Aplier.7829

This sounds like a PVP post, cause in PVE the "thief hate" is difficulty getting into groups because people have prejudices about how bad they think thief is at everything.

A condi ranger's highest dps build is equipping viper's gear and running soulbeast+wildnerness survival+skirmishing, regardless of whether it's in a meta raid group with full buffs or an organized fractal group. A support ranger's strongest healing/buff uptime build is going to be harriers gear and druid+nature magic+skirmishing with things like spirits on your bars. A power thief's highest dps build is berserker's gear and daredevil+critical strikes+deadly arts, regardless of being in a meta raid group with full buffs or an organized fractal group. Nowhere do I try to say that those builds are the best option all the time or that they are builds you can run solo (in fact if you took the time to read, I even specifically mention that people should adjust their builds to their situations and themselves, and that off-meta builds are just fine if they still perform adequately in their role). I'm simply stating that certain builds being able to output the highest dps potential or that a group meta including support-focused classes is not something unique to the raid environment. So I suggest actually reading and responding to the post as a whole, instead of assuming it has nothing of value because the opening statement disagrees with a claim you make that can easily be proven wrong.

You keep talking about "Raid meta this" and "Raid build that" as if you all think of these ideas started within raids. A class's most effective dps build or healing build or boon duration build isn't something that is just unique to raids. So instead of assuming that the reason why people try to use meta groups/builds is because they are sheep who don't know better, maybe it's because those things actually work. Back before raids, these high-end fractals were very much where the 5 man meta groups came from, and when raids came out some of the first compositions that were tried out were people taking the 5 man meta and simply doubling them. So these people in fractals now aren't just blindly trying to form 5 man raid teams, they're putting together efficient groups with the tools they have available. Sure you can complete T4 fractals with any 5 random dps builds who don't support each other in any way, as long as they still know what they're doing in the fights. Or you can bring 3 dps and the 2 best damage buffing classes (quickness+alacrity from chrono, and might+spotter+spirits from druid or might+empower allies+banners from warrior) and double the output of each of your 3 dps. Now your group has 6 people worth of damage, plus two additional people who can also add their own damage or support the group in other ways (healing, blocks, CC, etc.), compared to the other group of just 5 people's worth of damage and no additional support. Asking for specific group comps that simply work better than having no synergy at all isn't elitism, it's just common sense. When you have certain builds that can buff everyone else's damage by 30-50%, the overall power level of the group goes up more from bringing along one of those than it would from having a 4th or 5th throughput person. Now, trying to micromanage exactly how everyone is playing the game (like your example with the person not agreeing with your warrior's choice of healing ability) is certainly verging on the unnecessary. If a player is able to perform their role at an adequate level then it doesn't particularly matter what small build variations they make along the way because those things work better for them. Also we used to have elitism far worse than dps meters. Maybe you don't remember or just weren't around for the times when groups were "10K AP or kick", where if you hadn't been playing long enough or just didn't care about farming randomly completely unrelated achievements then you couldn't join the groups. Or you'd have groups requiring you to ping all of your gear and if it wasn't full zerker with scholar rune then you'd be kicked. Or if the group was inside the fractal and dying to a boss because they weren't killing it fast enough, they'd just assume it was the fault of the non-meta dps class (aka everyone but elementalists) and kick them first. With dps meters, most of those completely arbitrary requirements and assumptions are gone now, and people have actual metrics available with which to judge how others are performing in their roles. Do some people get overly nit-picky in their expectations? Sure. But those same people would have had the same expectations previously and would have had to make random assumptions about who to replace in their groups. At least now if you have, say, 4 people signed up to be dps and 3 of them are doing 15k+ while one is doing under 5k, you can see who the problem person is. Or if one of those people doing 15k+ is running an off-meta build, they can now point out that they are performing just as well as the other dps, instead of being kicked under the assumption that they're the off-meta and thus are the problem person. So does the presence of dps meters make the fractal environment any more healthy or more toxic? Overall I'd say there's still about the same level of toxicity, but at least it's now directed towards the people who are measurably underperforming, and people have an avenue to be able to say "you can see that this off-meta thing I'm doing actually works just fine" whereas before it was "just trust me on it".

Thief by nature of Invigorating Precision from the critical strikes trait line means that any power build with high dps also has high healing. The main issue we face is that with our low healthpool, medium armor, and relative lack of passive defenses we can go pop in an instant and not have a chance to capitalize on all of that sustain. For open-world, marauder armor (power/precision+vitality/ferocity) is absolutely amazing, giving us ~50% more hp while still maintaining healthy amounts of damage stats. Unfortunately, D/D and rifle deadeye in open world feels like it's still plagued with all of core thief's problems, where you're basically just sniping off single targets and running away if anything gets too close. Try out double P/P deadeye instead (save money by putting one pistol in mainhand first set and the second in offhand second set). The damage is all single target, but you have enough burst to take down normal/vet mobs so fast you'll be constantly recharging mark and switching to the next target, and complete freedom of mobility within your 900 range for kiting around champions. For this deadeye build, you'll want: Deadeye (Iron Sight, Unforgiving, Be Quick or Be Killed), Critical Strikes (Twin Fangs, Practiced Tolerance, Invigorating Precision), and Trickery (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Quick Pockets). Deadeye's Unforgiving and Be Quick or Be Killed let you take down most normal/vet mobs before they even have a chance to respond, while Iron Sight offers some extra damage reduction against hardier targets like champions. The malice effect from marking a target is only secondary, you don't need to bother waiting for it to stack up unlike with rifle (most of the time you won't even reach all 5 stacks anyway). Critical Strikes is straightforward damage bonuses plus Invigorating Precision for all the sustain you could ever ask for. Trickery offers a number of useful boons with how often your steal (now deadeye's mark) recharges, while also pairing nicely with Deadeye's Perfectionist trait for prolonged fights. Giving you a second wind of boons just as the initial ones wear off, ensuring pretty much 100% uptime on fury, swiftness, might, and vigor regardless of what you're fighting. Plus Trickery comes with kleptomaniac, preparedness, and quick pockets offering extra initiative to help sustain your Unload spam, and Lead attacks as a solid 15% damage boost that is incredibly easy to maintain. On the other hand, daredevil's staff is an absolutely amazing weapon for open world pve. For starters it has 3-5 target cleave on everything, and a lot of built in defenses considering that the autoattack dps alone is strong enough that you can save all initiative for defensive utility if you really want. And in that vein, you have on demand weakness, blinds, immobilize break, and evades. Additionally, bounding dodge+vault x2/x3 basically deletes most groups of normal mobs while also evading almost the whole time and with invigorating precision pretty much heals you to full if you do it in a group of enemies. (Literally as I'm writing this, I alt-tabbed back into game to find I was under attack from a vet and 2 normal mobs and down to 1k hp, I dodged+2 vaults+weakening charge and I was back up to 10k hp now fighting just a half health vet with weakness on it, another dodge and few more AA chains and it was dead while i was back to almost full). Daredevil comes with so many dodges (which now do damage too!) that if your twitch reactions are good enough you can space them out and mix in a few vaults to evade just about all of an enemy veteran or champion's attacks. As for the daredevil build I'd suggest you try: Daredevil (Havoc Mastery, Staff Master, Bound), and Critical Strikes (Twin Fangs, Practiced Tolerance, Invigorating Precision) of course. Then for open world I particularly like Trickery again (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand). The extra max initiative lets you add a 3rd vault to your initial burst (or 4th if you mix in a steal), and if anything survives that you now have +15% damage boost, plus it lowers the CD on steal to 20 seconds and adds in a daze and the same set of helpful set of boons to help to make engaging fights much easier. Staff main weapon naturally, and for the off-weapon I swear by P/P. Staff already comes with all of the dps, cleave, defenses, and utility you could possibly need, the only thing that it lacks is a way to do damage when you don't want to stand in melee range. P/P's might be a bit of a one trick pony in that it's only good for spamming Unload, but with Staff to cover everything else that's all you really need it to do, plus unload spam synergizes with Trickery's extra initiative and Lead attacks damage bonus, while also leaving you with a full set of might stacks for a short time when you switch back into staff. For utilities you'll want Channeled Vigor on daredevil as a low CD burst heal for times when Invigorating Precision isn't quite enough to sustain you, or if you need extra endurance to keep dodging. For the deadeye double P/P variant, Signet of Malice will return tons of extra healing due to Unload's high quantity of hits per second. Next up, Signet of Agility is absolutely amazing, functioning as a passive dps boost that doubles as a "get out of jail free card" with it's condi cleanse and extra endurance if you ever find yourself in a sticky situation. Assassin's Signet is another solid dps boost if you don't find yourself needing any other utility skills for the situation. As for third I like Haste as a general purpose CD that can line up with Assassin's Signet for more burst or with Signet of Agility to stunbreak then dodge far far away from the danger. Aim for Marauders stats as mentioned above, it's a fairly small dps loss for a full set (~10%) while providing enough extra hp to be able to take a bit of punishment. You can get a free ascended marauder's amulet from HoT story achievements, and can make your free daredevil Bo have marauder stats, so those two slots are easy, and you can craft marauder's armor as well without any hard grinding. Rings/Accessories/Back can be trickier to get in Marauder, so if you don't want to put in the effort then you can just use berserker or valk stats for these slots depending on if you feel the need for more crit chance or more hp (pro tip, more crit chance=more damage=more healing). Scholar rune is still the best dps option especially if you wanna try any instanced PVE content, or Rune of Strength/Pack as budget options. For Sigils I'd suggest Force+Accuracy for the solid passive dps gains. And if you can, really try to get at least ascended weapons, since for all other slots it's just relatively minor stat increases but weapons gain that 5% extra base damage that all the rest of your dps will scale off of as well. Also as a disclaimer, it's worth pointing out that Thief just isn't a class that will have the tank gear, damage reduction, and self healing to carry itself through any content. Regardless of what build you go for, your survival relies on staying active, using smart positioning, movement, and evades to avoid taking as much damage as possible. And since killing things faster means more healing for you and less damage you have to take, the marauder gear isn't even really necessary, I run only marauder weapon+amulet and all the rest zerker in open world and have almost no trouble surviving. Let us know how either of these build suggestions work out for you and if you have any questions!