Looking for a new main character.

[Irastira.8643]

Hello, I main Thief.  I play Rifle D/D Deadeye.  I am having several issues with the Thief Profession in general.

For starters, I have struggled with every step of my journey from Character Creation to surviving the Open World, to reaching level 80, to enjoying PvP, to gearing up, to WvW to Fractals and Raids.  I am tired of it. I am pretty much as built as I can be.  Full Ascended Berserker Stats, Proper Runes and Sigils. For all intents and Porposes I am using a "Great" Fractal Build. The only thing I don't have is the Proper Fractal Agony Infusion. (I have 132 Agony Resist but, none of the Power/Precision infusions)

My problem is this.

I only have 12 K HP.  With 12K HP, I can't really survive.  In fractals, like 5 enemies will spawn on top of me and then proceed to flat out one shot me.  My Kit is designed in a contradictory manor.  The Thief Profession is desgned to avoid being hit in the first place.  With my Rifle 5 Skill (Kneel) my mobility is limited.  I could just press 5 Again, but that would severly reduce my DPS.  I don't have the HP to tank the Hit, and rolling is not all ways an option. I could end up rolling off a platform and to my death (Which pisses the group off.) or into a random AoE Condition Damage that proceeds to instantly un-alive me. (Which pisses the group off) If I stand up, the group gets pissed because I am not "Pulling my weight."    Not only that, my DPS has recently taken a serious hit. A few days ago, I was critting 100K, Reduced to 60k, then 30k, now its at 20K.

100K was insane and needed to be dropped for sure.  60K was a pinch high, but acceptable.  30K Felt like an excessive over nerf and had me thinking about switching professions.  20K has me considering Banishing GW2 back to the shadow relm for the 30th time in like 7 years.  This is Ridiculous.  Or maybe this is a good thing.  Maybe I will like what ever I change to better.  What I do know is this. 

Playing a Thief has been a terrible experience from Spawn in, to SPvP, to WvWto the level up, to the story, to collecting Hero Points and Masteries, to Gearing Up, to World Exploration, to Fractals, and to raids.  Its over all been an unfun and frustrating experience.

So, I am looking for a new main.

I prefer Melee over Ranged

I prefer Power over Condition

I prefer DPS over Support.

I want something with a decent Health Pool, Self-Sustain, that is welcome in Group Content, but can still manage solo content in a reasonable amount of time.  I have pretty much cut it down to Necro, Guardian, or Ranger.  Scourge, Firebrand, or Druid/Soul Beast.

Still, I am open to recommendations.

 

[bq pd.2148]

how welcome something is in group content usually changes with balance patches. because of this it would be best to have multiple characters for group content. optimally characters that you do enjoy mechanically.

when it comes to solo power, few classes can compete with thief at the top end IMO (regardless of balance patch swings) because thief defense comes a lot from evades, mobility and stealth which are all scaling defenses.

from the 3 you mentioned i would go with necro.  guardian you would quickly notice is more squishy than the name implies and ranger i personally find more annoying to play than necro.

 

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Thief is a class with low base HP so yeah I aint surprised about having 12k when running no vitality gear. It is pretty much what you should expect when running full berserker/viper for group content as a DPS. If you really want to min max you will be running food boosting your damage so no heal on that aspect.

 

That being said if you're not really comfy with your low health but still want to maintain your damage, you could trade some pieces of gear for either draconic or marauder stat gear. Heck you could even go for valkyria pieces if you dont mind a loss of crit chance. But keep in mind that thief is still a squishy class at the end of the day so having more HP will lets you take one maybe two hits at best, ideally you dont want to get hit.

 

If despite everything I said above you still want to reroll, and based on your preferences , I can see Warrior, Necromancer and Revenant (not too sure about this one to be fair).

[Irastira.8643]

9 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

how welcome something is in group content usually changes with balance patches. because of this it would be best to have multiple characters for group content. optimally characters that you do enjoy mechanically.

when it comes to solo power, few classes can compete with thief at the top end IMO (regardless of balance patch swings) because thief defense comes a lot from evades, mobility and stealth which are all scaling defenses.

from the 3 you mentioned i would go with necro.  guardian you would quickly notice is more squishy than the name implies and ranger i personally find more annoying to play than necro.

 

Well, I have a history of somtimes playing a Necromancer.  Truth be told, I do like the Necromancer class.  It does everthing I want it to do.  It even does more DPS then my thief even at the peak of the 100K Crits.  I also have almost 20K health, an over shield worth roughly 2.5K  and I am still only in Exotic gear.  After I get Ascended Gear, I will probably be over 20K health and my over shield will be worth between 3-4K health.

I was also looking at Guardian and Ranger, Due to them almost all ways being welcome in the Meta.  But, necromancer feels right.  There is only really 1 major complaint I have.  I don't really seem to have a Cleanse.  Truth be told, with 20K health and an over shield worth 3K, and the ability to heal and Self Sustain, Necromancer should be a lot less frustrating to play then Thief.  Still, its going to be annoying being stuck in combat a minute after combat ends due to Doting myself with Bleed.  The damage itself is benign, Taking damage keeps you in combat though.

[bq pd.2148]

1 hour ago, Irastira.8643 said:

 There is only really 1 major complaint I have.  I don't really seem to have a Cleanse.  Truth be told, with 20K health and an over shield worth 3K, and the ability to heal and Self Sustain, Necromancer should be a lot less frustrating to play then Thief.  Still, its going to be annoying being stuck in combat a minute after combat ends due to Doting myself with Bleed.  The damage itself is benign, Taking damage keeps you in combat though.

necro has access to quite a few ways to remove conditions, would have to know what you are running tho to point you to it.

scourge generally has a condi cleanse on Profession Skill 2 ( F2), if you are for example running the scourge build from snowcrows you have a condition transfer from plague sending (curses trait line).  their power reaper runs with staff which has a very strong cleanse on 4th skill, offhand dagger also can transfer conditions off and you have plenty of utility/trait options to slot in a condi cleanse when solo or in a group where nobody is removing them for you.

[Raarsi.6798]

12 hours ago, Irastira.8643 said:

So, I am looking for a new main.

I prefer Melee over Ranged

I prefer Power over Condition

I prefer DPS over Support.

I want something with a decent Health Pool, Self-Sustain, that is welcome in Group Content, but can still manage solo content in a reasonable amount of time. 

Warrior also says hi.  It's melee, it's almost always power dps, it's never even heard of the word "support", it has the highest raw base health pool (along with necro), it can eat most things that would flatten other classes, it has at least two builds that are good for groups (bladesworn & hammer spellbreaker) with one (bladesworn) that can flip a trait to give alac and pretend like it's helping, and soloing OW stuff can be fairly easily done on any of its elite specs.

Revenant could fit this bill too.  Mostly melee, can be played as power dps, and all three specs have enough options to make them pretty tanky.  Only downside is that you'll probably be expected to play at least boon support dps in groups due to the effectiveness of alacrigade and quickness herald.  At least vindicator dps is pretty good...

12 hours ago, Irastira.8643 said:

I have pretty much cut it down to Necro, Guardian, or Ranger.  Scourge, Firebrand, or Druid/Soul Beast.

Of those specific options though, soulbeast for ranger would fit since it can be melee power dps (greatsword), and it can do fairly well in open world by running with your pet out.  That being said, each of those three classes have better options:

• Necro - Reaper: melee power dps, does fairly solid damage, and is pretty much made of self-sustain.
• Guardian - Willbender: also melee power dps, also does decent damage, has some self-sustain.  Only issue is with guardian in general, and that it's tied with elementalist for lowest base health pool.
• Ranger - Untamed: can be melee dps that can be run as power dps, might have less damage output than soulbeast, but has better soloing ability thanks to their mechanic when used on their pet to make it a lot harder to kill (plus it usually takes aggro for you).

[Buran.3796]

13 hours ago, Irastira.8643 said:

Playing a Thief has been a terrible experience from Spawn in, to SPvP, to WvWto the level up, to the story, to collecting Hero Points and Masteries, to Gearing Up, to World Exploration, to Fractals, and to raids.  Its over all been an unfun and frustrating experience.

So, I am looking for a new main.

I prefer Melee over Ranged

I prefer Power over Condition

I prefer DPS over Support.

I want something with a decent Health Pool, Self-Sustain, that is welcome in Group Content, but can still manage solo content in a reasonable amount of time.  I have pretty much cut it down to Necro, Guardian, or Ranger.  Scourge, Firebrand, or Druid/Soul Beast.

Still, I am open to recommendations.

   Deadeye is hard to play in PvP and outside Azza there's very few players that had mastered that spec in competitive gameplay (Sind doesn't even like/play that spec).

   Based in your description I would advice you Warrior, with some caveats:

   * Bladesworn is amongs the strongest instanced PvE dps builds, and with the same power dps gear can be one of the thoughest and most efficient solo builds, just swapping some traits and utilities, albeit thet build is harder to play than, lets say, celestial Mirage or celestial Rev variants. The weak side is that Bladesworn is a bit boring at PvP/WvW since its burst is lergely nerfed there, and has  very limited variety in terms of weapon and skill selection (most don't work well with the flow/mmo system).

   * Berserker is very good at the moment at PvP/WvW, and can be played as power, condi or hybrid. Offers a very fast paced gameplay; the weakness is that relies a lot in cc, and that is good vs players and regular foes, but doesn't work so well at things like soloing bounties or meta events.

   * Spellbreaker is a bit more balanced than the other two: where Bladesworn and Berserker  jump a lot in competitive game modes from great to garbage, Spellbreaker usually is at least decent most of the time. The downside is that at PvE is not very special, since doesn't shine in instanced content, nor soloing things, or as a heavy dps hitter.

[draxynnic.3719]

Necromancer (particularly reaper), warrior, guardian, and revenant would all work with your criteria. Soulbeast probably does, but I don't have enough experience with it to say for sure (some builds, at least, are range-oriented).

I would note that despite having the same base health, guardian typically feels tougher than thief. This is because while thief's damage mitigation is often based around dodging the hit (and if your baseline is deadeye, it's sacrificed some of its ability to dodge - you might find daredevil would work for you, but I don't know the benchmark for daredevil at the moment), guardian damage mitigation is usually based more on blocking, reducing, and healing through the damage, which both makes it easier to use and less susceptible to dodging out of the frying pan into the fire.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

From your description, it sounds like you just googled the raid build for Deadeye, and then built it without trying any of the other weapon or utility options.  Which is unfortunate, since Thief has so many tools available to it.  The raid builds are built almost for pure damage or very niche roles, so it is beneficial to learn all of the utilities and traits, then use them accordingly.  

If you ever play thief again, my advice would be to drop D/D for Sword/Pistol in most of PVE.  The easiest way to fight anything without a break bar is to use Black Powder to blind all nearby enemies, then use Pistol Whip to do damage while CC'ing and evading attacks.  Second option is to use the Smokescreen utility over one of the signets, which creates a more powerful pulsing blind than Black Powder while also blocking projectiles.  Since you're on Deadeye, the combination of Headshot (Pistol 4) with Mark and Mercy has the best single target CC in the game.  Also consider using Pitfall for a long duration AoE CC, Shadow Refuge for rezzing allies and bypassing certain mechanics, and also know that Rifle has a projectile destroying barrier it can create on Kneeled #4.    If you need more sustain, consider taking Invigorating Precision in the Critical Strikes line, alongside of Signet of Malice for a heal skill.  This will give you plenty of self-sustain.

Twin dagger Deadeye is only really good in fights where all you need to do is damage, and nothing else.  This makes it one of those trivially niche builds, since Rifle can accomplish much of the same while leaving the off-hand for utility weapons.  From the way you describe things, it sounds like you'd be much happier playing Daredevil than Deadeye, since Daredevil is more capable in a melee scrap than Deadeye is.  The Daredevil's dodge + Vault tactics will avoid the enemy's alpha strike while doing high cleaving damage, and weakening charge gives enemies the weakness debuff for -25% incoming damage.  Though if you're going to play Daredevil, my advice wouldn't be to copy the raid build verbatim, since that one requires playing close to the chest with dodges and abilities.  Take Marauder's Resilience for added passive defense, Escapists Fortitude in condi heavy areas, and use Staff Mastery to get a solid static buff that gives you more endurance instead of requiring you to lose it all.  As always, the core defensive utilities (Smokescreen, Signet of Malice, Invigorating Precision, Pitfall) will work for Daredevil, too.

Finally, consider buying a tier 10 jade bot core.  That will give 2,350 more health.  Know that inflexibility in pure damage specs will cause similar problems in Guardian as it did on Thief.  

[Matoro.9708]

Being dead is a DPS loss and not fun. Thus, I don't really consider defensive stats a waste. I suppose other classes might solve your issue, but changing your gear stats might get to the root of it. It's also fairly simple and cheap with the mystic forge.

[Wyrm.2840]

Got to put a shout out to Core Mesmer (Sword/Sword) and Mirage (Axe/Sword) here... The class ceiling is high, but you can engage in some absolutely mind blowing dodge/evade mechanics that I see you mentioned as something you were looking for out of Thief, plus the thrill of illusions which are often distracting mobs on your behalf. In my mind, it's truly the middle ground you're looking for between a thief and a Necro. Necro does have a lot more overshield, but at times I feel my Necro has too much sustain and not enough utility when I am messing around, and the minion play is uninspired. Enter Mesmer. 

 

Skip Chrono and Virtuoso Elite specs as they don't align with the check boxes you identified above.

[doc.9162]

scrapper ftw, you can reuse your deadeyes medium armor, the knee jerk reaction is necro, but its kinda dull to play.

scrapper is fun to play.

tanky! 5% of your damage gets converted to personal barrier. (more damage more barrier)

bursty! great for boss phases, great for stun locked mob annihilation.

stun locked mobs and 1000 cc break bar damage, makes your healers life much easier when the mobs cant attack. solo destroy boss bars.

super speed, invisibility for mob skips.

change one trait and your now a quick dps scrapper

can use the same beserkers gear for multiple roles (alac-dps/quick-dps/dps) or you can add harriers gear for quick heal or alac heal.

in summary no other class has the scope that engineer has.

 

 

[Irastira.8643]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:34 PM, Matoro.9708 said:

Being dead is a DPS loss and not fun. Thus, I don't really consider defensive stats a waste. I suppose other classes might solve your issue, but changing your gear stats might get to the root of it. It's also fairly simple and cheap with the mystic forge.

I never said Defense was a waste.  However, lets look at this Mathematically.  If I did switch all my gear to Marauder, I'd probably gain a few 3-4K health, but I would also lose half my Ferocity doing it. That would further cripple my Thiefs DPS output. The only reason people would invite a Thief to a raid, is for the DPS position.  You're ether playing the META. Or you are playing a single player game.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Irastira.8643

[Gaiawolf.8261]

5 hours ago, Irastira.8643 said:

I never said Defense was a waste.  However, lets look at this Mathematically.  If I did switch all my gear to Marauder, I'd probably gain a few 3-4K health, but I would also lose half my Ferocity doing it. That would further cripple my Thiefs DPS output. The only reason people would invite a Thief to a raid, is for the DPS position.  You're ether playing the META. Or you are playing a single player game.

It's been a while since I had to post a LFG. Is the player community really that toxic that they regularly kick someone for not running Meta Zerker/Viper gear?

It's good game design to offer options that sacrifice some DPS for sustain, CC, support, etc. and vice versa. It's not the game's fault if the player base gets so toxic that they go to extremes and refuse to play moderately. Unless the DPS loss is too much to account for the additional survival? That has not been my experience. Most builds I've developed for my characters only suffer <15% DPS loss adding in the necessary sustain I need. Perhaps you feel that's too much? I don't know, but I still get through most content with it just fine. And I didn't have much trouble finding groups with it, but that was a few years ago.

[Irastira.8643]

13 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It's been a while since I had to post a LFG. Is the player community really that toxic that they regularly kick someone for not running Meta Zerker/Viper gear?

It's good game design to offer options that sacrifice some DPS for sustain, CC, support, etc. and vice versa. It's not the game's fault if the player base gets so toxic that they go to extremes and refuse to play moderately. Unless the DPS loss is too much to account for the additional survival? That has not been my experience. Most builds I've developed for my characters only suffer <15% DPS loss adding in the necessary sustain I need. Perhaps you feel that's too much? I don't know, but I still get through most content with it just fine. And I didn't have much trouble finding groups with it, but that was a few years ago.

People lose their mind over a player not having Fractal Potions.  People lose their mind over a raider not having ascended gear.  Its only 5%, But that 5% is enough to gate keep. Even though MMORPGs are games that require Skill.  To that point, having Ascended gear doesn't prove anything other then you've played for like 2 months.  Doesn't mean you know the mechanics.  Doesn't mean you know your rotation.  It doesn't mean you know how to fill out your gear.

having no experience in a raid is reason enough to gate keep you out of it.  "You need the acheivement for the boss to raid."  Fam, how am I supposed to get the acheivement if no one will let me raid? And no one is going to Raid with some one they need to carry. Not unless that person serves a purpose with in the community itself such as a well known Content Creator. That is just the way the MMORPG genra is.  You're ether As geared as you can be, Or you're not invited to tag along. And if they get the feeling you don't know your mechanics or rotation, you're uninvited from the group.

I am just glad every one bottoms out after Ascended Gear. because in other MMORPGs, You need an Item Level that exceeds the Item Level of gear that the raid drops in order to participate.  You also need the achievement to prove you've done the content before.  Which creates a cycle that is impossible to break.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Irastira.8643

[Matoro.9708]

58 minutes ago, Irastira.8643 said:

People lose their mind over a player not having Fractal Potions.  People lose their mind over a raider not having ascended gear.  Its only 5%, But that 5% is enough to gate keep. Even though MMORPGs are games that require Skill.  To that point, having Ascended gear doesn't prove anything other then you've played for like 2 months.  Doesn't mean you know the mechanics.  Doesn't mean you know your rotation.  It doesn't mean you know how to fill out your gear.

having no experience in a raid is reason enough to gate keep you out of it.  "You need the acheivement for the boss to raid."  Fam, how am I supposed to get the acheivement if no one will let me raid? And no one is going to Raid with some one they need to carry. Not unless that person serves a purpose with in the community itself such as a well known Content Creator. That is just the way the MMORPG genra is.  You're ether As geared as you can be, Or you're not invited to tag along. And if they get the feeling you don't know your mechanics or rotation, you're uninvited from the group.

I am just glad every one bottoms out after Ascended Gear. because in other MMORPGs, You need an Item Level that exceeds the Item Level of gear that the raid drops in order to participate.  You also need the achievement to prove you've done the content before.  Which creates a cycle that is impossible to break.

For what it's worth, I've got over 4k hours and have never touched raids and never will because on principle I despise the community there. Having a forced random matchmaking for it would be sweet sweet justice. They never will though.

[Bankrotas.8215]

On 7/27/2023 at 9:22 PM, Irastira.8643 said:

I don't really seem to have a Cleanse. 

There's a well that is stunbreak, stability and transform condition to boon type of cleanse.

[Irastira.8643]

4 hours ago, Bankrotas.8215 said:

There's a well that is stunbreak, stability and transform condition to boon type of cleanse.

I never thought about it like that. But you are correct!

[Dayra.7405]

Hm, I find my Marauder/Dragon Daredevil (currently I most often play OW/Story with with Staff/Shortbow and occasional switch to DE with rifle/SB, happy to try staff/rifle soon) has a decend lifepool (21.6k life with lvl-10 jade-Core) and very good sustain, with signet of malice as heal skill, 66% life-steel on crit food and if needed Invigorating Precision as further very powerful self-heal. That's currently one of the most tanky builds I play.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Gaiawolf.8261]

16 hours ago, Irastira.8643 said:

People lose their mind over a player not having Fractal Potions.  People lose their mind over a raider not having ascended gear.  Its only 5%, But that 5% is enough to gate keep. Even though MMORPGs are games that require Skill.  To that point, having Ascended gear doesn't prove anything other then you've played for like 2 months.  Doesn't mean you know the mechanics.  Doesn't mean you know your rotation.  It doesn't mean you know how to fill out your gear.

having no experience in a raid is reason enough to gate keep you out of it.  "You need the acheivement for the boss to raid."  Fam, how am I supposed to get the acheivement if no one will let me raid? And no one is going to Raid with some one they need to carry. Not unless that person serves a purpose with in the community itself such as a well known Content Creator. That is just the way the MMORPG genra is.  You're ether As geared as you can be, Or you're not invited to tag along. And if they get the feeling you don't know your mechanics or rotation, you're uninvited from the group.

I am just glad every one bottoms out after Ascended Gear. because in other MMORPGs, You need an Item Level that exceeds the Item Level of gear that the raid drops in order to participate.  You also need the achievement to prove you've done the content before.  Which creates a cycle that is impossible to break.

That's kind of sad. There are other options, like some good PVE guilds that will train newbies for raids, builds, gearing, and mechanics. The whole package. But that shouldn't be necessary. Most of the GW2 communities I played with in OW, WVW, and even when I started fractals were mostly friendly and helpful. Maybe the raid community just got tired of that or overrun with toxic players?

Edited August 3, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261