Fractal elitism on the rise in LFG

[pfc.9430]

Anyone else having more trouble lately in finding CM groups when you play non-meta classes?

In my case I am running a daredevil in zerker as dps(what else would you use a daredevil for?) and maintain an average dps in 100-200 ess requirement groups as per arcdps. I've noticed a move away from listing "dps" on lfgs and towards listing specific classes which means that if I want to do CMs I often have to create my own group just because I play a thief. Those times I do join an LFG looking for "dps" I often get comments ranging from "oh thief isn't a good dps" to "kick thief, thiefs suck". If I make it into the fractal I still regularly get "we got low dps, thief sucks, kick" in low ess requirement groups(20-60 ess) even when I have the highest dps and can get kicked at the last boss despite carrying a group of noobs, providing ascended food and remaining respectful towards players who are failing mechanics. I try to avoid those situations by just joining higher ess requirement groups but again, most are now requiring specific classes. Trying to list an lfg for CMs/Dailies as thief tends to lead to wait times in excess of an hour even at reset.

I get that an LFGs can have whatever requirements they want but it's gotten to the point where people are elitist for the sake of being elitist and well beyond their own skill level. I was kicked from a 50ess group for joining, saying "dps lnhb+infusion" then loading into the instance to an immediate "thief didn't link kp, kick" followed by a kick before I can even react. Sure, they may not have known that a celestial infusion cost 90 ess but I had a similar issue with a 100ess group saying "celestial infusion not real kp, you might of gotten it as drop" despite also having LNHB and an extra 20ess at the time. I've since resorted to pasted codes instead of having to debate the legitimacy of celestial infusions as kp every damn time but that defeats the entire purpose of having ess requirements. I regret ever having bought the infusion.

I've noticed a few other classes being treated the same way and it's seriously affecting lfg fill times. There may be 3+ CM groups waiting for the same specific class (hb/bs/alacren) and all 3 groups will stubbornly stay in lfg for half an hour instead of merging (one group requires 100 ess, other group 150ess for example) or accepting a different class because a non-meta group might take 2min longer to clear. The worst is when 200ess groups are waiting on a healer for half an hour instead of just taking another dps and clearing faster. If you have 200 ess, you should know mechanics well enough to not need a healer especially considering that higher dps leads to even less mechanics.

I've been denied entry into a fractal guild because I enjoy playing a thief and got a long explanation as to why thief are apparently useless. I've joined guilds that had daily fractal runs but they've since moved away from fractals due to the toxic state of the fractal community. One guild that I used to fractal with died as most players quit the game.

I used to run raids but my schedule wasn't conducive to raid guilds and PUGs for raids are more toxic and elitist than PUGs for fractals. Dungeons are... dead. Fractals represent an important chunk of end-game content for the "less casual" players and elitism in LFG is taking that away from players who don't have much else keeping them in GW2. I wish Anet would make more agressive balance changes to PvE to force the META to reset or somehow revamp the LFG to include some achievement based filters so that people can find groups based on their abilities to compete rather than meta copypasta LFGs.

I just want to be able to do my damn fractals.

[borgs.6103]

I don't know man...My advise is become like water.Basing from your lengthy explanation, you have enough experience with the game to play another class that most of the LFG's want. If you just want to do your kitten fractals, then do that perhaps? One can only be stubborn for such a long time until they give in and adapt.

For the record though, I love thieves as DPS because they do decent damage and also bring utilities that can skip a lot of mechanics - like the switches on Underground, Aetherblade and even skip stuff on Cliffside.

[Asum.4960]

This type of mentality progression can be observed pretty much every time when content dries up and the player base crumbles.

Instead of having a constant stream of new content to explore and master, being used to constant influxes of new players to be able to jump in and master that new content at a similar level of knowledge, new reward systems to go and check for experience for, etc., players just dig into existing content that they have been playing for years and with nothing new to play to take the edge off for a year + and nothing else on the horizon, just get more and more fed up with experiencing the same mistakes in the same content over and over for years and years, and just want to chase the perfect run as only form of progression left and to just get things over with quickly so they can move on.

It's just not a healthy state for the community to be in and it eventually gets so bad it's a self-perpetuating problem of keeping even more players away with harsher and harsher gatekeeping and eventually straight up toxicity.

Unless Anet shifts focus to endgame development and dumps multi fractal releases including CM's with new reward structures, which seems extremely unlikely to ever happen at this point, I'm afraid this sort of thing is just going to get worse, with the few people remaining engaged with the content piling up more and more KP to form the higher and higher baselines to check against, as well as increasingly getting dug into and set into their ways for the "perfect run", desperately chasing that feeling of progression by honing the requirements of what's acceptable down to absurd levels, chasing faster, more efficient and ever consistent clears to extract at least some satisfaction still.

[Eramonster.2718]

Only suggestion I could think of:Make your own group and keep in touch with the players that joined. If the other party can play together, they most probably available around that hour; arrange/schedule a time.

I don't think Anet can do anything here, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Shaking the META won't solve the problem, just shifting it.

[Nephalem.8921]

@"pfc.9430" said:I've noticed a few other classes being treated the same way and it's seriously affecting lfg fill times. There may be 3+ CM groups waiting for the same specific class (hb/bs/alacren) and all 3 groups will stubbornly stay in lfg for half an hour instead of merging (one group requires 100 ess, other group 150ess for example) or accepting a different class because a non-meta group might take 2min longer to clear. The worst is when 200ess groups are waiting on a healer for half an hour instead of just taking another dps and clearing faster. If you have 200 ess, you should know mechanics well enough to not need a healer especially considering that higher dps leads to even less mechanics.

Not having access to quickness, alacrity and might doesn't lead to higher dps. You wouldn't use supports at all if this was the case. Non meta groups take double the time easily and staying alive for 5min+ bossfights with we bleed fire or afflicted is not something everyone can do without ren or fb.Also i know a lot of players who play onlyfractals. They would rather wait 40min for a decent comp and watch streams while waiting than have a 1.5h clown fiesta.

Thief isn't even bad in non static runs though and this is more of a "bad players try to copy a meta they don't understand or couldn't execute anyways" problem.Don't blame the players, blame the devs.What do bad fractal classes have in common? They all lack burst.So why is burst so important? The breakbar is to blame for this. 50% increased dmg just gets way too broken with burst professions.Even all the speedrunners i know would like to see that exposed debuff gone. CC and breakbars should be there to stop the boss from killing everyone and not to kill the boss super fast.Burst dps is so out of place with "exposed" that all cm bosses except art just phase during one breakbar if you play heavy burst professions like weaver, dh or slb.Simply get rid of that and fractals would still be very burst favoured but to a more acceptible level.All the recent fractals don't have that anymore so its something at least. Now new bosses just need to stop porting around every 3sec and maybe more hp.

[Henry.5713]

Remember when there were about ten groups on the LFG at all times looking for just that one chronomancer? Good times.

On a serious note, my best advice is to tell people they are free to kick you if you underperform as a DPS. Many seem to agree to that deal and it is up to you to prove them wrong then. A good Daredevil will usually beat most mediocre players in any case.My second advice is to just grow a thicker skin and to stop blaming everyone else's supposed toxicity. Seems a little ironic to me that you judge others for insisting on having that healer, a subpar option in your eyes, while you get angry at them for calling your thief the worse option when compared to other META DPS.

[Vinceman.4572]

1. Open a group yourself. Always was and still is the best thing to prevent situations you encountered. Of course some people will still blame you and maybe there's a group here and there that'll boot you before starting although you created the group but that will be very rare.

2. Don't insist on only playing one class & role and being the one trick pony. It helps a lot to understand others struggling and will speed things up when looking for a proper comp. In the old "pug" meta I was able to play dps, druid & war so once we had that chrono the group was good to go.

In addition people didn't like thief in the past and they won't like it in the future without certain changes. Thief has always been an egoistic dps class and more of use when in need of stealths etc. Nowadays other dps classes are so much better for backing up the team once things go a little bit south. So, think about it: Why would I take a thief for my pug run if I can have that juicy dragonhunter that definitely can & most likely will smooth my "pug" run. This point is also the answer to your 200 cm essences accusation towards healer. When I was on route to fractal god I wanted to get the job done. Were we able to do it without a healer? Of course. Was it chill and fun every single day? No, not at all so a healer was the thing to use to get the the result without struggling.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Vinceman.4572" said:

1. Open a group yourself. Always was and still is the best thing to prevent situations you encountered. Of course some people will still blame you and maybe there's a group here and there that'll boot you before starting although you created the group but that will be very rare.

2. Don't insist on only playing one class & role and being the one trick pony. It helps a lot to understand others struggling and will speed things up when looking for a proper comp. In the old "pug" meta I was able to play dps, druid & war so once we had that chrono the group was good to go.

In addition people didn't like thief in the past and they won't like it in the future without certain changes. Thief has always been an egoistic dps class and more of use when in need of stealths etc. Nowadays other dps classes are so much better for backing up the team once things go a little bit south. So, think about it: Why would I take a thief for my pug run if I can have that juicy dragonhunter that definitely can & most likely will smooth my "pug" run. This point is also the answer to your 200 cm essences accusation towards healer. When I was on route to fractal god I wanted to get the job done. Were we able to do it without a healer? Of course. Was it chill and fun every single day? No, not at all so a healer was the thing to use to get the the result without struggling.

This.

To add to that:

• in low skill groups, you are far better off having a DH with additional F2, F3, reflects and self-sustain via his Litany of Wrath over a thief.
• in high skill groups the burst of thief is below what other classes provide when trying to instant phase bosses

The only things thief brings are:

• reliable cc with Basilisk Venom, if the thief isn't running Thiefs Guild (which for me is usually a reason to remove them on cc heavy fights since they are prefering to greed some meager dps versus support the group)
• reliable easy dps which will outperform weak PUG dps players

@pfc.9430 said:I've noticed a few other classes being treated the same way and it's seriously affecting lfg fill times. There may be 3+ CM groups waiting for the same specific class (hb/bs/alacren) and all 3 groups will stubbornly stay in lfg for half an hour instead of merging (one group requires 100 ess, other group 150ess for example) or accepting a different class because a non-meta group might take 2min longer to clear. The worst is when 200ess groups are waiting on a healer for half an hour instead of just taking another dps and clearing faster. If you have 200 ess, you should know mechanics well enough to not need a healer especially considering that higher dps leads to even less mechanics.

It's not only about how fast you clear overall. It's a mix of players knowing specific rotations and processes. Not having alacrity will cause certain skills to not be ready, rotations change, cc might not be available when needed, uptime on other boons is directly affected. The same goes for multiple other things. Not having a Renegade directly leads to not having enough cc for fast phases, not having Mallyx for boon removal, etc.

The META setups are not only based on speed and dps, but optimal encounter trivialization. Not having stability in weaker groups will mess with inexperienced players rotations. For experienced player, not having stability if expected will cause them to lose dps, making phases take longer.

The only real classes which are interchangeable are dps, and only if they:

• provide similar cc (mitigatable via consumables or very fast phasing bosses
• provide similar dps (thief is not one of the classes which allows for enough burst but rather has a high sustained damage output directly relating to most of the damage coming from AA instead of skills)
• provide similar utility (if needed)

This is not a simple: just take something else instead of waiting. This is literally a: if you take something else, you might have to completely relearn the fractal. The fact that a proper setup will be nearly twice as fast versus sub-optimal groups is just the icing on the cake.

[BRNBRITO.9624]

but it's gotten to the point where people are elitist for the sake of being elitist and well beyond their own skill levelDefinitely, whenever i see a wannabe-elitist group asking for pDps for T4 (or even CM tbh) i'll usually join on cFb, funny to see people's egos getting crushed because they get outdps'd by a cFb and "eVeRyBoDy kNoWs cOnDi iS bAd PrO pLaYeRs SaId It", just confirms that people copy paste builds and don't even bother learning them properly and play as if it's single-player content by ignoring mechanics and greeding, doing mediocre dps and still being extremely toxic.

Honestly if you're not doing speedruns then literally any class works if you're playing properly, rarely see thieves but there's a few good ones around, seen 1-2 guys pulling consistent 20k+ arkk, 28k+ ensolyss and 30k+ siax which is more than 99% of NA pugs can do honestly, obviously sb/dh/weaver etc CAN end up with a higher number but it'll almost never happen in pug parties because people are not playing optimally and it's a disorganized pug after all, from my experience 50 or 250ess parties are the same almost everytime, reminder that this is for NA, i hear great things about pugging on EU.

Having a good thief is way better than a garbo greedy dh/weaver/slb, i don't know where people get the idea that pugging for a single non-meta dps makes things take twice as long, it doesn't really count if you're playing on a speedrun static, this is pugging, and as i said, average skill level on NA is extremely low overall, despite fractal titles and ess amount.

[Cyninja.2954]

@BRNBRITO.9624 said:Having a good thief is way better than a garbo greedy dh/weaver/slb, i don't know where people get the idea that pugging for a single non-meta dps makes things take twice as long, it doesn't really count if you're playing on a speedrun static, this is pugging, and as i said, average skill level on NA is extremely low overall, despite fractal titles and ess amount.

That's not what was mentioned. What was mentioned was:

@pfc.9430 said:I've noticed a few other classes being treated the same way and it's seriously affecting lfg fill times. There may be 3+ CM groups waiting for the same specific class (hb/bs/alacren) and all 3 groups will stubbornly stay in lfg for half an hour instead of merging (one group requires 100 ess, other group 150ess for example) or accepting a different class because a non-meta group might take 2min longer to clear. The worst is when 200ess groups are waiting on a healer for half an hour instead of just taking another dps and clearing faster. If you have 200 ess, you should know mechanics well enough to not need a healer especially considering that higher dps leads to even less mechanics.

Which is not about replacing a meta dps with a non meta dps, but a different role with a non meta dps. The replies about fractals taking up to 2 times as long were in relation to not running a full meta group versus a non optimized group with a non meta dps. The class which can replaced here without big significant change to play is the bannersalve.

Personally I agree that DD can put out more than enough damage in PUG groups if not speedrunning. Unfortunately on EU, getting an actually good thief is very rare.

[pfc.9430]

@borgs.6103 said:My advise is become like water....For the record though, I love thieves as DPS because they do decent damage and also bring utilities that can skip a lot of mechanics - like the switches on Underground, Aetherblade and even skip stuff on Cliffside.That is why I leveled other classes/professions but I honestly just enjoy the thief playstyle more. GW2 is not a job, I play because I enjoy playing. Those who play different styles shouldn't be punished for it so long as they are able to keep up.

@Asum.4960 said:...It's just not a healthy state for the community to be in and it eventually gets so bad it's a self-perpetuating problem of keeping even more players away with harsher and harsher gatekeeping and eventually straight up toxicity....This is exactly how I feel.

@Nephalem.8921 said:Not having access to quickness, alacrity and might doesn't lead to higher dps. You wouldn't use supports at all if this was the case. Non meta groups take double the time easily and staying alive for 5min+ bossfights with we bleed fire or afflicted is not something everyone can do without ren or fb....As far as I know every class has access to quickness and might. If not having one of those three (typically quickness or alacrity) makes you take twice as long to clear then you need to work on mechanics. A boss fight where 3dps @20k =60kdps is the same as a boss fight with 4dps @15k = 60kdps. Similarly, a boss fight where you might expect 3dps @30k = 90k takes as long to clear as 4dps @22.5k =90k. No extra mechanics, no time loss. These numbers are in line with my observations with a typical ~100ess group. I personally don't need a ren or fb and have cleared several times without them....Thief isn't even bad in non static runs though and this is more of a "bad players try to copy a meta they don't understand or couldn't execute anyways" problem....That is exactly my complaint: non-skilled meta players ruin the game for people who have taken to time to hone their class....What do bad fractal classes have in common? They all lack burst.So why is burst so important? The breakbar is to blame for this. 50% increased dmg just gets way too broken with burst professions....I somewhat agree with you however the numbers I see on arcdps indicate that my daredevil burst is on par with other classes in 100-200ess PUGs....All the recent fractals don't have that anymore so its something at least. Now new bosses just need to stop porting around every 3sec and maybe more hp....Those bosses that port around are exactly why you would want a thief. I consistently outdps PUGs on 99cm because daredevil repositioning is part of the rotation(+15% dps on low endurance, +10% dps after dodge, +dodge aoe, +7%crit from behind, etc.) whereas most other classes lose dps when they need to reposition. Coincidentally, 99cm is my favorite fractal.

@"Henry.5713" said:Remember when there were about ten groups on the LFG at all times looking for just that one chronomancer? Good times.

On a serious note, my best advice is to tell people they are free to kick you if you underperform as a DPS. Many seem to agree to that deal and it is up to you to prove them wrong then. A good Daredevil will usually beat most mediocre players in any case....I often do this. I still sometimes get people who say "your dps sucks, kick" when I am top dps on team as per arcdps. When I call out everyone's dps they get mad and say I'm making numbers up. I kinda wish the game would come with a dps meter just to shut those people up.My second advice is to just grow a thicker skin and to stop blaming everyone else's supposed toxicity. Seems a little ironic to me that you judge others for insisting on having that healer, a subpar option in your eyes, while you get angry at them for calling your thief the worse option when compared to other META DPS.I've never been toxic towards a healer, I've never been toxic towards a group who wanted a healer. I was simply pointing out the absurdity of waiting 30+min for an "ideal" comp when all the players in the group claim to be of very high skill level. Even in high skill groups someone might go down from time to time which does affect times slightly as we all have to jump to res or take 30sec longer to reach next phase but the extra dps should offset most of it.@"Vinceman.4572" said:

1. Open a group yourself. Always was and still is the best thing to prevent situations you encountered. Of course some people will still blame you and maybe there's a group here and there that'll boot you before starting although you created the group but that will be very rare.I do, it takes hours to get a group as no one wants to join a single thief on lfg
2. Don't insist on only playing one class & role and being the one trick pony. It helps a lot to understand others struggling and will speed things up when looking for a proper comp. In the old "pug" meta I was able to play dps, druid & war so once we had that chrono the group was good to go.I sometimes join "training" runs for CMs just to get more new players into CMs and fill both dps and support roles as thief. Not only do I call out the mechanics but I also do anoms/balls/healing/reflects/blocks/skip/port and sometimes solo entire phases. Thieves are fairly flexible. Heck, I even boon support in raids. I agree with "dont be a one trick pony" but my class is capable of filling various roles. If I join as dps role then shouldn't the fact that I'm keeping my dps up, follow all mechanics, don't go down and otherwise keeping up with the other dps enough?In addition people didn't like thief in the past and they won't like it in the future without certain changes. Thief has always been an egoistic dps class and more of use when in need of stealths etc. Nowadays other dps classes are so much better for backing up the team once things go a little bit south. So, think about it: Why would I take a thief for my pug run if I can have that juicy dragonhunter that definitely can & most likely will smooth my "pug" run. This point is also the answer to your 200 cm essences accusation towards healer. When I was on route to fractal god I wanted to get the job done. Were we able to do it without a healer? Of course. Was it chill and fun every single day? No, not at all so a healer was the thing to use to get the the result without struggling.A good thief will also smooth your run. I've had groups where no healers were available and the group skill level was not high enough to run without a healer and so I reorganized my build to provide heals and reflects... I've had groups failing blooms on arkk and end up doing 3, sometimes all 4 of the blooms with p/p. I've had groups failing CCs on Siax so I took care of it myself. A shitty dh won't smooth your run but a good dh will. Similarly a shitty dd won't smooth your run but a good dd will. I don't need a healer, I always play as if I don't have one so that if I go down it's 100% because I fucked up. Of course it's easier for me to play with a healer and offload some of the responsibility but my point is that all too often people spend so much time getting frustrated trying to get a group together when it would of both taken less time and been less frustrating to just run without one of the roles. Of course only higher skill groups should run CMs without a healer.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:...To add to that:

• in low skill groups, you are far better off having a DH with additional F2, F3, reflects and self-sustain via his Litany of Wrath over a thief.I can provide heals and reflects though yes the aegis is nice if perfectly timed. I don't think pointing to the fact that another class has aegis is a good enough reason to not play thief. I can also fully self-sustain through every fractal.
• in high skill groups the burst of thief is below what other classes provide when trying to instant phase bossesDefine high skill groups. I am on par with burst from other classes in 100-200ess PUGs. I have met 250+ess static dps that were able to out-burst me on single adds however the adds were down in a single hit so who cares? Yes their single hit hits harder than my single hit, but we both just had to hit once... On longer bursts with 4 or less small hitbox enemies I tend to outburst them. I also outburst them in large groups of low hp/small hit box.The only things thief brings are:
• reliable cc with Basilisk Venom, if the thief isn't running Thiefs Guild (which for me is usually a reason to remove them on cc heavy fights since they are prefering to greed some meager dps versus support the group)As a thief I have to disagree. Basilisk venom is not reliable due to small aoe, long cast time and very long recharge time(these are getting fixed in the next balance patch) and the fact that other players don't know how to optimise it's use. Impact strike is usually a better choice and I usually have fist fury used just before cc in case we dont insta-break. On noob runs I also add venoms and swap weapons.
• reliable easy dps which will outperform weak PUG dps playersYes and no. Thief as deadeye(38k) has the second highest(to condi weaver, 39k) non-cleave single-target small-hitbox damage benchmark in the game according to snowcrows golem. I tend to avoid deadeye in fractals but its available. Thief as daredevil is listed as 9th build though it has cleave and is listed as doing 35k which is pretty damn good for sustained damage. This is just behind elementalist(39k condi weaver, 35k power weaver), mesmer(37k) and guardian(37k). Thief dps is no wet noodle....It's not only about how fast you clear overall. It's a mix of players knowing specific rotations and processes. Not having alacrity will cause certain skills to not be ready, rotations change, cc might not be available when needed, uptime on other boons is directly affected. The same goes for multiple other things. Not having a Renegade directly leads to not having enough cc for fast phases, not having Mallyx for boon removal, etc.I agree with your assertion that different group composition will affect how you have to play however PUGs aren't statics. If someone hasn't learned how to run a fractal with different support levels then they should be upfront and not claim to be a high-skill level player. A high skill level player will know how to compensate for their rotation. Even instabilities affect rotation(boon overload, afflicted, frailty, outflanked, toxic, bleed fire, hamstrung). Hamstrung actually specifically punishes daredevil the most with the +33% endurance regen.The META setups are not only based on speed and dps, but optimal encounter trivialization. Not having stability in weaker groups will mess with inexperienced players rotations. For experienced player, not having stability if expected will cause them to lose dps, making phases take longer.Low skill players with stability mess up the timing. If anything this would be a plus for a meta group with medium-high skill as you know the stability will be available. I enjoy some good stability.The only real classes which are interchangeable are dps, and only if they:
• provide similar cc (mitigatable via consumables or very fast phasing bossesgot that
• provide similar dps (thief is not one of the classes which allows for enough burst but rather has a high sustained damage output directly relating to most of the damage coming from AA instead of skills)If a thief is getting most of his "burst" damage from AA then they are either AFK or new to thief. Daredevil burst consists of draining endurance first(on the way) followed by some combination of assasin's signet, weakening charge, and fist flurry with other things thrown in depending on the traits they took. As I have already said, thief burst dps is on par with other dps classes in 100-200ess PUGs. Yes other classes can have more burst on golems but that is irrelevant.
• provide similar utility (if needed)Port/stealth/heal/reflects/combo fields/venoms/boons(might/ferocity, others in raids) but other DPS aren't even expected to provide these.This is not a simple: just take something else instead of waiting. This is literally a: if you take something else, you might have to completely relearn the fractal. The fact that a proper setup will be nearly twice as fast versus sub-optimal groups is just the icing on the cake.Again, it's only twice as long in an inexperienced group that was barely making it to the end in the first place. Same dps = same clear time if people don't fuck up.

@"BRNBRITO.9624" said:

but it's gotten to the point where people are elitist for the sake of being elitist and well beyond their own skill levelDefinitely, whenever i see a wannabe-elitist group asking for pDps for T4 (or even CM tbh) i'll usually join on cFb, funny to see people's egos getting crushed because they get outdps'd by a cFb and "eVeRyBoDy kNoWs cOnDi iS bAd PrO pLaYeRs SaId It", just confirms that people copy paste builds and don't even bother learning them properly and play as if it's single-player content by ignoring mechanics and greeding, doing mediocre dps and still being extremely toxic.

Honestly if you're not doing speedruns then literally any class works if you're playing properly, rarely see thieves but there's a few good ones around, seen 1-2 guys pulling consistent 20k+ arkk, 28k+ ensolyss and 30k+ siax which is more than 99% of NA pugs can do honestly, obviously sb/dh/weaver etc

CAN

end up with a higher number but it'll almost never happen in pug parties because people are not playing optimally and it's a disorganized pug after all, from my experience 50 or 250ess parties are the same almost everytime, reminder that this is for

NA

, i hear great things about pugging on EU.

Having a good thief is way better than a garbo greedy dh/weaver/slb, i don't know where people get the idea that pugging for a single non-meta dps makes things take twice as long, it doesn't really count if you're playing on a speedrun static, this is pugging, and as i said, average skill level on NA is extremely low overall, despite fractal titles and ess amount.This guy gets it!

[Nephalem.8921]

@pfc.9430 said:As far as I know every class has access to quickness and might. If not having one of those three (typically quickness or alacrity) makes you take twice as long to clear then you need to work on mechanics. A boss fight where 3dps @20k =60kdps is the same as a boss fight with 4dps @15k = 60kdps. Similarly, a boss fight where you might expect 3dps @30k = 90k takes as long to clear as 4dps @22.5k =90k. No extra mechanics, no time loss. These numbers are in line with my observations with a typical ~100ess group. I personally don't need a ren or fb and have cleared several times without them.

Only fb and chrono have access to large amounts of quickness without dropping dps. Boons on a competent dps player buff said player by more than 50% so its way more than 15k vs 20k. It's more like 12k vs 35k and the supports do damage aswell.Some strats are designed to skip phases saving lots of time and i get the impression you really haven't seen a real meta party yet. Twice as long wasn't even an exaggeration. A decent static needs 50sec max for siax and 2min for arkk or ensyloss. 1min 20 for arriv. I've seen pugs coming quite close to that even with a healer. A 100ess pug is nowhere close to this and needs probably three times as long especially without boons.

Those bosses that port around are exactly why you would want a thief. I consistently outdps PUGs on 99cm because daredevil repositioning is part of the rotation(+15% dps on low endurance, +10% dps after dodge, +dodge aoe, +7%crit from behind, etc.) whereas most other classes lose dps when they need to reposition. Coincidentally, 99cm is my favorite fractal.

Not really. Weaver has a blink aswell and slb has leaps. Both are meta in fractals and have just way higher damage. 99cm would be the fractal where thief would struggle the most probably. Everything is just burst only except for mama.

Not only do I call out the mechanics but I also do anoms/balls/healing/reflects/blocks/skip/port

Dps really shouldn't do any of those. Dps is there to do as much damage as possible and healing as definitely something a thief cant do.

As I have already said, thief burst dps is on par with other dps classes in 100-200ess PUGs. Yes other classes can have more burst on golems but that is irrelevant.

Weavers and soulbeasts can achieve 100k+ quite regularly. I'm not sure if DD is capable of doing that. Slb and DH are way stronger on fractals than on golem because phases are over after 1-3skills. DD doesn't really have a "press 1 button do 300k dmg" skill.

[Cyninja.2954]

@pfc.9430 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:...To add to that:

• in low skill groups, you are far better off having a DH with additional F2, F3, reflects and self-sustain via his Litany of Wrath over a thief.I can provide heals and reflects though yes the aegis is nice if perfectly timed. I don't think pointing to the fact that another class has aegis is a good enough reason to not play thief. I can also fully self-sustain through every fractal.

I was pointing to things which DH has ON TOP of his better dps burst over thief. This is not about self sustain, DH supports the groups, does better damage and better burst over thief.

@pfc.9430 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

• in high skill groups the burst of thief is below what other classes provide when trying to instant phase bossesDefine high skill groups. I am on par with burst from other classes in 100-200ess PUGs. I have met 250+ess static dps that were able to out-burst me on single adds however the adds were down in a single hit so who cares? Yes their single hit hits harder than my single hit, but we both just had to hit once... On longer bursts with 4 or less small hitbox enemies I tend to outburst them. I also outburst them in large groups of low hp/small hit box.

High skill groups = no healer, phase bosses in 10 seconds on 100cm, skip most mechanics.

@pfc.9430 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The only things thief brings are:

• reliable cc with Basilisk Venom, if the thief isn't running Thiefs Guild (which for me is usually a reason to remove them on cc heavy fights since they are prefering to greed some meager dps versus support the group)As a thief I have to disagree. Basilisk venom is not reliable due to small aoe, long cast time and very long recharge time(these are getting fixed in the next balance patch) and the fact that other players don't know how to optimise it's use. Impact strike is usually a better choice and I usually have fist fury used just before cc in case we dont insta-break. On noob runs I also add venoms and swap weapons.

Not sure if you are serious. I thought we were talking about decent CM groups. Stacking is no issue in that case. Please read up on how much defiance break Basi brings. It's absolutely worth more than the 2k dps from TG. Not to mention TG will not last long enough to be of value on most boss phases. This is non arguable. Sorry but if you are taking anything but Basi Venom, you are a mediocre thief at best.

Also not sure what you are talking about other players making use of it. You should be self aware of when big cc phases are up and trigger BV appropriately. Chance are very high every single person in group will perform at least 1 auto attack within the next few seconds.

To summarize: BV does more defiance bar damage starting 3 players (that's you and 2 more), does not require more commitment past the 1 second cast (unlike IS which will take multiple seconds to cast through) and will have the cc land near immediately since you are redistributing the cc to all players.

@pfc.9430 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

• reliable easy dps which will outperform weak PUG dps playersYes and no. Thief as deadeye(38k) has the second highest(to condi weaver, 39k) non-cleave single-target small-hitbox damage benchmark in the game according to snowcrows golem. I tend to avoid deadeye in fractals but its available. Thief as daredevil is listed as 9th build though it has cleave and is listed as doing 35k which is pretty kitten good for sustained damage. This is just behind elementalist(39k condi weaver, 35k power weaver), mesmer(37k) and guardian(37k). Thief dps is no wet noodle....

How do I put this:That's a 2 minute benchmark. FYI, top tier groups reach 80-120k dps for the short burst phases (per dps, not total). DD is absolutely incapable of this. Even mediocre DH will hit 50-60k dps burst for the first 5-10 seconds (which is literally the absolute top tier a DD can reach when using TG, pre dodge, etc). Being able to precast damage is one of the main benefits of DH and Weaver. Weaver is top dps in fractals, but is more challenging to play than DH.

@pfc.9430 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not only about how fast you clear overall. It's a mix of players knowing specific rotations and processes. Not having alacrity will cause certain skills to not be ready, rotations change, cc might not be available when needed, uptime on other boons is directly affected. The same goes for multiple other things. Not having a Renegade directly leads to not having enough cc for fast phases, not having Mallyx for boon removal, etc.I agree with your assertion that different group composition will affect how you have to play however PUGs aren't statics. If someone hasn't learned how to run a fractal with different support levels then they should be upfront and not claim to be a high-skill level player. A high skill level player will know how to compensate for their rotation. Even instabilities affect rotation(boon overload, afflicted, frailty, outflanked, toxic, bleed fire, hamstrung). Hamstrung actually specifically punishes daredevil the most with the +33% endurance regen.

It's not about having learned or not. It's about: why should they bother?

@pfc.9430 said:

The META setups are not only based on speed and dps, but optimal encounter trivialization. Not having stability in weaker groups will mess with inexperienced players rotations. For experienced player, not having stability if expected will cause them to lose dps, making phases take longer.Low skill players with stability mess up the timing. If anything this would be a plus for a meta group with medium-high skill as you know the stability will be available. I enjoy some good stability.The only real classes which are interchangeable are dps, and only if they:

• provide similar cc (mitigatable via consumables or very fast phasing bossesgot that
• provide similar dps (thief is not one of the classes which allows for enough burst but rather has a high sustained damage output directly relating to most of the damage coming from AA instead of skills)If a thief is getting most of his "burst" damage from AA then they are either AFK or new to thief. Daredevil burst consists of draining endurance first(on the way) followed by some combination of assasin's signet, weakening charge, and fist flurry with other things thrown in depending on the traits they took. As I have already said, thief burst dps is on par with other dps classes in 100-200ess PUGs. Yes other classes can have more burst on golems but that is irrelevant.

Not if you are hitting 40k burst bencharks. That's far from what good DPS do.

[Crackmonster.2790]

While many have good points as to why thief is unwelcome, i can completely understand OP.

The problem is this, OP likes his thief and wants to play it, but whereever he comes he will meet people who are telling him to fuck off and play something else, that he isn' welcome. This happens to anyone who isn't meta class, and then you can sit around and say yea because anything else is not optimal choice etc, and you are right but also i gotta ask is this really the world you want to create with elitism and play exactly that or don't be welcome?

Problem is everyone are so egocentric that the idea of being more relaxed for joy other than yourself it's a far out idea, and so the vicous circle comes true.

GW2 is not balanced around needing perfect setups, this demand is self-created and empowered by the class balance made by devs, but it doesn't mean you should support this elitist culture, it's gonna end up biting the community it its ass in the long run.

[pfc.9430]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@pfc.9430 said:As far as I know every class has access to quickness and might. If not having one of those three (typically quickness or alacrity) makes you take twice as long to clear then you need to work on mechanics. A boss fight where 3dps @20k =60kdps is the same as a boss fight with 4dps @15k = 60kdps. Similarly, a boss fight where you might expect 3dps @30k = 90k takes as long to clear as 4dps @22.5k =90k. No extra mechanics, no time loss. These numbers are in line with my observations with a typical ~100ess group. I personally don't need a ren or fb and have cleared several times without them.

Only fb and chrono have access to large amounts of quickness without dropping dps. Boons on a competent dps player buff said player by more than 50% so its way more than 15k vs 20k. It's more like 12k vs 35k and the supports do damage aswell.You are ignoring the fact that you are still getting boons, just not as much of it so the impact is much less than having none. I never suggested running without boons.Some strats are designed to skip phases saving lots of time and i get the impression you really haven't seen a real meta party yet. Twice as long wasn't even an exaggeration. A decent static needs 50sec max for siax and 2min for arkk or ensyloss. 1min 20 for arriv. I've seen pugs coming quite close to that even with a healer. A 100ess pug is nowhere close to this and needs probably three times as long especially without boons.Yes, CC + burst through the phase skipping certain mechanics entirely. Been there, done that. This elitist mindset of "we are pro, everyone else sucks and doesn't manage to do what we do" is whats wrong with the community. I regularly skip mechanics and often do breeze through 100cm. Ironically these groups that do very well in 100cm often get downed in 99cm. \o/

Those bosses that port around are exactly why you would want a thief. I consistently outdps PUGs on 99cm because daredevil repositioning is part of the rotation(+15% dps on low endurance, +10% dps after dodge, +dodge aoe, +7%crit from behind, etc.) whereas most other classes lose dps when they need to reposition. Coincidentally, 99cm is my favorite fractal.

Not really. Weaver has a blink aswell and slb has leaps. Both are meta in fractals and have just way higher damage. 99cm would be the fractal where thief would struggle the most probably. Everything is just burst only except for mama.This demonstrates that you have little thief experience. What you don't realize is that daredevil bursts happen to reset at about the same rate as the phase changes. A good daredevil will keep weakening charge and fist flurry to line it up with both the dodge and assasin's signet use anyways. This lines up with most CC/burst phases. You can claim that thief burst sucks but I can tell you that it is on par with what I see in 100-200ess requirement PUGs based on arcdps. In fact,

I am consistently outdpsing most other dps in 99cm

. So please, can we stop with the "thief cant burst" BS. If you don't believe me then install a dps meter and go check for yourself. Yes, weaver has good dps. As per snowcrow, thief dps is similar to weaver. Yes, weavers have more burst but like I've already said, more burst doesnt matter if the enemy is insta-dead. Overdamaging doesn't speed up runs.

Not only do I call out the mechanics but I also do anoms/balls/healing/reflects/blocks/skip/portDps really shouldn't do any of those. Dps is there to do as much damage as possible and healing as definitely something a thief cant do.I was pointing out that thief is flexible. I rather not heal but if I have to I can. Venoms can add heal on attack, the heal skill can be shared, stealths can heal, combo fields can heal, theif can get increased rez speed when stealthed and can provide constant reflect/projectile block. Some steal skills heal and in some progression raid groups I become the main healer for downed people because of instant F2 rez every time. Detonate plasma, Unstable Artifact, Soul Stone Venom are used extensively in raids. Don't tell me what I can't do with my class when I am already doing it!As I have already said, thief burst dps is on par with other dps classes in 100-200ess PUGs. Yes other classes can have more burst on golems but that is irrelevant.

Weavers and soulbeasts can achieve 100k+ quite regularly. I'm not sure if DD is capable of doing that. Slb and DH are way stronger on fractals than on golem because phases are over after 1-3skills. DD doesn't really have a "press 1 button do 300k dmg" skill.You're ignoring what I just said. Yes some classes can get higher burst dps in a single attack but this does not matter on enemies that are downed in a single attack. I do see 100k+ on DD but those numbers are meaningless when the enemy is insta-dead. If the burst lasts for more than one second then thief is very competitive. If it's less than a second then it doesn't even matter. 0.2 sec vs 0.3 sec? Really? Does anyone care? In a PUG?

I'm not arguing everyone should play thief but don't tell me thief is no good because other classes can theoretically minmax better when NO ONE ON LFG is able to play anywhere near these theoretical minmax numbers. Having someone with a lower DPS than me tell me that I don't have high enough dps is absolutely retarded yet regularly occurs.

[Painbow.6059]

I suppose to an extent class scepticism is somewhat justified when one initially joins the group based on the average player. I agree that a well-played DD, or Reaper for a further example, will trash an average pug DH or whatever, but average pug DD's and Reapers are usually really bad. Saying that I've been joining or making fractals groups in the 150-250kp range with myself on Reaper and my buddy on Daredevil to meme around for the past couple of days, and not faced any negative comments or overly long LFG fills

[Vinceman.4572]

@pfc.9430 said:A good thief will also smooth your run.

The problem is for one good dd out there there are dozens of thiefs that are incompetent.

[Yasi.9065]

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@"pfc.9430" said:A good thief will also smooth your run.

The problem is for one good dd out there there are dozens of thiefs that are incompetent.

Undoubtedly true, but how do you know the thief that joined isnt just such a nugget? I like having daredevils, holosmiths or powerchronos - and yes, even condi fire/quickbrands - in my daily t4+cms fractals runs.Because lets be absolutely honest here:Theres only a handful of "pugs" that actually can burst down the bosses in cms fast enough to not make good use of the extra utility those professions provide.And for normal t4 fractals, that extra utility enables most groups to play without that stupid healbrand and get more dps out of it.

Ofc, if you get a rotten tomato that just plays daredevil because of the perceived easy rotation but doesnt know any of its utilities, then you have to kick him. Easy enough, even if you arent with friends, because most fractal players are already quite intolerant towards those professions.

[Genesis.5169]

Make your own group call it chill t4s and call it a day i don't know why people complain about other peoples parties so much.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Meh, it's a good thing if you think about it. It's a filter, but for you. Those people are people you shouldn't be playing with anyways, given their unpleasant tendencies.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Yasi.9065 said:

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@"pfc.9430" said:A good thief will also smooth your run.

The problem is for one good dd out there there are dozens of thiefs that are incompetent.

Undoubtedly true, but how do you know the thief that joined isnt just such a nugget? I like having daredevils, holosmiths or powerchronos - and yes, even condi fire/quickbrands - in my daily t4+cms fractals runs.Because lets be absolutely honest here:Theres only a handful of "pugs" that actually can burst down the bosses in cms fast enough to not make good use of the extra utility those professions provide.And for normal t4 fractals, that extra utility enables most groups to play without that stupid healbrand and get more dps out of it.

This thread is about CMs mostly. As far as regular T4s, sure you can run what ever you want in them (experienced players can run anything they want anywhere mostly, but that is not the issue here).

As to how do we know of someone is a good or bad thief? No one does, but most players don't want to give it a try in the first place and assume that a class which is better at the job overall will have a better chance of performing to their desire.

This is not about if daredevils can clear CMs and T4 fractals. They comfortably can, any class can in the hands of a capable player.

This is about how completely random strangers group and how they try to minimize potential problems.

@Yasi.9065 said:Ofc, if you get a rotten tomato that just plays daredevil because of the perceived easy rotation but doesnt know any of its utilities, then you have to kick him. Easy enough, even if you arent with friends, because most fractal players are already quite intolerant towards those professions.

How do we know if a player knows how to play his Daredevil? Where does topic creator fall if he mentions benchmarks which are clearly unrepresentative of his classes performance capabilities in burst scenarios, rather uses Impact Strike over Basi Venom and rather replace a support role with a dps then run a full support composition?

Let's say the run goes bad, a thief does excellent damage relative to his party mates, but cc is lacking and 1 type of boon is missing. Who does the group kick? The Daredevil/thief who knows how to greed damage and is top dps thanks to being less reliant on say alacrity or cooldowns (which might make sense if the thief is only greeding damage)? Or one of the other classes, potentially not fixing the actual issue at hand?

and then we get another thread along the lines of:"Oh players are so toxic, I just got kicked out of my fractal group even though I was top dps only because I was not on a meta class yada yada yada."

[Vinceman.4572]

Even in T4 where you can play everything most of the daredevils are just pure garbage in comparison with lots of other classes. That's why even average groups don't like to see daredevils.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Vinceman.4572 said:Even in T4 where you can play everything most of the daredevils are just pure garbage in comparison with lots of other classes. That's why even average groups don't like to see daredevils.

That's the issue isn't it, people 'comparing' classes and builds. The reality is that content is years old and any class is good enough if played by a reasonable player.

[lare.5129]

who care reality ? mostly no one. There is meta, and if I see dps class non guard - something bad.And why other players should worry that someone want think that he clever than others?write dps DH - take meta, and no matter that it can do -50% dps compared .. And main idea - we like it and take it.

[Nephalem.8921]

@lare.5129 said:who care reality ? mostly no one. There is meta, and if I see dps class non guard - something bad.And why other players should worry that someone want think that he clever than others?write dps DH - take meta, and no matter that it can do -50% dps compared .. And main idea - we like it and take it.

Dh is not the meta dps though.