How to nerf condi thief - by the creator of the meta build (plus some thoughts on other builds)

[birdboy.6509]

The build: https://imgur.com/a/EVvxkByAfter months of reading suggestions on how it should be addressed I figured I might as well weigh in on it and share my thoughts about the spec, and other thief builds while I'm at it ( though that won't be the main focus of the post )Right now, the problem is condi thief is basically the way that condi mirage was on PoF release - it has a huge condition spike that can be applied instantaneously.

For thief - having access to a low counterplay burst is indeed the purpose of the class, however as was the issue with the original condi mirage (being able to jaunt mindwrack someone for 8 stacks of confusion) it is far too frontloaded and conditions as anet has specified before aren't meant to be applied in burst damage. From here on I'll just list the changes I think should be made in order of importance to prevent condi thief from being so overperforming.

1. Spider venomProblem: This is where ALOT of the spike comes from, having the 6 stacks that can be very easily applied by a dodge roll is just too overpowering for most meta classes.Solution: Reduce the number of stacks of poison delivered by spider venom from 6 to 4. Reduce the poison duration applied by 33%. Reduced the cooldown from 30 to 20 seconds.

2. Panic strikeProblem: no ICD means that you can continue to apply poison by spamming sword 2 ( I believe this to be the main reason why people detest this build so much )Solution: Give it a 5 second ICD to prevent poison from being applied if someone were to spam it. This is particularly devastating to the condi deadeye build, that spams the rifle immob for poison.(this also prevents the immobilize on 50% targets poison to also proc if you infil strike to a 50% target. basically: before: Infil strike to 50% target - apply 4 stacks from panic strike. after: infil strike to 50% target only 2 stacks applied.)

3. Deadly ambitionProblem: rewards more passive gameplay with a longer condition duration and higher icdSolution: Reduce the stacks to 1 (I read ben's suggested change and I think a 10 second ICD is overkill if these other changes are also implemented)

These are the big 3 in my opinion, and changes to these will prevent the spec from overperforming, while not affecting any other thief builds.PLEASE IGNORE PEOPLE SAYING TO REMOVE IMMOB ON SWORD 2 That will be the death of power SD thief, a spec that is already quite terrible as is, and the panic strike nerf I suggested earlier will completely negate the damage from it.

@CMC @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"If you are reading this - please be aware that the BIGGEST gamebreaking spec in the game at the moment is staff thief. Please refer to either the past two monthly vods which can be found on jebros stream to see how ridiculous the spec is.This is what deserves your attention it can stall any 1v1 survive outnumbered vs triple DPS for an absurd amount of time and does decent pressure to boot. It is the reincarnation of bunker Mesmer. REMOVE JUMP STAFF 3 OR LOWER EVADE DURATION By spamming it you can evade permanently with no vuln frame, and weapon swap for more initiative using quick pockets. This is tandem with staff master allows for permanent evade uptime.

On a side note - I hope that some of our older more skillfull thief builds get some love. Power SD and Power DP are very underwhelming and pitifully weak at the moment. DP has devolved into a one shot burst gimmick build and power SD struggles to do anything well apart from focusing mesmers or guardians.I'd be happy to share my thoughts on what would bring these builds back while not being OP but i'll just share one and save the rest for another post. Thanks for reading.

Dash Dagger PistolProblem: 600 swipe range makes it very difficult to +1 efficiently and land burst consistentlySolution: Add the "long reach" trait back into trickery. It was a trait that increased steal range back before HoT. Replaces lesser haste (this trait was clunky already since getting a stunbreak while hitting somebody is slightly counter intuitive.)Long reach: Increase steal or swipe range by 600. Your next attack will result in a critical hit.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

these don't solve any problems. in fact they sort of make it worse, namely spider venom not-really-a-nerf.

limit number of cover condis, take off 2 poison venom stacks, and put an icd on and limit duration of weakening strikes. the biggest thing is the cover condis, most classes can't cleanse 4+ as well as the poison. maybe change lotus training to only apply poison.

[birdboy.6509]

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:these don't solve any problems. in fact they sort of make it worse, namely spider venom not-really-a-nerf.

limit number of cover condis, take off 2 poison venom stacks, and put an icd on and limit duration of weakening strikes.

You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.As for the others, please explain how cutting deadly ambition poison in half and giving an ICD to panic strike doesn't solve any of the problems and or makes them worse.

[Hot Boy.7138]

I want to add that I think it's broken that a thief can steal from me, a mesmer, and acquire a skill that gives all boons for a period of time, when I, a mesmer, have no such skill that gives me all boons for a period of time.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@"birdboy.6509" said:You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.

no, the issue is the 4 cover condis applied with every dodge. every class has burst. weakening strikes is broken, having perma weakness on someone is extremely op. if you can't see that then your bias is preventing your reasoning skills.

[birdboy.6509]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"birdboy.6509" said:You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.

no, the issue is the 4 cover condis applied with every dodge. every class has burst. weakening strikes is broken, having perma weakness on someone is extremely op. if you can't see that then your bias is preventing your reasoning skills.

The burst combo is sword 2 steal with spider venom dodge port out.When in that combo is the weakness applied? The gripe that people have is the port in port out spammability of the spec. weakening strikes (while certainly a strong trait and something to be looked at in regards to staff thief) is not that consistently applied on condi and if it is it's because the thief is trading right on top of you and in that case you are either outnumbered or misplaying. edit for clarity - weakness is not applied from the dodge roll itself.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@birdboy.6509 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@birdboy.6509 said:You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.

no, the issue is the 4 cover condis applied with every dodge. every class has burst. weakening strikes is broken, having perma weakness on someone is extremely op. if you can't see that then your bias is preventing your reasoning skills.

The burst combo is sword 2 steal with spider venom dodge port out.When in that combo is the weakness applied? The gripe that people have is the port in port out spammability of the spec. weakening strikes (while certainly a strong trait and something to be looked at in regards to staff thief) is not that consistently applied on condi and if it is it's because the thief is trading right on top of you and in that case you are either outnumbered or misplaying.

Lotus poison will apply weakness (10s ICD), if it's the first "burst".

[birdboy.6509]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@birdboy.6509 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@birdboy.6509 said:You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.

no, the issue is the 4 cover condis applied with every dodge. every class has burst. weakening strikes is broken, having perma weakness on someone is extremely op. if you can't see that then your bias is preventing your reasoning skills.

The burst combo is sword 2 steal with spider venom dodge port out.When in that combo is the weakness applied? The gripe that people have is the port in port out spammability of the spec. weakening strikes (while certainly a strong trait and something to be looked at in regards to staff thief) is not that consistently applied on condi and if it is it's because the thief is trading right on top of you and in that case you are either outnumbered or misplaying.

Lotus poison will apply weakness (10s ICD), if it's the first "burst".

yes but it's not a cover condi or from weakening strikes

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"birdboy.6509" said:You would be wrong there, they applied the same theory to condi mirage and the build went from the most broken in the meta to "a good pick sometimes."The issue is burst, and the spider venom nerf is huge. Weakening strikes has very little impact on your burst and typically is applied before you steal sword 2, so it's not even a cover condi.

no, the issue is the 4 cover condis applied with every dodge. every class has burst. weakening strikes is broken, having perma weakness on someone is extremely op. if you can't see that then your bias is preventing your reasoning skills.

I play a slight variant of the old dp dash.

weakness uptime is bout 3/10

no perma vigor because its trick/deadly/dd.

for me, any little help on damage reduction is useful.

it's hardly permanent, and it seems like sometimes (a lot) i lose the weakness rng gamble.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@Hot Boy.7138 said:I want to add that I think it's broken that a thief can steal from me, a mesmer, and acquire a skill that gives all boons for a period of time, when I, a mesmer, have no such skill that gives me all boons for a period of time.

Just dodge the steal.

[Dadnir.5038]

Spider venom: Add 1 second ICD between stack applied. spike issue solved

Not sure panic strike and deadly ambition really need any change if the ICD is added to spider venom.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@birdboy.6509 said:The burst combo is sword 2 steal with spider venom dodge port out.When in that combo is the weakness applied? The gripe that people have is the port in port out spammability of the spec. weakening strikes (while certainly a strong trait and something to be looked at in regards to staff thief) is not that consistently applied on condi and if it is it's because the thief is trading right on top of you and in that case you are either outnumbered or misplaying.

so maybe weakness isn't a cover condi. not the issue. there are still 3 cover condis spammed with dodge. only idiots have trouble with sword 2 since everyone with brains camps the return spot. weakening strikes is not staff thief only lol. i mean what the hell? is that an attempt to downplay how strong it is or... i can't think of any other explanation.

[Curennos.9307]

Only need an ICD on Spider venom. Everything else is fine if that's done, and until Anet takes the time to look at all of thief's AAs, Deadly Ambition should stay as-is.

Condi thief is in the weird spot where a lot of the skills across several condi builds just...suck. Including the AA.

It sometimes feels that people have a wildly overblown idea of how much damage thief actually puts out because it's a +1'er. I suppose if a carrion/thorn rune thief lands all of their burst on you, and you fail to mitigate even a single stack of Spider Venom, that utility skill will be contributing 11k dmg over 11.75 seconds - basically, the equivalent of if a wimpy-ish power build with no crit and low ferocity AA'd you and nothing else. S'like ~1k per second.

I wouldn't count that as 'spike' damage. it's where a lot of the damage comes from, but it's nowhere near 'spike', and yes, you'll have a lot of condis on you, but you're not dead instantly. Deadly Ambition will add 1835 dmg over 5.75 sec, or 319 dmg/sec. So we're up to 1300 ish per second. let's go with 1400. Panic strike is 1200 ish over 4 seconds, or another 300/sec. So, 1700 dmg per sec. Can't be bothered to factor in Lotus dmg boost, so let's just bump that up to 2k/sec. We'll ignore Pressure Strking torment for now, because Bountiful Theft is amazing, gives the setup much needed vigor, etc. At most, unless the thief is running the Confusion on steal (which they might, I admit, but that's hard to math because it depends on your opponent spamming all willy nilly), you'll be approaching...maybe what power builds do while AAing and maybe throwing in a skill here and there. If you panic and cleanse immediately, you'll nail a lot of the cover condis (weakness, cripple, bleed, maybe some torment). Wait just a little longer and you'd be fine.

A condi thief spamming anything is bad, as it'll stack up all the condis reaaaally nicely, and their cover condis will fall off just in time for their 'burst' to be cleansed. Adding ICD to Panic strike will just have 'em wait a little longer before reengaging.

The thief build has totally negligible damage except for these things. Sword/d is a power weapon, except for what utterly underwhelming torment damage you could get from the #4 skill. Power thief has as much engage-disengage 'spam' as condi thief, and more burst. Once the weakness is gone (aka lotus poison applied its weakness and is on CD, so 4 sec), the ne xt time they engage there's nothing except their (likely depleted) dodges.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:I play a slight variant of the old dp dash.

weakness uptime is bout 3/10

no perma vigor because its trick/deadly/dd.

for me, any little help on damage reduction is useful.

it's hardly permanent, and it seems like sometimes (a lot) i lose the weakness rng gamble.

i'm guessing you let the timer run out. not the fault of the trait. I exaggerated sure but you've always got weakness when you need it, after you dodge. so perma weakness in practice.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:I play a slight variant of the old dp dash.

weakness uptime is bout 3/10

no perma vigor because its trick/deadly/dd.

for me, any little help on damage reduction is useful.

it's hardly permanent, and it seems like sometimes (a lot) i lose the weakness rng gamble.

i'm guessing you let the timer run out. not the fault of the trait. I exaggerated sure but you've always got weakness when you need it, after you dodge. so perma weakness in practice.

I mean, I got 3 dodges, but if i burn them all just for weakness, wars will hammer me...literally lol

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:I mean, I got 3 dodges, but if i burn them all just for weakness, wars will hammer me...literally lol

lol k, way to turn an op trait into an innocent kitten. ofc no one would do that, unless reasons.

[babazhook.6805]

Everyone persists in the belief that Condi thief means s/d thief and only s/d thief. Any solution that pretends there no condition build outside s/d thief is not a solution.

All of these proposals are directed towards s/d and all of them impact other condi thief builds when they are not an issue.

In every other build outside s/d just as example spider venom is not that great a skill. Nerf it for the sake of the s/d builds and it just a useless trait.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Spider venom: Add 1 second ICD between stack applied. spike issue solved

Can we add a 2-second ICD to Basilisk Venom and get the second stack back? Just for the Thief... the shared BV can remain at 1 stack only. Or just make Petrified stack in duration.

[dDuff.3860]

@"birdboy.6509" said:Dash Dagger PistolProblem: 600 swipe range makes it very difficult to +1 efficiently and land burst consistentlySolution: Add the "long reach" trait back into trickery. It was a trait that increased steal range back before HoT. Replaces lesser haste (this trait was clunky already since getting a stunbreak while hitting somebody is slightly counter intuitive.)Long reach: Increase steal or swipe range by 600. Your next attack will result in a critical hit.

Deadeye discrimination?So you want core thief to be able to have 1800 range steal, right? LULAlso, even lesser haste is bad, there's master tier trait in trickery that procs 2 stacks of torment on interrupt. Even on condi builds this trait is trash and never worth taking. how about we switch this for something useful? considering it competes with "musthave" bountiful theft?After all, bad suggestion still, because core thief doesn't need its steal range improved, and swipe shouldn't be 600 in the first place.900 range is a solid trade for relative value that unblockable brings.

As for the rest:Staff/staff has a redundant amount of evades, but in fact fixing 3+jump animation won't change that, adding precasts and aftercasts is the way (same as vault 5), or there's a cheap way — increase #3 ini cost.

After deadly ambition change, removing cripple from lotus dodge will make condi daredevil gameplay harder, without reducing its max potential (also will interact with spider venom application).

[Crab Fear.1624]

@dDuff.3860 said:

@"birdboy.6509" said:Dash Dagger PistolProblem: 600 swipe range makes it very difficult to +1 efficiently and land burst consistentlySolution: Add the "long reach" trait back into trickery. It was a trait that increased steal range back before HoT. Replaces lesser haste (this trait was clunky already since getting a stunbreak while hitting somebody is slightly counter intuitive.)Long reach: Increase steal or swipe range by 600. Your next attack will result in a critical hit.

Deadeye discrimination?So you want core thief to be able to have 1800 range steal, right? LULAlso, even lesser haste is bad, there's master tier trait in trickery that procs 2 stacks of torment on interrupt. Even on condi builds this trait is trash and never worth taking. how about we switch this for something useful? considering it competes with "musthave" bountiful theft?After all, bad suggestion still, because core thief doesn't need its steal range improved, and swipe shouldn't be 600 in the first place.900 range is a solid trade for relative value that unblockable brings.

As for the rest:Staff/staff has a redundant amount of evades, but in fact fixing 3+jump animation won't change that, adding precasts and aftercasts is the way (same as vault 5), or there's a cheap way — increase #3 ini cost.

After deadly ambition change, removing cripple from lotus dodge will make condi daredevil gameplay harder, without reducing its max potential (also will interact with spider venom application).

Dead eye could have 2100 range mark oh my

[Crab Fear.1624]

I think a flat boost of 120, and then 10% after dodge. Lotus training apply those conditions on your next attack, but no longer throws daggers would be a good start.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

Players don't want to bring anti-conditions because it lowers their DPS so they post on the forum to complain about it. If the conditions get nerfed, they don't need to bring any anti-condition, thus preserving their precious DPS.

What they failed to realize is that, the high damage output of the condition damage is to balance the high damage output of power builds. Forcing a power build to bring anti-condition effectively balances the situation by naturally lowering their damage output without nerfing the power builds.

Just as Thieves has to sacrifice damage for survivability, power builds must now do the same.

You can't just look at one or few scenarios and assume that it applies to each and every scenarios. That's absurd and I like the fact that the balance team are shuffling people around so we don't have a single person dictating how the game should be balance based on his own selfish personal enjoyment.

The way I see it, the current state of the game is good.

[birdboy.6509]

@dDuff.3860 said:

@"birdboy.6509" said:Dash Dagger PistolProblem: 600 swipe range makes it very difficult to +1 efficiently and land burst consistentlySolution: Add the "long reach" trait back into trickery. It was a trait that increased steal range back before HoT. Replaces lesser haste (this trait was clunky already since getting a stunbreak while hitting somebody is slightly counter intuitive.)Long reach: Increase steal or swipe range by 600. Your next attack will result in a critical hit.

Deadeye discrimination?So you want core thief to be able to have 1800 range steal, right? LULAlso, even lesser haste is bad, there's master tier trait in trickery that procs 2 stacks of torment on interrupt. Even on condi builds this trait is trash and never worth taking. how about we switch this for something useful? considering it competes with "musthave" bountiful theft?After all, bad suggestion still, because core thief doesn't need its steal range improved, and swipe shouldn't be 600 in the first place.900 range is a solid trade for relative value that unblockable brings.

As for the rest:Staff/staff has a redundant amount of evades, but in fact fixing 3+jump animation won't change that, adding precasts and aftercasts is the way (same as vault 5), or there's a cheap way — increase #3 ini cost.

After deadly ambition change, removing cripple from lotus dodge will make condi daredevil gameplay harder, without reducing its max potential (also will interact with spider venom application).

Long reach competes with thrill of the crime, core thief doesn't need to take it. Fury + might is more valuable for an SD thief anyway, since you have infiltrator strike already increasing your steal range. ( Not to mention core thief is extremely weak right now like I said already )The other reason why I suggested adding long reach is because it would also compete with the caltrops on dodge roll, so CONDI THEIF can't afford to take it either.This way DP will have its old steal range and we won't have the condi daredevil with 900 range swipe baseline. (I'm sure the forums would love swipe to get another buff after it's cd reduction XD)

You are wrong about staff thief, normal staff 3 has a vuln frame - but jump staff 3 does not. This is why I said to either remove the ability to do so or decrease the evade duration. (not to mention you can't hold a decap by spamming normal staff 3 since you'll roll yourself off node)

Idk what to say about your condi dodge trait suggestion. It seems irrelevant and out of place in this comment, especially since caltrops applies cripple anyways.I know you play deadeye - and I think it has a fine place right now, hence why I didn't discuss it in my post. Your comment is not only all over the place and hard to make sense of, but it is also incorrect in almost every aspect, apart from pressure striking being never taken, but bountiful theft isn't even a must have for condi anyway as most run trickster.

[Helicity.3416]

Tbh Condi DE is kinda dumb, and I'm not big on malicious backstab oneshot either personally.

I want to build my malice with rifle and then do the big headshot, to me that seems to be the concept for DE.

Unfortunately Anet's changes are not helping pushing people to play like that because other things are disproportionately rewarding vs the risk involved.

[dDuff.3860]

@"birdboy.6509" said:snipCommon mistake of a casual: core thief isn't s/d, where s/d is weaponset.For example, take a look at DA/CS/Tr with d/p, steal+backstab do ~15k damage every 20 seconds. With "long reach" there will be instant untelegraphed 1800 gap closer (because you don't really need fury there). For more lul you may add infiltration signet, and enjoy 2700 insta gap closer with 15k hits.This alone makes suggestion nonsense. I'm not talking about point blank cluster bomb combined with steal, which can hit up to 10-11k.

Staff 3 is an instacast with an innate evade of 0.5 sec, where 0,5 sec is the aftercast of ability. Where is the "vuln" window? If you chain staff 3, you can chain up to 2 sec complete evasion, combine that with dodges, staff mastery, quick pockets and energy sigils, and you have around 6,5 sec of evasion every 10 seconds (yes, 65%-70% uptime).Adding a cast time to the ability that cleanses immobilize is weird, I agree, but without it we have what it is.As I said, cheapest way (what i actually expect), make staff 3 cost 5 initiative (or even 6 LUL), which will drastically affect those, who just spam it.