Jugglemonkey.8741

6 ini. Infiltrator's arrow costs 8 ini in competitive modes, which is where shortbow sees the most play.

I wasn't apologising. I was simply stating my intent was not to insult you, but to show how you come off when you make arguments that make no sense based on evidence that is clearly not supporting your conclusion. You give a good example of this flawed reasoning here: A costume that any class could wear. By this logic, you could argue that necromancer stole the shroud mechanic from warrior. Where are you getting the idea that Palawa Joko is the son of Mad King Thorn? The sources you quote clearly tell you he is not. From the first paragraph of the first link: Prince Oswald Thorn was born in Kryta in the eighth century AE. Already showing early signs of sociopathy,[1] he became a prolific prankster and troublemaker. During a visit of diplomats from Elona, Oswald met with the diplomat's son Palawa Joko. Viewing the young Thorn ripping wings off of flies as amateurish for not utilizing torture to its fullest extent, Joko secretly taught Oswald what creatures would survive torture and be of use afterwards, suggesting that Oswald should direct his sadism towards his servants instead. The young prince challenged Joko to a pun contest much to the latter's horror, and the pranks escalated into a clash between the two youths, the first battle to take place between the future lich king and Mad King.[2] And another quote from https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Palawa_Joko: According to the Private Property of P.I. Joko written by young "Iggy", however, Joko appears to have been the son of an Elonian diplomat (with the province of origin unknown) in the eighth century AE. In his youth, he accompanied his mother on her diplomatic tours and visited Kryta where, while suffering from boredom, he met with young Prince Oswald Thorn who was already showing signs of violence. Regarding the actual point you were trying to make: There is not a single instance of the words necromancy or necromancer in either of the links you provided. Thorn ended up in the underworld because he was dead: The tyranny of Mad King Thorn came to an end in approximately 825 AE when an angry mob stormed Castle Thorn, ending his earthly rule. The rebels intended to kill Oswald's eighth wife and son as well during the assault, ending the Thorn dynasty, and beseech his cousin to take the throne and plead forgiveness. Worried that the Mad King would try to return using his magic, his killers hid his body parts in boxes and buried them in locations scattered across Tyria, obscuring their locations with magical seals. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mad_King_Thorn So if your logic is that he was a necromancer because he came from the underworld, then that means my thief is also a necromancer because he was killed by Balthazar and came back from death during the Path of Fire main story. If you're saying that he's a necromancer because he married one, well, I guess Kasmeer Meade isn't a mesmer anymore either. Your evidence has literally nothing to do with necromancers, as I and others have shown. Do you see where I am getting the idea that you don't read what you quote?

The problem is that all the evidence you've ever given on these forums only politely supports the conclusion that you don't read things before quoting them. No offence intended.

The main issue in terms of sustain that you will run into is that almost all the sustain thief has is dependant on hitting an enemy, so where other classes can kite and heal up with thief you're going to struggle to sustain against anything that doesn't outright tank the attacks. That said, cele deadeye and specter are really nice for solo PvE, you just have to be aware of the limits of the base class.

The problem was that when these changes to the backstab cooldown were introduced, you could get 15k stabs on the right build. DH was commonly acknowledged as a thief counter in the HoT expansion cycle, I used to one shot a DH player I used to duel with by using basi venom, 5>bound>steal>1. The projectile on black powder with basi proc would interrupt and stun through aegis then the damage from mug, bound, backstab and pulmonary impact would delete the DH. Having one attempt to land backstab on an attack that would delete anything glassy with less than 16k health was pretty reasonable at the time, but we don't tend to hit anywhere near those damage numbers anymore so the cooldown might look strange to newer players without that context. Disabling auto attacks is very useful on thief because then you can drop target and use heartseeker 3-4 times in one black powder. Having the longer stealth duration usually offsets the issue you're having, as you can wait for the opponent to dodge the predicted stab at 3s of stealth then hit him at the end of the dodge while he's animation locked. Using shadow shot or steal to hit that window at the end of the dodge both work well if you time it right, steal in particular would deal with aegis before the stab (which incidentally is why you shouldn't spam steal to gap close at the start of a fight). As for holding down the auto button, I have my 1 key also bound to a thumb button on my mouse so I can hold it down while keeping full wasd and dodge capability (dodge is x for me), as well as binding the 5 key to a thumb button and steal to F. It works pretty well for thief, not so well for other classes with more F1-4 keys though, so your milage may vary. Remember that you now get 3 initiative back from shadow arts, so the whole thing is less punishing than it used to be. Try taking roll for initiative, shadow step and blinding powder as utilities, you will have four stunbreaks, three ways to cleanse condis and two ways to regain initiative with that setup, and using roll for ini into withdraw is very handy against attacks that track you in stealth like ranger rapid fire. If that isn't enough, try playing SA deadeye with D/P and rifle instead of daredevil. If you're still struggling with ini with shadow's rejuvenation and maleficent 7 then it's your play that's the issue, not the class.

Tbh I'm more annoyed it's so soon, I'm not sure I have money to spare on an expac right now. That said I made fun of HoT being announced too early and the fact I'd almost lost interest by the time it came out, so I guess I can't have it both ways.

The stolen skill system. Do you mean the stolen skills that all do the same thing, just with a different boon/condition application depending on target? If you had a build revolving around what conditions deadeye stolen skills apply, you were probably the only person in the game who even paid attention to it outside of deadeyes blinding other thieves to avoid a backstab. I'm sorry if you feel left out by this change, but that's the risk with playing non meta builds that focus on little used mechanics. The more obscure the mechanic, the more likely it is to get totally destroyed in favour of the meta.

It's not a bug, it's autoattack doing what it's supposed to, but you should really learn to play with autoattack off when playing thief for this and many other reasons. I have my 1 key bound to a thumb button on my mouse so I can hold it down to auto attack while moving around, that works well for me.

It used to give 2 ini every 5 or so seconds but it was nerfed after S/P became meta in PvP for a few weeks, because sword thief apparently isn't allowed to be competitive. In typical ANet fashion they also nerfed the damage, initiative cost and stun duration of pistol whip on top of that, so I don't know why they can't revert this change, but hey.

About this time last year I was still hyped about specter. Now, not so much.

They actually did this once in HoT. The entire thief community hated it and it was reverted a few days later because of the mass thief community outcry. So I can say with a pretty good degree of certainty that it won't happen again. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-1-2015 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Why-did-you-fix-Steal

You could say the same thing about server transfers in WvW. They're still here 10 years later, despite the negative effect they have on server population due to players overstacking servers. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that ANet benefits from gems sales. Hmm. The buff to celestial gear was intentional. So was the change to the starter gear for Lv80 boosts. You can show as much from the patch notes I quoted. The fact that you can only get Lv80 boosts from the gem store or from buying an expac means that ANet profits from this change. This game is a money making venture and WvW is not the target audience of the celestial gear changes, so expecting ANet to change celestial gear for WvW is more than a little optimistic, to put it nicely.

Clearly you didn't read my first post considering I didn't actually give my opinion on cele stats. I said that cele is strong, that ANet clearly wants it to be strong for new players who use a Lv80 boost, and the fact that ANet directly profit from this means it's unlikely to change, so given that's the case people would be better off getting used to cele gear as it is now. Anything else is an inference on your part.

....I know, that's why I said it was a good thing. I'm beginning to think people just read half my post and react to what they think I was saying lol.

That was actually my overall point: cele is here to stay, get used to it & find something else to complain about.

Hey all, just wanted to clear something up. I don't personally care one way or another if ANet are making money from people buying the Lv80 boosts, tbh I expect them as a company to do stuff that makes them money above all else because that's kinda the point of them existing. I also don't have a problem with the actual reason they changed the Lv80 boost gear to cele, as Subversion points out it's a fairly reasonable change and it makes sense on a lot of levels. My main point is that since they have doubled down and made celestial gear part of the "I'm new to this class, what does this do?" experience through the Lv80 boost that comes with buying expacs, and because selling expacs is one of the main ways ANet makes money, you shouldn't expect it to get changed anytime soon because it's not catering to the WvW audience in any way whatsoever. They are fine with it being strong because it will bring positive feedback on the new, paid, content, the same way that new elites are allowed to be strong for the lifespan of an expac then see a flurry of nerfs when the next spec gets released. If you want to see actual meaningful change at this point, you'd be better off asking for nerfs to boons themselves so they don't make up such a huge part of a spec's effectiveness and for that nerf to be compensated by buffing skill coefficients across the board. Yes, that will require changing your power & condi builds as well. Ideally you'd keep everything with perma boons at the same power level they are now, but make it so specialised builds are more effective against celestial because there's a lesser reliance on boons when it comes to overall effectiveness. Celestial stays the same in PvE, and it stops being best in slot for small scale WvW, everyone's happy.

Key word was "usually"

To be honest, I'm a thief main and I usually don't attack low ranked players unless they attack me in an effort to not totally put people off the mode. So keep your knives to yourselves while you do your dailies and I'll do the same, at least until you're bronze rank.

This. If rifle 2 and 3 (standing and kneeling) were more than just damage dealers/ways to build initiative, you could buff the set to make the playstyle more interesting while also making it less spammy.

Pretty much the title. It would be one thing if they just buffed the set to being as strong as it is by adding the concentration and expertise, but ANet also changed the gear you get from the Lv80 boost from the gem store from full soldiers to full exotic celestial. It went from being a relatively rare set with a time gate to being available to anyone with a credit card within 6 months of the set being buffed. Sure. Anet wants it to be strong so players new to a class can do well on it and experiment with different builds on a single gear set. I can accept that, that's a good thing for many reasons. That said, while ANet directly profits from this move in terms of gem/expac sales it's hard not to see it as an intentional act on ANet's part, much like the elite specs from the latest expac being left bonkers OP for years on end until the next one comes out. It doesn't matter what you think about celestial stats, or what I think about them for that matter. It's clear that celestial stats are intentionally being left as strong as they are. The boon spam is also being left as it is for the same reason. The balance the game had in vanilla is gone, this is the new normal. The sooner people realise that and accept it, the happier they'll be. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level-80_Boost https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/95447-game-update-notes-may-11-2021/ - The patch celestial was changed to include concentration and expertise. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/102830-game-update-notes-october-5-2021/ - The patch the Lv80 boost was changed to give every class celestial gear.

Yes, I agree. Players that do more should have better accounts. So players that have played consistently for AP for the last 10 years of the game should have better accounts than a guy who's only done that for 3 years. It's not the older player's fault that you only just started playing, my dude.

Idiocy isn't limited to any specific class. The main reason I don't play sPvP is because half the time I'm the only one fighting after the other team get a 100 point lead, decap doesn't work if my team is sat at spawn and the enemy are spready across the points with nothing to fight. And that's saying nothing about the kamikaze idiots on other classes that spend the entire match running to far and instadying while simultaneously flaming the thief for not decapping, not realising they're keeping that one enemy player at far the entire game while his team sit their 4 vs our 3 on mid, and also not realising that if they went mid I could join them for the 5v4 then decap when the guy on far comes to help. Unfortunately it's just easier to blame the thief than to realise that you're the reason the thief can't do his job.

Nope, it's buggy on both genders. Mine just change colour randomly lol

Yeah, it was probably me haha. The build idea came from a discussion on the Eck/Thief forum guild discord, I found that the heal per second food has insane synergy with the traits but the original idea for the shadestep/sanctuary rune/sword 2 spam comes from there. Here's my version of the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaABwitrlhyOYssU2JeqWXxfA-zRJYyxfhkTIEZCUdV58BJE+7w8GfA-e The original idea was to run plaguedoctor gear and go for the healing on port with sword dagger. You could run the build with sword pistol pretty happily, the original build actually was experimenting with P/D. The main reason for me running S/D was that Sc/P is a better single target heal and the offhand dagger gives you some stealth and therefore protection access, but if you're avoiding scepter then S/P is probably a better choice overall. I'm actually using S/D 90% of the time, just using Sc/P for niche situations or when I really want one particular guy to not die. I like the analogy the post above me used of putting the left shoe on the right foot: sadly this is exactly how I felt after trying to be a hybrid healer too. Unfortunately a lot of consumables and sigils that increase torment duration do not increase the duration of the torment applied by rot wallow venom, which leaves you with very few options if you want to make that tick for any meaningful amount. Hence the ritualist gear. There's always going to be a tradeoff for taking more utility, but it feels so drastic on specter for some reason. Frankly, this build is *severely* held back by the forced choice of trickery. Dropping deadly arts for shadow arts will tank your personal DPS, and the damage supplied by the extra heal on port for rot wallow venom was always meant to be supplementary DPS while you paused to heal someone, not a main source. If you could take deadly arts AND shadow arts though, this build could actually be something. Keep an eye out for it if they ever decide to revert the specter -3 initiative tradeoff.

I know, but hear me out. What if the big heal supportive traits in specter (the bottom row) were reworked with tradeoffs built in so that they could buff them back to the level needed for support specter to work without making DPS/PvP specter some unstoppable force in competitive modes? The idea is that a healing/support specter wouldn't have competitive damage anyways, so the changes would force you to build full support/heal or full DPS. For example: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Consume_Shadows Now: Gain stacks of Consume Shadows at regular intervals while in Shadow Shroud. Exiting Shadow Shroud consumes your remaining shadow force and heals allies based on the number of stacks you have gained. Allies that are fully healed receive the rest of the value in barrier. New trait: (Removed stack mechanic, just a % conversion, 100% for PvE, 33-50% for PvP/WvW) Exiting Shadow Shroud consumes your remaining shadow force and heals allies. Allies that are fully healed receive the rest of the value in barrier (can now overheal and res downed players as before). Taking this trait reduces all outgoing Physical and Condition damage by 15%. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Traversing_Dusk Now: Heal allies in the area around you when you shadowstep. Gain shadow force for each ally in the radius. Wells grant alacrity on their initial impact. New trait: Heal allies in the area around you when you shadowstep. Gain shadow force for each ally in the radius. Shadowsteps give alacrity to nearby allies (duration to be determined, 2-3s base?). Taking this trait reduces all outgoing Physical and Condition damage by 15%. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadestep Now: Siphon now grants you barrier when targeting enemies, and it revives allies when targeting them. Shadowstepping breaks your barrier and grants it to nearby allies, proportional to the number of allies affected. New trait: Same as above, with Taking this trait reduces all outgoing Physical and Condition damage by 15%. in return, the % healed on downed allies is higher in PvP/WvW than it is currently. Supported by; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dark_Sentry Rot wallow venom now applies two stacks of torment per venom application. Taking all three traits would allow you to get enough damage to tag mobs through Rot Wallow Venom while being able to focus on heals/support. DPS builds don't focus on rot wallow venom anyways, so wouldn't be affected to much by this. I know it's an off the wall idea, but short of redesigning the whole spec I'm not sure where to go on it. Thoughts?