Condi Daredevil

Out of the many condi builds that I've seen in recent times, this one has got to be the most annoying one.

Firstly, I know this build does not have the same roaming pressure as the meta daredevil build, but it shines in point capture/defense. How exactly is it fair for someone to be able to dodge 6-7 times in a row, while applying multiple damaging conditions repeatedly with almost no way of stopping them? Sure, reflects/projectile blocks can prevent the first few daggers from being thrown, and condi cleanses can be held for as long as possible, but how exactly is this build balanced for pvp?

I mean there is almost no risk, and plenty of reward. Worst case scenario you get downed after contesting a point for a good minute and your teammates are able to join you or contest another point easily. This build, if played right, can have a thief going 1v3 on a single capture point with very little risk, since you can always stealth out and constantly refill endurance.

Is there anything in particular that hard counters these daredevil builds to the point where it could be considered 'balanced'?

The main issue with Condition Thief is how Sword lets you apply pressure without being at risk. You can port from above keep or below the stairs on Forest. You can stay behind walls on the side nodes of Skyhammer. You can LoS the side nodes on Foefire. You literally port in, dodge, and port out. No risk. Condition Thief was a thing with DD (it got nerfed) and Shortbow (it wasn't an issue), so the main issue really is the weapon set offering too much defense while putting out pressure. They just need to rework Panic Strike to not apply Poison when they land an Infiltrator's Strike. Then at least you can pressure them when they run out of dodges, or they straight up don't apply as much pressure.

@Olrun it looks to be he is talking about D/D Condi not S/D.. since all OP is mentioning is the Evade spam with Condi pressure.....

@OP, the DB Evade has Punish frames and Aftercasts built in that allow it to be hit. Any cc pressure or Ward style effects will counter the build, as well as you stated projectile hate and cleanses on top of all the other defenses classes have such as blocks and evades.

But yes it is a very annoying build that does need some adjustment. But it does have counters especially in the fact that sPvP is a 5v5 Team game mode.

I've seen both but the complaint still stands. Far too much pressure with very little - no risk at all. Only aoe abilities and heavy cc can stop them after they've finally run out of dodges. Also if they jump onto the point where a DH elite trap is, then sure they might get wrecked.

If the issue is with D/D, then I don't know what to say. The build isn't strong enough to be used in most cases. It's not like these builds need to be nerfed to unusable. Some people just like that playstyle. It just needs to not be overbearing.

@Olrun I'm fine with it being strong, I'd just like it to have some amount of counter-play besides waiting for the dodges to run out for a second or two, and watching your health go down.

See with other damage builds there are usually elements of counter-play involved. DH trap builds can be largely avoided by dodging when entering a point. Condi ranger does nothing against resistance, cleanse and condi transfer. Power builds can be largely negated with blinds, blocks, invuls and cc.

This daredevil build? Better hope you have a bunch of condi cleanses if you're 1v1 otherwise good luck even hitting them once.

With S/D it's easily to predicted what they are to do, you can see where they will port back to after they IS you get to see when the IR is going to expire etc. so on top of the option to block, Evade, cleanse, heal, etc you can proactively go to their return point and pressure them since it is know where they will return to and how long till their IR expires.

This post makes me wanna try condi dd inpvp instead of playing d/p non-stop

I think the biggest problem is how good this build is at spamming a wide variety of conditions. Panic Strike Poison application should have a 10 sec ICD and Lotus Training should only apply Bleeding, 3 times (which means for Torment at least they'd have to use #4 on S/D),

Also remove sigil of fallibility for the same reason sigil of earth and tormenting were removed - giving condi builds more spammable cover conditions than they were designed for.

This'd cut down on the spam and make it much easier to cleanse while still keeping most of the initial burst's strength, so it'd be kinda balanced.

Hitting all of those at once would be too much.

Remove poison on panic strike. This will keep D/D viable & stop the nonsense that is S/D condi.

It also keeps S/D power viable

I think it's the 900 range being OP otherwise they aren't an issue. That 900 range kinda forces me out of point a little too far in order to be at thier 2 spamming port spot.

If it was 600 or somethin, atleast I could remain near the node while also trying to counter play the 2 spam.

I'm mostly Ele player though, not that good on Warrior but even I can stand on a tiny little port circle with a headbutt ready, the issue for me is by that stage im completely removed from a team fight and the node.

Only small stacks of bleed and torment are sent from Lotus Training

Its not the evades that hurt you, how many times do I have to explain this

The condis coming from the evade are not strong enough to even get you down to half your health alone

However, wasting that endurance does grant a %10 increase in damage for 3 secs which even then, still aint s**t

Most condi thieves are using poison for their main source of condi damage, that means that theyre using the Rune of Thorns

RoT increases condition damage anytime a condi thief using it takes damage from a poisoned foe, it multiplies its intensity up to 4 times

So just how reflection and confusion makes you your own enemy, you attacking that condi thief without clearing the poison stacks is where the crazy damage is coming from

All in all

Watch their utilities, look at their weapon sets, what are they using?

SB condi? Don't step on the poison pools.

SD condi? Keep any ability with stability free, the second they immob you, break it and cc them

PD condi? The weakest, but still effective, watch those bleed stacks as well as the poison stacks, never chase 1 while melee, switch to range and go toe to toe

(ofc this all depends on the skill level of the thief themselves. Some will catch you off guard with a new bag of tricks regardless of how well you know their build)

My best advice is, instead see what their world looks like

That's what I did with rev and ele. I was struggling against them so hard (i still do with ele lol) I decided to max out one of my own and each one i played a bit. Saw their potential and how they worked. At the end once I finished understanding them I made the decision to keep them or get rid of them

I did it for guard and mesmer as well.

Seeing exactly what makes a build function and what makes it deadly helps out in the long run.

The issue with Impaling Lotus isn't the damage that it applies. It's the cover conditions. Also, your advice against SD thief is a little... inaccurate. Stability doesn't really help against S/D (the only CC is the Basilisk Venom that's generally used before the fight, not during), and the move instantly after jumping you is to dodge. You counterplay them by standing near their Infiltrator's Return. Then you CC and damage them between evades. They don't have infinite evades, but they have enough to dodge everything you can throw at them if you let them abuse Infiltrator's Strike.

I said stability because that basilisk venom (if theyre running a build i used to) has a much greater effect than you think

It allows them to pair a couple abilities together

For example

My build had the utility ability where you throw the one dagger that immobs and applys its own poison. With the DA trait, youre taking 2-4 extra stacks of poison from the immob, the dagger itself applied almost 8k worth of poison damage on you

The venom would stun you if that hit right? Idk about you, but I'm not gonna wait for that thief to then use sword 2 which will apply even more poison on me and immob me as well to break that stun

At that point you've already lost a bit of health because you were stunned and couldn't cleanse, you just made the fight even easier for that thief whos just getting started

However if you break the stun the second they hit you and then cc them when you have the opportunity theres nothing they can do because they have next to no stun breaks.

SD doesn't come off as that dangerous, but if you let them get the initial strike like that, youre in for some trouble if they know what theyre doing

(no i don't play that kind of thief anymore, it annoys tf outta me when i have someone tell me that i suck at thief, but id rather hear that than "condi thief op, pls nerf" "you have no skill all you do is flip to win" "omg dude, youre so good just cause you applied aoe condis", keep in mind my condi build actually required thinking, i had 0 aoe abilities besides my sb which was only used for for sb 5)

@Lord Velar.1509 said:Seeing exactly what makes a build function and what makes it deadly helps out in the long run.I'm gonna try running that condi daredevil build to see that perspective. That rune seems pretty strong for that build lol.

@ThePlayMaker.1058 Dude honestly please don't complain about D/D, that acro condi build is PURE S*T, those builds can't even get pass plat 2. If you want a broken condi build that can last and also roam fast, then we're talking about staff condi here. With perma evade and instant immob clear coming from staff 3 and using staff 5 as a power pressure while maintaining condi pressure with dodges, that is what cncer means... And even then, it still has one counter, s/d or s/p condi thief due to extreme high condi pressure, so please don't complain about spam dodges, those are easily predicted and killed as long as you have enough skill, complaining about it just makes me sick.

Condi Staff Thief does almost no pressure. It's essentially a bunker, but without the outnumbered capabilities. It's probably even worse than D/D, to be honest.

@OlrunTheBlade.1486 This build easily kills dh within 2 min due to power AND condi pressure and when they're pass 50% you just have to switch to shortbow and spam 4 then dodge and one can easily get the kill, it's essentially good at everything except it has mediocre team fight but choking gas can still make up for it. This build also wins all 1v1s UNLESS the person playing it was having 500ping during the fucking UGO.

And what good players have you actually fought on it? Because from what I've seen of it, and from what my friends have seen of it even outside of the tournament, it just has no pressure. Bunker builds can kill players who can't manage cooldowns properly. That doesn't make them good builds.

I'm just going to say s/d condi needs to be fixed. I used it to get plat and I don't even play thief.

I've had many posts on this topic, and I've done lots of testing. As it stands now with the proper set up Inf strike & dodge can do up to 50% of a marauder thief's life if not cleared. So you are looking at the ability to instantly port in from out of sight immob them then dodge to not get hit only to port back outta sight.

That damage will take like 7 seconds to finish, but you can repeat the process. This type of safe pressure is VERY bad for the game.

@OlrunTheBlade.1486 said:And what good players have you actually fought on it? Because from what I've seen of it, and from what my friends have seen of it even outside of the tournament, it just has no pressure. Bunker builds can kill players who can't manage cooldowns properly. That doesn't make them good builds.

I'm the only one in pvp that fucking uses it to get to legend

Did you solo queue into Legend with it? The only time I've run into you is when you're duo queuing, which reflects more on the rotations of the players and the quality of your opponents in your matches than the actual strength of the build. I could get into Legend on a large variety of builds. That doesn't make any of them good.

I play this build in PvP quite often... it's super easy to counter, simply close the distance on their start position. This build is slower than most thieves, and doesn't have access to as much stealth as most the other builds out there. This build does great against classes thief usually struggles with, and struggles with classes that are usually meat for it.

It doesn't really struggle with anything... what classes are you talking about? Anyway, in terms of Conquest, that counterplay doesn't really hold. If they stand off point and Sword 2 in, then sure, you can run to their return... at which point they just stand on the node and gain cap progress. The Sword 2 times out and then they leave one on the point and port to you. The only way to force them back while waiting at their return is when fighting it with multiple people or another Condi Thief...