NorthernRedStar.3054

What am I even reading.

A strawman. I never said I wanted to *smash it into the ground*. Hardly the only class - or spec - to do so. By similar logic you don't fix bugs or glitches that affect the way you play.

All these silly arguments keep repeating "Rapid Fire... Rapid Fire..." like a broken record. It's rather obvious you hardly play soulbeast if you think this is all there is to the spec. I.e. deadeye is balanced by the fact that if you get on their skin, they're kittened. They have little realistic options left, largely thanks to the massive initiative nerfs to half the rifle skills. Now, ranger? Blocks, stealth, seconds of evade frames, quickness and superb mobility. Not to mention they have plenty more CC than most ranged DPS classes - or hybrid ones, for that matter.

It is sort of meant to be the trade-off for superb ranged damage. But, considering how largely thief's damage has been neutered all across the spectrum, I don't see the warrant anymore, either. It's not as much of an issue in PvE as it is in PvP and WvW, where the initiative costs for rifle are kitten. 6 for Death's Retreat AND Three-Round Burst is insane - yet if you pick Improvisation (which I've been ignoring) you're going to have a lackluster time damage-wise. And, again, if you ignore Shadow Arts you're likely to get roasted by any build with a gap closer and a bit of additional durability.

Fair. But thief's gameplay in either mode isn't supportive of very sustain-per-hit style mechanics.

Folks acting like pew pew has no follow-up (offensive or defensive).

What kinda gear are you running if you call the healing negligible? It already makes any core area boss redundant on glassy stats. If anything, the healing is really high, it allows you to TANK full stacks of Legendary Bonekinner death aura as long as you keep on hitting something. That's FAR from negligible, lol.

It's an integral part of DE's DPS rotation. I'm not really sure what else you want - it can be used to break aggro, reposition, salvage a rotation failure, etc. But most importantly, it sees play in higher levels of content. And you can trait it to give 8 seconds of stealth in total - no combo fields etc required. That's not exactly bad if you want to skip content. Uh, no? It's a great skill to use for burst phases in legy bounty solo. As long as venom share works w/ the ads, it cannot have an infinite duration.

This is such a great argument, which is exactly why stealth one-shot mesmer didn't get nerfed either, right? Right? It's why thief was allowed to retain their massive +1 damage, right? Right?

Stuff's been nerfed for less - looking at deadeye, among others. I love soulbeast, but I'll go ahead and say it's a dumb thing and a dumb build to enable. Also, This is bull, and you and me both know it.

Calling PoF specs "lazy designs" is not only dishonest, but very condescending towards the devs who brought about a quality product. Overtuned? Yes. Unhealthy, looking at scourge and firebrand to name a few (not all)? Yes - not all of them - but yes, and difficult to balance.

Hard disagree. Competition has a number of healthy effects between toddler phase and adulthood. Anything can be toxic, taken too far and out of its original context. Human existence has always been about competition; the modern attempts to eliminate it from the curriculum and social structure systems can be, and are, extremely harmful long-term.

I'd love to see Collateral Damage buffed, but it obviously needs to be separated between WvW and PvE. Then again, I doubt DE will ever overtake DD in serious encounters with cleave either way. Kneel is the issue, and I wouldn't go around changing that. I might, however, experiment with removing the initiative cost on its cast - that would smooth things out A LOT. Shadow Meld is already a very good elite, it does not need buffs - particularly of this scale. Thieves Guild is already a decent pick for non-CC scenarios in both PvE and PvP. I'm sure no one would appreciate a condi dd buff. As a side node, they should absolutely undo the brutal SoA nerf. You get a massive duration of vigor. That's a very underappreciated part.

The wording is a bit bad on that one. It means one of the strike missions (they take place inside the "Raven Sanctum arena"): Legendary Boneskinner, Kodan Bros and Fraenir of Jormag.

In that, you are wrong, my friend. I used to farm Starcaller during winter holidays. Done Seneb a few times as well. Lord Hizen has a video on it as well.

Thief has "autonomous" ranged and melee DPS. While spectre is decent at the former, what else would they design the next thief e-spec to excel at, than ally support?

Don't spam iniative into Twist of Fate, daze healing skills from water. Time Heartseeker into the post-evasion animation window.

Don't forget that warrior, naturally, wears heavier armor than simple cloth by elementalist (and other light armor classes). Interestingly enough, we have different size for weaponry between humans/norn/charr etc. as well as varying animations (see ranger Maul and Swoop for example), showcasing the bigger races' superior strength. Obviously the numbers still follow the same formula across all races. The real reason behind Caudecus' hatred of centaurs was that he couldn't outrun one.

Depends on what you value: the authentic (classic Tangled Depths) experience, or ease of gameplay. Personally, if I could, I would replay both season 2 and HoT without mounts or elite specs (already) unlocked. It really is a high-quality delivery on every front (except the story length and pace).

Warriors could use some buffs, but not nearly as much as some commentators here would like to think. Common bias that refuses to account for cumulative effects.

This. I was in the same situation back when I started, nowadays I'm soloing legendaries in a haul. Don't take pressure on it, there's tons of players in the same boat, but all it takes is time and experience. AND will to improve - all the information you require to get better is out there, on Youtube, on various sites such as Snowcrows and Metabattle. As long as you play and play to improve, you'll get there.

Because you can build daredevil in 3 different ways: mobile, durable kiter, heavy-handed cleave machine and sustained condi dps kiter. The entire point of deadeye is that it's extremely high DPS on a single target, with the handicap that is requires a lot of micro-management within fights if targeted.

I've seen streamers do it on guardian (or another class with ready blocks). I did it on thief. Took me a number of tries, though, due to just generally being unfortunate. Having additional speed from signets or otherwise also helps with the bomb run phase and dodging those claws. EDIT: good camera rotation/control helps too, especially to predict those quake patterns.

Damage output is very good - against open world trash mobs and vets, as well as instance ads. Against any foe that doesn't die to a single shroud rotation, though, you're more than likely to get out-DPS'd by a competent player using same gear and a different class.

That's the primary reason people like to blame their loss on them.