Build feedback after patch Initial testing

babazhook.6805 · February 26, 2020

Playing d/d with SB condition build using DA/TR/DD.

First off with lower durations on all conditions fights do take longer as it harder to ramp up many stacks. That said dealing with less damage coming in you can survive longer fights.

Adjustments made. I gave up on duration add altogether swapping from Rune of Thorns to Anti-toxin. I threw some precision in build so as to trigger on crit condition add with sigil of blight. Weapon swapping is not used a lot so dropped on swap stuff. I take clear condition on evade food , withdraw as heal and RFI. The other sigil is Earth to get bleed on crit. Crit rate 30 percent so using DB generally this trigger once per.

I swapped to my asura for this build just for the racial skills. I tried radiation field in the build and this works very well if flipping camps or dealing with guys on Catas but found the cooldown a bit high for more generic roaming so went back to spider venom. I also took racial skill pain inverter. I was never a fan of racial skills but these work well. Pain inverter+ Bewildering ambush allows up to 9 stacks confusion in WvW. if you do use Radaition field in place of spider venom you can stack oodles of poison if someone stays in the field.

The Combination of EA+ on evade food plus anti-toxin removes 3 conditions on an evade. As long as the enemy keeps attacking I can generally keep all conditions off. If I am unable to evade due to lack of INI dodges or the enemy stops attacking Withdraw or RFI + antitoxin kicking can work in a pinch to remove things like burn.

Enemies that fight exclusively at range and maintain that range are the biggest foil. You can deal with Necro core and the new firebrand toe to toe as Long as you use INI wisely. RFI even at longer cooldown is a must for the INI.

Antipode.7830 · February 26, 2020

Still running Pistol Whip Daredevil in WvW. After a lengthy fight with a Spellbreaker, which I lost, I looked into changing things up slightly.

I dropped Acrobatics for Critical Strikes 223, and kept Trickery 212, and Daredevil 232 I'm running Withdraw, Shadowstep, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator's Signet, and Dagget Storm. So yes, I'm using Impacting Disruption! Specifically because of that Spellbreaker. Interrupts were very important to keeping our rematch going, and they at least had some reward using that. The other thing is that Havoc Mastery's bonus isn't terribly important if you have only used 1 dodge, and not important at all if you haven't dodged yet. I made a point in another thread about treating Warriors like I am playing Monster Hunter, and I stand by that. I tried to get in, deal damage, and back out. It didn't leave a lot of room to really make use of Havoc Mastery. The other thing that really helped round two was actually having the healing from Invigorating Precision to deal with the damage I did take. My sustain against a sustain-heavy opponent was actually markedly better, and my capacity to bully things like a necromancer was unchanged.

This is entirely in smallscale, and changed to reflect an inability to just smack some things around now and get away with it. This is also assuming you do not want to go ooc. We were fighting for an objective and the goal was to improve my capacity to brawl and sustain. It's probably not the best, but this is what I found to help me. That, and waking up after fighting someone who actually paid attention and played well.

UNOwen.7132 · February 26, 2020

@Antipode.7830 said:Still running Pistol Whip Daredevil in WvW. After a lengthy fight with a Spellbreaker, which I lost, I looked into changing things up slightly.
I dropped Acrobatics for Critical Strikes 223, and kept Trickery 212, and Daredevil 232 I'm running Withdraw, Shadowstep, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator's Signet, and Dagget Storm. So yes, I'm using Impacting Disruption! Specifically because of that Spellbreaker. Interrupts were very important to keeping our rematch going, and they at least had some reward using that. The other thing is that Havoc Mastery's bonus isn't terribly important if you have only used 1 dodge, and not important at all if you haven't dodged yet. I made a point in another thread about treating Warriors like I am playing Monster Hunter, and I stand by that. I tried to get in, deal damage, and back out. It didn't leave a lot of room to really make use of Havoc Mastery. The other thing that really helped round two was actually having the healing from Invigorating Precision to deal with the damage I did take. My sustain against a sustain-heavy opponent was actually markedly better, and my capacity to bully things like a necromancer was unchanged.
This is entirely in smallscale, and changed to reflect an inability to just smack some things around now and get away with it. This is also assuming you do not want to go ooc. We were fighting for an objective and the goal was to improve my capacity to brawl and sustain. It's probably not the best, but this is what I found to help me. That, and waking up after fighting someone who actually paid attention and played well.

Id still use Havoc Mastery over Pulmonary Impact. The damage from PI is about the same as you get from the headshot itself (400 on a squishy target, probably around 200 on a Warrior), its so pathetically little that even Havoc Mastery on 1 will outperform it very quickly.

Antipode.7830 · February 26, 2020

@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Antipode.7830 said:Still running Pistol Whip Daredevil in WvW. After a lengthy fight with a Spellbreaker, which I lost, I looked into changing things up slightly.
I dropped Acrobatics for Critical Strikes 223, and kept Trickery 212, and Daredevil 232 I'm running Withdraw, Shadowstep, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator's Signet, and Dagget Storm. So yes, I'm using Impacting Disruption! Specifically because of that Spellbreaker. Interrupts were
very
important to keeping our rematch going, and they at least had
some
reward using that. The other thing is that Havoc Mastery's bonus isn't terribly important if you have only used 1 dodge, and not important at all if you haven't dodged yet. I made a point in another thread about treating Warriors like I am playing Monster Hunter, and I stand by that. I tried to get in, deal damage, and back out. It didn't leave a lot of room to really make use of Havoc Mastery. The other thing that really helped round two was actually having the healing from Invigorating Precision to deal with the damage I did take. My sustain against a sustain-heavy opponent was actually markedly better, and my capacity to bully things like a necromancer was unchanged.
This is entirely in
smallscale
, and changed to reflect an inability to just smack some things around now and get away with it. This is also assuming
you do not want to go ooc
. We were fighting for an objective and the goal was to improve my capacity to brawl and sustain. It's probably not the best, but this is what I found to help me. That, and waking up after fighting someone who actually paid attention and played well.

Id still use Havoc Mastery over Pulmonary Impact. The damage from PI is about the same as you get from the headshot itself (400 on a squishy target, probably around 200 on a Warrior), its so pathetically little that even Havoc Mastery on 1 will outperform it

very

quickly.

It wasn't that bad, but mostly it felt bad to hit interrupts and have it feel kinda eh. I forget I'm running Sigil of Draining - I don't notice it doing damage. At least PI shows some numbers. You're probably right though. Maybe if PI ignored armor it would actually be okay?

UNOwen.7132 · February 26, 2020

@Antipode.7830 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Antipode.7830 said:Still running Pistol Whip Daredevil in WvW. After a lengthy fight with a Spellbreaker, which I lost, I looked into changing things up slightly.
I dropped Acrobatics for Critical Strikes 223, and kept Trickery 212, and Daredevil 232 I'm running Withdraw, Shadowstep, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator's Signet, and Dagget Storm. So yes, I'm using Impacting Disruption! Specifically because of that Spellbreaker. Interrupts were
very
important to keeping our rematch going, and they at least had
some
reward using that. The other thing is that Havoc Mastery's bonus isn't terribly important if you have only used 1 dodge, and not important at all if you haven't dodged yet. I made a point in another thread about treating Warriors like I am playing Monster Hunter, and I stand by that. I tried to get in, deal damage, and back out. It didn't leave a lot of room to really make use of Havoc Mastery. The other thing that really helped round two was actually having the healing from Invigorating Precision to deal with the damage I did take. My sustain against a sustain-heavy opponent was actually markedly better, and my capacity to bully things like a necromancer was unchanged.
This is entirely in
smallscale
, and changed to reflect an inability to just smack some things around now and get away with it. This is also assuming
you do not want to go ooc
. We were fighting for an objective and the goal was to improve my capacity to brawl and sustain. It's probably not the best, but this is what I found to help me. That, and waking up after fighting someone who actually paid attention and played well.

Id still use Havoc Mastery over Pulmonary Impact. The damage from PI is about the same as you get from the headshot itself (400 on a squishy target, probably around 200 on a Warrior), its so pathetically little that even Havoc Mastery on 1 will outperform it

very

quickly.

It wasn't

that

bad, but mostly it felt bad to hit interrupts and have it feel kinda eh. I forget I'm running Sigil of Draining - I don't notice it doing damage. At least PI shows some numbers. You're probably right though. Maybe if PI ignored armor it would actually be okay?

Sigil of Draining actually does much more damage, pretty sure it should show its damage numbers. And no, even if it ignored armour, itd be pretty pathetic. It needs the nerf to be reverted at least before it can be viable again.

kash.9213 · February 26, 2020

@UNOwen.7132 said:
@kash.9213 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:Oh yeah, I guess there is one more thing. Kneeling feels even worse than it already did. Even prior to the patch, kneeling felt like you were giving up mobility to replace your skills with worse ones. Now the gap is even further, and I cant ever see myself using kneel in WvW or PvP. Honestly Id just get rid of Kneel and give Rifle a new fifth skill.

In WvW at least Kneel is for Snipers Cover. I guess if I used rifle 2 & 3 from it more I'd think it felt different but everything in Kneel feels the same to me.

Eh, I feel like not moving is too much of a downside for snipers cover. I prefer to be unkneeled and just spam Rifle 2 Ad Nauseam.

Replying to other thread here, don't want to derail his structured thread too much.

I play in and off of Kneel quite a lot but I understand why people would ignore it for the most part, a lot can go wrong if lag or pathing on a shadow step or other skills don't work with you and being interrupted in animation can feel frustrating. There is a point where some rangers look confident they can tag me before I can roll over Snipers Cover or set it up where I'll just stay standing but most of the time it's not that awkward and helpful when I get jumped by melee + ranged at the same time and for covering people.

As much as I feel like this update is bland currently, fully willing to change my mind after awhile, my main builds came out easier to play and Kneel right now is even more forgiving than it was before for me at least since I'm not likely to get near one shot or perma lockedup by ranged nukers. What might change that a little for me though is Initiative cost on things that synergize with Snipers Cover and as an example I'm now deciding on staying with Premed or going with Silent Scope for a different type of movement like everyone else, maybe not making the whole effort worth it often as before, thanks Anet.

babazhook.6805 · February 27, 2020

The first build I tried as detailed above is fine. I do not see it as OP in any way. It has hard counters and if you come up against a person with sufficient cleanses a fight can go on for some time. Against melee classes that do not believe in cleansing you generally win. In two nights roaming WvW outside the massively outnumbered situations i was downed three times. twice to a LB ranger and once to an Elementalist loaded with cleanses.

I am going s/p p/p next in a pure power build. This was my boon duration build (it was able to get boons close to 100 percent duration and was heavy into quickness) and the changes hit it hard.

I have dropped Acro and am going CS/DE/TR. Sigils of severance and draining on the s/p set. At this moment BqobK dropped in favor of Mali 7. I am finding it needs a lot more INI then previously in order to get that damage out thus I use mercy . Used in conjunction with TR and Mali & there lots of INI fuel. I tried the pierce trait for Pistol but did not find it very reliable especially as I generally roam however I did slot it in when I joined a couple of Zergs and roamed the periphery downing people with the p/p set. In 1v1 and small scale I tend to s/p more. The build uses assassins fury along with IP as the other two CS traits . I am only early in testing but am finding it more then viable. I will have to play it a little more to get a better idea of how effective it is.

kash.9213 · February 27, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:The first build I tried as detailed above is fine. I do not see it as OP in any way. It has hard counters and if you come up against a person with sufficient cleanses a fight can go on for some time. Against melee classes that do not believe in cleansing you generally win. In two nights roaming WvW outside the massively outnumbered situations i was downed three times. twice to a LB ranger and once to an Elementalist loaded with cleanses.
I am going s/p p/p next in a pure power build. This was my boon duration build (it was able to get boons close to 100 percent duration and was heavy into quickness) and the changes hit it hard.
I have dropped Acro and am going CS/DE/TR. Sigils of severance and draining on the s/p set. At this moment BqobK dropped in favor of Mali 7. I am finding it needs a lot more INI then previously in order to get that damage out thus I use mercy . Used in conjunction with TR and Mali & there lots of INI fuel. I tried the pierce trait for Pistol but did not find it very reliable especially as I generally roam however I did slot it in when I joined a couple of Zergs and roamed the periphery downing people with the p/p set. In 1v1 and small scale I tend to s/p more. The build uses assassins fury along with IP as the other two CS traits . I am only early in testing but am finding it more then viable. I will have to play it a little more to get a better idea of how effective it is.

If you can still hit your precision threshold without Silent Scope, Premeditation is still good with M7, helps to have Quickness early on from somewhere though. Gotta keep that precision up though or M7 can struggle.

Antipode.7830 · February 27, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:The first build I tried as detailed above is fine. I do not see it as OP in any way. It has hard counters and if you come up against a person with sufficient cleanses a fight can go on for some time. Against melee classes that do not believe in cleansing you generally win. In two nights roaming WvW outside the massively outnumbered situations i was downed three times. twice to a LB ranger and once to an Elementalist loaded with cleanses.
I am going s/p p/p next in a pure power build. This was my boon duration build (it was able to get boons close to 100 percent duration and was heavy into quickness) and the changes hit it hard.
I have dropped Acro and am going CS/DE/TR. Sigils of severance and draining on the s/p set. At this moment BqobK dropped in favor of Mali 7. I am finding it needs a lot more INI then previously in order to get that damage out thus I use mercy . Used in conjunction with TR and Mali & there lots of INI fuel. I tried the pierce trait for Pistol but did not find it very reliable especially as I generally roam however I did slot it in when I joined a couple of Zergs and roamed the periphery downing people with the p/p set. In 1v1 and small scale I tend to s/p more. The build uses assassins fury along with IP as the other two CS traits . I am only early in testing but am finding it more then viable. I will have to play it a little more to get a better idea of how effective it is.

Looking forward to hearing about this! I was playing the Daredevil version of this with shortbow instead of p/p earlier. It works pretty well, but the more something bunkers, the less likely you are to be able to do anything I've found. That's probably true regardless, but it still feels bad to be hitting someone constantly and have them basically just heal through it. Curious if Deadeye has more oomph somehow.

NorthernRedStar.3054 · February 27, 2020

Deadeye feels like it has the strongest dps rotations in PvP, although with weaver and FB being so strong that has little merit.

From my experience, thief is almost universally back to being a "solid +1'er, seldom duelist". Which is, honestly, a bit disappointing.

Bern.9613 · February 27, 2020

I just had a go 'round with a heal bot druid for 45 mins to a mutual run away. Is this what gw2 is now? Prior to the patch that would have been over in about 10ish or less mins but oh no, the bobbleheads that we know as the "balance team" (and i use that term very loosely because the only balance is in the heads so they can rock back and forth in agreement) wanted "longer fights." The thief has been gutted so badly that the front page description of thief is nothing but lies. No I am not happy with this patch. Seems the heal on full trailblazer with torment runes rev (which, by the way, is stupidly op atm) is the only viable roamer left that can kill others.

foste.3098 · February 27, 2020

@"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:From my experience, thief is almost universally back to being a "solid +1'er, seldom duelist". Which is, honestly, a bit disappointing.

This is my experience as well, back to being a decap bot in conquest and nothing more. Idk why anet insists on balancing thieves around this imaginary decap role for circle quest, but the end result is that thief, once again, has low dmg outside of the initial assassin sig burst, has no infight sustain, and about the only thing it can do is move really quick across the map.

+1ing as a balance point is a bad joke since any class/build can +1, honestly most of the time it seams like they are balancing the game as if it were a moba where every character (this case profession) has exactly 1 thing it can do and that's how you play it.But i am willing to bet that when 5vs5 season goes live ppl will complain about daredevils since, by the look of it, the meta will be a bunch of tanks and condi brawlers all of which have low mobility so dd will be able to maneuver around capture points easily.

Sir Vincent III.1286 · February 27, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:The Combination of EA+ on evade food plus anti-toxin removes 3 conditions on an evade. As long as the enemy keeps attacking I can generally keep all conditions off. If I am unable to evade due to lack of INI dodges or the enemy stops attacking Withdraw or RFI + antitoxin kicking can work in a pinch to remove things like burn.

That looks like an overkill in cleanses. With the short condition durations, I don't think you would have to go to that extent to cleanse especially when you're DD with tons of evade. From what I'm reading, the main issue is burst. Due to the short condition duration, it's all about busting now, meaning the paradigm is shifting to less attacks and more burst. Later on, I don't think you would have any opportunity to evade any attacks for cleansing if you failed to evade the burst once a more people adopted this change.

Rune of durability is looking really good in terms of anti-burst may it be physical or condition damage since the set-6 will proc on burst.

babazhook.6805 · February 28, 2020

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:The Combination of EA+ on evade food plus anti-toxin removes 3 conditions on an evade. As long as the enemy keeps attacking I can generally keep all conditions off. If I am unable to evade due to lack of INI dodges or the enemy stops attacking Withdraw or RFI + antitoxin kicking can work in a pinch to remove things like burn.

That looks like an overkill in cleanses. With the short condition durations, I don't think you would have to go to that extent to cleanse especially when you're DD with tons of evade. From what I'm reading, the main issue is burst. Due to the short condition duration, it's all about busting now, meaning the paradigm is shifting to less attacks and more burst. Later on, I don't think you would have any opportunity to evade any attacks for cleansing if you failed to evade the burst once a more people adopted this change.

Rune of durability is looking really good in terms of anti-burst may it be physical or condition damage since the set-6 will proc on burst.

No it is not overkill on the cleanses. First I am a Condition build in this particular example. Durability runes are of no use. Secondly out of all available traits and Utilities I have invested only 1 slot for condition cleanse yet have more condition cleanses then most Thieves would have. I see this as efficiency. What did I give up to gain all of those cleanses?

The Food. I took the food that gives 1 cleanse per evade which increases the effectiveness of EA 100 percent. What did I lose? Most Condition builds take Pizza or Koi which add 100 expertise and 70 condition damage. This is statistically insignificant. the expertise is only going to be telling if I invest in other sources of expertise which I am not doing. The 70 add to condition damage is barely noticeable.

The other Source of cleanse is the Runes and again what i give up for those runes is not that significant. In giving up thorns I lose poison duration and 125 condition damage from the 6th bonus. This something i can deal with if I know I am all but immune to conditions. Both Withdraw and RFI saw extra time added to Cooldowns. I am using these anyways whether I am using Runes of Thorns or Anti-toxin. Using Anti-toxin both of these utilities are more effective then if in Thorns.

Assume I come up against a fellow thief built for conditions and using d/d. He wears Thorns and uses the Pizza for food rather then anti-toxin+ the food I have taken. He is going to lose everytime. His added durations and bonus to damage will have no effect against more cleanses.

It might well be I have more cleanses then I would need but what I have given up to get that is not all that much.

Sir Vincent III.1286 · February 28, 2020

@babazhook.6805 said:
@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:The Combination of EA+ on evade food plus anti-toxin removes 3 conditions on an evade. As long as the enemy keeps attacking I can generally keep all conditions off. If I am unable to evade due to lack of INI dodges or the enemy stops attacking Withdraw or RFI + antitoxin kicking can work in a pinch to remove things like burn.

That looks like an overkill in cleanses. With the short condition durations, I don't think you would have to go to that extent to cleanse especially when you're DD with tons of evade. From what I'm reading, the main issue is burst. Due to the short condition duration, it's all about busting now, meaning the paradigm is shifting to less attacks and more burst. Later on, I don't think you would have any opportunity to evade any attacks for cleansing if you failed to evade the burst once a more people adopted this change.

Rune of durability is looking really good in terms of anti-burst may it be physical or condition damage since the set-6 will proc on burst.

No it is not overkill on the cleanses. First I am a Condition build in this particular example. Durability runes are of no use. Secondly out of all available traits and Utilities I have invested only 1 slot for condition cleanse yet have more condition cleanses then most Thieves would have. I see this as efficiency. What did I give up to gain all of those cleanses?

The Food. I took the food that gives 1 cleanse per evade which increases the effectiveness of EA 100 percent. What did I lose? Most Condition builds take Pizza or Koi which add 100 expertise and 70 condition damage. This is statistically insignificant. the expertise is only going to be telling if I invest in other sources of expertise which I am not doing. The 70 add to condition damage is barely noticeable.

The other Source of cleanse is the Runes and again what i give up for those runes is not that significant. In giving up thorns I lose poison duration and 125 condition damage from the 6th bonus. This something i can deal with if I know I am all but immune to conditions. Both Withdraw and RFI saw extra time added to Cooldowns. I am using these anyways whether I am using Runes of Thorns or Anti-toxin. Using Anti-toxin both of these utilities are more effective then if in Thorns.

Assume I come up against a fellow thief built for conditions and using d/d. He wears Thorns and uses the Pizza for food rather then anti-toxin+ the food I have taken. He is going to lose everytime. His added durations and bonus to damage will have no effect against more cleanses.

It might well be I have more cleanses then I would need but what I have given up to get that is not all that much.

I read a lot of complains about burst builds and I can the reason why. How would you handle against that with your build?

babazhook.6805 · February 28, 2020

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:
@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:
@babazhook.6805 said:The Combination of EA+ on evade food plus anti-toxin removes 3 conditions on an evade. As long as the enemy keeps attacking I can generally keep all conditions off. If I am unable to evade due to lack of INI dodges or the enemy stops attacking Withdraw or RFI + antitoxin kicking can work in a pinch to remove things like burn.