Doug.4930

Thief definitely cant 1v1. But thats fine, it wasnt able to 1v1 since pre-HoT. Thats just how the class works nowadays. Its focused on +1ing. Problem is, thief isnt exactly great at +1ing right now either. It can't 1v1 within the context of downing enemy players to take points due to it relying on kiting/evades and stealth. Both these two damage mitigation/attack mechanics don't mesh well with taking capture points 1v1, and thief has never really excelled at this in spvp. I would still argue that its mobility is still unmatched for decaps, whilst also asserting that it can still +1. But simply in terms if winning 1v1's or duels, thief is more than capable. But if we're being honest thief truly excels in WvW because its so effective at evading enemies and fleeing combat whenever a fight is going poorly. Nah, not even that context. Take away the control points, and thief would be just as incapable of 1v1ing people. I mean we saw this in 2v2 where often it turned into 2 1v1s, and thief was the worst class in that gamemode. I can't really say I agree, but then again I much prefer the open world pvp that WvW provides so perhaps the meta in spvp is vastly different to what I have been experiencing lately. It aint different in WvW. Thieves gank players who are undergeared, unaware, or already fighting someone, or they run. Constantly. Solokilling you in a 1v1 however? YEah that is something they cant do.Agree to disagree, I main thief. I can win 1v1's against people I know to be decent roamers. I guess it depends on the build, as it always has since the beginning of time.

@Voltekka.2375 @XenesisII.1540 I should have clarified that I'm really only talking about the small scale/roaming scene. My knowledge on blob composition usually only comes from observation underneath a giant pile of what I assume was accidentally misplaced siege. That being said I would still make the case that the meta for the best builds at the moment lies in the condi's for roaming/smallscale. Power is still great, and some people can be slow to change. Also condi has always had a stigma attatched to it. Because of this people will still probably prefer power for the moment. Despite my belief that a variation of condi rev is probably the king pin 1v1 build presently, thats subjective on my part though, I haven't played enough to claim this definitively. BUT condi rev has absolutely nothing on how powerful boon duration power holo was pre patch. So the game is still in a better place imo. Pre patch if you were running power holo with tools/alch and some boon duration thrown in, you had no business losing a 1v1 to anything other than other holo's. But I'd agree that condi doesn't make sense in a blob. Sustain/supports are still too strong. That remains true even in the roaming scene. If you come across a group running a pocket healer and your group isn't you may as well pack it in right there.

Thief definitely cant 1v1. But thats fine, it wasnt able to 1v1 since pre-HoT. Thats just how the class works nowadays. Its focused on +1ing. Problem is, thief isnt exactly great at +1ing right now either. It can't 1v1 within the context of downing enemy players to take points due to it relying on kiting/evades and stealth. Both these two damage mitigation/attack mechanics don't mesh well with taking capture points 1v1, and thief has never really excelled at this in spvp. I would still argue that its mobility is still unmatched for decaps, whilst also asserting that it can still +1. But simply in terms if winning 1v1's or duels, thief is more than capable. But if we're being honest thief truly excels in WvW because its so effective at evading enemies and fleeing combat whenever a fight is going poorly. Nah, not even that context. Take away the control points, and thief would be just as incapable of 1v1ing people. I mean we saw this in 2v2 where often it turned into 2 1v1s, and thief was the worst class in that gamemode.I can't really say I agree, but then again I much prefer the open world pvp that WvW provides so perhaps the meta in spvp is vastly different to what I have been experiencing lately.

Well to be fair they did nerf CC by quite alot by removing its damage (good change imo). They also nerfed sustain but not nearly enough (still a step in the right direction is still a step). The only real shortfall was that condi builds damage output was basically untouched. Given that sustain still needs to take some hits, and condi builds benefit from sustain due to only needing to build 2 damage stats means that the biggest issue with balance at the moment is condi builds are crazy strong. So if we're being honest all they really need to do to take another healthy step is tone down sustain a tad more and nerf condi damage. I wouldn't say nerf it to the same degree power was nerfed, because power was just crazy pre patch. But at least nerf it so that it relies on damage over time rather than burst. You shouldn't be able to burst by building one offensive stat alone. Condi builds like mesmer, necro, rev etc can simply output too much damage whilst being quite tanky.

Thief definitely cant 1v1. But thats fine, it wasnt able to 1v1 since pre-HoT. Thats just how the class works nowadays. Its focused on +1ing. Problem is, thief isnt exactly great at +1ing right now either. It can't 1v1 within the context of downing enemy players to take points due to it relying on kiting/evades and stealth. Both these two damage mitigation/attack mechanics don't mesh well with taking capture points 1v1, and thief has never really excelled at this in spvp. I would still argue that its mobility is still unmatched for decaps, whilst also asserting that it can still +1. But simply in terms if winning 1v1's or duels, thief is more than capable. But if we're being honest thief truly excels in WvW because its so effective at evading enemies and fleeing combat whenever a fight is going poorly.

Its funny whenever you see a thief is broken thread. It can either be that thief is the most overpowered devil's spawn that can possibly exist and needs to be nerfed into oblivion immediately. Or, thief is the most underpowered baby kitten that gets rofl stomped by any class that knows how to auto attack. You can sort 95% of guild wars 2 players into either of those two mindsets. Thief is fine at the moment, it can certainly 1v1 and it is still the best runaway class by a large margin. It doesn't need buffs.

I've found the only way I can get manageable ping (in Australia) Is by using a VPN. Game mode is bleeding players. Any server with a non NA majority population has been decimated due to it being unplayable for many people.

As for your suggestion, its simply a really inellegant solution. Stealth needs an upper cap, but it shouldnt distinguish between sources of stealth. That just introduces unneccessary clunk. How so? obviously it wouldn't be implemented so that thieves could have 4 different stacks of stealth. Combo leap finishers would just overwrite the previous stack each time the thief attempts to re apply it. This would leave perma stealth oneshot builds with 2 choices. Option One: They are forced to constantly drop more blind fields to combo every 3 seconds in order to maintain stealth. This would provide enemies with the chance to spot blind fields as the thief approaches. It would also leave the thief with much less time to approach unseen due to the vastly increased initiative drain.Option Two: They are forced to rely on utility skills in order to approach their target undetected. This would still allow assassin thieves to ambush their targets, however should their burst fail, they would find themselves in a fight lacking most if not all of their utilities.

@anduriell.6280I would say a well positioned ranger could do it just as safely, as they have stealth access too and 1700 range. Quickness+sicem+rapid fire would output more damage than seen there, I don't have a video of it on hand unfortunately, but just a quick lookup of numbers tells you as much. You missed the marked, at the start, burst consisted of spotters shot + DJ whilst spot was in flight+3 round burst with assassin sig, Pretty decent burst. Whilst one spotters + DJ is not enough to kill, Spotters + DJ + 3 round burst is. Hitting doly stance would have saved you. But even with all that being said. I would 100% support an assassins signet nerf. It outputs too much damage. It should take a hit. I'd also like to see stealth gained from combo's become unstackable with stealth gained from skills too and then on top of that, make stealth gained from additional combo's unstackable with the stealth gained from the last combo, which would make it harder for players like that guy to remain undetected for so long by stacking stealth constantly without using utilities. I made a thread suggesting this in the thief forum, but it was not popular there.

The only thing that combo is going to kill from full health is full glass player with their hands off the keyboard. If you're the type of player that's unable to avoid DJ as an opener after they hit with spotters with all your cool downs up you deserve to die, again not that you would with that combo. Even pre patch would be a struggle. I could say the same thing about sicem + quickness + rapid fire, which outperforms DE rifle burst to a ludicrous degree even after its nerfs. But I give most players I fight more credit. I don't expect them to sit on their hands and tank spotter shots and DJ for the same reason I wouldn't expect sicem+rapid fire to do the same job. Poison DE is more of a pain that a threat, but I hate high stealth and condi's so I'd be happy to see poison DE die forever. Well not full, 2 utilities right? Because assassins signet is a utility. Same logic can be applied to LB ranger, after their burst they have an equal amount of traits and utilities at their disposal. Back to shooting from stealthThis would be the case if it was true, but its false so it isn't. There is no shot from stealth, just by casting DJ it reveals the DE. There's a sound queue and a cast time. DJ is a very easy skill to dodge consistently once you learn this. Only time you should be getting hit by it is late fight because your uitilites/dodges are gone or while CC'd. You're making this about thief, I'm specifically talking about rifle. We could debate thief vs ranger which is easier which takes more skill etc, but truthfully there is no proper answer to that question, it depends on the build and the situation, each of the two classes have their strengths and weaknesses. I mean at this point I'd call it quits if we were debating thief vs ranger. Daredevil is not particularly great at the moment. Good players can make it work, but they need to be decent. But no you can't spam it 3 times, it has an init cost of 6. 6x3 =18 so its only able to be spammed twice, then you've got no init left. Daredevil is not forgiving. Arguing from emotion a bit here, thief is pretty strong atm in the correct hands, and maybe don't count on WvW streamers to paint a picture of your average player. Most streamers (most not all I've met some decent ones) I've known in WvW usually roll around in a gank squad and cant really duel. Furthermore you're only going to be one shot by MBS, and even then you'd need to be glass. I've already pointed out rapid fire out performs DJ in terms of damage and utility. Its in the numbers. Also again same logic, DE screws up they die too. Most DE's I come across are walking bags because they have yet to learn how to play. Assuming they're power you can knock them over by landing a single burst. 90% of what you just said about ranger can be applied to DE. The terrain blocks, the reflects etc. Players don't need 2.5 seconds to LOS or block/reflect etc. I assume you were laughing at an earlier time as I never made this claim. As I said I was exclusively talking about Longbow, not ranger. Longbow the weapon set is an extremely easy to use weapon, it requires no setup or timing to be effective. Sicem + rapid fire is going to ruin someones day, and all you need to do is press 2 buttons. DE setup, depsite what you claim, needs M7 to deal similar damage. For that you need to survive and build malice, for that you need to land shots and fight before delivering your burst. But this is fruitless, ask anybody In this game which class take the most skill. Most players will just say their own, and dump on the class they dislike the most. I play a lot of thief, but I'm not claiming that thief is harder to play than ranger or vice versa (like you are for ranger, because you play ranger). For instance, a melee ranger using great sword is a hell of a lot harder to master than a pistol/pistol thief. There is no black and white answer. I was only expressing the opinion that Longbow is easier to use than rifle, whilst providing some small numerical details showing that LB actually does more damage. All the other points you argue like daredevil and short bow are irrelevant in this context. Op wants to know which is the most effective long range DPS. I gave my 2 cents on that premise and that premise alone. As you would have read I even concluded that DE's Rifle is probably more effective overall at the moment. EDIT: Lets just agree to disagree, Op has both our opinions and I'm sure they can make a choice.

Depends on the build. In contrast to @anduriell.6280 I would say LB ranger is far more forgiving than deadeye. Other variations of ranger builds have a much steeper learning curve, but since the release of the game Longbow has always been a weapon that anybody can be effective with. Also the claim that LB does less damage than a rifle DE is a bit nuts personally. Rapid fire remains the best range damage skill in the game, in order for deaths judgment to get that sort of damage you would need to run M7, but even with 7 malice stacks you won't do more damage than rapid fire (rapid fire = 1440 base damage to Deaths Judgment = 959.4 with 7 malice stacks, 468 with no malice).Other ranged bursts like deaths judgement, gunflame etc can be dodged with a single roll, however with a rapid fire you're forced to use utility or double dodge to fully mitigate its damage. Add the fact that due to 10 distinct projectiles its guaranteed to do consistent burst damage every time, and you will find yourself caught out on unlucky crits far less often. Which is why it is in my opinion the best ranged damage skill in the game. Even with poor timing it forces your opponent to burn utility. Whilst gun flame/DJ just takes a well timed dodge. I would also put ranger ahead of ele and mesmer for mobility any day, thief being king mobility is totally accurate however. DE's ability to run away like a coward is unmatched. As for which to play its up to you. Ranger longbow will give you more success initially due to its ability to engage players with high damage at 1700 range, but if you have more time to burn and are fine with getting wrecked initially DE will probably perform better in the long run (in the current meta) as its quite strong when played correctly. Whilst ranger LB has a very low skill cap and you'll find yourself lacking the ability to further build upon your skill whilst relying on it alone. Keep in mind though, these observations are exclusive to Longbow ranger and DE rifle alone, and I'm not taking into account the skill caps required for other weapon sets on these two classes, whether they be higher or lower. *Coughpermastealthmaliciousbaskstabrunawaycough EDIT: I should add, if you try and take any fight while marked you'll be 100% destroyed as a rifle DE against any player who has taken the time to learn what their buttons do when they press them. Victory is unattainable and you should burn every CD to escape if you're caught out.

"Ganking: It is a word commonly used in online video games, usualy used in an MMORPG. Ganking is the process in which a group of characters gang up on one or more players that do not have a chance to defend themselves..." Meaning, outnumbering.Does not mean necessarly outnumbering you: some builds can make it so that if you open on them by surprise (usually that means opening either from stealth or by shadowstepping from a "hidden" position), you down them before they can react by a combination of bursts and stunlocks (ie: one-shotting).No it means they outnumber you. That's its definition. If a player pops out of stealth and hits you for 100% of your health before you knew they were there its not ganking unless there's two of them. If someone perma stuns you, pews you from range condi nukes you etc, its only ganking if you were outnumebred. There are no Ifs or buts, ganking is purely a numbers term, and has negative connotations the same way bullies are looked down on when they "gang" up on one kid at school. You can call getting one shot being "cheesed" or "meta abuse" or something else, but it is not, has never been and will never be ganking.

As has been said before in this thread ganking is MMO slang derived from the word "gang" such as when its used in the context of "ganging up" on someone. You can't gang up on someone when you're alone. If you get jumped on the way back to your zerg by a solo player running a solo roaming build you were not "ganked". OP outlined this at the very beginning of their post and yet people still call getting killed by a solo player ganking. Its not. You can call it cheesed or farmed, or camped or whatever else you like. But its not ganking unless its an actual gang thats killing you.

Can't really compare the two. Personally though, I've always found people who roam to be better duelists (results may vary) because roaming is pretty much about fights and nothing else. Roamers don't need to make tactical decisions to win any one match, and every fight they usually take is either a fair 1v1 or outnumbered. (gankers who parade around in groups of 4+ killing other solo/duo roamers are not real roamers) In sPvP however, if you're taking outnumbered fights then something has gone very wrong with your teams tactics. Spvp is about holding points and defeating the enemy team as a team. This means learning team synergy and trying to ensure every fight is in your teams favour when it comes to numbers. Problem with this is that spvp gives you less experience when it comes to defeating 2 or 3 opponents at once alone. Winning fights is simply one of many ways in which to accomplish victory. Whilst roamers only know how to win duels or 1v2's etc. One experienced solo roamer against one experienced spvp player and my money would be on the roamer.5 experienced solo roamers against 5 experienced spvp players and the roamers get demolished. But this isn't the law results can still vary from player to player. Spvp players would be more akin to tacticians.Whilst Roamers are more like cage fighters. Which is better? Can't really compare the two.

D/D (my spec of love) has been dead for a long time I'm afraid. But Implying that thieves stacking stealth and resetting fights is anything new might be the nostalgia goggles talking, but I'll mention that later. Agreed. I still roam and play the game, But ill admit I main DE because I have too. Took me 2K hours to master D/D. Learning how time the CnD, learning how to cancel the animation to bait dodges etc etc. Now as a DE all I need to do is dodge and get the same reward that took me years to truly master.But you'll find that this rings true with every single elite spec. All of them. Every expansion has dumbed down the game, every elite spec is easier to master than core. Something like this would be great. Or alternatively increase it to reveal people after 6 seconds, but instead of a normal reveal it should give a "special" one that cannot be cleared by shadow meld and lasts 10 seconds. Something like that at least. Agreed One thing I would add is to be careful of nostalgia. Even back in the glory days thieves could play exactly how some DE's play today. d/p builds using the old infusion of shadow trait (instantly grants 2 initiative when stacking stealth, god I hated this trait back then), could basically perma stealth as well as any DE. To add to this, shadow refuge, due to the lack of classes with AOE reveals was pretty much a fight resetting skill. DE's that never stay and fight and constantly reset are annoying as hell. But that play style is not new. Its been around long before any expansions were released. I would even go as far to say that Its harder for DE/thief to run away and reset fights these days because of every class having a reveal skill, many of them not requiring a target. Finally I think a lot of blame lies with the players. At the end of the day, most of this games player base doesn't care about open world pvp. Many players also have a very tribalistic attitude towards balance. On one hand, whenever you talk about nerfing thieves ability to stack copious amounts of stealth you get a crowd of players who defend stealth stacking and believe that thief is under powered and stacking 7+ seconds of stealth is fine. Then on the other side of the fence, there are people who rant that stealth should be totally deleted from the game entirely. If you want to see evidence of this I made this thread a while ago: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/88451/nerfing-permastealth-backstab-builds-without-kittening-thief-further/p1 You can read some of the replies where people actually defend a DE's ability to stack 7+ seconds of stealth without having to use any cool downs at all. Hell I main DE at the moment, and think the class should focus on weaving in and out of stealth like my true love D/D used to, and not sitting in stealth for 10 seconds bursting and then restealthing to run away. But you see this with every elite spec. Nobody wants their class to be nerfed, nobody wants to have to learn their classes anymore. So everybody defends whatever class/build they play with extreme vitriol. Which is why specs like D/D, or glass chrono etc remain dead. Roaming can still be fun, but if you try and make D/D work, you're gonna have a bad time.

The thing you may not be considering is there are some of us that hate PVE. And I mean hate. The thought of having to go on a long PvE quest just so I can unlock a spec before going back to WvW would give me nightmares. If you allow a WvW option thats equally as quick as the PvE quest then I'd be fine with it.

Have to agree that the meta is much better since they've toned down power. Also agree that condi needs toning down too. Downstate is probably the most broken thing at the moment so I agree again with you there. Players should be forced to earn that revive instead of just pressing F.

I'm not sure about that. Personally I think a lot of it would be metric based. The more powerful a class/build is the more people would be playing it. For instance, FB and Scourge dominated WvW. Easily 75% of the player base were running either a FB or a scourge. Whilst Specific builds like boon Holosmith dominated small scale/roaming. Forums are a good place for discussion but the majority of those discussion are feelings based. I hate this part of the game so its toxic. I hate mesmer clone spam, I hate stealth, I hate passive invulns, I hate condi spam etc etc. But if the numbers aren't there to support those complaints then Its best to just ignore them. There's often a huge divide between what people hate fighting, and whats actually overpowered.

Correct But this is wrong. It doesn't matter if you have a target selected or not. You gain stealth AFTER you finish the heart seeker animation. Heartseeker doesn't magically become quicker. Sob) No targetPush 5 = 500mspush 2 as soon as possible = still 750ms Why would an animation with 750ms cast time magically become 100ms-150ms just because you have nobody targeted? I just tested it .The silouett goes invisble mid air here , regadles if the icon showsYou gain the ''Stealth'' message the moment you push 2 , not when you touch the ground ... there some render or delay problems it seems .Or when other person have said that some delayreder problems in WvWvW when you get destealth (from attacking from stealth) It all hinges on the cast time, whenever cast time ends is when you gain stealth. The cast time is 750ms for heart seeker. The cast time for black powder is 500ms. Unless you have quickness the heart seeker/black powder combo is always going to take 1250ms. Doesn't matter if you have a target. Its written in the code. 1250ms. Every time. Input lag, latency or human error may make it seem to be different. But its always 1250ms. You get the ''stealth'' buff/message at the start of the combo .I really do think you are mistaken. For every leap finisher in the game you get the relevant buff at the end of the combo not at the beginning.Other people feel free to chime in.

Correct But this is wrong. It doesn't matter if you have a target selected or not. You gain stealth AFTER you finish the heart seeker animation. Heartseeker doesn't magically become quicker. Sob) No targetPush 5 = 500mspush 2 as soon as possible = still 750ms Why would an animation with 750ms cast time magically become 100ms-150ms just because you have nobody targeted? I just tested it .The silouett goes invisble mid air here , regadles if the icon showsYou gain the ''Stealth'' message the moment you push 2 , not when you touch the ground ... there some render or delay problems it seems .Or when other person have said that some delayreder problems in WvWvW when you get destealth (from attacking from stealth)It all hinges on the cast time, whenever cast time ends is when you gain stealth. The cast time is 750ms for heart seeker. The cast time for black powder is 500ms. Unless you have quickness the heart seeker/black powder combo is always going to take 1250ms. Doesn't matter if you have a target. Its written in the code. 1250ms. Every time. Input lag, latency or human error may make it seem to be different. But its always 1250ms.

Correct But this is wrong. It doesn't matter if you have a target selected or not. You gain stealth AFTER you finish the heart seeker animation. Heartseeker doesn't magically become quicker because you have no target. Sob) No targetPush 5 = 500mspush 2 as soon as possible = still 750ms Why would an animation with 750ms cast time magically become 100ms-150ms just because you have nobody targeted?

If anything I sort of wish T4 was merged with T3. Sure reset has some small queues, but the rest of the week feels pretty dead.

I've actually made a thread in the past suggesting that stealth through combo abilities shouldn't stack with stealth gained through skills as a fair nerf. But super human reflexes? The average human reaction time is 200 milliseconds, the combined cast time for black powder + heart seeker is 1250 milliseconds assuming they queue the skills perfectly. Sicem is an instant cast. Even with a ping of 500ms you would still have a window that's three times as long as the average persons reaction time to press a single button and screw their combo. So a person running with 500 ping who's twice as slow as your average joe in reaction time would still be able pull that off. If you use heartseker + Black poweder combo , then yes there s delay because Heartseeker animation must ends before it can attack .You can bypass that by casting the Black Poweder+ que the heartseeker , without a target .You will leap in the direction you want/reposition + do the heartseeker if the enemy is your path + remain stealth + having a Blind field harashing the enemy if the enemy is nearby ... at 0,65 sec animation (Lure trap ..waiting for the right person...he will come to me... it will be called selfdefence ) https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statisticshttps://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime284 ms + 30ms from lag , if you have preaty ok pc specs (framerate) or good internet speed ....1300kB/s , 94 Kb/s upload for 2 family pcs..I'm having a little trouble understanding your post. Are you talking about the thief already being in stealth when doing the 5---2 combo? If the thief does exactly what you say which is cast black powder + queue the heart seeker without a target, that still leaves a 1250 millisecond window in which to press a single button. But perhaps I've misunderstood I really had trouble comprehending what you're trying to say.

Any mount nerf is a good nerf. Mounts having increased movement in friendly territory was ridiculous and may it never ever ever return. It allowed people to return to a fight in which they died far to quickly thus removing the consequence for dying in the first place. It also allowed ganking to be far easier. No. Please. Anet never ever go back on this nerf.