P/P is too powerful

[yLoon.5289]

1) Be keen on the mini map when you are wandering alone, communicate with the team to speculate teef's location is vital.2) Just abuse lost of sights, hide behind something, trees, statue, rocks, pet, cornering, etc. etc, this will totally nullify their 3.3) PP teef is kinda useless in a team fight, as 3's damage will be weak (spreading with teammates in a group fight) that is if you are moving tactically.PP Teef really just melt instantly, and they can't defend a point either. Hence it is extremely easy to anticipate where they will appear next. Their tactic either is to hunt careless wandering players, stealing your mob, or +1 in a team fight, which is actually hard for them to land all of the bullets on a single player in that situation.

So, the issue here is really just a matter of learning to play. Enjoy.

[anduriell.6280]

i still think if thief would do less damage depending on how many initiative has left in pvp\wvw this would solve all the complains. The thief still would have the opening burst at full power but it wouldn't be able to sustain the damage spamming buttons.

[BMW.2951]

They need to nerf the damage of this lame build. Insane damage with literally no skill to play. 333333333333333333333333333333333 dead.

[ZDragon.3046]

@"Yannir.4132" said:What ever happened to "projectile hate" in this game?

People dont opt to use it because (GOOTTA DO TONS OF DAMAGE.)

[Valis.5907]

Cheesy? Yes. Overpowered? Hardly.P/P Thieves are extremely weak to CC & proj. reflect.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

Because shortbow and stealth.

[babazhook.6805]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:What ever happened to "projectile hate" in this game?

People dont opt to use it because (GOOTTA DO TONS OF DAMAGE.)

This is the issue in a nutshell. Those complaining the loudest that Thief damage from p/p too much are the same ones who will not take reflects or other mitigation measures because THEY want to be able to down an enemy as quickly as possible. A P/P thief counters those weak builds and that one dimensional gameplay so they complain it an issue with Unload rather then their own build and style.

This very much like the person who in a "profession shall rename nameless thread" was boasting of how his build wrecked any opponents he faced outside a specific thief build and then in the generic topic on game balance complained that this thief build was OP and needed to be nerfed.

[babazhook.6805]

@BMW.2951 said:They need to nerf the damage of this lame build. Insane damage with literally no skill to play. 333333333333333333333333333333333 dead.

There something like 150 initiative used in the game style you suggest WORKS with a thief build. A thief has at most 15 inititave so do tell me how it is they muster that extra 135 INI and or what YOU are doing as they are waiting to regen that INI? Are you posting on behalf of one of the training Golems?

[ZDragon.3046]

@babazhook.6805 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:What ever happened to "projectile hate" in this game?

People dont opt to use it because (GOOTTA DO TONS OF DAMAGE.)

This is the issue in a nutshell. Those complaining the loudest that Thief damage from p/p too much are the same ones who will not take reflects or other mitigation measures because THEY want to be able to down an enemy as quickly as possible. A P/P thief counters those weak builds and that one dimensional gameplay so they complain it an issue with Unload rather then their own build and style.

This very much like the person who in a "profession shall rename nameless thread" was boasting of how his build wrecked any opponents he faced outside a specific thief build and then in the generic topic on game balance complained that this thief build was OP and needed to be nerfed.

Granted there are some professions who literally cant deal with it but the majority of them have some options to projectile hate its just that in the game right now projectile dps is not a meta thing so people dont run it. Back in the day where you had long bow rangers everywhere you always saw projectile hate. But most rangers these days go druid and even if they run long bow its not as much of a threat due to the lack of damage they do with it.Warriors dont really use riflesMesmers dont do use projectilesCore necro is out so its projectile less for the most part.Guardians mostly run firebrand so those no DH long bow and even then you can dodge the main source of its damage its not wroth projectile hate.etc etc etc.

Thief p/p is strong because no one runs projectile hate.1 good well timed reflect can make them have a bad time or at least get them to stop attacking for some period, disengage, etc.

[Turk.5460]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

Because shortbow and stealth.

Guardian block, heal, and aegis spam - cheesy and annoyingWarrior regen and invuln and FC - cheesy and annoyingRanger knockback + rapid fire then let pet do all the work - cheesy and annoyingMesmer 40 page thread - cheesy and annoyingEngy photon forge rotation spam - cheesy and annoyingNecro aoe condition spam - cheesy and annoying

Is there anything besides current state of ele and rev that isn't cheesy and annoying?None of these are or will ever be as easily countered as P/P thief.

[coro.3176]

People keep saying it's a 1.5s channel. It's actually effectively a 0.75s channel because it's basically always done with quickness.

Once you add the daze, latency, player reaction time, time to activate the stunbreak, the fact that it's probably coming from stealth and/or behind you, etc. You're unlikely to be able to avoid much of it. Sure, you might be able to dodge/block/invuln a hit or two and cost the thief a few points of ini, but you're still taking 10-15k damage before you can react.

IMO, the base skill is actually fine. It's the way it combos with other thief traits and skills (ranged cc, quickness) that make it annoying and cheesy.

[coro.3176]

@Turk.5460 said:Is there anything besides current state of ele and rev that isn't cheesy and annoying?

Sadly, not much.. The game has gone down that path more and more ever since the expansions.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Turk.5460 said:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

Because shortbow and stealth.

Guardian block, heal, and aegis spam - cheesy and annoyingWarrior regen and invuln and FC - cheesy and annoyingRanger knockback + rapid fire then let pet do all the work - cheesy and annoyingMesmer 40 page thread - cheesy and annoyingEngy photon forge rotation spam - cheesy and annoyingNecro aoe condition

spam

- cheesy and annoying

Is there anything besides current state of ele and rev that

isn't

cheesy and annoying?None of these are or will ever be as easily countered as P/P thief.

No, wait, you see, if you play it then it automatically isn't cheesy.

Because you play it.

Normal people play those classes. Thief mains are all borderline monsters with no souls.

[Bossun.2046]

Hmm just yesterday I faced both a pp teef and a lb ranger. I made them feel so useless by running PISTOL/SHIELD HOLO. Other off meta builds can rekt off meta teef ?

[Turk.5460]

@coro.3176 said:People keep saying it's a 1.5s channel. It's actually effectively a 0.75s channel because it's basically always done with quickness.

Once you add the daze, latency, player reaction time, time to activate the stunbreak, the fact that it's probably coming from stealth and/or behind you, etc. You're unlikely to be able to avoid much of it. Sure, you might be able to dodge/block/invuln a hit or two and cost the thief a few points of ini, but you're still taking 10-15k damage before you can react.

IMO, the base skill is actually fine. It's the way it combos with other thief traits and skills (ranged cc, quickness) that make it annoying and cheesy.

Quickness is 50% increase not 100%

[coro.3176]

Is it? I've seen a full 16k+unload finish before the daze from Sleight of Hand wears off.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@coro.3176 said:Is it? I've seen a full 16k+unload finish before the daze from Sleight of Hand wears off.

On core, odds are they're using SoH after beginning unload, then. Otherwise on DE it's not SoH; A lot of DE P/P players run Unforgiving, which applies a stun on the first attack on a marked target. Likely, it's a mix of both such that SoH pops on the DE mark cast and then this translates to the first hit on unload to a stun.

P/P isn't good so much as it isn't bad into the current meta which gets shut down heavily by ranged burst damage. It's really, really easy to hard-counter a P/P thief and most build require minimal investment to do so.

P/P hasn't been strong because of this, and ANet's taken the lazy approach to this kit like many other under-performers and hybrid kits over the years by basically making some of its abilities busted to compensate for innate kit weaknesses. Unload has been this strong since HoT, and people trolled around with Sigil of Rage + Haste + Burst of Agility P/P 3spam Daredevil in WvW for a while.

The real merit of complaint here is the fact that the entirety of the potency of this kit comes from spamming one button/ease of play, not so much from how much damage it deals or how strong it is, because it's only strong right now because of the current meta explicitly not building to counter it. From a game design perspective this is somewhat of a good thing - things coming and going from the meta based on peoples' answers to said meta - it's just likely we're a bit too entrenched right now with the current OP's and that P/P generally is a bit too binary in how well it performs; it either dominates or is rendered absolutely useless.

Upping consistency on P/P and cutting its excess would go a long way, even if it came to slightly reduced damage on Unload itself (the traits/etc. allowing it to hit so hard are fine given the sheer investment required and how easy it is to counter anything on thief built in such a way).

[coro.3176]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"coro.3176" said:Is it? I've seen a full 16k+unload finish before the daze from Sleight of Hand wears off.

On core, odds are they're using SoH after beginning unload, then. Otherwise on DE it's not SoH; A lot of DE P/P players run Unforgiving, which applies a stun on the first attack on a marked target. Likely, it's a mix of both such that SoH pops on the DE mark cast and then this translates to the first hit on unload to a stun.

P/P isn't good so much as it isn't bad into the current meta which gets shut down heavily by ranged burst damage. It's really, really easy to hard-counter a P/P thief and most build require minimal investment to do so.

P/P hasn't been strong because of this, and ANet's taken the lazy approach to this kit like many other under-performers and hybrid kits over the years by basically making some of its abilities busted to compensate for innate kit weaknesses. Unload has been this strong since HoT, and people trolled around with Sigil of Rage + Haste + Burst of Agility P/P 3spam Daredevil in WvW for a while.

The real merit of complaint here is the fact that the entirety of the potency of this kit comes from spamming one button/ease of play, not so much from how much damage it deals or how strong it is, because

it's only strong right now because of the current meta explicitly not building to counter it.

From a game design perspective this is somewhat of a good thing - things coming and going from the meta based on peoples' answers to said meta - it's just likely we're a bit too entrenched right now with the current OP's and that P/P generally is a bit too binary in how well it performs; it either dominates or is rendered absolutely useless.

Upping consistency on P/P and cutting its excess would go a long way, even if it came to slightly reduced damage on Unload itself (the traits/etc. allowing it to hit so hard are fine given the sheer investment required and how easy it is to counter anything on thief built in such a way).

Right. The main question one needs to ask when evaluating a skill is: What is the opponent supposed to do about this? If the answer is "nothing" or "have a stunbreak ready", it's probably not a very balanced, or at least not a very fun/fair skill to play against.

A lot of builds can counter the 3-spam easily with reflect or block or whatever ... but a lot of builds can't, and they just get deleted by a player pressing 1 button. This feels pretty bad.

[Bast.7253]

Every time I’ve tried a cheesy dual pistol build there’s been a thief on the opposite team that gets me before I can burst. Lol the burst doesn’t take any skill but setting it up and finding the right opponent st the right time takes a lot more than it seems. Not to mention guardian blocks, invulns, and reflects. If you’re good and highly mobile it can be good as a plus one but you’re better off with a power shatter mirage that can just one shot with invuln.

Idk. They’re annoying when they’re good but I’d hate to see the option destroyed with nerfs.

But if you can give mesmers a main hand pistol that would be nice. :p

[Simonoly.4352]

Run a full Mirror Mesmer and laugh as they kill themselves.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@coro.3176 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@coro.3176 said:Is it? I've seen a full 16k+unload finish before the daze from Sleight of Hand wears off.

On core, odds are they're using SoH after beginning unload, then. Otherwise on DE it's not SoH; A lot of DE P/P players run Unforgiving, which applies a stun on the first attack on a marked target. Likely, it's a mix of both such that SoH pops on the DE mark cast and then this translates to the first hit on unload to a stun.

P/P isn't good so much as it isn't bad into the current meta which gets shut down heavily by ranged burst damage. It's really, really easy to hard-counter a P/P thief and most build require minimal investment to do so.

P/P hasn't been strong because of this, and ANet's taken the lazy approach to this kit like many other under-performers and hybrid kits over the years by basically making some of its abilities busted to compensate for innate kit weaknesses. Unload has been this strong since HoT, and people trolled around with Sigil of Rage + Haste + Burst of Agility P/P 3spam Daredevil in WvW for a while.

The real merit of complaint here is the fact that the entirety of the potency of this kit comes from spamming one button/ease of play, not so much from how much damage it deals or how strong it is, because

it's only strong right now because of the current meta explicitly not building to counter it.

From a game design perspective this is somewhat of a good thing - things coming and going from the meta based on peoples' answers to said meta - it's just likely we're a bit too entrenched right now with the current OP's and that P/P generally is a bit too binary in how well it performs; it either dominates or is rendered absolutely useless.

Upping consistency on P/P and cutting its excess would go a long way, even if it came to slightly reduced damage on Unload itself (the traits/etc. allowing it to hit so hard are fine given the sheer investment required and how easy it is to counter anything on thief built in such a way).

Right. The main question one needs to ask when evaluating a skill is: What is the opponent supposed to do about this? If the answer is "nothing" or "have a stunbreak ready", it's probably not a very balanced, or at least not a very fun/fair skill to play against.

A lot of builds can counter the 3-spam easily with reflect or block or whatever ... but a lot of builds can't, and they just get deleted by a player pressing 1 button. This feels pretty bad.

You're not wrong, but so many things feel bad right now because generally speaking so much can be spammed or it's just very hard to find openings otherwise in dominant kits.

Like many things on thief (and many other professions since HoT), a lack of attention to necessary reworks paired with powercreep puts a lot of elements of the class in a very gimmicky state due to heavy-handed buffs to keep things viable.

There's really no answer without major overhauls across multiple professions and their weapons' kits at this point, which is just the sad part. The design of these gameplay elements were from a time when the way the game played was much more calculated. Numbers bumps to "modernize" old design elements -especially hybrid weapons like P/P - end up either binary into matchups or just generically OP/UP otherwise.

This is one of the biggest reasons I advocate so heavily for massive nerfs and reworks to everything beyond HoT. There's much more work to do to rework the core game to fix it than a few expansions. It may upset some people, but it's really just necessary.

[ZDragon.3046]

@"coro.3176" said:Right. The main question one needs to ask when evaluating a skill is: What is the opponent supposed to do about this? If the answer is "nothing" or "have a stunbreak ready", it's probably not a very balanced, or at least not a very fun/fair skill to play against.

A lot of builds can counter the 3-spam easily with reflect or block or whatever ... but a lot of builds can't, and they just get deleted by a player pressing 1 button. This feels pretty bad.

I would like to point something out when you say the word "Builds" by saying this word you acknowledge that will be running with or without tools that can or cannot deal with projectiles before hand. To try and blame the profession and its weapon/ weapon skill is pretty ludicrous. You choose not to run projectile hate or a profession build that is weak against fighting ranged foes then you say p/p is too strong when dont opt to use those tools that can shut down things like that. Alot of projectile hate/block tools can be used in more interesting ways than to just block projectiles people just dont see the worth in them and dont take them then complain when they get shot with 3 -4 unloads back to back.

When its something you have the potential to stop and it breaks not mechanics of the game there is nothing wrong with it. It's not like a certain profession that can abuse cd resets right now and has over tuned skills >_> that you cant do anything about.

[BMW.2951]

@babazhook.6805 said:

@BMW.2951 said:They need to nerf the damage of this lame build. Insane damage with literally no skill to play. 333333333333333333333333333333333 dead.

There something like 150 initiative used in the game style you suggest WORKS with a thief build. A thief has at most 15 inititave so do tell me how it is they muster that extra 135 INI and or what YOU are doing as they are waiting to regen that INI? Are you posting on behalf of one of the training Golems?

What?

[Ashgar.3024]

@"Yannir.4132" said:What ever happened to "projectile hate" in this game?

There's plenty of projectile hate still. People just don't run that utility in their build anymore because most if not all projectile-based builds are out of the meta. Why run utility to counter something you're unlikely to see?

Besides AoE spam replaced the need for ranged builds as it does virtually the same job (area denial) on top of offering melee-grade cleaving with much less counter-play.

[Legatus.3608]

@coro.3176 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@coro.3176 said:Is it? I've seen a full 16k+unload finish before the daze from Sleight of Hand wears off.

On core, odds are they're using SoH after beginning unload, then. Otherwise on DE it's not SoH; A lot of DE P/P players run Unforgiving, which applies a stun on the first attack on a marked target. Likely, it's a mix of both such that SoH pops on the DE mark cast and then this translates to the first hit on unload to a stun.

P/P isn't good so much as it isn't bad into the current meta which gets shut down heavily by ranged burst damage. It's really, really easy to hard-counter a P/P thief and most build require minimal investment to do so.

P/P hasn't been strong because of this, and ANet's taken the lazy approach to this kit like many other under-performers and hybrid kits over the years by basically making some of its abilities busted to compensate for innate kit weaknesses. Unload has been this strong since HoT, and people trolled around with Sigil of Rage + Haste + Burst of Agility P/P 3spam Daredevil in WvW for a while.

The real merit of complaint here is the fact that the entirety of the potency of this kit comes from spamming one button/ease of play, not so much from how much damage it deals or how strong it is, because

it's only strong right now because of the current meta explicitly not building to counter it.

From a game design perspective this is somewhat of a good thing - things coming and going from the meta based on peoples' answers to said meta - it's just likely we're a bit too entrenched right now with the current OP's and that P/P generally is a bit too binary in how well it performs; it either dominates or is rendered absolutely useless.

Upping consistency on P/P and cutting its excess would go a long way, even if it came to slightly reduced damage on Unload itself (the traits/etc. allowing it to hit so hard are fine given the sheer investment required and how easy it is to counter anything on thief built in such a way).

Right. The main question one needs to ask when evaluating a skill is: What is the opponent supposed to do about this? If the answer is "nothing" or "have a stunbreak ready", it's probably not a very balanced, or at least not a very fun/fair skill to play against.

A lot of builds can counter the 3-spam easily with reflect or block or whatever ... but a lot of builds can't, and they just get deleted by a player pressing 1 button. This feels pretty bad.

You can stun burst any build in the game with any other build in the game assuming the attacker is building for damage and equips a stun trait or utility, this has nothing to do with the build in question