Flowki.7194

+1 is litterally the safest and easiest damage application in the game, and thief is the best at it. In any given +1, players will turn on the thief, who will simply escape, allowing the thiefs team mates free damage OR, they continue attacking the same target, and thief gets free damage. Either way, that is low risk, high impact gameplay, and its damage can be utilised at lower skill levels spamming 1 button. I won't be convinced the class has a high skill floor when the average thief tries to play it like an SPB. Its like saying necro has a high skill floor becuase they over rely on the double life, push the back line and die with no wurm placed. Necro has no business pushing back lines and complaining when they die, just as thief has no business trying to 1v1 anything that moves. I mean, does a full support core gaurd have a high skill floor becuase it tried to side node?

Any thief who learns to simply back cap and +1 will have no further problems. They are now playing the lowest risk, easiest damage application spec/s in the game. If they are doing anything other than that (like stealing into a 1v2 vs plats.. becuase they got away with it hundreds of times vs golds) then punishment is self inflicted, stop falling victim to the crutches of the class, and then gas lighting people into thinking thief is hard to play and punishing. It isn't.. with self control it is the king of +1. Once skilled enough, it then the king of "lets try kill this guy 1v1, if he's too good, Ill leave". With the correct mentality, it is high reward and low risk at low skill floor, with practice, it remains low risk at ceiling around good players, give me some solid evidence to say otherwise, that doesnt include newb/cocky thieves taking on stupid engagements.

(+1,000 power, +1,000 precision, +500 healing power, +500 ferocity) (+1,000 power, +1,000 condition damage, +500 precision, +500 toughness) Lol.. I get the feeling support lines are going to benefit alot here.. or its going to be the end of full support 😜

I played rev/vindi almost exlusively over the last year, and vindi was very rare to see, hammer vindi at that?.. had more chance of seing a support engi. Herald was also rare, but that is the spec I seen the most of, and 9/10 it was played by a genuine p2+ vet. You just have to look at vindi weapon abilitys. Every hard hitter it does comes with a firework display of broadcasting. The only reason hammer vindi actually works atm is becuase it has access to range, ontop of the shear number of abilitys to look out for, thats the real key to it. As soon as (if) hammer is nerfed into the ground, you'll see once again how bad vindi is. Power melee vindi does not do well at all in melee group fights, it won't last more than 10 seconds before having to get out. As a 1v1 dueler, again, its abilitys are very highly broadcast, along with obscure cleansing access. So yeah, think abou that, if you take away power vindis range option its just a highly broadcast melee fighter with inferior self sustain mechanics compared to any other dueler. There is a reason I gravitated away from power vindi, and to condi core/vindi as a far better group fighter+side noder. The current hammer vindi in meta is an absolute fluke.

I think with thief it is more about the fundementally 1 sided encounter. It doesnt matter if thief was meta, great, good or garbedge, its mechanics are annoying to fight. Stealth classes are suppose to be sneaky and elusive sure.. but that doesn't justify thiefs obnoxious low risk mechanics. Mesmer is very much in that same catigory for its own reasons. Take for example, I am in a 1v1 on home, I see a thief coming in for the +1.. I mightaswell just go afk. I can't attack the thief becuase it has to much escape, I can't keep attacking to try and win the 1v1 on the other guy, becuase lets not pretend thief does low damage. Then, I don't really have much chance of escaping becuase thief mobility+backstabs. So in a nutshell, unless I was just about to win that 1v1 to transition into the next 1v1, its over, initiate time waste mode. In a 1v1, its just a boring duel. Stand there, drop AOE, wait for him to get greedy and die, or he leaves. Good thieves don't tend to get greedy.. so yo just die or they leave. The duels are so degenerate I actually started bating thieves, letting my HP get to 20% in the hope they over extend. Ironically, I am the one taking all the risk.

Pre-patch, we both played it, lets say over 1000 kills between us?, wiping entire groups in 1 combo at times, and not a single complaint about hammer was made. Just as an amusing observation, its pretty fking amazing what that single change to hammer 5 has achieved, from useless to meta. Anet; I BET YOU COULD NOT DO THE SAME WITH REN

Hah, trick stabs and amby had people raging pretty hard though.. but at-least the skill level was undeniably high. Gw2; Steal > 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Hang on mate, being a side noder and being able to hold out 2v1 are not the same thing. A duelist is a duelist, as in 1v1.. I have no problem with a spec gearing for, and being strong in a 1v1, but SPB/Druid/Untamed have took that to game breaking levels, making 1v1's far too one sided for the skill input. At higher skill, they can then hold out 2v1 + LOS abusing, which is BAD GAME DESIGN. The only specs that should be able to hold out 2v1, for a short duration, are full supports. That reason is clear, they forgo the ability to kill ANYTHING outside of an afk player, in order to have the utility to support team mates. One of the paybacks for that, is they have to be able to survive the onslaught of DPS through mitigation.. since they have no DPS to kill the attackers (the ultimate mitigation). If you fundementally beleive that just picking SPB should entitle you to hold out 2v1 then I guess we have very different ideas of effort/skill/reward. I could accept SPB holding out if it was actually harder to play in order to unlock that reward, but it isn't.. leading to this situation where in 1v1, it is nion impossible to draw mistaked from the SPB that it cannot recover from. No offense to spb mains, but it is a cheap, crutch duelist in its current itteration. Untamed with maces (relative to normal power untamed) has reached that status also, easier to play than its previous virsion, and dominating 1v1s through shear stab/daze/cc spam. These are crutches. Again, nobody is suggesting vindi is weak atm. However, taking an unbias objective stance, vindi only brings dps to the table, nothing else, and it can be heavily pressured if you time CC between evades. Im telling you out of pure honesty.. I'd rather fight vindis than fight SPB/mace rangers of any sort. The design of those specs reduces the punishment for face tanking.. which means you can play flawlessly in 80% of the encounter (as in applying/avoiding dps or CC), and they can still turn that fight around just from getting it right 20% of the time. That, again.. is the definition of crutch spec.. and more importantly to note; they are both power spec, see title/op post? You can also add DH to the list, look how it was with stealth, look how it is now.. mechanics that essentially allow it to face tank while dropping traps, and then spams unblockables to apply its damage, never mind actual timing here.. just spam it and see what happens. Yet another example of crutch crept power mechanics is SLB compared to original power untamed. I think we all know SLB is far easier to apply damage than power untamed, and the micromanedgement of pet/unlseash from the original untamed power builds. WB is back in popular use, which is still front loaded to land dps, then has ample mobility to escape when boons fade. DE essentially gets stealth just for not being afk.. yet another easier step into damage application relative to its DD counterpart, do I reallly need to keep going on? Many power specs are not risky.. and applying the damage has never been easier. Ele isnt exempt either, the lates arcane shield is just another example of cheap access to easy stab. At-least back in cata meta, you had to combo for most of it.. now you can just chain 2x arcane. Every power spec is being given these casual types of fixes, why pretend they are anything less?

Yeah I still try ren every now and then, but it still falls victim to the old problems "just step out of the AOE" and as you said, the amount of mobility specs have PLUSS cc/blocks/immunes. As much as I have tried, there is no reason at all to play ren over core, which offers a far more rounded build with better resolotion/resistance uptime, and a lot more stability/CC, while not being pinned into locked aoe fields. That allows core to act as a hybrid support, group fighter, and side noder to a "decent" level of effectiveness. I think even if ren was to be given a buff in sustain/mobility, the static AOE nature of its dmg/utility is way too limiting. Cata has static aoe fields also, but you can at-least get a combo from them if the fight is on the move + some residual boon buffs. Right now, ren would only work as a group fighter in a very low mobility bunker meta, the mechanics suck, badly.

If you track back just before weapons update, the direction of spvp is clearly more specs having damage application covered by easy access to stab/block/immune/evade. Specs that don't have that have been completely oppresed by CC spam; Such as renegade. Ele is only making a slight come back now given arcane shield buff with stab, and that it can be chained, its no coincidence.. Anet masking issues with more easy access boon spam.

Way to many moderate-high mobility power DPS getting easy jumps/damage application from instant, 0 downside access to stab/aeg/immunes; "I can't be CC'd right now, check back in 10 seconds, if youre still alive". Its very casual/low risk power application atm, generally speaking.

Yet SPB sits on sides alone, and still forces 2v1s to actually have a chance to kill them before they go into LOS abuse mode. Druid/Untamed nion unkillable by many specs 1v1, etc. Contrast that with your dying ember argument that vindi is only an issue in conjunction with a meta support... in which im sure any meta group fight build, would be. I garuntee you there are better chrono+X combos than chrono vindi, for 1 simple reason. Hammer vindi is basically DE, evades rather than stealth, it is a mechanically selfish build that brings nothing to the group fight other than dps. That is easily counterable by a number of off meta/good builds which bring far more CC/poison/boon rips etc etc.. but people like to hard ride fotm meta.

It was sarcasm 😜 They would have farmed them on duo core warrior also

I had game with plat duo vindis, my team did the usual gold bs of run off alone, and got farmed all game by them. I just don't think that duo would have been able to gank people on any other roamer ;[ Meanwhile, more and more group fights involving mirage+mace ranger+spb. If you have anything less than constant stab uptime/blocks/immunes, just don't bother? But lets not put the focus on low skill dps application via 24/7 CC spam, keep the focus on vindi evades.

Just let people cope, vindi is so broken that everybody should play it: Less SPB/Untamed/Druid/WB/DH/Virt/Mirage/SLB-moreusingmace/Thief.. thats absolutely fine by me.

When was power not dominating the meta? All I know is, more and more power builds have the effective sustain of a support, while zipping around the map with zerker amu. I do encourage anybody to go side node on hammer cata (which was meta last year) to see just how far the power mobility/sustain creep has gotten.

I remember when condi was considered "cheap" or "low skill" becuase such builds often came with passive sustain/mitigation. But now, looking around, power builds in general have never been easier to lay down damage, and multiple power specs are absolutely crept in sustain/mobility, on par or more than such condi builds. Yet they are hard ridden as "good specs" becuase they are power, isn't it slightly ironic?

The only people down playing the stab/cc/dmg access are the ones playing it. I have not took the time to get good on it, and probably won't, becuase nerfs are very clearly inc.. you simply cannot duel this spec (as in dominate it off the point) outside of a few builds. Dodge/block the CC? get hit by decent damage, dodge the damage? Get hit by CC and take damage anyway. CC the untamed? It has 3x stunbreaks, assuming you can land your own CC between dodging all of its.. and its stab jumps. It has about as much stab uptime as the old cata did, yet 5X the sustain/cc. The CC alone is rediculous, 2x ranged pet CC, and what, 6 cc's across maces? I also dueled a good player who was using an off meta condi virsion. No offense to him (I can link the vid) but he ate almost every CC, all of my damage, and never dropped below 50% once. I dodge most of the key things also, but got wittled down. This same build I use is killing SPBs, druids, scourge, and other such specs fast, if they eat that same cc/damage. I am using condi, and it obviously can be cleansed, but should a spec be able to eat all cc/damage and survive? The duel took nion 1 min of that, constant CCing him, and applying damage, which was continually being cleansed. Where is the punishment? Just got out a ranked game with 3x untamed. I was hoping it would be too hard at lower levels but thats not seeming to be the case. They had 2x untamed, SPB, and a bunker core gaurd. So whats the plan then, when all 4 of those specs basically require a 45+ second dual (best case in that they fk something up) or just "ignore them". The unpunishables meta 😜

The ones that do 5k damage, stun and daze 😜 Oh, and an 8k AOE auto attack that also comes with stability. I think he was dead before that though. Obviosuly it takes skill to use properly, im losing duels vs competent players mostly, but cmon.. it will only get better with more practice, like pet 2 after one of your many CC options, giving a nice 3 second slow, things like that.

Yeah these are all hard skills to learn, and all the more reason not to be putting seasoned players in the same games as more novice/average level players, ranked or unranked. Im currently in g1 and its judt pointless +7 wins and losses as much as -19. I really do not give a kitten about winning or losing.. but +7 wins I go afk half the time, the enemey are so much below my skill level its actually not fun or fair to kill them. Equally on the flip side, being farmed by a fotm plat duo in g1? Great, wp Anet, fun and competitive gaming. The only close games I had this season were becuase both teams were so unorganised, everything was continually being capped and decaped in a state of chaos, no defense at all, 8 players all holding down W, and zerging w/e point wasnt capped. I would love it if silver and below had only 1 point, gold had 2 points, and plat had 3 points. I just don't think the 3 point system works at lower levels, its absolute chaos.

Omg cmon man.. I just jumped on the meta untamed build for the first time and beat a plat vindi just by smashing buttons, 5k crit 5k crit 5k crit daze stun daze stun This is broken

I play a hybrid core rev group fight spec, which also turns out to be a decent dueler. Don't get it twisted, I am not expecting to consistantly beat p2 players on power specs with this build, thats besides the point. What I am getting at, is that in the continuity of duels vs p1+ power specs (vindi, holo, weaver, untamed, scrapper, etc) there are clear differences in how the fights went, what specs had to continually reset or lose, etc. The untamed p2s never had to reset once, the last time I had those kind of duels was vs staff SPB. The times I seen a p+ untamed have to reset, it was fighting a similar level druid, or power mirage. I even watched a core mace ranger slapping plat vindis and so on, but maybe there was a wide skill gap p1-p3?

Evades are annoying, I get it. The difference for me is that with vindi mechanics, you can land damage/cc between evades from the very start of the fight, which forces a noticable reaction or else they quickly die (it also only has 1 CC). I only have duels vs p1/2 untamed to go off atm, but the mechanics are much different. There is a decent amount of CC/barrier+stealth, and there is not a "time it right" factor given the barrier/counter CC options to negate pressure. Since I have not really seen any average to "decent" mace untamed, I do't know if they can be punished as easy as similar level vindi.

Why not?

You know, there was a guy who I think posts here on thief in arena last night. I was standing, and a few times he jumped and spamed 3 is it? killing me in a few seconds. Every time he did it I stood and watched. Then I was "lol" and they wonder why people complain thief can just spam 1 button. A person in local chat then said "yeah but he's just meme killing people". This is a genuine question, can you call that a meme? To actually be able to kill people in under 3 seconds from a steal then spaming 1 button? I get it "just dodge" etc.. but the shear damage and mechanics of how it achieves that ease of damage while also having high mobility? I struggle with the definition of meme in this context. Rifle warrior for example, you can see it the whole time, survive the meme 1 shot and he is in real trouble.