Dantheman.3589

By "meta specs" you maybe referring to the PvE "optimal builds" which people are running in raids and fractals? Those ones with Guardians with 12K HP playing against punching bag NPCs with dismal A.I. and entirely predictable patterns? Those builds don't work in PvP. Symbolbran uses mender: low crit chance with 0 ferocity: mediocre dps. It's role is mainly support/tank (and they aren't even the best at that, currently), with most of the traits and skills devoted to make the healings from aegis and pulses to work (which barely do after all the nerfs). On the other hand, if you run Honor 1,3,2, and Virtues 1,2,1 replacing Zeal and wielding carrion you get better burst than physical based symbol Guardians: despite the lower physical damage you'll proc burns like crazy, and cleans doesn't matter that much since you're constantly re-aplying the burns. Works better with core and DH, of course: Firebrand braces too many things for his own good. So your meme build is better than core symbol guard, which is probably by far the best side noder for ranked?

Are u insane symbols are basically pure power damage. + 40% damage btw with insane vuln uptime. Anyone claiming condi does good on symbol must be memeing becuz it’s not, it’s a garbage teir concept and it does nothing but garbage if u wanna compare it to meta specs.

There is zero reason to play core symbols without meditation spam, so ppl will be better off with a sage firebrand. Also there’s zero reason to play sage/burning + symbols as this damage is less efficient than power and will have a lot less sustain. Ppl don’t play this cuz it’s not good simple.

No. Shock aura and glyph of renewal are completely broken. so? you have double renegades running around with perm stabdoesnt help vs nade spam either not saying tempest cant match healbreaker but healbreaker + x > tempest + xHeal breaker is stronger in 2v2s becuz it has more offensive pressure than tempest. It’s not meta becuz who cares at all about healbrealer memes and it’s higher damage

I think you don't understand what I wrote. To put it simply the thief have been designed around using the stealth attack which is in itself a toxic design. And ANet's devs can't do anything about it now. In itself the thief isn't a "deadly duelling class" it's an "ambush class" by design. Which make anything like support, sustain damage, tanking or proper "duelling" extremly awkward to add to it's kit. Because, no, dealing damage on unsuspecting foes from stealth isn't "duelling". I did not misunderstand what you wrote. You seem to forcing your idea of what thief is as to why it should be the way it is now, which isn’t really what this post is about. Also the idea of thief that you 1.) may not be what others want, and I now a lot of players that don’t like it 2.) is actually wrong based on gw2s own definition for thief. So how is that accurate at all? This post is all about the big picture too and many of these changes were part of a big picture change which in the end only lowers build diversity ( in this case) to insanely low numbers.

Thief at released was and still is defined as a “deadly dueling class”. Thief diversity isn’t supposed to be limited to its pitiful diversity, which for a meta class is actually incredibly low.

This seems strange since scourge is definitely op rn at least as the bunker build. If you need an iteration of the bunker build I’d be glad to link one for reference. Also I can link some guides and/or sites that can help new players

I don't know dude, all thieves I see doing is popping stealth, backstabbing, dodging, and going back into stealth so that you cannot hit them. IMO, they have TOO MUCH stealth access for the dmg and mobility they have. I never said anything about stealth builds, yes they are good rn. I did mention the weak brawler specs- s/d s/p and staff which yeah you can do ok sometimes with, but for those to be really top teir in their role as alittle more of a 1v1er- they absolutely need acro as an option; unfortunately the majority of acro has been completely neutered to where it is only taken for a GM trait that they could, to a much better degree, get on shadow arts.I leave it up to users to think whether or not this is a problem, but I’m assuming anyone that wanted to play idk s/p, de, s/d or staff would probably already not like the decision to increase initiative cost and cds to extremely high levels. Which is also partly why I’m specifying it in my post.

List is about ranked , but there is builds u r missing cuz NA comps r stuck in the same , big example was symbolbrand :") I’m not missing any builds. If you wanna say Na isn’t up to date well I’d like to see you beat team USA then maybe we can talk. U misisng worm comps , double decap druid/scrapper was a good aids comp too ,Healbreaker is pretty good roo , choronomancer has hid value. Etc , ofc some shot overperforms but there r some build pretty much usabled. U can use sic em for daily at or sd daredevil without problem and still perform with it On na every team played same stuff tanky slb /condi thief playing full team flght comps and then r55 comed with daredevil nades holo You really have builds messed up. Decap druid was first played in the Na mota and only the team USA teams brought soulbeast, no else did and in the end it doesn’t matter at alllll. Chronomancer and healbrealer have been played on Na as well as other thief builds , but it’s also irrelevant because they are garbo.You have builds that are basically memes that sometimes work in farming ppl in ez matches rated way to high. In the end they are still memes compared to dominating meta builds

List is about ranked , but there is builds u r missing cuz NA comps r stuck in the same , big example was symbolbrand :") I’m not missing any builds. If you wanna say Na isn’t up to date well I’d like to see you beat team USA then maybe we can talk.

Ppl just playing their mains for mat doesn’t make it good. The builds aren’t terrible but is it worth discussing as meta builds. If you watched NA any team that wanted to win ran the engi etc meta.

The problem with this list is that you are including viable builds in ranked as half meta. They aren’t half meta, try taking any of those to an mAT and watch yourself get farmed, except ofc decap scrapper which should be included in meta instead of support scrapper. As such you decent builds are mostly meme builds except a few that should be in the category above.Overall flawed or extremely exaggerated list considering some stuff just won’t even be playable in mAts hence not being meta. There’s a reason builds like bunker core guard are only good ranked on metabattle, they work but just aren’t meta.

Do u want to 1 v1 as thief? If your talking about the 1v1 brawler comment. I mean I’m originally a thief main and I loved the brawler esc builds. Sword/d sword/p staff even condi builds, but only like s/d DrD condi cuz it was basically a super slow s/d, were all a blast to play.If you mean like go to a duel server, idk maybe...

I’m not really sure what your first paragraph meant. I’ll say as an experienced pvper that saying there’s no such thing as a bad match up is very wrong, there are plenty and it would probably take too much time to list them all. As a thief player I don’t see at all how weakness application is important besides 1v1ing another thief or occasionally in bursting someone, but chances are it’ll apply every time then anyways and if they use cleanses you will already be looking for that and auto apply it again anyways.

Skills elevated to absolutely insane cds and thief skills at such high initiative cost that they are barely usable in pvp. All utility taken from runes such as damage ones so that now just taking zerk amulet + a defensive rune does more damage than taking a damage rune with anything else. Most defensive amulets neutered or taken out. And now we just have a few builds considered “meta” at least in all circumstances and yet if you wanted to play the same class in a different way there is a chance that your build isn’t even viable, looking at thief and their absolutely atrocious 1v1 + brawler specs atm.So the question is- is this a it shouldn’t be meta meta? Stuff that excels rn probably wouldn’t be too oppressive in previous metas, does that make them good now or are they still over performing. Are these specs more fun for players or would they like to play something slightly different or ? Are these even good questions to ask or do we just keep applying blanket nerfs?At least think about it plz...

I already told you your build is bad and your playing it wrong. Why are you 1v1ing a thief on his node with dp, if that was a short bow 5 on a prot holo - then maybe, maybe! ppl might play your build....

No it just appeared out of nowhere some time ago.So your saying glyph + mist form combo glyphed you out of the mist? We must keep this feature then...

Being able to glyph + mist form is a good thing. Get over it it is a logical and synergistic mechanism in the game and should stay

Support tempest is meta, though it’s alittle more selfish in this meta. Bunker scourge which can support via barriers and transfusion is also basically meta. Other than that it’s just op bunkers that do damage and tank side nodes.

This is clearly fake. The true thief mains on the forums already decided that your build doesn’t work- also your playing it wrong, because the thief mains on the forum already said that you only use dagger/ pistol to decap and never to team fight because team fights are full of prot holos. Thief’s main weapon is shortbow 5, every thief main in existence agrees.

Imagine thinking region matters You'd be surprised as to how much they do. On many games the meta differs quite a bit depending on the region, as well as the overall environment of PvP. NA tends to trend towards different things compared to EU. On other games its even more noticeable.There’s usually only slight difference is meta specs in the end and that’s just due to different players having different opinions and finding new things to work with. We all know that at times 1 person on a region finds a new build and their friends end up playing it to- the only time the ppl on the other region learn about it is often come time for mAts or said tournaments. Then the other region learns about it- it is literally a seperation issue not an actual difference in meta or an inherent difference in regions.

Imagine thinking region matters

Thing is Nades are likely to be far less of an issue if Holo can't stack might so easily, and while I hate how braindead they are to use, dealing with the persistent blinds from Flashbang is a much bigger problem in my opinion because of how much utility it offers, the ease of access, and effectively unlimited uses of it. I can make a conscious decision to try to face off against the grenades if I feel I can get benefit from it like landing my key CC skills or bursts, but instead I just get blinded and miss. Rinse and repeat when my next attempt is dodged. This isnt even factoring in the Daze because I dared to be at high health. All of this being passive just makes it that much worse. Yeah I could see that if your a roamer or some team fighter, maybe just increase cd for that, but part of my point is as a 1v1er it doesn’t seem like much of an issue at least to the point where you lose 1v1s

Bad matches are simply a result of solo + duo q only. You can go into a match and if you have solid specs with a strong strategy for carrying most matches should be ez, but if your strategy isn’t enough your matches will be harder or just out carried by the next duo q. So many times have I seen great duos that do there job but still lose because the other duos strat makes up for the impact they have, so they lose but still did the right thing in the match. The only thing that would make these “bad matches” any better in the cases I’m thinking of would be a team q, but let’s be honest not all the duos use “meta builds” and “proper rotations” so in the end a team q won’t change much for a lot of ppl.

Only thing I care about is the damage on nades and ee, just slightly tune it down and it’ll be barable. At least that’s my opinion as a plat3+ and regular competitor for daily ats, mostly as a side noder/duelist though I can play pmuch any role at plat3 lvl