Are there any plans to incentivize playing thief PvE-wise?

Just finished another t4 fractal run as thief where the first question was "hey do you have a holo or weaver? we'd like to have a good dps" and I'm so sick of it.I think we all can agree that thief is a (if not the ) class with the least survivability, concerning his low health and no passive defense/recovery. He should have something as "reward" for the increased difficulty. Also, thief brings no support/buffs for a group and offers okay-ish CC. Simply put: The reason anyone would like to have a thief in their group would be the pure DPS. However, current benchmarks place thief at the bottom of the viable DPS classes, even lower than warrior (who should be more of an allrounder design-wise) and even guard/DH (I could write pages about how ridiculous this is. How can a heavy armor support tank class with tons of passive survivability and invuln be a top DPS?)Currently, there's simply no reason to chose thief over any other class because anything he does, someone else can do better.

So, the question goes to @Gaile Gray.6029 & @Robert Gee.9246:Are there any plans in the near-mid future to incentivize playing thief IN PVE or at least make him no liability? Be it number-tweaking or mechanic overhauls. I wouldn't even mind tuning down some other classes to be more in line...

As I cannot suggest any helpful changes, I know this thread won't help that much. However, I would simply love to hear if you are aware of this problem or if you don't care for stuff like DPS-min-maxing in PvE endgame.I don't necessarily want thief to be top DPS. I also know I'm not a god and even if thief could do 35k DPS I would probably not reach it in t4 fracs. Still, I just want to play my main of 6 years in endgame content without being kicked or asked to relog simply because thief as a class currently has no place in PvE endgame :-(

The problem with Thief in PvE is Initiative management. It is far easier to manager cooldowns than to manage Initiatives. Often times in order to maintain high DPS, my Thief has to stick to using one skill until Initiatives are all gone. Then wait for it to regen while watching my DPS go down the drain due to the horrible auto-attack damage.

One way to solve this is to give each weapon skills their own CD. Then let the Thief use Initiatives in lieu of waiting for the cooldown.

Example; I used Cloak and Dagger which put it on a 15s cooldown. I can still use CnD while it is in cooldown, but I will have to pay 5 initiatives if I did.

With this solution, if my Thief ran out of Initiatives, the skills are available to use if they are out of CD. This will also make weapon swapping a boost to DPS since my Thief can swap out the weapon with skills on cooldown - just like other professions.

Please note that this thread is not meant to find a balancing solution. There are tons of other "what can we do to improve thief?"-threads in this sub. I'd simply like a dev to answer - or anybody else who got some information anywhere.

Concerning inititative... the concept of thief was to chose between burst and sustain. Either i blast all my initiative upfront to do tremendous damage, or i sustain it a little more.Following this concept, thief's DPS should be among the top DPS for a few seconds if he bursts and then be low-ish when empty. Currently, even blasting all you initiative away (with e.g. Weakening charge on Staff) doesn't yield a great DPS.

Well... it's interesting that this thread go into that direction...

Objectively, thief dps in PvE is still middle tier even if it's not "great", so I don't think thief's dps is the issue. Like the op said, Dardevil add some juicy hard CC which isn't bad either. What's not said is that deadeye add some possibilities for support which is most likely not here for PvP or WvW.

Honnestly, the thief is not badly gifted for PvE, it's only flaw is that he isn't outstanding in a gamemode dominated by some behemoth who have some unfair advantage in either DPS or support. So the issue of the thief in PvE is that the profession is balanced which make it a non-issue for the devs.

Thief has some severe DPS issues, as a glass cannon which is mostly build around single target DPS only being around mid tier ish in terms of damage output is totally unacceptable and shows that the developers don't even understand some of the basics of character design. As the OP said, thief isn't really supposed to be a tank and it's not supposed to be support either, it isn't even universally focused on DPS since it doesn't really have good AoE options like other professions do so one would think they at least shine in one on one combat but nope, even there they're just medicore and to top it all of some developers have ruined some parts of the class by removing important aspects like the ricochet trait for no apparent reason. But even ignoring overall class performance some skills are poorly thought out and are in dire need of reworking.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

Honnestly, the thief is not badly gifted for PvE, it's only flaw is that he isn't outstanding in a gamemode dominated by some behemoth who have some unfair advantage in either DPS or support. So the issue of the thief in PvE is that the profession is balanced which make it a non-issue for the devs.So you're saying thief is balanced, the problem is DH? Well... current PvE meta consists of Mesmer/Chrono, Warrior/BS, Druid or FB Healer as core and DPS-classes, where Weaver, Holo and - again - guard top the list. Nerfing a single class wouldn't benefit anyone. It's too late to align everything and don't forget marketing: A-Net WANTS elite specs to be stronger as incentive to buy the expansions.The logical conclusion would be to at least align the other specs, so that each class has at least one viable role (my GF isn't pleased either that mesmer is mostly chrono support). Sadly, DE has been gutted to oblivion with the rework and illustrates thief's situation even more: okay-ish DPS and not much besides DPS, while still being kinda hard to play/survive with....I don't want to wait till the next expansion to be viable again...

@"Tails.9372" said:But even ignoring overall class performance some skills are poorly thought out and are in dire need of reworking.All classes have some "dead" skills. Honestly I'd like it more to rework/balance the relevant skills instead of trying to get scorpion wire or those thief traps into the meta.

@Fhynix.2105 said:

@"Tails.9372" said:But even ignoring overall class performance some skills are poorly thought out and are in dire need of reworking.All classes have some "dead" skills. Honestly I'd like it more to rework/balance the relevant skills instead of trying to get scorpion wire or those thief traps into the meta.That's not an excuse for keeping these skills as dead weight, if anything it just means the developers have more stuff to do but that's not the topic here.

@"Fhynix.2105" said:So you're saying thief is balanced, the problem is DH?

What is DH doing there? Is this even possible to compare DH, who have an edge against large target very much like elementalist, and thief who is your balanced joe that perform the same whatever the width of the target?

If you want to compare 2 e-spec, the dardevil is very much like the reaper. The reaper having a little bit of extra survivability while the dardevil outdo him in damage. Professions' max DPS should range between 30k and 34k. Everything that's above should be nerfed and everything that can put support on top of dps should see it's numbers reduced to max 28k (at least for power).

Now if some profession/spec can perform better on large target, it's ok, but those professions dps on small target shouldn't be way above professions that can't.

This is what balance should try to achiever, not a stupid dps race that make player shout at "powercreep". Wanting higher number is only a call for powercreeping, not a call for balance.

@"Fhynix.2105" said:Just finished another t4 fractal run as thief where the first question was "hey do you have a holo or weaver? we'd like to have a good dps" and I'm so sick of it.I think we all can agree that thief is a (if not the ) class with the least survivability, concerning his low health and no passive defense/recovery. He should have something as "reward" for the increased difficulty. Also, thief brings no support/buffs for a group and offers okay-ish CC. Simply put: The reason anyone would like to have a thief in their group would be the pure DPS. However, current benchmarks place thief at the bottom of the viable DPS classes, even lower than warrior (who should be more of an allrounder design-wise) and even guard/DH (I could write pages about how ridiculous this is. How can a heavy armor support tank class with tons of passive survivability and invuln be a top DPS?)Currently, there's simply no reason to chose thief over any other class because anything he does, someone else can do better.

So, the question goes to @Gaile Gray.6029 & @Robert Gee.9246:Are there any plans in the near-mid future to incentivize playing thief IN PVE or at least make him no liability? Be it number-tweaking or mechanic overhauls. I wouldn't even mind tuning down some other classes to be more in line...

As I cannot suggest any helpful changes, I know this thread won't help that much. However, I would simply love to hear if you are aware of this problem or if you don't care for stuff like DPS-min-maxing in PvE endgame.I don't necessarily want thief to be top DPS. I also know I'm not a god and even if thief could do 35k DPS I would probably not reach it in t4 fracs. Still, I just want to play my main of 6 years in endgame content without being kicked or asked to relog simply because thief as a class currently has no place in PvE endgame :-(

The odd thing is that thief -DOES- bring support. And with some minor changes, they can do it very well in their own style. And this is all in CORE thief. The problem is, it's overshadowed by everything else that can do it far better because their functions are a tad bit more overloaded, or just outright have far more benefits in PvE content that doesn't require diversity.

Thief is in its own little bubble in this area just like the rest of the game modes. The support it brings is very bursty and does not last long. It could have been stronger with better planning on Anet's part. But it falls short. With some changes, the thief's supporting style can be very well defined and niche, but definitely fun. You're a very mobile class, and one of the best at dropping agro, and potentially can be left untouched by the boss if damage aura wasn't a thing. If the agro mechanics of a boss primarily focused healers instead of toughness and DPS - then the thief would shine in this sort of arena. Or if the boss randomly assaulted players with no determinable means of agro, then the thief would also shine here as support.

Venoms are one of it's support functionalities. The venoms are capable of giving people a short burst of additional stacking damage, well needed CC if they are lacking it, or a short burst of decent healing. There's some problems that are preventing these from working well. First, it's souly dependent on your team's stats. Meaning if they don't have condi or condi duration, then the damage you give them is worthless compared to someone who can just permanently give them might.

Skelk venom suffers the same exact problem. The healing per hit is dependent on the allies healing power stat, which in PvE almost no one ever takes.

If they made it where a percentage of the thief's effecting stats were responsible for the effects, it'd be a much different story on how good these options would be, and how strong their rolls are in PvP and PvE.

Another one is Shadow Refuge. Shadow Refuge is one of the strongest healing abilities on the utilities. If the thief specs into shadow arts he can even apply regen. And rez allies pretty quickly. Buuuuut... a few professions are able to instantly revive an ally or move them to safety for ressurection instead of reviving them on the spot. It might be a different story if shadow arts modified shadow step abilities to allow the thief to move who he's reviving.

It is very much possible to build a Condi-Healer out of thief and it works fantastically well in PvP and PvE. The issue is, once again they are dwarfed because of how their mechanics kinda works against them.

--

Then the other limiting factor is encounter designs. Most of the fractals, and all of the raids, you can just run your forehead against it provided you got a meta build. It's that easy. Outside of the players needing to avoid some mechanics, failure is generally very hard to hit and is most commonly caused by player's running out of time, or tunnel visioning.

If the encounters were designed to be more involved and strenuous to the individual, then other professions and builds will start to get their chance.

@"Fhynix.2105" said:However, current benchmarks place thief at the bottom of the viable DPS classes, even lower than warrior (who should be more of an allrounder design-wise) and even guard/DH (I could write pages about how ridiculous this is. How can a heavy armor support tank class with tons of passive survivability and invuln be a top DPS?)

Benchmarks aren't a good thing to rely on when you have a wealth of data compiled from actual raid encounters with which to rank the viability of different DPS classes. Benchmarks do not mirror raids. Deadeye is ranked 2nd for power DPS on Keep Construct , 3rd on Vale Guardian, 3rd on Gorseval , 2nd on Samarog and can hit decent numbers on Sabetha and Slothasor -Raidar just hasn't got enough logs to show these performances. I play Fractals far less and have only done 99CM as Deadeye a few times since the changes but even there, decent DPS is possible.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Objectively, thief dps in PvE is still middle tier even if it's not "great", so I don't think thief's dps is the issue. Like the op said, Dardevil add some juicy hard CC which isn't bad either. What's not said is that deadeye add some possibilities for support which is most likely not here for PvP or WvW.

Deadeye DPS is definitely above middle tier and it can perform stronger in raids than better perceived profession like Holosmith and Spellbreaker. It is almost always better than DH / Guardian builds.

And this is controversial, but I firmly believe people either gave up too quickly on Deadeye or don't know how to play it to its maximum. I'm still having discussions with people who are certain DH and Guardian are better because there are things to exploit on actual raid encounters yet don't seem to realise Deadeye has that too and are insistent that GW2Raidar logs are not as representative as benchmarks.

The biggest issue that faces Deadeye from a DPS slot perspective is the community over reliance on benchmarks as the be-all and end-all despite them not illustrating a realistic picture of what happens during encounters and the lack of strong (to the point of being broken) burst. This lack of ridiculous burst can definitely be harmful with so many fractal T4 / CM strategies focusing on bursting through phases but it doesn't push Deadeye, which can generate some decent burst following CC, into irrelevance. Deadeye burst could be further improved by increasing the Malice scaling of Malicious attacks. Lack of burst is a problem for Power Daredevil which more Thieves seem to cling to despite it being outclassed by DE on everything aside from cleaving trash.

For support Deadeye, Fire for Effect needs to have a much lower opportunity cost. You might seem some off-meta groups using a Might share Deadeye if the Deadeye didn't have to halve their DPS to do so.

Giving Deadeye more DPS and more burst through better Malice scaling on Malicious attacks and then allowing Fire for Effect to give more Might for a longer duration might give some incentive for people to play Thief in PvE. Daredevil needs a lot more work though.

At the end of it all, you'll still get people that will kick you irrespective of what you can do and what experience you have since Anet have left Thief to rot for so long and then put out a rework that was abominably poor.

My feeling for Deadeye is that you suffer even more from PUGs, as you can't stick to the rest of the group (kneeling) and thus will loose a lot of possible buffs, especially those which are given in smaller areas like might or quickness. Sure, an adapting group that also reacts to the DE can fix that, but a PUG won't. Even worse, you will often be on your own fighting mechanics, because you are STILL a glass canon, but a stationary one on top of that.

I would love to be wrong. Maybe I'll give DE in high level fracs a try, but so far I felt, stacked up Daredevil could reach better numbers at an okay-ish survivability. No idea about deadeye though.

@Fhynix.2105 said:My feeling for Deadeye is that you suffer even more from PUGs, as you can't stick to the rest of the group (kneeling) and thus will loose a lot of possible buffs, especially those which are given in smaller areas like might or quickness. Sure, an adapting group that also reacts to the DE can fix that, but a PUG won't. Even worse, you will often be on your own fighting mechanics, because you are STILL a glass canon, but a stationary one on top of that.

I would love to be wrong. Maybe I'll give DE in high level fracs a try, but so far I felt, stacked up Daredevil could reach better numbers at an okay-ish survivability. No idea about deadeye though.

Don't run Rifle as a Deadeye in PvE. Use Dagger/Dagger and downtime / immune phases / ranged parts to build extra Malice with Dancing Dagger. Then combo that with Assassin's Signet, Full Malice Malicious Backstab, Shadow Flare, Remark, 3 Malice Backstab. Of the logs I posted, I think all bar one were in pugs / as backup for statics that aren't my own.

You have less evades but survivability shouldn't be an issue if you have a decent healer coupled with the higher attack rate of Dagger/Dagger leading to more Signet of Malice healing. You are also much more mobile and don't have the issue of Vault / Weakening Charge locking you into a direction and then possibly being hit during the punish frames. Dagger/Dagger Deadeye has good movement and positioning normally isn't too bad unless the boss is spinning wildly forcing difficult flanking to get off Malicious Backstab.

@"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:...First, it's souly dependent on your team's stats. Meaning if they don't have condi or condi duration, then the damage you give them is worthless compared to someone who can just permanently give them might...

That is not true. The Wiki states that: "Venoms that apply damaging conditions will use the condition damage and duration of the character who applied the venom."

Your point about the Skelk Venom still stands though.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well... it's interesting that this thread go into that direction...

Objectively, thief dps in PvE is still middle tier even if it's not "great", so I don't think thief's dps is the issue. Like the op said, Dardevil add some juicy hard CC which isn't bad either. What's not said is that deadeye add some possibilities for support which is most likely not here for PvP or WvW.

Honnestly, the thief is not badly gifted for PvE, it's only flaw is that he isn't outstanding in a gamemode dominated by some behemoth who have some unfair advantage in either DPS or support. So the issue of the thief in PvE is that the profession is balanced which make it a non-issue for the devs.

I would like to discuss this because i see a lot of stars next to your name so you prolly have some backstage insight. Yes i must agree thief is pretty balanced. He has perma evade mechanic, initiative which makes it really awesome to play, and also high burst dmg. I have recently discovered a way of playing thief in PVP which uses all these three advantages and health bars from 20k-25k drop like nothing. But this is the issue we all complain in all the topics. We can burst a great amount of dps. Lets say 40k in 5 sec spam (i am overexaggerating i know) but the problem is while doing this we burn down all initiative which is even boosted by trickery (obligatory traitline imo) AND we also use at least two of our dodges. Leaving us with one dodge, healing skill and lets be possitive 3ini. This is not enough for forming another burst it is at best enough for us to survive till another dodge or some of our ini regenerates.We are obviously able to burn down mobs like any other class but when it comes to big tough guys we are hardly doing decent enough so ppl would keep us in group. That is why we need boost either for dps or for our ini.I personally would have preffered if Thief would go this way.Make power based skills for weapons adding combo finishers to them and give us traps with combo fields. Lets say we have Death blossom has finisher Whirl. If we would have trap having lets say combo field poison (circle not a line) lasting at least as long as Caltrops we would be able to cast a poison darts while using skill with finisher.I would recomend traps we have currently to be changed into these combo field traps. I have never in my long life used the Ambush or Shadow trap. We could have two traps one with poison field and the other one with fire field.Out skills that have either physicla projectile. whirl (maybe we could get some blast put inside) would cast conditions. AND we would still be able to play it without them since we could go full zerk and play the skills as power based (increased dps if traited propperly).

@"Fhynix.2105" said:Just finished another t4 fractal run as thief where the first question was "hey do you have a holo or weaver? we'd like to have a good dps" and I'm so sick of it.

Stop pugging fractals with myopic meta slaves.Problem solved

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Fhynix.2105" said:Just finished another t4 fractal run as thief where the first question was "hey do you have a holo or weaver? we'd like to have a

good

dps" and I'm so sick of it.

Such helpfull much thanks

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well... it's interesting that this thread go into that direction...

Objectively, thief dps in PvE is still middle tier even if it's not "great", so I don't think thief's dps is the issue. Like the op said, Dardevil add some juicy hard CC which isn't bad either. What's not said is that deadeye add some possibilities for support which is most likely not here for PvP or WvW.

Honnestly, the thief is not badly gifted for PvE, it's only flaw is that he isn't outstanding in a gamemode dominated by some behemoth who have some unfair advantage in either DPS or support. So the issue of the thief in PvE is that the profession is balanced which make it a non-issue for the devs.

First off, having a lot of star don't really mean anything. To be clear stars are just a mean to see how much someone have been active on this forum since it's been remastered (which was not long ago).

As for my backbone, I am someone that have been playing the game since 2 week after release and due to some personnal circonstances I've had plenty of time to play it. So I've played all professions in all kind of content.

We are obviously able to burn down mobs like any other class but when it comes to big tough guys we are hardly doing decent enough so ppl would keep us in group. That is why we need boost either for dps or for our ini.

From my experience, the issue for most player in PvE have always been the will to blow their skill on cool down. Most of the time doing so tend to reduce more the dps of this player than anything. In the case of the thief it's even more true. A good thief would usually spend it's initiative in very few skill and wisely.

I personally would have preffered if Thief would go this way.Make power based skills for weapons adding combo finishers to them and give us traps with combo fields. Lets say we have Death blossom has finisher Whirl. If we would have trap having lets say combo field poison (circle not a line) lasting at least as long as Caltrops we would be able to cast a poison darts while using skill with finisher.

I don't think new combo fields would do any good to the thief, as a player from the vanilla game I sure value them, however, as a contemporary player I also know that combo field are no longer truly decisive, barely making any difference on the long run. And honnestly, you need to squeeze for dps only in group content and it will be very rare for anyone to lack combo fields in this kind of content.

I would recomend traps we have currently to be changed into these combo field traps. I have never in my long life used the Ambush or Shadow trap. We could have two traps one with poison field and the other one with fire field.

While ambush is kinda flavor, Shadow trap is very usefull for some event in open worl PvE. It's been a while since I tested it but and it didn't work last time I tested but this is a skill that could easily be used for jumping puzzle if it weren't for the way it work with Line Of Sight.

Out skills that have either physicla projectile. whirl (maybe we could get some blast put inside) would cast conditions. AND we would still be able to play it without them since we could go full zerk and play the skills as power based (increased dps if traited propperly).

For PvE, like I said, the only issue that a few professions suffer is mainly that they are less optimal than the backbone of the current meta.

• Mesmer is unreachable and essential, he also provide boons that are complementar with druid and it's dps have now reach a realm were it is competitive in PvE. Nothing can really shake him except heavy nerfs in all area.
• Ranger is in a similar position, he got build for DPS and form a support duo with the mesmer. Spirits, unique buff and it's ability to provide might for a whole raid make him a favored pick. Thought, I believe that if druid were to lose it's edge on might stacking he might be replaced by another healer.
• Warrior have also a wealth of timely unique buff which always make him an asset for a raid.
• As for elementalist it got an historical advantage and rely solely on it's dps to crush any other contender.

Thief is with the other 5 professions which are often balanced but lacking in synergy with each other or the 4 main PvE professions. Damage or support, these professions got them but not in an outstanding way.

To make some room to the thief the best way would be to make sure there is no profession that can reach a higher average dps than 34k. This would make thief competitive thanks to it's superior CC ability. Thought, you could also make stealth great again which would benefit both thief and scrapper meaning that thief would be the favored pick ;) .

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

I would have to use a lot of quotes so i will just sum up. Thanks for info about the stars i didnt know it i am rly new here :D1st i completely agree that the issue of ppl burning down the ini too fast is vast. I personally am too trying to it only in small dozes i am mostly relying on utilities (i am a condi trap dude :) ) but the point is that such situation when you are out of ini happens anytime in every big fight (champ/lege). And that is the point when thiefs dps goes from high to 0 because we cant attack and this should be treated. Lets say i very much liked Unload upgrade when you gain ini back if you hit all bullets something like this should be used on more skills (dancing dagger maybe)2nd about shadow trap i am really not sure if it would work in jps since there is this NO path to target but if you have seen it i will belive this maybe i can try it sometime. Ambush is imo completely useless sry if you disagree3rd Well about combo fields being weak... I have to agree from what i checked the condis you would apply would not be very strong but anyway they would be there doing their dmg and you would apply them over and over. They would stack up. thief currently is able to stack up 30 stack bleeding and 27 stack poison (checked it on golem just a first try so it is average) If you would apply extra burning poison lets say 4 stacks per attack this would be WAY more condi dps. And we could have condi DD back on track maybe not highest dps but at least somewhere above BS (it would warm my soul) And if the attacks would anyway be based as power attacks they could beused in power builds as well. (as i said before)4th About Mesmers and druids. I just came back from PVP and it is god damn hard to kill a good mesmer or druid even alone. In pve raid they are obviouslly irreplacable cuz they are support clasess (Half works for BS as well) And the change you propose to get all classes 34k is too vast imo. It would take too long and the effect would be undesirable by majority of the ppl.

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Jack Redline.5379 said:2nd about shadow trap i am really not sure if it would work in jps since there is this NO path to target but if you have seen it i will belive this maybe i can try it sometime. Ambush is imo completely useless sry if you disagree

Ranger's pet or necromancer's minions can also be seen as useless, nevertheless the thief metabuild often use thieve guild spawning 3 thief for a short uptime, theoretically you can probably squeeze out more dps out of ambush due to it's uptime than out of this elite. As for shadow trap I didn't see it, it used to not be dependant on LOS but was changed due to some PvP cry, I was just wondering if it was reverted or not.

3rd Well about combo fields being weak... I have to agree from what i checked the condis you would apply would not be very strong but anyway they would be there doing their dmg and you would apply them over and over. They would stack up. thief currently is able to stack up 30 stack bleeding and 27 stack poison (checked it on golem just a first try so it is average) If you would apply extra burning poison lets say 4 stacks per attack this would be WAY more condi dps. And we could have condi DD back on track maybe not highest dps but at least somewhere above BS (it would warm my soul) And if the attacks would anyway be based as power attacks they could beused in power builds as well. (as i said before)

You are looking at this to much as a solo'er, like I said, in group content where you really need the dps, you will never lack combo fields to use to your advantage.

4th About Mesmers and druids. I just came back from PVP and it is god kitten hard to kill a good mesmer or druid even alone. In pve raid they are obviouslly irreplacable cuz they are support clasess (Half works for BS as well) And the change you propose to get all classes 34k is too vast imo. It would take too long and the effect would be undesirable by majority of the ppl.

Cutting down the dps of the few profession that reach above 34k shouldn't really be an issue. You only need to touch elementalist, warrior, Firebrand and mirage. Out of the 4, 3 are already heavily pissing off players in PvP, so it shouldn't be an impossibility.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

I like the idea of dropping more thieves for yourself with the Ambus never thought of it with combination with TG. The problem is the duration of a thief. With last nerf I am really going to call it nerf because it was nothing more when Anet reduced duration of thieves dropped by TG from 30 to 24 seconds we lost those precious seconds that would allow us lets say share poison with them twice not just once. and they would still be able to use it. The Ambush drops thief only for 20 sec and it recharges for 35 sec with Deadly Trapper it is 30-ish so basically you still have 10 sec gap between summoning another thief. AND we have to take in consideration that you want them so you can share poison with them which also recharges for some time so if you share it with 3 TG thieves and 1 Ambush thief you are not going to have any really big dps difference it is just 5 more stacks of poison dropped by the single thief you will have there another thing is that when you are able to drop Ambush trap again the poison is either not yet recharged or you already used it so you can increase Groups dmg (lets say Frac or raid)

Rangers pet and squishies from necro are not useless at all. Especially in pvp. They are maybe not meta for raid but they are pain if they are around (Especially that smokescale monster i hate it)

It may seem i am trying to improve solo performance yes but the fields would give benefit to others as well. Same as you have sharing poison you would share fields. That would stack up a lot of dmg. Lets say you have those forementioned TG and AMbush up. And you have warior and mesmer with clones next to you and they all stand in that beautifull poison and fire trap field (lasting 8sec) you dropped and they all use a skill that has Physical projectile or whirl Combo finisher. By the six if that would not drop the highest group dps there ever was than nothing ever will.

deadeye dd is second best dps so i have no idea why they ask for other garbage classes.

Secodnly deadeye is the best for harvesting and questing ( scouting, moving around the map )

@Urejt.5648 said:deadeye dd is second best dps so i have no idea why they ask for other garbage classes.

Power DPS on some encounters :smiley:

A touch behind (like 4th but still better than Guardian and Daredevil) but still very viable on Gorseval and Sabetha. Xera is interesting though since I think the single target can be pushed upwards with decent RNG but the cleave is so bad.

For VG, Gorseval, Sabetha, Samarog, Keep Construct, Xera and Dhuum Deadeye is decent enough ^_^

@"Miatela.5047" said:

@Urejt.5648 said:

from my experience Daredevil is at least 2x better in those bosses than DE i dont know what build you run tho or how you play so i am giving it a benefit of a doubt.

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@"Miatela.5047" said:

@"Urejt.5648" said:

It isn't about giving me the benefit of the doubt. We have a site that collates logs from ArcDPS and ranks the professions on the basis of their damage at 99th percentile, 90th percentile and 50th percentile. Since this is actually logs from fights and sample size is starting to become decent, it isn't a matter of what you "feel" is better or what high end PvE guilds say. There is actual evidence that we can check.

This is how things looked day, as of creating this post, for VG:As you can see, Deadeye is comfortably ahead of Daredevil by about 3k boss DPS.

For Gorseval:Deadeye approximately 3k DPS ahead of Daredevil.

For Keep Construct:Deadeye is almost 5k ahead on total DPS.

For Samarog:Deadeye is effectively 3k ahead of Daredevil on both boss and total DPS (and actually higher since my logs of 21.4k on Samarog aren't shown)

I'm going to leave the others because I've linked these stats and my own kills logs in countless threads. You are welcome to check my history if you want to see more.

To be blunt, because in your experience you haven't been able to play Deadeye well in raids, doesn't mean that Daredevil is better. Daredevil might be better for you and that is fine but Deadeye is nowhere near as poor as people like to think it is and how it is ranked on Snow Crows bears no truth to how it actually performs in raids.

That is one of the biggest things holding Deadeye back - people either gave up on it because of benchmarks (which don't allow for Malice building moments as in real encounters) or because they didn't work out how to exploit that extra Malice possibility.

We should use evidence when discussing how to incentivize people to play Thief. Deadeye is in a okay spot but we really should be emphasising to Anet that a small change to our Malice scaling, from 10% to 15% per Malice, would really open up an interesting niche for Deadeye as a high single target, low cleave damage option. Couple that with noticeable and meaningful buffs to the quantity and duration of Might from Fire for Effect and Deadeye could have a strong DPS and support role.