Pistol Whip Daredevils are so horridly broken

Zexanima.7851 · January 2, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

Fat Disgrace.4275 · January 2, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

i dunno, guessing s/d is boring for some, and the nerfing to d/p made s/p viable (again) also dash wasnt around since day 1

babazhook.6805 · January 2, 2020

@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

What meta shift? What was removed or added to the game that suddenly made s/p the OP monster people claim it to be. You have to come up with more then this.

babazhook.6805 · January 2, 2020

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

i dunno, guessing s/d is boring for some, and the nerfing to d/p made s/p viable (again) also dash wasnt around since day 1

When a given build (d/p) is nerfed while it might well make d/p less playable in a given game mode , it does not follow that s/p suddenly becomes OP. The complaints about the mechanics of S/p are of mechanics that have existed since around launch. There no add to PW or removal of given skills/traits that I can see that suddenly made PW a horridly broken mechanic.

Psycoprophet.8107 · January 2, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

What meta shift? What was removed or added to the game that suddenly made s/p the OP monster people claim it to be. You have to come up with more then this.

Sind started to play it due to boredom with s/d and streamed its viability so thief players bandwagoned the build as this community usually does resulting in more s/p players thus resulting in more players getting owned by the better thief player thus resulting in more nerf cries for a previously scarcely complained about build as this community tends to do.That's what changed this meta.

Dantheman.3589 · January 2, 2020

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

I didn't say anything about being broken. You did. I simply agreed on how to beat a pw thief.

I do think that the daze should be shortened or removed.

Also funny how you mention mobility being broke. Every class basically has swiftness and leaps nowadays. You decap something. 10 seconds later it's recapped. Of thief builds are basically obsolete.

Team stealth is really only used at the beginning of the game. You simply can't do pistol 5 and bow in the middle of a game and you won't take refuge or something silly just for that.

yes, other classes can if they build for it, and probably not even mete builds. with theif all you have to do is trait daredevil and short bow and thats it because EVERYONE is going to take shadowstep.

and this is where I think the issue is with s/p. t still can decap/+1 just as good as d/p did but it can actually fight and force people of nodes too.

Even heavily nerfed dp has a much stronger presence in a plus 1...

How? When the only thing it's got is a 5k? Back stab and that's it, the rest of the weapon set s/p has

Actually with bare minimum damage modifiers expected to be present back stab is 7.5k and 2k+ swipe. While sp at best is about 5k sometimes lower sometimes higher and when taking acro there is no actual swipe damage. The fact remains that sp dash acro build probably has the worst presence in a plus of any thief build in the meta ex pet maybe condi thief against a target with high resistance and/or condi clear. Sp dash acro is also incredibly hard countered by pretty much any thief build with deadly arts as it’ll lose almost every 1v1 to those specs

Leonidrex.5649 · January 2, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

What meta shift? What was removed or added to the game that suddenly made s/p the OP monster people claim it to be. You have to come up with more then this.

Cmirage nerf.Pmirage nerf.Holo nerf.Warrior Nerf.Guess what classes can S/P duel? :D

EDITAlso rev was nerf ( dunno how big of a nerf )Also thief stolen skills got buffedAlso swipe got buffed

Zexanima.7851 · January 2, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@"memausz.7264" said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

What meta shift? What was removed or added to the game that suddenly made s/p the OP monster people claim it to be. You have to come up with more then this.

It can take a while for changes to be noticed, there are probably still a couple sleeper builds out there. It's not until someone/'s start playing a specific build that it's power becomes apparent but most people stick to the "meta" so it takes a while to find them. The people who find these builds are constantly trying new things and seeing what works, pushing the limits of their professions. I would imagine S/P has always been pretty strong but was hard to play with things like scourge running rampant being able to drop shades on you while you're rooted. You also needed the superior boonstrip from Larcenous Strike for things like boonbeast, holo, and firebrand. Boonbeast isn't has played now and holo doesn't have quite the boon generation it use too. Because of changes to other professions things that might have seemed 'unplayable' might become viable or even broken over time.

KrHome.1920 · January 2, 2020

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Sind started to play it due to boredom with s/d and streamed its viability so thief players bandwagoned the build as this community usually does resulting in more s/p players thus resulting in more players getting owned by the better thief player thus resulting in more nerf cries for a previously scarcely complained about build as this community tends to do.That's what changed this meta.And before that happened everyone (yes everyone!) was just like "S/P is only an underpowered gimmick weaponset to kill noobs". It's entertaining to read all that S/P hate now.

Since I became bad on teef because I am playing necro almost exclusively for 2 years now, S/P has been my weaponset of choice whenever I play competitive as it's the easiest weaponset for the class (because you can facetank while bursting). You can do and you could do fine with it since the release of the game.

What we a seeing now is a showcase of the community incompetence that has always been present. The balance of the game is nowhere near as bad as most people think, because these people have no overwiew what is actually possible with the stuff that anet offers.

ZDragon.3046 · January 2, 2020

@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@Zexanima.7851 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@"memausz.7264" said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

S/p thief has existed about as long as Conquest mode has. Why were these same problems not noted years ago?

Because the meta shift. Changing one aspect of the game can completely change others you never touched. That's why skills that haven't been touched for years can suddenly become really powerful due to changes made around things that might have been suppressing them.

What meta shift? What was removed or added to the game that suddenly made s/p the OP monster people claim it to be. You have to come up with more then this.

It can take a while for changes to be noticed, there are probably still a couple sleeper builds out there. It's not until someone/'s start playing a specific build that it's power becomes apparent but most people stick to the "meta" so it takes a while to find them. The people who find these builds are constantly trying new things and seeing what works, pushing the limits of their professions. I would imagine S/P has always been pretty strong but was hard to play with things like scourge running rampant being able to drop shades on you while you're rooted. You also needed the superior boonstrip from Larcenous Strike for things like boonbeast, holo, and firebrand. Boonbeast isn't has played now and holo doesn't have quite the boon generation it use too. Because of changes to other professions things that might have seemed 'unplayable' might become viable or even broken over time.

These are hard facts Zexanima :+1:

Fat Disgrace.4275 · January 2, 2020

@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

I didn't say anything about being broken. You did. I simply agreed on how to beat a pw thief.

I do think that the daze should be shortened or removed.

Also funny how you mention mobility being broke. Every class basically has swiftness and leaps nowadays. You decap something. 10 seconds later it's recapped. Of thief builds are basically obsolete.

Team stealth is really only used at the beginning of the game. You simply can't do pistol 5 and bow in the middle of a game and you won't take refuge or something silly just for that.

yes, other classes can if they build for it, and probably not even mete builds. with theif all you have to do is trait daredevil and short bow and thats it because EVERYONE is going to take shadowstep.

and this is where I think the issue is with s/p. t still can decap/+1 just as good as d/p did but it can actually fight and force people of nodes too.

Even heavily nerfed dp has a much stronger presence in a plus 1...

How? When the only thing it's got is a 5k? Back stab and that's it, the rest of the weapon set s/p has

Actually with bare minimum damage modifiers expected to be present back stab is 7.5k and 2k+ swipe. While sp at best is about 5k sometimes lower sometimes higher and when taking acro there is no actual swipe damage. The fact remains that sp dash acro build probably has the worst presence in a plus of any thief build in the meta ex pet maybe condi thief against a target with high resistance and/or condi clear. Sp dash acro is also incredibly hard countered by pretty much any thief build with deadly arts as it’ll lose almost every 1v1 to those specs

from what iv seen, them numbers are the other way around, and only vs non armoured amulets. may be the +1 surprise attack from s/p isnt that great but it can keep up with the pace of a team fight, where as d/p doesn't.

DeceiverX.8361 · January 2, 2020

@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

I didn't say anything about being broken. You did. I simply agreed on how to beat a pw thief.

I do think that the daze should be shortened or removed.

Also funny how you mention mobility being broke. Every class basically has swiftness and leaps nowadays. You decap something. 10 seconds later it's recapped. Of thief builds are basically obsolete.

Team stealth is really only used at the beginning of the game. You simply can't do pistol 5 and bow in the middle of a game and you won't take refuge or something silly just for that.

yes, other classes can if they build for it, and probably not even mete builds. with theif all you have to do is trait daredevil and short bow and thats it because EVERYONE is going to take shadowstep.

and this is where I think the issue is with s/p. t still can decap/+1 just as good as d/p did but it can actually fight and force people of nodes too.

Even heavily nerfed dp has a much stronger presence in a plus 1...

How? When the only thing it's got is a 5k? Back stab and that's it, the rest of the weapon set s/p has

Actually with bare minimum damage modifiers expected to be present back stab is 7.5k and 2k+ swipe. While sp at best is about 5k sometimes lower sometimes higher and when taking acro there is no actual swipe damage. The fact remains that sp dash acro build probably has the worst presence in a plus of any thief build in the meta ex pet maybe condi thief against a target with high resistance and/or condi clear. Sp dash acro is also incredibly hard countered by pretty much any thief build with deadly arts as it’ll lose almost every 1v1 to those specs

I hope this is troll, because PW's coef is so much higher than backstab's, and the claim that DA counters S/X is meme-worthy with the existence of IS/IR alone.

D/P was dominant for so long because of the macro potential with stealth and potency of backstab. With backstab not really being relevant and IStrike range buffed, the macro play and damage are both there.

Thing about S/P is it's super easy to deal with if the tools to deal with it are taken. Just sounds like nobody is trying to deal with it.

Dantheman.3589 · January 2, 2020

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Dantheman.3589 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@"Sikieiki.3189" said:
@TorQ.7041 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@verskore.4312 said:
@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:
@memausz.7264 said:Look, for people whose APMs and mindset can scale into really high level gameplay, good for you, that's fantastic. But at some point, the build allows even less skilled players to consistently outperform all the other classes... an in this case, dagger pistol daredevils in particular using Roll for Initiative can just SPAM Pistol Whip without even thinking about it. Not only does it CC, but it also provides evade frames AND it has such high synergy with stealth and ports AND with a particular choice of traits, cleanses conditions. You can't fight it by dodging, they will out-evade you, they can remove revealed with their elite skill, so that's not much of a counter... I suppose the idea is that they are supposed to be glass, so just break them first? But that is broken down by all the other things it has working for it. Please nerf these trait lines and increase the initiative for Pistol Whip (because it's also a problem on core thief as well). Thank you.

You need to learn the evade animations. If you can do that then you can put pressure on them, which thieves cant take much of.

Ok, tell us how to put pressure on a s/p thief oh great gamer

Learn when evade frames start and end based on animations. Then attack them so your skills land outside of those evade windows. Some skills lock thieves in an animation, and the evade duration is usually less than the animation duration. If they are spamming skills and chaining evades, they will run out of initiative and cooldowns very quickly. If they are playing more cautiously and kiting then you have time to set up attacks/combos, bait steal/headshot, or re-sustain.

Excatly this.

Better players always evade my PW. Cc me at the end of animation. I burn my cool downs till I got nothing then cc gg me. Now a days I have to force dodge to end pw to avoid putting my self in danger, which eats at my ability to do anything.

No doubt pw will be nerfed tbh. Ppl will complain till it's nerfed to the ground n u can't play thief again.

If you think s/p thief isn't broken you don't understand conquest. The weakness of thief was always that you had to give up your ability to fight in favor of mobility, but with s/p you are very strong in even fights while still having broken mobility and team stealth.

I didn't say anything about being broken. You did. I simply agreed on how to beat a pw thief.

I do think that the daze should be shortened or removed.

Also funny how you mention mobility being broke. Every class basically has swiftness and leaps nowadays. You decap something. 10 seconds later it's recapped. Of thief builds are basically obsolete.

Team stealth is really only used at the beginning of the game. You simply can't do pistol 5 and bow in the middle of a game and you won't take refuge or something silly just for that.

yes, other classes can if they build for it, and probably not even mete builds. with theif all you have to do is trait daredevil and short bow and thats it because EVERYONE is going to take shadowstep.

and this is where I think the issue is with s/p. t still can decap/+1 just as good as d/p did but it can actually fight and force people of nodes too.

Even heavily nerfed dp has a much stronger presence in a plus 1...

How? When the only thing it's got is a 5k? Back stab and that's it, the rest of the weapon set s/p has

Actually with bare minimum damage modifiers expected to be present back stab is 7.5k and 2k+ swipe. While sp at best is about 5k sometimes lower sometimes higher and when taking acro there is no actual swipe damage. The fact remains that sp dash acro build probably has the worst presence in a plus of any thief build in the meta ex pet maybe condi thief against a target with high resistance and/or condi clear. Sp dash acro is also incredibly hard countered by pretty much any thief build with deadly arts as it’ll lose almost every 1v1 to those specs

from what iv seen, them numbers are the other way around, and only vs non armoured amulets. may be the +1 surprise attack from s/p isnt that great but it can keep up with the pace of a team fight, where as d/p doesn't.Test it on golems your self and you’ll see I’m 100% correct. The actual correct interpretation of what sp does in this meta is to be present more often as it’s a very low risk spec to play, where as if a dp thief is pressured then their plus 1 potential can all of a sudden disappear.@DeceiverX.8361 said: