbeast is not a practical build to be using in pvp. You need to be using Longbow and Greatsword, and Smokescale, because when you merge and go into combat you cannot swap pets and you need the Smokescale the most for obvious reasons. So whatever you're referencing here is about as far away as it could get from a realistic build comparison.

Its not much of a boost, but its a boost. And again, talking out of combat, so you hit the movement speed cap. And sure its not a practical build because you dont care for map movement since you need vertical movement. But in WvW, its actually a build. A version of boonbeast specifically.

8. Then you start talking about 1hand Sword on a Ranger. Just no. You suggest the idea that someone is going to run Greatsword for Swoop with a 1hand Sword with a Warhorn apparnetly for competitive purposes? Even if they did and even if they were out of combat, that 1hand Sword jump has this weird hampering effect with its animation that hinders the Ranger just enough to where it barely gains any distance at all compared to what the tooltip says. If you're talking a foot race like this, the 600 range on Sword#2 is more like 300 range in terms of distance gained because of the weird animation at the beginning and the pause at the end before the Ranger is allowed to move with WASD afterwards. And upon that man, that build would be terrible in combat regardless of if it was DPS or Bunker, doesn't matter. Those weapon sets would be hot garbage together. The days of old Boonbeast setups have been looooooong gone for awhile now man. Sword/Warhorn/Greatsword would get you jacked up in a hurry if you tried to run it in pvp or wvw.

That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

9. And then War I'm not going to discuss because it's slower than Ranger and Ranger is slower than Thief, and the same mistakes were made while viewing the breakdown, concerning not taking into account the hampering of movement from animations. A good example on War is GS#3 Whirlwind. That skill has some serious animation hampering. It doesn't boost you ahead nearly as much as the tooltip would make you think. Using a WW alongside of a guy who was just running with Swiftness 33%, would only put you ahead maybe 60-80 range from him, due to how the animation actually works.

Its slower than ranger, yes. Its faster than thief. I did not make any mistakes. I counted the animation and stated it. It boosts you by exactly as much as I have said.

At any rate man, the purpose of my comparisons were to use realistic build structures for pvp while being in combat. The purpose was not to point out theoretical weird run builds designed for GW1 Droknar's Forge run. I could do the same thing for Thief, point out of a bunch theoretical options that could improve its movement speed and init gain, ect ect, but that's unrealistic.

You couldnt. Youre pretty much hitting the cap. Roll for initiative, perhaps, but that barely boosts you, and then youre tapped out. The purpose was to show that in horizontal movement thief is faster than ranger and warrior, and you failed to show that at all, because its not true.

But just to humour you, what if it was in-combat? Well lets start with warrior. Its easier. 12600 over 16.45 remains the same, its not affected by in combat vs out of combat. So, 23.5 seconds of swiftness movement. Thats 280 units per second. So 23.5*280= 6580. For a total of 19180 units in 40 seconds. To compare, thief has the 7200 over 8. So, 32 seconds of movement. Lets be very generous and assume thief has 50% extra movement speed during the entire 32 seconds (needless to say, he wont). Thats 32*315= 10080. For a total of 17280. Thats almost 2k less. And that was with me being very generous. If we instead assume realistically the thief only has, lets say, 12 seconds of 50% movement, then its only 16580. Almost 3k less. Yeah, pretty rough for the thief, innit?

You maths are kinda off by a bit
a) For example you didn't calculate that Thief can use Dash (450 yards yard range) x6times in those 40 sec
(2 in start + once every 10 sec) .

So I didnt. Although its 5 times, not 6. 3 at the start, then one every 10 seconds, but you dont start with dash. Thats 750 units. Less far behind, but still behind.

b) The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat

Well, I did say "its about 10 units or so". 9 to be precise. You throw in about, idk, 110 units. Its still behind.

c) Combining those 2 , you will get out of combat faster without being him and your 50% out of combat speed in stealth will be fully enabled

Nah, if you combine those 2 thief still falls behind by a lot.

and d) if you stealth , he cannot outrun you , because he cannot find you

Thats not how outrunning is defined.

Yeah it seems both of us haven't played much GW2
Daredevil has 3 dodges from the start + once per 10 sec . So in total is 7 in 40 sec

Wait did I mess up my math? Oh its 6. Not 7. You dont start with dash. You start with shortbow 5, since initiative is more important to recharge.

In an combat race , you start with the more easy available spell , in our case is Dash . Otherwise the delay from switching weapon + use the Arrow can be fatal . You can equip it while on the Dash animation

Nope, see above.

The 50% speed bonus on stealth is translated into 36-37% movement speed in combat
Druids and Warriors with swiftness its 33%

Percentage is meaningless, you want the real unit. That is a difference of 9 units per second. So after 40 seconds of running, youd barely be at 360. Its not much.

I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled

He wont actually. And this is not what the race is about. And the 50% speed is meaningless, as seen above.

a) Nope see above , you start with the Dash , you will waste 0,5 sec by equipping the shortbow and till the arrow its traveled .
Its more scientific acceptable to do that while you are on the Dash animation
edit: With my method (7 dashes) , i can use 2 Dash to give my resources time to recuperate + travel 900 more yards

You dont. You dont equip shortbow, and you start with shortbow because initiative is more important of a resource than endurance. Its 1.5 units per second when youre regening endurance, vs 150 per second with shortbow 5. PRetty big.

b)Its not 9 units .
Its 3% difference movement increased x 40 sec = the number will be inflating even after that = they will never catch you

Its literally 9 units per second. Its 391 units per second vs 400 units per second. Its so little its irrelevant.

c) I pretty sure the Thiefs will get out of combat faster and his 50% speed will be enabled will travel even more distance

Again, we start out of combat. And again, the speed makes close to no difference.