Thieves STILL deal too many stacks of poison. Needs additional nerfs.

Joshewwah.2956 · October 5, 2019

@babazhook.6805 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@saerni.2584 said:@Doug.4930
Issues:
The crit rate is too low to stack malice and get M7 procs quickly enough to contribute.
Stacking stealth forever (which you can’t do without spending a lot of initiative, which you don’t have a lot of and won’t regen quickly enough — see item #1) runs contrary to actually being able to build up the might stacks you need to do heavy damage.
You have a decent amount of poison application but very little/no other conditions making individual cleanses really powerful against you.
You can’t deal with projectile denial and otherwise do very small amounts of damage.
I’d rate the build:
Damage 3.5/5
Sustain 4.5/5
Stealth 3.5/5
Rating Explanation:
Damage: you can do decent condi burst with this but risk being unable to apply it if any projectile block is active. Cleanse is also a huge issue with few cover condi. Higher than average damage but lower sustained damage especially after people figure out what you are running.
Sustain: you have good healing and a good number of stunbreaks. I’m going to say you have good sustain combined with high armor and decent cleanse. You lose a half-point because you lack other optional defensive utilities (evade, blind, projectile denial, etc).
Stealth: you have decent stealth. It will keep you alive but you risk initiative management issues if you are forced to swap to D/P to maintain it.
I’d disagree that your build has it all. It has good sustain (based mainly on having decent stealth). However, there are serious issues with its ability to apply damage. Against a golem or non-cleansing opponent you will be fine. Cleanse and projectile denial among other potential tactics make it hard to call the build unfair (it still will probably perform decently but that’s a great spot to be in).

I disagree on a couple of points. Firstly by running double rifle with energy sigils the build can easily keep up with the stealth output d/p provided without running into any trouble.

Secondly this build does have access to blind through both blinding powder, and comboing spotters shot through snipers cover.

Thirdly due to the passive application of venom's partly due to the new SA rework this build can simply outlast most classes condi clears though its amazing sustain and stealth. So whilst it can't burst targets down straight away it can outlast pretty much anything.

I'd rate:Damage 3.5/5Sustain 4.5/5Stealth 5/5 (because In my opinion this build can't really be outstealthed by anything presently in the game, by cycling utilities and blasting snipers cover with BP occasionally it pretty much can maintain an 80-90% stealth up time throughout the fight. Now a glass DE COULD be killed in that 10-20% window (as annoying and painful as fights like that are) because its full glass. Not this build however.

Oh and I just made that build very quickly, I probably forgot a few things like it shouldn't be running m7. Qobk would be better.

In responding to a critique of a build you should not rebut the critique with a different build. You can not have double rifle with energy sigils and d/p at the same time. Double Rifle with energy sigils has weaknesses that are entirely different. Maintaining stealth is of no use if everyone of your attacks can be addressed via reflects, projectile blocks, evades, immunities and the usage of LOS. Double ranged weapons is not generally a good idea barring sb/sb which can work because some of the attacks use fields and AOE.

Like i said i made it in like 2 seconds before i went to sleep. Ranged can be extremely powerful when used correctly and usually makes up for what you sacrifice and more. Just time you're attacks and watch out for reflects. I use a rifle DE presently and find its quite strong.

Any build can appear strong depending on the nature of the build you face. As example, I am quite familiar with thief and including the Condition variants as I play all types of thief regularity. The spec you outlined is relatively easy to counter due to the limited number of conditions. If I am facing your spec with a Power thief (such as my s/p variant) , I can quite easily handle those conditions and use my own PORT to's to keep you under pressure. I can use walls and other obstacles to anchor my return ports. While you can likely escape using stealth you are not going to find the time to inflict much in the way of damage. A thief traited s/p using trickster and in the Acro line has a wealth of condition cleanses and your build just will not inflict those poisons fast enough. (It not like I do not have dodges, evades and stealths of my own either)

Your build can be very effective in WvW because there a whole lot of people you run into that might trait only one cleanse. Others just use their cleanses at the wrong time.

Do you have any good condi thief builds for WvW for a bad player liike me?

babazhook.6805 · October 6, 2019

@Joshewwah.2956 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@saerni.2584 said:@Doug.4930
Issues:
The crit rate is too low to stack malice and get M7 procs quickly enough to contribute.
Stacking stealth forever (which you can’t do without spending a lot of initiative, which you don’t have a lot of and won’t regen quickly enough — see item #1) runs contrary to actually being able to build up the might stacks you need to do heavy damage.
You have a decent amount of poison application but very little/no other conditions making individual cleanses really powerful against you.
You can’t deal with projectile denial and otherwise do very small amounts of damage.
I’d rate the build:
Damage 3.5/5
Sustain 4.5/5
Stealth 3.5/5
Rating Explanation:
Damage: you can do decent condi burst with this but risk being unable to apply it if any projectile block is active. Cleanse is also a huge issue with few cover condi. Higher than average damage but lower sustained damage especially after people figure out what you are running.
Sustain: you have good healing and a good number of stunbreaks. I’m going to say you have good sustain combined with high armor and decent cleanse. You lose a half-point because you lack other optional defensive utilities (evade, blind, projectile denial, etc).
Stealth: you have decent stealth. It will keep you alive but you risk initiative management issues if you are forced to swap to D/P to maintain it.
I’d disagree that your build has it all. It has good sustain (based mainly on having decent stealth). However, there are serious issues with its ability to apply damage. Against a golem or non-cleansing opponent you will be fine. Cleanse and projectile denial among other potential tactics make it hard to call the build unfair (it still will probably perform decently but that’s a great spot to be in).