Please gut Condi Daredevil and Acro Staff Daredevil

[Curennos.9307]

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:If staff thief is on the sides, being capable of side node and brawling, why is that bad?

This is what many thieves wanted.

I seen many of you who don't like thief can 1 v x, but were fine when your class did or does it.

Acro staff got no more dodges than it had before, only weakening strikes and escapist fortitude were changed, but the heal in fortitude was already free.

Havoc mastery was also taken before the patch, so the bonus 7% damage was there.

Essentially it got a free condi clear on evades.

I read the patch notes, and it seems the intent was to make them melee oriented.

So, what do you want?

take away the condi clear? fix the "trick" on staff?

I play the staff thief, and the combo i use to most effect is palidins and eagle (or divinity).

I mean if it has to be nerfed, okay. I had fun, but out of 480 ranked games i played, I rarely saw any staff thief that had skill besides Anya, Vallun, and someone else I forgot. (i saw plenty of s/d, few condis, and a few dp that were really skillful though)

I feel like I am the only potato who played it.

But, I KNOW...I KNOW....it can be frustrating to kill these guys.

i can live without the "trick" and putting a cooldown on EF if it needs to happen, but literally other than that, how did you deal with staff thieves before?

The trick has been here the whole time.

Because thieves can run shortbow and staff. Hasn't thief balance almost always been, rotational ability/mobility/engage-disengage potential, but gave up some kill power because of it? I think the current state of things was juuuuuust enough to push DrD to the point where it could brawl on side nodes, but still fulfill its +1/decap role as well...

Which, if we're being honest, isn't that bad when compared to the other meta specs, but still. I would rather see DrD get some nerfs to damage and compensated with an extra bit added to some skills - 'Gains x extra dmg/effect if you evade an attack during it', to reward skillful play and punish folks who just spam.

I think Anet should take a page from lessons learned from Escapist's Fortitude. It's a powerful trait, yes, but limited in that you can condi bomb the thief and then just walk away and they'll likely keel over because there's nothing to evade to proc it. Currently, fighting one is...if you attack the DrD, they evade and damage you.If you don't attack them, they evade anyway and deal damage.

From a balance perspective - I think it's fine. From an interactivity/fun perspective, eh...could use some tweaks as detailed above.

Ofc it's important to consider that other builds have changed as well, which can sometimes influence still more builds and their places in the meta (or lack thereof - just look at rev). Still, I think a large part of it is that people aren't used to thieves being up to snuff this much and are scrambling to learn how to deal with it xD Eh.

..I do think Fortitude needs it's heal trimmed tho. That's a lot of healing and cleanse coming from one trait for a build whose primary defense is evades. The weakness output definitely, imo, means that the heal shouldn't be that high.

Can't comment on condi DrD, I've been playing pistol/dagger core lately.

Alternatively - remove the 'trick'. The counter to DrD/staff has always been hitting them during vuln frames. Now that nobody who knows what they're doing uses Vault very much, and instead relies on dodges/staff#3, there are...well, minimal to 0 vuln frames. Plays into the whole dodging to evade incoming dmg and good positioning lets you deal damage back versus...dodging to deal damage, doesn't matter if there's an attack incoming or not.

[Alatar.7364]

@Curennos.9307 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:

If staff thief is on the sides, being capable of side node and brawling, why is that bad?

This is what many thieves wanted.

I seen many of you who don't like thief can 1 v x, but were fine when your class did or does it.

Acro staff got no more dodges than it had before, only weakening strikes and escapist fortitude were changed, but the heal in fortitude was already free.

Havoc mastery was also taken before the patch, so the bonus 7% damage was there.

Essentially it got a free condi clear on evades.

I read the patch notes, and it seems the intent was to make them melee oriented.

So, what do you want?

take away the condi clear? fix the "trick" on staff?

I play the staff thief, and the combo i use to most effect is palidins and eagle (or divinity).

I mean if it has to be nerfed, okay. I had fun, but out of 480 ranked games i played, I rarely saw any staff thief that had skill besides Anya, Vallun, and someone else I forgot. (i saw plenty of s/d, few condis, and a few dp that were really skillful though)

I feel like I am the only potato who played it.

But, I KNOW...I KNOW....it can be frustrating to kill these guys.

i can live without the "trick" and putting a cooldown on EF if it needs to happen, but literally other than that, how did you deal with staff thieves before?

The trick has been here the whole time.

Because thieves can run shortbow and staff. Hasn't thief balance almost always been, rotational ability/mobility/engage-disengage potential, but gave up some kill power because of it?

You are a bit wrong there, Thief has always (except some time after release) been decapper/+1er beacuse it didn't have the kill power. As in, it didn't become decapper/+1er by choice but because of the very lack of the kill power.(that is if by Kill Power you mean a capability to stand and fight as a viable dueler or at least teamfighter)

[Bydza.2413]

@Tsuchinoko.7546 said:Condi Daredevil and Acro Staff Daredevil have been running rampant in ranked and are some of the most unhealthy specs in this game atm. Condi thief with high poison uptime because of Deadly Ambition( which is bugged btw if u use a skill that multi hits like clusterbomb it applies the 2 poison per hit)and panic strike which gives even more poison output + has 4 condis to cover it just from 1 dodge(cripple,torment,bleed,weakness). Acro staff thief perma evades on node by abusing staff 3 evade while jumping which cancels the rollback animation vuln frame and is almost impossible to kill without line of warding like spells (Hammer 5 on guard, Fear ring on necro, earth wall on ele). Escapists Foritude grants staff thief ridiculous amounts of clear (1 condi clear per evade) and needs an icd increase. Deadly Ambition needs to have its icd increased like the ranger trait refined toxins which does 1 STACK OF POISON ON A 15 SEC CD(formerly 5sec) and perhaps apply the poison on crit instead of any strike. Panic Strike also needs to have an icd for the poison it grants because currently sword 2 is a spammable free immob + 2 stacks of poison(1 if not traited).

Condi is being unhealthy latelly i agree... But gutting acro staff? wth?!?! XD your eather really touched by that evade trait timer , or you just dont know how to interupt a Vault, or better yet.. You never played a thief. unlike all the broken classes anet never finished balancing , thief has no boons to abuse , has boonsteal that works good on sword , and one that works poorly on steal (Swipe should steal boons right? how then when i steal someones 25 might stacks i get only 1, while mesmos thievery utility steals full stacks xD). stop complaining about condi clense , unlike most classes thief's only clense is the dodge trait + a signet . as for out 3+jump .. it is CCable with any skill... your just too slow at timing it. so all in all... condi is awfull at the moment, but please dear Tsuchinoko.7546, start playing thief a bit and use that acro trait line that is totally irrelevant and tell me how it fairs you when someone ccs you mid dodge cuz they know the stupid 0.75s evade frame timers , along with the weapon skill ones. Stop crying about thiefs and start facing the facts that thief is the LEAST class that needs a nerf.. Learn its move sets , then go burn out on the forums .

Fenris Bladedancer.

[Bydza.2413]

@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:I will speak only about condi daredevil because it's what I've fought the most, so I can't really speak about the other builds.The condi daredevil has an obnoxious gameplay to say the least, the problem in my opinion is the fact that it can stack poison so much and so frequently, that to resist an assult you really have to pack too much condi clear and too frequent. Of course you don't want to gut a spec as soon as annoying and overperforming build come out, so probably we should look at how to tone it down without having to gut it and keeping it an option to play.

The most contributors to this are Deadly Arts traits Deadly Ambition and Potent Poison, the interaction between the daredevil dodge Impaling Lotus with the short bow 4 Chocking Gas and the interaction between Detonate Cluster (bomb) multiple hits and Deadly Ambition.Ideally one should go for an approach prone to the reduce the spam of the skills while making them remain effective when properly casted.

So I would propose as a starting point to:

• increase Deadly Ambition cooldown
• removing the whirl finisher from Impaling Lotus
• make so that deadly ambition doesn't get proc for each of the multiple hits of Detonate Cluster bomb but it should gets triggered only by 1 single hit.

This three things if well calibrated can reduce the condi spam a lot, for what concerns the too much evading I do not know how to approach it yet.

Removing the whirl finisher makes the dodge loose its purpose,, since every dodge has its own finisher behind it for the spec.increase Deadly Ambition CD? yes , that would be a good decision.Deadly ambition goes on an opener and 1 hit every 5 sec . if its hitting with more attacks like clusters divided bombs, fix it yes.

[Daishi.6027]

a build that applies to much condition but literally has more evades than anything else in the game (even more than pre-nerfed mirage) is OP?Shocker.

Remember how we set a precedent for disabling traits? Want a list?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:If staff thief is on the sides, being capable of side node and brawling, why is that bad?

This is what many thieves wanted.

I seen many of you who don't like thief can 1 v x, but were fine when your class did or does it.

Acro staff got no more dodges than it had before, only weakening strikes and escapist fortitude were changed, but the heal in fortitude was already free.

Havoc mastery was also taken before the patch, so the bonus 7% damage was there.

Essentially it got a free condi clear on evades.

I read the patch notes, and it seems the intent was to make them melee oriented.

So, what do you want?

take away the condi clear? fix the "trick" on staff?

I play the staff thief, and the combo i use to most effect is palidins and eagle (or divinity).

I mean if it has to be nerfed, okay. I had fun, but out of 480 ranked games i played, I rarely saw any staff thief that had skill besides Anya, Vallun, and someone else I forgot. (i saw plenty of s/d, few condis, and a few dp that were really skillful though)

I feel like I am the only potato who played it.

But, I KNOW...I KNOW....it can be frustrating to kill these guys.

i can live without the "trick" and putting a cooldown on EF if it needs to happen, but literally other than that, how did you deal with staff thieves before?

The trick has been here the whole time.

I think it's more about the balance between conquest attributes. You could adequately say that there are 3 main attributes:

• Mobility
• Damage
• Sustain "Ability to hold a node"

Where it feels a bit too much to me anyway, is that the fastest rotating class in the game, is now capable of 1v1ing and holding a node just as well as anything else. But it's a complex issue really. This is almost more of a problem with Shortbow than it is Daredevil. Mind you I am very specifically referencing Staff/Condi and not Staff/Staff pure physical builds.

I just think this type of balancing is a trend we DO NOT want to begin going down. Classes/Builds around the board should look like this at best concerning attributes: Mobility (S) - Damage (A) - Sustain (B) or Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S). It starts to seriously narrow Class/Build diversity when there are specs rolling around like Holosmith as example that are rolling around with Mobility (A) - Damage (S) - Sustain (A maybe S) or now This Staff/Condi DD which I would grade as Mobility (S) - Damage (B) - Sustain (S). You know then you have things that start to fall out like Reaper Mobility © - Damage (S) - Sustain (B) or like a Core Guard Mobility (B) - Damage (S) - Sustain (B)

Up until recent years, we've always had decent tradeoff build per build, between these types of conquest attributes, with only a couple builds really breaking it. But now Arenanet is starting to leave certain specs in clearly superior states of patching over others, concerning their ability to win conquest matches.

[mrauls.6519]

I wish stuff like this got patched ASAP

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:If staff thief is on the sides, being capable of side node and brawling, why is that bad?

This is what many thieves wanted.

I seen many of you who don't like thief can 1 v x, but were fine when your class did or does it.

Acro staff got no more dodges than it had before, only weakening strikes and escapist fortitude were changed, but the heal in fortitude was already free.

Havoc mastery was also taken before the patch, so the bonus 7% damage was there.

Essentially it got a free condi clear on evades.

I read the patch notes, and it seems the intent was to make them melee oriented.

So, what do you want?

take away the condi clear? fix the "trick" on staff?

I play the staff thief, and the combo i use to most effect is palidins and eagle (or divinity).

I mean if it has to be nerfed, okay. I had fun, but out of 480 ranked games i played, I rarely saw any staff thief that had skill besides Anya, Vallun, and someone else I forgot. (i saw plenty of s/d, few condis, and a few dp that were really skillful though)

I feel like I am the only potato who played it.

But, I KNOW...I KNOW....it can be frustrating to kill these guys.

i can live without the "trick" and putting a cooldown on EF if it needs to happen, but literally other than that, how did you deal with staff thieves before?

The trick has been here the whole time.

I think it's more about the balance between conquest attributes. You could adequately say that there are 3 main attributes:

• Mobility
• Damage
• Sustain "Ability to hold a node"

Where it feels a bit too much to me anyway, is that the fastest rotating class in the game, is now capable of 1v1ing and holding a node just as well as anything else. But it's a complex issue really. This is almost more of a problem with Shortbow than it is Daredevil. Mind you I am very specifically referencing Staff/Condi and not Staff/Staff pure physical builds.

I just think this type of balancing is a trend we DO NOT want to begin going down. Classes/Builds around the board should look like this at best concerning attributes: Mobility (S) - Damage (A) - Sustain (B) or Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S). It starts to seriously narrow Class/Build diversity when there are specs rolling around like Holosmith as example that are rolling around with Mobility (A) - Damage (S) - Sustain (A maybe S) or now This Staff/Condi DD which I would grade as Mobility (S) - Damage (B) - Sustain (S). You know then you have things that start to fall out like Reaper Mobility © - Damage (S) - Sustain (B) or like a Core Guard Mobility (B) - Damage (S) - Sustain (B)

Up until recent years, we've always had decent tradeoff build per build, between these types of conquest attributes, with only a couple builds really breaking it. But now Arenanet is starting to leave certain specs in clearly superior states of patching over others, concerning their ability to win conquest matches.

I think the condi staff build is something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYVlNw6YbsDGJO+S1NLA-zZx8UyUE0rQIeFQFTAXNA

I got interested when it was mentioned, and maybe others did too. Saw a few condi staffers while I played in unranked. They had other versions, but they seemed ineffective.

Maybe the person(s) who is using it will share.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:If staff thief is on the sides, being capable of side node and brawling, why is that bad?

This is what many thieves wanted.

I seen many of you who don't like thief can 1 v x, but were fine when your class did or does it.

Acro staff got no more dodges than it had before, only weakening strikes and escapist fortitude were changed, but the heal in fortitude was already free.

Havoc mastery was also taken before the patch, so the bonus 7% damage was there.

Essentially it got a free condi clear on evades.

I read the patch notes, and it seems the intent was to make them melee oriented.

So, what do you want?

take away the condi clear? fix the "trick" on staff?

I play the staff thief, and the combo i use to most effect is palidins and eagle (or divinity).

I mean if it has to be nerfed, okay. I had fun, but out of 480 ranked games i played, I rarely saw any staff thief that had skill besides Anya, Vallun, and someone else I forgot. (i saw plenty of s/d, few condis, and a few dp that were really skillful though)

I feel like I am the only potato who played it.

But, I KNOW...I KNOW....it can be frustrating to kill these guys.

i can live without the "trick" and putting a cooldown on EF if it needs to happen, but literally other than that, how did you deal with staff thieves before?

The trick has been here the whole time.

I think it's more about the balance between conquest attributes. You could adequately say that there are 3 main attributes:

• Mobility
• Damage
• Sustain "Ability to hold a node"

Where it feels a bit too much to me anyway, is that the fastest rotating class in the game, is now capable of 1v1ing and holding a node just as well as anything else. But it's a complex issue really. This is almost more of a problem with Shortbow than it is Daredevil. Mind you I am very specifically referencing Staff/Condi and not Staff/Staff pure physical builds.

I just think this type of balancing is a trend we DO NOT want to begin going down. Classes/Builds around the board should look like this at best concerning attributes: Mobility (S) - Damage (A) - Sustain (B) or Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S). It starts to seriously narrow Class/Build diversity when there are specs rolling around like Holosmith as example that are rolling around with Mobility (A) - Damage (S) - Sustain (A maybe S) or now This Staff/Condi DD which I would grade as Mobility (S) - Damage (B) - Sustain (S). You know then you have things that start to fall out like Reaper Mobility © - Damage (S) - Sustain (B) or like a Core Guard Mobility (B) - Damage (S) - Sustain (B)

Up until recent years, we've always had decent tradeoff build per build, between these types of conquest attributes, with only a couple builds really breaking it. But now Arenanet is starting to leave certain specs in clearly superior states of patching over others, concerning their ability to win conquest matches.

I think the condi staff build is something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYVlNw6YbsDGJO+S1NLA-zZx8UyUE0rQIeFQFTAXNA

I got interested when it was mentioned, and maybe others did too. Saw a few condi staffers while I played in unranked. They had other versions, but they seemed ineffective.

Maybe the person(s) who is using it will share.

You know, it's honestly not the ones in Unranked/Ranked. It's the ones in ATs that make this build look busted AF. Something about its chemistry in 5 man teams is just nasty.

[babazhook.6805]

I am not sure how much easier moving out of a choking gas field can get. Do people just stand in them? I see those circles of red that are all over the place I tend to move out of them. As to deadly ambition it at most three poison stacks every 5 seconds. If you cant cope with that maybe trait some cleanses. There are a lot of traits and skills across the classes that add nore then 3 stacks every 5 seconds.

[mortrialus.3062]

@babazhook.6805 said:I am not sure how much easier moving out of a choking gas field can get. Do people just stand in them? I see those circles of red that are all over the place I tend to move out of them. As to deadly ambition it at most three poison stacks every 5 seconds. If you cant cope with that maybe trait some cleanses. There are a lot of traits and skills across the classes that add nore then 3 stacks every 5 seconds.

WoodenPotatoes showed off a Shortbow condi thief on stream where the second it clips you with Choking Gas you get trucked by 16 stacks of poison.

[Rukia.4802]

I really missed the thief qq threads

[Alatar.7364]

@"Rukia.4802" said:I really missed the thief qq threads

Your usage of the word "missed" implies as if they ever ceased to be in the past...

[saerni.2584]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:I am not sure how much easier moving out of a choking gas field can get. Do people just stand in them? I see those circles of red that are all over the place I tend to move out of them. As to deadly ambition it at most three poison stacks every 5 seconds. If you cant cope with that maybe trait some cleanses. There are a lot of traits and skills across the classes that add nore then 3 stacks every 5 seconds.

WoodenPotatoes showed off a Shortbow condi thief on stream where the second it clips you with Choking Gas you get trucked by 16 stacks of poison.

Sounds like a bug.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Alatar.7364 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:I love how in a single patch, Arenanet removes evade frame from Druid Staff 3, then gives Daredevil permanent Dodging/Evading. Makes sense.

What do you mean by

"then gives"

? DrD and Acro has always existed as in nothing changed for it with the update that also removed evade from Druid Staff 3, Acro Staff was even more powerful long time ago, Anet didn't give Acro Staff any buffs or changes in the update that you mentioned, in fact it lowered the evade of Daggerstorm at least.

Yeah you're right. What I mean though is that this build is enabled by the last patch. There are many examples that could be listed of "sleeping power traits" that don't really get noticed or used until some change happens elsewhere on the class, which enables the sleeping power trait to become not only viable, but plainly broken.

In this case it was granting Dead Arts super high poison spam uptime, which enables a full 100% defensive build to become viable, because now it actually has kill damage, and a lot of it.

No one was using 100% defensive Staff builds before this because the damage was bad, and even while running something like serk it was hard to hit with just vaults or staff attacks alone. So even though the defensive quality may have been busted to begin with, no one cared because it wasn't viable or useful in any way.

Now though, it's just laying down too much pressure. And we aren't talking just 1v1s here, this build is excellent in team fights. Forever AoE poison spam in a team fight is kind of serious business. It nerfs all heals by 33% and noting has enough clears to maintain cycling that effect off, not even FBs. The presence of that Staff/Condi wins team fights in organized play. That poison spam is dealing a lot more damage over time than it seems, just by nerfing everyone in the team fight's heals by 33%.

Its ability to equally engage 1v1s and team fights with no real counter is making it too versatile considering it is the fastest rotating class in the game.

I'm not calling for ultra nerf bat treatment. But ffs they could at least start by hot fixing the bug that is causing more poison spam than intended. It's kind of ridiculous to even let something like that go on longer than 24 hours after a patch drops.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Deadly Ambition has had it's bug fixed.

Deadly Ambition: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to activate multiple times on the same target without going on cooldown.

Someone run a mock and see if we are still looking at overperformance in terms of poison stacks from the DA line.

It doesn't really seem to be perfectly fixed. Sometimes you get more poison that u should, but so far i've seen only 1 wonky detonate cluster for 6 poison stacks when it should have been 3. Which is definetely better than the 10-12 garanteed before

Thanks for your assistance on this.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

I absolutely love this forum far more than the game. Now staff DD suddenly op lmao smh. My God the oh God I died the class is OP whining is never ending. Learn to fight them, staff DD is somewhat underperforming in this meta especially after swipe change. Lmao u guys are unreal. Its literally one of the few classes that core builds are considered superior

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I absolutely love this forum far more than the game. Now staff DD suddenly op lmao smh. My God the oh God I died the class is OP whining is never ending. Learn to fight them, staff DD is somewhat underperforming in this meta especially after swipe change. Lmao u guys are unreal.

I wouldn't word it so crudely, but I am generally in agreement with this. People were crying about thieves having too much access to stealth, originally. which I understood the frustration of, but given that thieves had very little in the way of defense, so they were delegated to +1 and decap.

Now that thieves have the option to forgo stealth almost entirely and contest, there's pushback about them being too difficult to hit again.

That being said, I'm no stranger to nerfs. I'd rather nip this in the bud now before it becomes a grievous issue and Anet overreacts.

@mortrialus.3062 said:WoodenPotatoes showed off a Shortbow condi thief on stream where the second it clips you with Choking Gas you get trucked by 16 stacks of poison.

This is a problem, and I think it's mostly fixed as of right now. There was a bug that allowed a DA trait to bypass its ICD. See the patch notes for yesterday.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:I think it's more about the balance between conquest attributes. You could adequately say that there are 3 main attributes:

• Mobility
• Damage
• Sustain "Ability to hold a node"

Where it feels a bit too much to me anyway, is that the fastest rotating class in the game, is now capable of 1v1ing and holding a node just as well as anything else. But it's a complex issue really. This is almost more of a problem with Shortbow than it is Daredevil. Mind you I am very specifically referencing Staff/Condi and not Staff/Staff pure physical builds.

Keep in mind other specs use shortbow. I sound like a broken record, but just for anyone who may echo that sentiment more strongly, refrain from balancing toward it for DD overperformance if you can. I don't need core being more useless because DD is overperforming (If it is, that remains to be seen.)

That being said, I wouldn't consider it as being as capable of node holding as anything else, while I admit that sphere has improved signiicantly.

I just think this type of balancing is a trend we DO NOT want to begin going down. Classes/Builds around the board should look like this at best concerning attributes: Mobility (S) - Damage (A) - Sustain (B) or Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S). It starts to seriously narrow Class/Build diversity when there are specs rolling around like Holosmith as example that are rolling around with Mobility (A) - Damage (S) - Sustain (A maybe S) or now This Staff/Condi DD which I would grade as Mobility (S) - Damage (B) - Sustain (S). You know then you have things that start to fall out like Reaper Mobility © - Damage (S) - Sustain (B) or like a Core Guard Mobility (B) - Damage (S) - Sustain (B)

I'm in agreement with this, with some caveats that are irrelevant atm.

Up until recent years, we've always had decent tradeoff build per build, between these types of conquest attributes, with only a couple builds really breaking it. But now Arenanet is starting to leave certain specs in clearly superior states of patching over others, concerning their ability to win conquest matches.

Okay so. What I'm mulling over is:

Daredevil has high mobility and high sustain. Currently this is leading to an overperformanceWe can't nerf shortbow outright, because that will break the sphere of play for core thief.

Best thing I can think of, immediately, is to stop staff 3 from being usable while airborne as was said, but also slightly reduce its aftercast so it doesn't feel as clunky as it does normally. That puts punish frames on the evasion uptime and doesn't damage core at the same time, but also potentially keeps it usable.

I'm still not convinced about Daredevils being able to do damage to what Trevor calls a "(B) tier degree" though. I will need to see some kind of documentation on that. It seems like it should be impossible for a thief to approach high damage, high moba and high sustain as it stands now, given that trickery line holds their init gain, DA holds their condi damage and Acro holds their sustain.

They should at best have two of those, because exclusion of the trickery line in builds hurts their damage output indirectly. I'm thinking that its close to © tier damage in a small AOE, and people used to non stealth thieves melting are becoming frustrated that they do not, now. That would explain @shadowpass.4236 's claim that people are 4v1ing thieves (which is a player issue. go stand on a node.)

Going to need to see this in game outside of a few players who always play thief before I say it needs shaving outside of specifically the staff trick. I'm open to changing my mind on this, but I need to see like...footage or something about this being unbalanced for conquest.

[Alatar.7364]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:I'm not calling for ultra nerf bat treatment. But kitten they could at least start by hot fixing the bug that is causing more poison spam than intended. It's kind of ridiculous to even let something like that go on longer than 24 hours after a patch drops.

That bug was already fixed I believe.Regarding DA applying more poison after it got changed: I am not sure if that is true because before the change it was 33% chance to apply 1 stack of poison per Critical Hit with no ICD, now its 2 stacks every 5 seconds. I'd be willing to wager that before the change the Poison application was higher. However the 33% chance to apply Poison per critical hit applied only to Daggers I think, so ye, there's that...

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:not calling for ultra nerf bat treatment. But kitten they could at least start by hot fixing the bug that is causing more poison spam than intended. It's kind of ridiculous to even let something like that go on longer than 24 hours after a patch drops.

T...they did.

[babazhook.6805]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:I am not sure how much easier moving out of a choking gas field can get. Do people just stand in them? I see those circles of red that are all over the place I tend to move out of them. As to deadly ambition it at most three poison stacks every 5 seconds. If you cant cope with that maybe trait some cleanses. There are a lot of traits and skills across the classes that add nore then 3 stacks every 5 seconds.

WoodenPotatoes showed off a Shortbow condi thief on stream where the second it clips you with Choking Gas you get trucked by 16 stacks of poison.

This sounds like all those threads started on the Runes of Tormenting after launch. All over a bug.

Deadly ambition adds 3 stacks poison max every 5 seconds. This is not 16. Choking gas is a field. If you continue to stand in the field then Choking gas will continue to add more poison stacks. These stacks last all of 2 seconds base per app. This is still not 16. Choking gas pulses every seond adding more stacks. define how 16 stacks happen in a second via the mechanics. If mechanics allow this you have an arguement. If this means adding together a multiple of sources (venom ,preparation ,gas field , sigil deadly ambition , steal) then the arguement a non starter.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

I'm still not convinced about Daredevils being able to do damage to what Trevor calls a "(B) tier degree" though. I will need to see some kind of documentation on that. It seems like it should be impossible for a thief to approach high damage, high moba and high sustain as it stands now, given that trickery line holds their init gain, DA holds their condi damage and Acro holds their sustain.

I rate it as (B) not due to direct raw numerical damage, but that essentially being permanently poisoned through an entire engagement is a very large amount of hidden damage vs. things like Adrenal Health or Virtue of Resolve, ect ect, and of course direct heals if the person cannot keep poison off them when needing to use the heal. When the poison can be very frequently spammed AoE on a node in 3v3+, that's a lot of hidden damage. In 1v1 it's even worse when they focus you with the Deadly Arts poison procs. There actually are not many builds in play that can survive a direct 1v1 engagement vs. Staff Condi due to this effect. There are even less that have opportunity to actually be able to kill it. Staff Condi DD is doing the exact same thing as old HoT Bunker Druids before the nerf to Refined Toxins and condi cleanse power creep, which was applying so much poison so frequently, that player's couldn't heal through being hosed down by friggin Mender Staff DPS. They'd either stick around vs. the Druid too long and die or be forced to leave the node, and of course the Druid is unkillable 1v1 to begin with so it was better to avoid the damn Druid and go somewhere else. The presence of the Druid 1v1 on a node = he got to freely win the node, pretty much, unless 2 people were present with the time to waste to force him off or kill him. The Staff Condi DD is doing the same thing, only difference here is that it rotates twice as fast as a Druid ever could, and that poison is able to spammed vs. all opponents in a team fight, which makes him not just a side noder but also an important team fight presence. That's a lot of versatility packed into one build.

I know Thief players have been struggling with being UP for a long time now. I advocated PLENTY that Thief needed buffs, and it's good to see that it happened. But this particular build Staff Condi DD is a little bit too much and it's because there is way way too much poison on it.

When you go run a damage test on a golem with it, the damage looks ill and non present. But when you go actually face players with it, that perma -33% heal does it job well.

As far as documentation goes, you need look no further than getting to the final round of an AT where every good team is running this troll build. At least all of the ones I've faced within the past week are. It has amazing chemistry with any other condi build. People have to cleanse so frequently to keep that damn poison off of them that they often have nothing left when the Scourge bombs them or a Mirage shows up, or if the FB is condi as well. Then the aspect takes play where the Condi Staff DD himself is like the only thing out there with enough self condi cleanse to survive those types of situations himself. Telling you this build is toxic AF in team play.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

I'm still not convinced about Daredevils being able to do damage to what Trevor calls a "(B) tier degree" though. I will need to see some kind of documentation on that. It seems like it should be impossible for a thief to approach high damage, high moba and high sustain as it stands now, given that trickery line holds their init gain, DA holds their condi damage and Acro holds their sustain.

I rate it as (B) not due to direct raw numerical damage, but that essentially being permanently poisoned through an entire engagement is a very large amount of hidden damage vs. things like Adrenal Health or Virtue of Resolve, ect ect, and of course direct heals if the person cannot keep poison off them when needing to use the heal. When the poison can be very frequently spammed AoE on a node in 3v3+, that's a lot of hidden damage. In 1v1 it's even worse when they focus you with the Deadly Arts poison procs. There actually are not many builds in play that can survive a direct 1v1 engagement vs. Staff Condi due to this effect. There are even less that have opportunity to actually be able to kill it. Staff Condi DD is doing the exact same thing as old HoT Bunker Druids before the nerf to Refined Toxins and condi cleanse power creep, which was applying so much poison so frequently, that player's couldn't heal through being hosed down by friggin Mender Staff DPS. They'd either stick around vs. the Druid too long and die or be forced to leave the node, and of course the Druid is unkillable 1v1 to begin with so it was better to avoid the kitten Druid and go somewhere else. The presence of the Druid 1v1 on a node = he got to freely win the node, pretty much, unless 2 people were present with the time to waste to force him off or kill him. The Staff Condi DD is doing the same thing, only difference here is that it rotates twice as fast as a Druid ever could, and that poison is able to spammed vs. all opponents in a team fight, which makes him not just a side noder but also an important team fight presence. That's a lot of versatility packed into one build.

I know Thief players have been struggling with being UP for a long time now. I advocated PLENTY that Thief needed buffs, and it's good to see that it happened. But this particular build Staff Condi DD is a little bit too much and it's because there is way way too much poison on it.

When you go run a damage test on a golem with it, the damage looks ill and non present. But when you go actually face players with it, that perma -33% heal does it job well.

As far as documentation goes, you need look no further than getting to the final round of an AT where every good team is running this troll build. At least all of the ones I've faced within the past week are. It has amazing chemistry with any other condi build. People have to cleanse so frequently to keep that kitten poison off of them that they often have nothing left when the Scourge bombs them or a Mirage shows up, or if the FB is condi as well. Then the aspect takes play where the Condi Staff DD himself is like the only thing out there with enough self condi cleanse to survive those types of situations himself. Telling you this build is toxic AF in team play.

So exactly what is your suggestion?

Are you asking for a staff 3 nerf? Escapist fortitude nerf? Deadly ambition nerf? All 3?

Taking away shortbow 5 without a major class rework would make thief into an 11k health medium armor zero presence revenant.

[Daishi.6027]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S).

I agree with most of your entire post but this I took slight issue with. If you have amazing sustain, good damage, and average mobility we end up in a lot of past metas that are very unhealthy for conquest.

I do not think each attribute should be considered equal. Damage should be directly proportional to sustain, and mobility should be included since in the case of thief, and almost any variation through the years, it's sustain is not just tied to it's evasion and slipperyness but also it's mobility.No other class can engage in melee, retreat to safely avoid attacks and re-engage at the drop of a hat, and still have enough fuel to easily escape if read and punished after a whiff.

Personally I think in conquest no one should have (S) in sustain (including in the way when sustain includes mobility), unless you have a © in damage.

When mobility is solely for movement or a hard commitment to disengage (the kind where your opponent wins and the gap between the expended resources are maintained) should only ever be marked as true mobility, otherwise it's just sustain of a different variety.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

I'm still not convinced about Daredevils being able to do damage to what Trevor calls a "(B) tier degree" though. I will need to see some kind of documentation on that. It seems like it should be impossible for a thief to approach high damage, high moba and high sustain as it stands now, given that trickery line holds their init gain, DA holds their condi damage and Acro holds their sustain.

I rate it as (B) not due to direct raw numerical damage, but that essentially being permanently poisoned through an entire engagement is a very large amount of hidden damage vs. things like Adrenal Health or Virtue of Resolve, ect ect, and of course direct heals if the person cannot keep poison off them when needing to use the heal. When the poison can be very frequently spammed AoE on a node in 3v3+, that's a lot of hidden damage. In 1v1 it's even worse when they focus you with the Deadly Arts poison procs. There actually are not many builds in play that can survive a direct 1v1 engagement vs. Staff Condi due to this effect. There are even less that have opportunity to actually be able to kill it. Staff Condi DD is doing the exact same thing as old HoT Bunker Druids before the nerf to Refined Toxins and condi cleanse power creep, which was applying so much poison so frequently, that player's couldn't heal through being hosed down by friggin Mender Staff DPS. They'd either stick around vs. the Druid too long and die or be forced to leave the node, and of course the Druid is unkillable 1v1 to begin with so it was better to avoid the kitten Druid and go somewhere else. The presence of the Druid 1v1 on a node = he got to freely win the node, pretty much, unless 2 people were present with the time to waste to force him off or kill him. The Staff Condi DD is doing the same thing, only difference here is that it rotates twice as fast as a Druid ever could, and that poison is able to spammed vs. all opponents in a team fight, which makes him not just a side noder but also an important team fight presence. That's a lot of versatility packed into one build.

I know Thief players have been struggling with being UP for a long time now. I advocated PLENTY that Thief needed buffs, and it's good to see that it happened. But this particular build Staff Condi DD is a little bit too much and it's because there is way way too much poison on it.

When you go run a damage test on a golem with it, the damage looks ill and non present. But when you go actually face players with it, that perma -33% heal does it job well.

As far as documentation goes, you need look no further than getting to the final round of an AT where every good team is running this troll build. At least all of the ones I've faced within the past week are. It has amazing chemistry with any other condi build. People have to cleanse so frequently to keep that kitten poison off of them that they often have nothing left when the Scourge bombs them or a Mirage shows up, or if the FB is condi as well. Then the aspect takes play where the Condi Staff DD himself is like the only thing out there with enough self condi cleanse to survive those types of situations himself. Telling you this build is toxic AF in team play.

So exactly what is your suggestion?

Are you asking for a staff 3 nerf? Escapist fortitude nerf? Deadly ambition nerf? All 3?

Taking away shortbow 5 without a major class rework would make thief into an 11k health medium armor zero presence revenant.

Hrm, well this is another one of those complex problems where Condi DDs using Acro with no Staff or Core Thief using Deadly Arts & Acro isn't a problem. At least I don't think it's problematic at all. Then when you have pure power based DDs that use Staff, I don't see a problem with it at all. The issue is very specifically when the Staff play is incorporated with the condi & poison spam. So if you see what I mean, it isn't so easy to narrow down how to slightly tone down that build a bit. I can't really say "lower poison output on Deadly" because it isn't a problem on anything else outside of being paired with Staff/Acro specifically. And then I can't really say "Nerf Staff tied traits" because it really isn't problematic at all outside of being paired with Deadly & Acro very specifically. I honestly don't know Thief well enough to feel like I can make a sound suggestion past: "That particular build needs attention" because I don't want to see other Thief specs drop out of viability.

@Daishi.6027 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Mobility (B) - Damage (A) - Sustain (S).

I agree with most of your entire post but this I took slight issue with. If you have amazing sustain, good damage, and average mobility we end up in a lot of past metas that are very unhealthy for conquest.

I do not think each attribute should be considered equal. Damage should be directly proportional to sustain, and mobility should be included since in the case of thief, and almost any variation through the years, it's sustain is not just tied to it's evasion and slipperyness but also it's mobility.No other class can engage in melee, retreat to safely avoid attacks and re-engage at the drop of a hat, and still have enough fuel to easily escape if read and punished after a whiff.

Personally I think in conquest no one should have (S) in sustain (including in the way when sustain includes mobility), unless you have a © in damage.

When mobility is solely for movement or a hard commitment to disengage (the kind where your opponent wins and the gap between the expended resources are maintained) should only ever be marked as true mobility, otherwise it's just sustain of a different variety.

Yeah man, we're looking at a dirty S18 inc. So I've been running a lot of ATs lately right. During this off season, most players who don't play ATs, haven't yet noticed the kind of higher end meta play & builds that are happening in ATs, that will eventually be in ranked. People are still half experimenting and dinking around in unranked off season. But as soon as ranked begins again, what's happening in ATs is going to spill into ranked. Every single team that I have lost to in the final rounds lately, is running something like this:

• Condi FB Support
• Blood Sage Scourge
• Condi Weaver Side Node
• Staff Condi DD for the super versatility in best mobility +ing and synergy with the other condi builds
• 5th is always something random. W/e the team wants to add as their "personal flavor". The biggest aids I've seen though, is when a 2nd Condi FB is brought in.

These builds all being sustainy to begin with, when stacked together with all that AoE condi bombing... pushes so many things immediately out of viability. Even Holos & Spellbreakers are being countered by this stuff. It's just too much condi & cover condi on top of condis & more cover condis. So then the things that stay in viability because they actually have the cleanse to deal with this are, you guessed it, that exact same comp: FB, Necros with Consume Condition/Plague Signet, Weavers, Staff Condi DDs.

Even Core Guards don't have enough cycling cleanse to deal with this stuff because they can't kite away when they need to refresh CDs. Warriors could stat for all the anti-condi but then the Lion becomes a kitty and has no DPS. Heralds are done, they'll be out of meta completely for obvious reasons of struggling vs condi. Even Scrappers cannot deal with this level of condi output. Rangers? Ha yeah that's done with vs sustain based condi teams like this, if you run Ranger it'll need to be something like my Druid that has access to high levels of sheer flat out raw condi cleanse and a lot of it. Mesmers? They'll stay relevant as a viable 5th, along with Holos & Spellbreakers & maybe Deadeyes who can VERY CAREFULLY still perform their role, which won't be many.

So you see this is a very narrow & less interactive meta we have approaching. The very things that synergize the best with each other right now in terms of both damage chemistry and self & team sustain, are also the very builds that have enough cleanse to fight themselves. All of the power stuff we seen in play within the past few seasons, gets incredibly hard countered by high sustain condi comps like this. It's mostly because you can't realistically counter play in a 3v3 or even a 2v2 at times, a bunch of rando AoE condi spam that you HAVE to walk through to even hit your opponents. And most of that stuff has little to no tells. On top of that, the worst part about this is that unlike power metas, where there are clearly tells for when someone is aiming at a burst to land the bulk of damage, the condi comp like this has no distinguished burst to save your CDs to counter play against. ALL of the damage is just sort of consistent and spills out at you in large raidus/ranged play. This means that it sort of doesn't matter what you dodge roll or don't dodge roll. If you dodge roll now instead of later, or later instead of now, you're still taking the same amount of damage. This makes the gameplay feel a lot less interactive in terms of the importance of your actions. Against that condi comp, what you're mainly concerned with dodging, are CCs & soft CCs so you can at last keep moving and using your skills. But regardless, the play is going to become the most toxic and obnoxious condi meta we've ever seen in S18. Mark my words. It's already there in ATs.