Giving up on thief WvW roaming (suggest alternatives)

[Sansar.1302]

On 4/9/2024 at 12:51 AM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

See, you are a great example of what I and a few others maining thief go through. We've explained till blue in the face exactly what u have experienced to no avail and it's said it's been this way.

Onlyspecific builds of thief really work well and even then they are stale and wayyy old to keep playing them despite new weapons and supposed changes or adjustments meant to grow thief interest but it's not enough. Axe isn't even that good tbh. Why would I, personally, come back for a new weapon just to watch it turn out crappier then what we had? It's exactly why some of us put thief or the game down (if you only played thief like myself).

 

We need more people like you to try out thief and see your point in this thread. We're not overpowered at all, rare circumstances only. Otherwise every other class will dunk on us everytime as far as advantageous growth. Jack if all trades, master of none

No thief is way op and needs some nerf, its damage should be the lowest in wvw to compensate for 100% safe play style.

[kash.9213]

On 4/13/2024 at 5:02 PM, Sansar.1302 said:

No thief is way op and needs some nerf, its damage should be the lowest in wvw to compensate for 100% safe play style.

When your two most celebrated forms of mitigation allow 100% damage to tag you unless you trait deep into modifying those actions at the cost of offense, then you don't need any kind of damage nerf. That's the opposite of safe play style.  

[Daenxi.4530]

OK so I am a glutton for punishment and decided to do another roaming session on my semi retired thief with the P/D Core  meta build (with some alterations) I faced a very obnoxious Tempest multiple times along with a 2v1 against a ranger and guardian  and another encounter with a necromancer, I have to say I was surprised at myself because I won nearly all my fights and even downed a ranger when fighting 2v1 against a ranger guardian but had to disengage as I didn't have a way of managing both enemies at the same time (not complaining) 

But my most notable encounter was with the tempest, he basically demolished me when I used D/P and spamming repeater after shadowstrike, after being killed 3 times instead of giving up and logging on the forum to cry I just decided to say kitten the meta and switched to D/D (off meta) and demolished him so badly just by interrupting his heal with steal and overwhelming him with bleed (as well as being able to evade while attacking doing it from dagger 3 deadly blossom. He went down so easily I thought someone was helping me from range and and I checked and I definitely beat him on my own.
I only have 2 conclusions to draw from this..

The meta feels misguiding/closed minded, I don't know how strictly you actually supposed to follow it but dagger/dagger is no where to be seen in the WvW roaming metabattle but it just flipped a fight in the complete opposite direction.

Thief gets punished by 'bad match ups' way more than other professions.
 

[kash.9213]

42 minutes ago, Daenxi.4530 said:

OK so I am a glutton for punishment and decided to do another roaming session on my semi retired thief with the P/D Core  meta build (with some alterations) I faced a very obnoxious Tempest multiple times along with a 2v1 against a ranger and guardian  and another encounter with a necromancer, I have to say I was surprised at myself because I won nearly all my fights and even downed a ranger when fighting 2v1 against a ranger guardian but had to disengage as I didn't have a way of managing both enemies at the same time (not complaining) 

But my most notable encounter was with the tempest, he basically demolished me when I used D/P and spamming repeater after shadowstrike, after being killed 3 times instead of giving up and logging on the forum to cry I just decided to say kitten the meta and switched to D/D (off meta) and demolished him so badly just by interrupting his heal with steal and overwhelming him with bleed (as well as being able to evade while attacking doing it from dagger 3 deadly blossom. He went down so easily I thought someone was helping me from range and and I checked and I definitely beat him on my own.
I only have 2 conclusions to draw from this..

The meta feels misguiding/closed minded, I don't know how strictly you actually supposed to follow it but dagger/dagger is no where to be seen in the WvW roaming metabattle but it just flipped a fight in the complete opposite direction.

Thief gets punished by 'bad match ups' way more than other professions.
 

I think metabattle is pretty good for baseline templates that have a little bit of built in trouble shooting to cover a range of players and can be dominating against someone who hasn't packed for a moving fight. You staggered out Steal and were able to be surgical with it, where at some other time or being some other player, you might have needed secure follow up utility right away. But then if they survived your sequence, the meta might not have an answer if they're template is custom made for where they're at or for some kind of system they've developed (and if they're just really good and tuned in at the moment).

I still have to keep a mostly meta specter raid template on hand even if I'm playing mostly Acro right now in WvW because it doesn't have an answer for everything, but it's pretty solid for its role and if I don't get melted right away then it's got legs. 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

On 4/17/2024 at 4:05 PM, Daenxi.4530 said:

OK so I am a glutton for punishment and decided to do another roaming session on my semi retired thief with the P/D Core  meta build (with some alterations) I faced a very obnoxious Tempest multiple times along with a 2v1 against a ranger and guardian  and another encounter with a necromancer, I have to say I was surprised at myself because I won nearly all my fights and even downed a ranger when fighting 2v1 against a ranger guardian but had to disengage as I didn't have a way of managing both enemies at the same time (not complaining) 

But my most notable encounter was with the tempest, he basically demolished me when I used D/P and spamming repeater after shadowstrike, after being killed 3 times instead of giving up and logging on the forum to cry I just decided to say kitten the meta and switched to D/D (off meta) and demolished him so badly just by interrupting his heal with steal and overwhelming him with bleed (as well as being able to evade while attacking doing it from dagger 3 deadly blossom. He went down so easily I thought someone was helping me from range and and I checked and I definitely beat him on my own.
I only have 2 conclusions to draw from this..

The meta feels misguiding/closed minded, I don't know how strictly you actually supposed to follow it but dagger/dagger is no where to be seen in the WvW roaming metabattle but it just flipped a fight in the complete opposite direction.

Thief gets punished by 'bad match ups' way more than other professions.
 

The thing about the meta is that you have to know the purpose that the build was made for. Most meta PvP thief builds aren't duellists, they are +1 builds. Sure, you can duel on it if the other guy doesn't know how to shut you down, but it's primary role is to move between points and to chunk something that's already fighting an ally, either downing it outright or forcing it to burn enough cooldowns that your ally can kill it after you leave. So in that sense it's not surprising that you lost to a tempest, a spec that is typically played as a duellist/support role and that packs a LOT of projectile hate. Thinking about this is important as thief typically has next to no sustain, so you have to control the flow of a fight or you will lose. 

The other problem with the meta is that everything gets balanced around those builds. I'm not loving the game at the moment as a lot of my off meta builds have recently been patched out of existence through trait and skill reworks. So yeah, you can be more effective in individual matchups by playing off meta, but be prepared to change your build completely after a patch. 

[Daenxi.4530]

14 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

The thing about the meta is that you have to know the purpose that the build was made for. Most meta PvP thief builds aren't duellists, they are +1 builds. Sure, you can duel on it if the other guy doesn't know how to shut you down, but it's primary role is to move between points and to chunk something that's already fighting an ally, either downing it outright or forcing it to burn enough cooldowns that your ally can kill it after you leave. So in that sense it's not surprising that you lost to a tempest, a spec that is typically played as a duellist/support role and that packs a LOT of projectile hate. Thinking about this is important as thief typically has next to no sustain, so you have to control the flow of a fight or you will lose. 

The other problem with the meta is that everything gets balanced around those builds. I'm not loving the game at the moment as a lot of my off meta builds have recently been patched out of existence through trait and skill reworks. So yeah, you can be more effective in individual matchups by playing off meta, but be prepared to change your build completely after a patch. 

Well yeah part of my frustration is that I play this game (or at least in the case of PVP) because I want to duel, I think 1v1s give me the satisfaction of tracking my improvement and skill level while beating the competion, BUT I also want to do that while fulfilling my MMORPG class fantasies. In that case I want to do that on a 'agile' assassin trickster rogue archetype with the thief  and a ... 'dark spirit warrior dragon knight' (can't think of a good archetype descriptor for Revenant) in the revenant.

Anyway I have been experimenting with dagger/dagger in WvW since I last posted a day ago and so far I have not even lost a fight ( I don't expect to win them all though). 
I am running trailblazer stats (Toughness,VItality,Condition Damage and Expertise) with Dagger+Dagger and Pistol+Dagger (yep no shortbow so its VERY off meta)
I am not going to write out the whole build because I don't think anybody cares in *that* much detail but my general strategy is to pick traitlines and grant HP using abilities e.g
DareDevil Traitline ( Gain HP from dodging) +  (impaling lotus is preferred)
Acrobatics (Gain HP from skill that use initiative)
Critical Strikes (Gain HP from outgoing critical attacks)
Trickery Is compulsory so you pick from any of the above 2.
Shadow Arts has a life steal trait but I have not tried that one yet
Now Add signet of malice to give even more healing from attacking.
As for utilities I just pick ones that grant initiative or endurance for trait line synergy e.g
Signet of agility (for endurance to dodge)
Roll for initiative ( initiative to use dagger 3).
Dagger Storm (Synergy with escapists fortitude) 

Anyway the basic idea is to spam dagger 3 deaths blossom (Attacks, Adds Bleeding AND evades) and allow it to synergise with your traits so not only do you attack, and evade at the same time but you also gain health from signet of malice and Critical Strikes/Acrobatics while attacking but you also gain health from dodging as a daredevil as well as continuing to apply conditions with impaling lotus.
If you get focused, or AOE bombed use Dagger Storm for 4seconds of evade (escapists fortitude trait means you also heal for every attack you evade this can potentially take you from 50%hp to 100%HP. 
So the only challenge here is managing your initiative and dodges for longer fights as its an effective playstyle without being overly technical. 

I like this build because it is (dare I say) actually a somewhat tanky take on the build that also negates high pressure burst attackers (Mesmers, Rangers, Certain Gaurdians).

I am still in need of more experimenting but this is what I have so far

Edited April 19 by Daenxi.4530

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

5 hours ago, Daenxi.4530 said:

Well yeah part of my frustration is that I play this game (or at least in the case of PVP) because I want to duel, I think 1v1s give me the satisfaction of tracking my improvement and skill level while beating the competion, BUT I also want to do that while fulfilling my MMORPG class fantasies. In that case I want to do that on a 'agile' assassin trickster rogue archetype with the thief  and a ... 'dark spirit warrior dragon knight' (can't think of a good archetype descriptor for Revenant) in the revenant.

Anyway I have been experimenting with dagger/dagger in WvW since I last posted a day ago and so far I have not even lost a fight ( I don't expect to win them all though). 
I am running trailblazer stats (Toughness,VItality,Condition Damage and Expertise) with Dagger+Dagger and Pistol+Dagger (yep no shortbow so its VERY off meta)
I am not going to write out the whole build because I don't think anybody cares in *that* much detail but my general strategy is to pick traitlines and grant HP using abilities e.g
DareDevil Traitline ( Gain HP from dodging) +  (impaling lotus is preferred)
Acrobatics (Gain HP from skill that use initiative)
Critical Strikes (Gain HP from outgoing critical attacks)
Trickery Is compulsory so you pick from any of the above 2.
Shadow Arts has a life steal trait but I have not tried that one yet
Now Add signet of malice to give even more healing from attacking.
As for utilities I just pick ones that grant initiative or endurance for trait line synergy e.g
Signet of agility (for endurance to dodge)
Roll for initiative ( initiative to use dagger 3).
Dagger Storm (Synergy with escapists fortitude) 

Anyway the basic idea is to spam dagger 3 deaths blossom (Attacks, Adds Bleeding AND evades) and allow it to synergise with your traits so not only do you attack, and evade at the same time but you also gain health from signet of malice and Critical Strikes/Acrobatics while attacking but you also gain health from dodging as a daredevil as well as continuing to apply conditions with impaling lotus.
If you get focused, or AOE bombed use Dagger Storm for 4seconds of evade (escapists fortitude trait means you also heal for every attack you evade this can potentially take you from 50%hp to 100%HP. 
So the only challenge here is managing your initiative and dodges for longer fights as its an effective playstyle without being overly technical. 

I like this build because it is (dare I say) actually a somewhat tanky take on the build that also negates high pressure burst attackers (Mesmers, Rangers, Certain Gaurdians).

I am still in need of more experimenting but this is what I have so far

Yep, it's a build that's been floating around in some form since the Heart of Thorns expansion, it's quite effective as long as your opponent is aggressive. The point where you're going to find it painful is when you run into an opponent that understands that if they force you to chase them that they have the advantage (your offensive mobility compared to a daredevil running D/P dash is quite low), and if they aren't aggressively spamming skills at you so your evades cleanse you they can time ranged condi application to the end of your dodges to chip you down without triggering your traits. You'll be having more success on it at the moment as you run into a player running this build once in a blue moon, and especially in outnumbered situations people tend to be more aggressive than they should. Not criticising, it's just important to know the limits of a build so you know what to avoid. A good deadeye, condi thief (if they time pistol 2 for the end of your dodges to force you to eat condis) condi immob druid or anything with a lot of immob and a brain to use it well will give you a lot of trouble. 

Shortbow used to be a good offhand for your daggers before choking gas got bumped up to 6 ini, as impaling lotus is a projectile finisher and choking gas used to spam daze as long as the target had more than 4-5 poison stacks (I forget, was a long time ago now). The main advantage to taking it now would be for downed pressure, choking gas and auto spam will stack poison, bleed and torment on the downed and the guy ressing if you take the torment on interrupt trait. Not much use in a duel but something to be aware of if you're roaming solo.

Depending on how much you're weapon swapping in a fight, taking celerity sigil on shortbow/P/D with impact strike (daredevil elite skill) is also a fun way to secure a kill, as the quickness will ensure that the evade from instant reflexes lasts for the duration of the skill, effectively giving you an invuln stomp (not perfect, as some skills will interrupt evade, and the evade runs out a hair before the end of the skill, but I've stomped peeps in the middle of their zerg doing this). Costs you your dagger storm and a sigil slot on your offhand but you can use it every 30s, so again it's a tradeoff. 

Also bear in mind that escapist's fortitude has a 1s internal cooldown, so in WvW for a 4s evade the most healing you'll get is 4x150=600 in full trailblazer. The bulk of your healing will be coming from assassin's reward. If you take the signet heal that can be significantly higher because of the bouncing daggers from daggerstorm, but not taking withdraw in WvW for the immob break is usually unwise. 

[Daenxi.4530]

ok so I am not done with my love hate relationship with thief now for an update on where I am at. 

So I just decided to bite the bullet a give up on the stealth aspect of thief and trying to use stealth for survival so I went in to Spvp and finally changed from Carrion (when using conditions) and Marauder/Demolihser (when using power) to Bezerker Amulet with Ranger (ferocity and precision) rune and more importantly running Critical Strikes for the first time in my thief experience and I have to say I am more pleased than i expected once I got over the whole getting killed in one kitten thing (lol).
Now I have tried the following weapon combinations 
Dagger/Pistol (The classic at this point)
Sword/Dagger ( Surprisingly good boon stealing but somewhat lacking in killing power)
Staff (Spammable projectile reflect  and massive damage leap and bound). 
With only 11K HP as thief and no stealth access from weapons or utility's I find that I am getting much more out of thief by playing with positioning and out-positioning my opponent as well as timing my interrupts at landing burst. Now I feel like I was definitely playing conditions as an ease of use crutc instead of a go to tactic after all the flinging daggers condition dodge is easier to handle than the power bounding.

I think I can see thief from a different point of view if I just give up on stealth entirely and channel all my stats in MASSIVE damage, i'm talking kill the enemy with two staff 5 attacks kind of damage. How ever I will still be using signet malice and trait lining into outgoing critical hits healing me and dodging healing and cuing a condition on dodge in order to maintain some level of sustain and give me a bit of space to make mistakes considering just how fragile I am with bezerker rune. This also has good synergy when being burted if I use flying daggers- I can potentially get back a full bar of health while being pressured and reflecting projectiles at the same so I get to keep my signet of malice for the passive most of the time. 
Once again I am getting way better results off meta than I am playing *that* d/p Spvp meta build. 

I just wonder if my relative success in Spvp with the previously stated changes to by build would translate to WvW with Bezerker gear.

 

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 4/28/2024 at 12:57 AM, Daenxi.4530 said:

ok so I am not done with my love hate relationship with thief now for an update on where I am at. 

So I just decided to bite the bullet a give up on the stealth aspect of thief and trying to use stealth for survival so I went in to Spvp and finally changed from Carrion (when using conditions) and Marauder/Demolihser (when using power) to Bezerker Amulet with Ranger (ferocity and precision) rune and more importantly running Critical Strikes for the first time in my thief experience and I have to say I am more pleased than i expected once I got over the whole getting killed in one kitten thing (lol).
Now I have tried the following weapon combinations 
Dagger/Pistol (The classic at this point)
Sword/Dagger ( Surprisingly good boon stealing but somewhat lacking in killing power)
Staff (Spammable projectile reflect  and massive damage leap and bound). 
With only 11K HP as thief and no stealth access from weapons or utility's I find that I am getting much more out of thief by playing with positioning and out-positioning my opponent as well as timing my interrupts at landing burst. Now I feel like I was definitely playing conditions as an ease of use crutc instead of a go to tactic after all the flinging daggers condition dodge is easier to handle than the power bounding.

I think I can see thief from a different point of view if I just give up on stealth entirely and channel all my stats in MASSIVE damage, i'm talking kill the enemy with two staff 5 attacks kind of damage. How ever I will still be using signet malice and trait lining into outgoing critical hits healing me and dodging healing and cuing a condition on dodge in order to maintain some level of sustain and give me a bit of space to make mistakes considering just how fragile I am with bezerker rune. This also has good synergy when being burted if I use flying daggers- I can potentially get back a full bar of health while being pressured and reflecting projectiles at the same so I get to keep my signet of malice for the passive most of the time. 
Once again I am getting way better results off meta than I am playing *that* d/p Spvp meta build. 

I just wonder if my relative success in Spvp with the previously stated changes to by build would translate to WvW with Bezerker gear.

 

As a Crit Strikes aficionado, full glass is significantly more usable in sPvP than WvW because incoming damage in WvW is much higher from significantly more durable builds, and there's much more terrain play available in sPvP for shadowsteps.

It might still nab an unsuspecting player, but you will hit a brick wall against better opponents or those who see you coming.  This will inevitably lead to a lot more frustration, especially if you ever give power D/D a try, but ride out the enjoyment while you can.

Welcome to low stealth power builds and specifically power thief, though.  There's a damned good reason people very much dislike overly defensive builds and condition builds in general; it brings gameplay to a lower common denominator across the board, as the heightened pace makes every second of combat feel utterly exhilarating.  GW2 combat feels amazing at this speed.

Edited Saturday at 09:08 PM by DeceiverX.8361