Jugglemonkey.8741

Short of gaslighting OCX players into believing their clocks are all wrong, you ain't gonna "fix" overnight populations. Unless you wanna do something overly draconian like harshly limit the number of players in USA/EU prime time too, to make it fair and consistent with the limits to OCX.

Tbh there isn't any particular reason you couldn't use a bow over D/P on the build I posted and get the best of both. You'd have less stealth than with D/P but pretty much the only builds that would force me to swap weapons are heavy condi builds, so taking some of the condi options I listed would alleviate that issue too.

I run this when I'm scouting, hiding in objectives or avoiding ganks while moving around the map; http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAQhrlNwEZbMLmJeaTtvKA-zVJYjR9/ZkpqqXpqGPEB5fjqA-w I take these traits in acro and SA to balance regen while in stealth and survivability when revealed. The health regen bonus from Merciful Ambush actually applies to you when you stealth as well, so between that, the regen on Upper Hand and from Shadow's Rejuvenation you will heal around 940 health per second while in stealth for the first 3s, so if you camp rifle and use the stealth from evade from Silent Scope you can get a lot of regen just from evading people's attacks. I chose the top traits in Deadeye simply because if you want to use Spotter's Shot to immob things while an ally trains it down it gives you more initiative for more shots, Silent Scope is really the only must-have trait there. If you get revealed, dura runes and Flickering Shadows on top of 3.4k armor gives tons of damage reduction, and you get a free stunbreak with Hard to Catch that also handily refills your endurance. Instant reflexes is there because of longbow pew rangers, between these traits and liberal use of Sniper's Cover you really shouldn't have much trouble with them. If a group really decides you need to die just place shadow portal, kite out with Shadowstep and Death's Retreat, wait til they engage then port away and mount up. You also have permastealth while out of combat from placing Sniper's Cover then 4x Heartseeker, so once you get out of combat you can just hide and move away that way. Condi is usually less of a problem because of the regen and double cleansing sigil, but if you're running into a lot of condi roamers swap durability runes for antitoxin and swap Merciful Ambush to Shadow's Embrace and Instant Reflexes for Pain Response. I usually get more milage out of the traits I listed tho as most zerg & gank builds are going to be power based, so if you're just scouting or watching fights and you're aware of when to dodge you're usually fine.

If it makes you feel better, they nerfed the skill that gave quickness on specter (Sc/P 3) because they didn't want specter to give perma quickness on top of perma alacrity. But instead of simply, you know, removing the quickness, they changed the target cap of the skill from 3 to 1, which only really succeeded in nerfing the support and damage of that skill by 66% while leaving the perma quickness and alacrity intact. So at least they are consistent in the way they nerf things.

It used to be much better for S/P when Pulmonary Impact was OP, as then you didn't take acro for the damage but for the defensive options. Swindler's equilibrium also used to flat out recharge your steal instead of reducing the CD by 25%, allowing you to get much more boonrip and control in a short space of time. But PI hitting like a wet noodle combined with a fair nerf to Swindler's Equilibrium plus heavy nerfs to the cooldowns of Instant Reflexes (40s->300s) and Pain Response (16/18s-> 60s) made critical strikes so much better by comparison.

That's because there'd still be some people that don't dodge for RP reasons

When a thread gets necro'd like this, can the "2 years later" text have it's own image like in spongebob?

You are correct, although I think we (the English) get it more from the French side of things. There is a thing in French where you often don't say the last letter of a word unless that letter is e, hence why français is pronounced fran-say and anglaise is pronounced on-glaze (pretty rough, but you get the point). Edit: I just looked this up and whether anglaise has the e is more to do with whether the noun is masculine and feminine, so bad example but hopefully you get the idea. Edit: scepter (n.) 1300, ceptre, from Old French sceptre (12c.), from Latin sceptrum "royal staff," from Greek skeptron "staff to lean on; royal scepter;" in transferred use, "royalty," from root of skeptein "to prop or stay, lean on." Apparently a cognate with Old English sceaft (see shaft (n. 1)). https://www.etymonline.com/word/scepter#:~:text=scepter (n.)&text=1300%2C ceptre%2C from Old French,1)). Case of point for the french root for -tre

He means as a buffer against damage, not a buff to damage. In general, Dire will be your best defensive set, carrion will be the most offensive hybrid set, and celestial is the defensive hybrid set. Tbh you can't go too far wrong with any of the sets you listed as long as you understand the limitations of each and choose runes and sigils that compliment the gear, for instance, condi duration runes for carrion or might/boon duration with strength sigil for celestial. I'd argue that a carrion/viper mix is the best all round set as it works with both daredevil and deadeye and it won't get you focussed as much as dire will because of the toughness in PvE. Edit: Keep the dire gear handy though, in WvW it will be better than carrion unless you really know what you're doing.

I think the single biggest issue I have with specter is the forced traitline choices. It feels to me like you must choose trickery and SA, or if you drop SA you must have D/P as your alt set, and that's not amazing from a buildcrafting PoV.

Well, they need to rework acro after all. You never know ^^

Just answering one part of your post, but scorpion wire is indeed visible if cast from stealth which makes it easily dodgeable at range. It's a projectile, and shows up as such.

Apparently this speaks to your level too.

Shroud feels clunky and ineffective on full marauder besides just to tank hits. 1 is nice to have but honestly shortbow auto does more damage, 2 never hits anything, 3 is nice but could use a little more range, 4 is nice but short range and the damage feels low, 5 is decent enough. I feel like it could use more range on most of the abilities as half the time you just don't hit anything unless you're stood directly on top of it and it's too dumb to move.

That is a known issue with how when you're dismounted it takes a split second for your armor stats to be applied, in other words for that split second you have base health. Rapid fire plus quickness and one wolf pack hit frequently enough to exploit this issue and do enough damage to your total % health in that split second that it does far more damage than it would have done if your stats were applied properly, although it is not an exploit in and of itself and more a result of how the code works. People can have situational awareness good enough to predict and counter stealth attacks based on when you last stealthed or off of audio cues, and it is possible to trim the animations of specific skills to throw off the timing of a good opponent. An example is when fighting a good thief who is looking to time his steal for the end of your dodge, you can use withdraw to trim the aftercast and throw off his timing. Nothing here to disagree with, but nothing here is relevant to hackers in particular. There are a subset of players that are abusive with or without hacks, hacking is sadly irrelevant to the discussion you have framed. Maybe they do. Thing is, most of what you've said can be explained by your fatigue (read below) and your opponent simply knowing how to fight thieves. Play condi. I'm not even joking, the majority of hackers and cheaters I've seen die horrifically to condi if you play well. Kill them again and again until they get the message. As someone who works 24-30h shifts and mains thief, fatigue can affect my timing to the point where I'm basically unable to play thief after shifts and have to sleep first. Are you sure you're not just experiencing your brain lagging in between keystrokes? Seriously, it's a thing when you've had that little sleep. Just because you're not aware of how someone did something, doesn't mean that thing was impossible. That's a logical fallacy that requires you have all knowledge about a subject.

5s will work, but it will be less easy to work with because it will require more knowledge of game mechanics. Don't think of it as an emergency heal, instead you'll want to use the trait to pre-emptively barrier your group ready for an incoming burst in much the same way the guardian will apply aegis. So imagine there's a big hit coming from your raid/fractal boss that's gonna chunk the group for 90% of it's health, and your guardian is a bit lax on the aegis application. You enter shroud and attack while tethering your squishy DPS ally to make sure he's doing okay. When you get to 5s in shroud or just before the boss attacks, use your channelled blast then leave shroud for the barrier for said squishy then immediately place a smoke field. You've now guaranteed that your squishy will live and set up a stealth to sneak attack heal anyone who needs it. This scenario would be better if the wind up time was 3s and you gained 20% of your shroud as healing per second, or if you kept the 5s timer and made it 15% of your shroud per second, but it's still useable.

Tbh I'd have been happier with the devs just removing quickness from endless night if that was the concern, as reducing the three target cap is going to have implications for support and for DPS. But we will see how it plays I guess.

Yeah, I was alluding to warclaw as it's the single biggest change to how small scale plays, as now stealth is a bigger factor in both avoiding and participating in outnumbered fights than what mobility is. I'm not gonna say that it's responsible for everything, but I would say it'd be wise to consider the impact of everyone suddenly now having thief level mobility when before they did not. In any case it's nice to see you don't let a bias blind you to a reasonable argument ^^

I read all kinds of threads on these forums, and I'm free to reply to comments as I see fit. As are you 🙂

Well, you'd still have sniper's cover which is pretty immense as well. But yeah, I'm thinking mobility and utility while standing, damage and bunker-ness when knelt, and cursed bullet to set up spikes. I don't have a problem with moving slowly while knelt, but I usually run withdraw, roll for ini and shadowstep,. so I don't have that much problem kiting either.

Tbh I'm half expecting the stealth on dodge to get reworked after End of Dragons arrives, it seems to be the pattern that the previous spec gets brought in line and this is the main trait that causes a lot of annoyance for anyone fighting a deadeye. That said I have no idea what they should rework it into, rifle needs some sort of stealth access outside of stolen skills and it needs to have counterplay so a smart opponent can counter it. If it was me I'd probably redesign rifle again since most thieves avoid using rifle 3 in any capacity, it can only be an improvement imo. I'd do something like make standing rifle 3 a single shot that works like ranger longbow 3 so you have to hit something to get the stealth, keep it at 5-6 ini as well if you like to prevent spamming. I'd put death's judgement back on kneeling rifle 3 so you can cast it without stealth but it keeps the self reveal and it still consumes malice for the damage scaling, I'd replace the sneak attack with cursed bullet, give the skill a reveal when used and have it consume malice for boonrip, and return to kneeling for stealth with an ammo count. That way you get more and better utility, you clean up the skills that nobody uses and you give 3 ways of getting stealth (standing rifle 3, kneel and stolen items) that all have counterplay. That's my two cents anyways.

It's a popular thing in PvP atm from what I hear? So it figures you'd see more roaming too. They are also "safe" options as they heavily discourage melee while also having decent sustain and ranged options, so they're able to deal with more things on a single build that way.

I guess it depends on context there. I see less power mesmers and warriors solo roaming for sure, and the few that you do see are usually the exceptional players that have played that class since release. I see far more condi mesmers roaming and warriors on zerg builds than I see thieves though. Also not sure what server Xenisis is on, Saerni is US and I'm EU so there may be differences there too.

Well, let's apply logic here shall we. Roaming was a thing. Now it is not so much. Thieves always had stealth, high damage, and all the other stuff that is always complained about, and as stated they have been a strong roaming class for 9 years. So, if thief was always the way it is when roaming was popular on all classes and now roaming is suddenly less popular unless you're a thief, it is far more reasonable to ask what has changed than what has remained constant. I'll give you a clue. It starts with W. Edit: Beyond that, the general skill level of people has improved as has been noted by others in this thread. I used to watch the videos of a thief called Yishis when I first started the game, looking back on them now the players he kills play appallingly badly. Here's an example:

Looks good so far. I'd echo what the above post said about Endless Night being more interesting with 3 targets instead of 1, but it is a single target healer so I can't complain about the skill being single target lol.