bethekey.8314

I have self-respect

Lol so you're accusing me of colluding with an enemy player and doctoring the image? Give me some credit at least...I don't care about you enough to do that. I've already said it was a "perfect situation" with vuln. Still, damage clearly too high. Idk what more to tell you. Maybe you're bad. Maybe Thief players aren't creative. Maybe I lucked out within 10 matches of playing Thief. Maybe I'm just constructed in non-standard ways.

Lol thanks. The confused emote spam without any real rebuttal definitely shows I touched a nerve.

https://imgur.com/a/jvuvMVO No sword buff, only 4 might, but the Guard (heavy armor btw) I kill did have a lot of vuln. Like I said, near perfect conditions. This happened on my first day as Thief though, so I doubt it's uncommon. From my health, even with Shield buff, you can tell I'm running Marauder's. yes I do? Lemme know where I said core s/d is meta. I only ever meant to indicate that the combination evade spam + damage is not balanced. One or the other should be toned down imo, based on the results I got as a Thief newbie, playing a "weak" build, further handicapped by no 2nd weapon set. I think I'm able to appreciate skilled Thieves more now, but I overall lost respect for the majority playing arguably easier builds. The ones that just repeat openers from stealth...I mean, what are you even doing lol. How do you not get bored?

I say this as a general negative, if Anet wants classes to be able to fill multiple roles. If we just accept that Thieves will always be the most mobile and best at taking down squishies, then what defining role does every other class get? https://imgflip.com/i/8och9g

So after playing it a few conclusions: - Yes the evades are excessive and it's not hard to replicate what I showed here. - Yes there is low skill floor and I was able to down good players on good builds easily with simple combos. - Ping seemed very important and ruined many fights. I would not play this Thief build with 150+ ping at all. Thankfully, there seem to be a slew of even lower skill floor builds. - Going from a port-less class (mech doesn't count) to 3 port build was the hardest part of playing it for me. The no-ports and port interactions with Full Counter or DH traps were annoying. - Thief players are a horribly vindictive / egotistical bunch, and usually the bane of each other. One kill on another Thief in a fair fight led to them having a grudge the rest of the time I was playing. - Larcenous Strike was regularly hitting 6-8ks and I even hit an 11k under perfect conditions as Marauder's amulet. That's too high. - Equipping Marauder's amulet solved much of the "I can't even eat 1 hit!" issues. As above, I still did plenty of damage. I get the impression Thieves seem so used to winning with basic combos from stealth/the start of fights they refuse to build tankier, and would rather complain. God forbid the fights drag on longer and you have to get creative, because you can't control the opener every time. - I didn't even equip a second weapon set and was doing fine. A second set would allow even more endurance regen. - Generally Thief seems to be a gatekeeper of glassy burst builds. You have to be able to out-instant cast or out-cheese the Thief with things like Holo toolbelts to counter. - @Sahne.6950s builds with Deadly Arts seem outdated, unsurprisingly. Within an hour or so of playing I guessed what better ones were with Acro, Crit Strikes, and Trickery. Good learning experience overall.

Appreciate that and the summaries, shame it took you wanting something to happen. I'm pretty tired of dealing with critical people who spout false narratives and never make amends when called out. It's childlike. I laid out 4(?) objectively wrong things you said in the following quoted post alone and you just skate on by. Pretty sure there are more throughout. I'm not committing more time to a conversation with someone who doesn't do their due diligence when forming arguments, can't see reason, and can't humbly admit when they're wrong. Granted, after such fuss I may still try the Thief build to see just how low the skill floor and ceiling go. On this: Again, I'm aware there is a small window and that you can purposefully get hit to open up a non-evade. I don't think you understand that this is context dependent. If the Thief bursts you for 10k from the start, as a glassy build yourself, you can't afford to eat more damage--just to have a chance at hurting the 100% health Thief who can also disengage/reset much easier than you. Further, what you describe as "interactable" here is a sliver of what most classes have to deal with constantly. You make a big deal about this small vulnerable window for Thief, while downplaying the massive vulnerable windows of others. Others that do less damage, have worse disengage, similar sustain tbh, and whose other defenses aren't as strong or reliable as evade spam (blind, blocks etc.). It's not a good argument. Hope that makes sense. I won't be replying to your posts further.

Yeah I'm gonna need a full admission to each of your mistakes in this thread before I put more effort into correcting you. For bonus points, quote yourself calling yourself competent before you do so. I also envision a world where I repeat the Thief's actions and your dense self moves the goalpost. So to make sure we're on the same page, write out what your stance is, what you think mine is, and what exactly you think it is I need to do. If it all looks good, I'm game to practice some evade spam.

You first (the be a decent person and own up to mistakes part). Also what do I get when I press 3 three times?

I can do what that Thief did within 1 hour of playing Thief the first time. It's not complicated. Lol...do you have any shame or credibility? How about this, I dare you to be a decent person and own up to your mistakes. You come into this thread, insult me multiple times without any prior interaction, lie about or fail to understand multiple aspects of the video to further your argument, repeatedly offer advice that I am already demonstrating in the video, then have the gall to tell me I'm talking nonsense. With 3.7k posts, you are a depressing example of someone who can barely think straight while offering the most input. Kindly resist that temptation in the future, for all our sake. Holy moly.

I'm just one person; I call it as I see it lol. I also happen to be one of, if not the only, person who actually posts video evidence to add real weight to my claims. I'm not claiming that S/D is some meta dominator spec. People jump to conclusions when their class gets called out. It does have degenerate mechanics that I think should be changed. If there are limited balance resources, of course those should be directed at bigger issues first. But this is an issue.

I include Rev, meaning Vindi, in the very first post. Is everyone incapable of reading and interpreting short, replayable videos now? Also, there's already a whole multi-page thread about Vindi on the front page.

I will say it again: "I value the game having less degenerate mechanics in play, regardless of class, which isn't based on who wins and who loses." Something can be overpowered with healthy/fun/interactive mechanics, while something can be underpowered and degenerate/unfun/uninteractive. I believe in strong, fundamental balance philosophies that create fun, interactive gameplay. All of the people stuck on things like: are missing the point. I don't care about the class. I even say in the original post, "also applies to Revenant". Remove all class identifies for the sake of argument and fix the absurd, uninteractive gameplay. Aegis spam, dodge spam, invuln spam, blind spam...it's rampant. Thanks for saying at least the degenerate part. From an RP perspective I get the underhanded tactics point, but in practice, this level of damage combined with this level of defense didn't even exist within this same game years ago. It's not how it has to be.

It has taken this many posts, and honestly a lot of patience, to just get a rare few people to admit that 11+ evades in a row is excessive. I'm open to discussing what changes could be done in time, but it is neither my job nor do good suggestions make it into the game. And I'd much rather discuss those aspects with people capable of having conversations without starting with insults. If a Thief with tons of stealth / teleports isn't in control of engages/disengages, idk what is in this game. Hard disagree. It seems your comment might have been more directed at the "balance is off" ending though. For comparison, my Scrapper build has 16k HP taking full damage traits. You mistakenly identified it as Nade Scrapper despite sharing neither the weapon, heal, or any of the same utilities (and many of the traits), but I understand most people here aren't detail oriented or experts. I think it was an attempt to call it low skill. Anyway. You may consider it bad, but then again Core S/D thief is also called bad here, so hey, even footing. We can calculate the Thief's HP from my damage and the health bar %. My Rocket hit of 6309 takes the Thief from 80% to 42%. 6309 = 0.38x, x = 16.6k HP. The Thief has 16.6k HP. Rocket was also the 2nd hit, the first being Explosive Entrance + Function Gyro after the Flanking Strike to daze Larcenous + land my big hit. That expert advice you offered, if I recall. We can also calculate my % of health post-Thief opener. 6125 / 15998 = 38%. Lower than 42%. You're actually so wrong and so not detail oriented in your analysis it's hard to have a real conversation with you. It's embarrassing and I'm losing interest. It's 3. He literally spammed the button 3, back to back to back. I believe I quote you previously "A good player doesn't use things back to back to back". Are you now back tracking and calling this skilled? Am I mistaken in that my skill is being highly criticized here despite having much more complexity and much better timing? The hypocrisy is palpable. If the Thief actually had to time their evades that would be skillful. But they have so many, with 0 cooldown, they instead use a basic algorithm of: Steal combo > 333 > double dodge > 333 > dodge > reset and repeat. They're not reacting to anything and they don't need to. Many pre-nerf bunker builds play the same way. The absolute cherry on top.

Rudeness aside, it feels pretty good to challenge yourself, make your own builds, and do well with them. Much more satisfying wins than bandwagoning to the latest pre-nerf class, trying to press the same combos faster than everyone else, and accelerating the downfall of the PvP population for meaningless rank clout. I'm trying to keep it real simple for you and the Thief mains in here. I don't believe the amount/frequency of evades seen in the video is good for the game. Especially from pressing the same button over and over. I've repeatedly asked here if you all think it is good for the game / not degenerate, but no one seems to be able or really, wants to answer a basic question. I don't believe that a class should be stripped of its defenses and left unusable. I don't know why this has to be said. There are other means of survival. If Thieves truly can't make do with less evades, then adding more sustain could be a good option among many. That would take a separate whole discussion. You need to aim for balance between damage and defense. If Thief is always in control of when they engage, disengage, and are perma dodging during the fight, well, they deserve to do minimal damage. 10k burst and 5k hits isn't minimal damage. The balance is off. We fundamentally disagree if you don't accept these things as I've laid out. I anticipate many of you will knee-jerk react to "but X class does Y", well fix them too. I'm not a fan of the power creep in this game and want fights to be dynamic and interactive. This thread more than any makes me understand how the game, and forums, got to where they are today.

Hey bud, I'm off to bed. Idk why you're continuing with the 3x post combo and insults. If this is what you think, and how you play, more power to you. I welcome your videos where you predict Steals from Thieves you don't know exist in the FFA and always dodge the followup with 100+ ping. If you look closer at the video you can see me dodging pretty much when the 5k hits. I just hope you apply these strict criteria to Thieves when you judge how they use their skills. Honestly, I think if I had perfect reactions, foresight, and 11 evades at my disposal, I would be OP. Can't all be Sahne apparently. This is a better and fair line of questions. Start off with this next time instead of being rude without warrant. Maybe we'll get to it if one of you can even put your Thief egos aside and admit the evade display in the video is unhealthy/degenerate.

I value the game having less degenerate mechanics in play, regardless of class, which isn't based on who wins and who loses. I understand that might be all you care about. You don't seem to add much to the discussions you're in and that's unfortunate. I'll ask my question again and just leave it then: Do you think the evade chain shown in the video is good for and deserves to be in the game?

Hey at least this one got Core Thief right, but I guess got confused on the Nade Scrapper part. Completely ignored the Thief steal+burst taking more of my HP (>60%) alongside 2x dazes from range, while implying my timed setup was the skill-less one. I worry about the time when I face an actual good Thief with timing that can use the 11+ evades well. It's an amazing disconnect you seem to have, where the 11+ evades are fine, the Thief is oppressed despite them, and the problem is me not timing my skill use better, not the Thief. From all the videos I've posted of degenerate mechanics, I must say, forum Thieves seem like the most triggered and ignorant group. Idk if it's worth delving into a real discussion until you all can read or watch the video closely enough to have a meaningful opinion on balance. Here's a joke: All the Thief needed to do was delay their evades a bit. Self explanatory contradiction. Your only remotely applicable advice and reasonable take. I know and do this, using it to land the Function Gyro + Rocket in the video. This advice only applies if you can afford to eat more damage though and I was at ~5k health. The main CC is dodged not by 3 spam, but by a double dodge. Not everyone plays with <100 ping too. The "you mad" and "demand nerf to hands" insults aren't warranted here. I'm only taking issue with the ability to use 11+ evades back to back in quick succession. That's the point of the video. I don't care if it's Core Thief, Core Engi, Meta, non-Meta, your Grandma, Obama, or Jesus. If it's a degenerate mechanic and it should be changed, ideally to healthier alternatives. I've yet to see one of you outright claim that it's healthy, good, and deserves to be in the game. Only deflections.

Hoping that xd means you're trolling xd 🙂 No, it's not even Daredevil, I literally point this out for you: And it's not just "good" evades. This is 16 seconds of chained evades, back to back. I don't care if the Thief "used everything", they're still doing damage during it and being nigh un-hittable during it. Are there any non-troll, competent Thief players on the forums?

I get the impression from your post that you think this is ok?

I want content NOW. To me, the best parts of this are: - This isn't even Daredevil with an extra dodge. - The Thief 100% has another dodge to add at the end there after Signet of Agility, putting the total evade chain to 12 at least. It equates to about 16+ seconds of fight where the Thief is in control / can't be hit by most skills. Against a worse player, I'd imagine most fights end in the first 10s after a 10k burst with 2 dazes. - A teammate of mine could be attacking the Thief the entire time with no effect due to perma evade + Shadowstep, whereas I'd be dead instantly if +1'd. - Thief gameplay is: steal333elite333(repeating of course), while I'm out here swapping kits, multi-blasting water fields, and timing interrupts to land big hits. I think I use 12 different abilities in the same span as the Thief uses 3. - I manage to land one of, if not the hardest hitting ability Engi has (Rocket, 20 sec cd, projectile with massive flight time) during a well-timed Larcenous interrupt, and it only barely hits for more (6.3k) than the Thief's Larcenous Strike in the beginning (5.2k, spammable, low cd, unblockable). Good luck achieving this kind of damage + defense on any Engineer build. Engineer is one of the easiest targets in the game and has been for a long time.