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What's the profit of running thief in your comp?

GewRoo.4172

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually
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UNOwen.7132

UNOwen.7132

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will totally help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound exactly like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually do burst in teamfights and do burst way harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka exactly where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

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Killthehealersffs.8940

Killthehealersffs.8940

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

If holo is is far ...leave him ...let him be afk on nodeYou will be 5 (including you) vs 4 of the enemies , to get the rest of the 2 nodes .If he moves , use your mobility and punsh him from moving

Or reroll to a class that can knockback for some minsVentrai Rev (knockback -ulti) its a safe betOr Rifle + Flamethrower Enginner (YOYOYOY TIPS FOR NEW PLAYERS , YOU CAN EQUIP 2 WEAPONS AS ENGINNER NOW AND SWITCH WEAPONS OUT OF COMBAT ONLY . IF YOU SEE THE PESSKY TANK , EQUIP IT...YEAH I KNOW ITS SLOW... BUT KNOCKBACK + IMMOBILIZE HIM) . Same as Eles ...and use the Ride of Lighting Weapon out of combAT for mobility , or use the Enginner Rifle leap/jump ...something for mobilityOr when you see the enemy is incoming , do the Stuff Electric Ring ? or anyother effect that persist on the ground and fast switch to your normal weapon , before the enemy touch it and you get in combat

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

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UNOwen.7132

UNOwen.7132

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the worst thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

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Tayga.3192

Tayga.3192

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@UNOwen.7132 said:But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights.afaik Sindrener said getting kills is the most important thing a thief must do, meaning +1s are more important than decaps?

And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst.It's a mixed bag but I kinda agree with this one, as far as I noticed thief does melee burst then shortbow 2 or 4.

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UNOwen.7132

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@Tayga.3192 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights.afaik Sindrener said getting kills is the most important thing a thief must do, meaning +1s are more important than decaps?

The way his team played thief was, uh, different. Was he referring to that, or in general? Though I can see a case to be made for swapping the first 2 given that decapping has become harder in this meta.

And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst.It's a mixed bag but I kinda agree with this one, as far as I noticed thief does melee burst then shortbow 2 or 4.

You can do melee burst if someone is out of position, or if theyre split, but in the current meta they just generally arent, so you camp shortbow.

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Tayga.3192

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@UNOwen.7132 said:The way his team played thief was, uh, different. Was he referring to that, or in general? Though I can see a case to be made for swapping the first 2 given that decapping has become harder in this meta.

He was talking about in general but this was waaay back in firebrand/scourge meta. Need to ask him later if that's still the case.

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@Tayga.3192 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:The way his team played thief was, uh, different. Was he referring to that, or in general? Though I can see a case to be made for swapping the first 2 given that decapping has become harder in this meta.

He was talking about in general but this was waaay back in firebrand/scourge meta. Need to ask him later if that's still the case.

In the firebrand scourge meta one of the most important things was for an sd thief to down the FB or if he’s lucky to down necro and to daze and damage a firebrand who wants to Rez. It is still like this for sd thief’s just different comps

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

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UNOwen.7132

UNOwen.7132

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low, far lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it. No other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

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Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.Not sure what tournaments your referring to but the abjured was one of the best teams world and many members of team USA are also members of abjured and most of the others played pro league and/or were top of leaderboards, but doubt it if u want to.
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UNOwen.7132

UNOwen.7132

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.Not sure what tournaments your referring to but the abjured was one of the best teams world and many members of team USA are also members of abjured and most of the others played pro league and/or were top of leaderboards, but doubt it if u want to.

Well, worlds. We didnt have many other tournaments where they went toe to toe. Yes, they were one of the best teams in the world. I believe they later called themselves Astral Authority. In the last worlds we had, they got third. First and second were EU teams. Fourth was also an EU team. And thats kinda how tournaments went. NA teams were able to compete, but otuclassed by EU.

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.Not sure what tournaments your referring to but the abjured was one of the best teams world and many members of team USA are also members of abjured and most of the others played pro league and/or were top of leaderboards, but doubt it if u want to.

Well, worlds. We didnt have many other tournaments where they went toe to toe. Yes, they were one of the best teams in the world. I believe they later called themselves Astral Authority. In the last worlds we had, they got third. First and second were EU teams. Fourth was also an EU team. And thats kinda how tournaments went. NA teams were able to compete, but otuclassed by EU.

No you have that backwards there was a team astral authority before abjured and yes abjured got 3rd in the last worlds- running a meme comp and after they already won almost all tournies

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Odds are he isn't running DA, and since traits are multiplicative, extra modifiers will adjust as such. Could also be done against light armor targets with no bonus toughness, traits, boons, etc.

Deadeye with MBS makes other modifiers 70% more potent, so a non-DE build may only get half those gains.

Without posting the full build and testing environment there's little value in the post itself and the math smells funny.

As for the role of thief RN, it depends on the meta. FB bunker and the likes would outright prevent decaps since it couldn't be moved off point without taking losses elsewhere, and you'd be trying to decap endlessly or hitting the FB on respawn even if it dies, so kills were the big thing, especially for the S/P and D/P AS metas.

I'm just speculating, but with AS nerfs and thief's kill pressure reduced (and with everyone's reduced as a whole as well), I'm not sure where it really shines in any situation, since as a whole, some duos are much harder to take down than others, and with initiative up on movement skills, it's possible another class fulfills the role better. If I put a thief in a position to play, I'd wager +1 is probably back where it is, probably as S/D for the 3spam unblockable boon denial.

Just speculation, though. It's been a long time since I've played sPvP seriously and even then it was almost entirely on reaper, and not for very long.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.Not sure what tournaments your referring to but the abjured was one of the best teams world and many members of team USA are also members of abjured and most of the others played pro league and/or were top of leaderboards, but doubt it if u want to.

Well, worlds. We didnt have many other tournaments where they went toe to toe. Yes, they were one of the best teams in the world. I believe they later called themselves Astral Authority. In the last worlds we had, they got third. First and second were EU teams. Fourth was also an EU team. And thats kinda how tournaments went. NA teams were able to compete, but otuclassed by EU.

No you have that backwards there was a team astral authority before abjured and yes abjured got 3rd in the last worlds- running a meme comp and after they already won almost all tournies

They called themselves Team Abjured in February of 2016. There is even a spotlight page on the GW2 site for them. In Worlds of 2016, which was in september, they were called Astral Authority. Astral Authority came later. And no, the latter part is wrong. They didnt run a "meme comp". They ran a pretty normal comp. Additionally, the only tournaments that year (well, if you can call them that) were the Pro Leagues. They failed to win either. Both were won by EU, and they didnt even get into the finals in the second one.

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@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Odds are he isn't running DA, and since traits are multiplicative, extra modifiers will adjust as such. Could also be done against light armor targets with no bonus toughness, traits, boons, etc.

He is running DA, thats the whole point of his post. And traits being multiplicative just means that if only multiplier is added, you can just multiply the whole result with that one multiplier. Which doesnt add up.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Odds are he isn't running DA, and since traits are multiplicative, extra modifiers will adjust as such. Could also be done against light armor targets with no bonus toughness, traits, boons, etc.

He is running DA, thats the whole point of his post. And traits being multiplicative just means that if only multiplier is added, you can just multiply the whole result with that one multiplier. Which doesnt add up.

I interpreted it that he was comparing DA vs CS vs SA damage. Could be me not understanding his testing methodology.The test environment for the target, LA stacks, etc. is still raising questions.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it.
No
other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Escapist%27s_Fortitudehttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Assassin%27s_Reward

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feline_Gracehttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endless_Stamina

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UNOwen.7132

UNOwen.7132

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@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it.
No
other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

S/D runs none of those traits. Not a single one. The only one that could be considered (because its the only one in a traitline S/D uses) is Escapist's Fortitude, but you use Marauders Resilience.

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Killthehealersffs.8940

Killthehealersffs.8940

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it.
No
other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

S/D runs
none
of those traits. Not a single one. The only one that could be considered (because its the only one in a traitline S/D uses) is Escapist's Fortitude, but you use Marauders Resilience.

Ok tell me what the Rev uses then

You said that Enginners uses all kind of elixirs so they get max damage and do Nadas ....but i dont see those kind of player to do that :PI feel you simply hybeboal sometimes and i want to chat :(

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.Not sure what tournaments your referring to but the abjured was one of the best teams world and many members of team USA are also members of abjured and most of the others played pro league and/or were top of leaderboards, but doubt it if u want to.

Well, worlds. We didnt have many other tournaments where they went toe to toe. Yes, they were one of the best teams in the world. I believe they later called themselves Astral Authority. In the last worlds we had, they got third. First and second were EU teams. Fourth was also an EU team. And thats kinda how tournaments went. NA teams were able to compete, but otuclassed by EU.

No you have that backwards there was a team astral authority before abjured and yes abjured got 3rd in the last worlds- running a meme comp and after they already won almost all tournies

They called themselves Team Abjured in February of 2016. There is even a spotlight page on the GW2 site for them. In Worlds of 2016, which was in september, they were called Astral Authority. Astral Authority came later. And no, the latter part is wrong. They didnt run a "meme comp". They ran a pretty normal comp. Additionally, the only tournaments that year (well, if you can call them that) were the Pro Leagues. They failed to win either. Both were won by EU, and they didnt even get into the finals in the second one.

Ahh ok your right about the name which they went by when running a comp with Druid which to my understanding was for shits and giggles. Abjured has won worlds before if fact they are usually put in at least top 2 teams ever if not number one in most ppls books so I’m not sure where your getting that eu teams were better

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Odds are he isn't running DA, and since traits are multiplicative, extra modifiers will adjust as such. Could also be done against light armor targets with no bonus toughness, traits, boons, etc.

Deadeye with MBS makes other modifiers 70% more potent, so a non-DE build may only get half those gains.

Without posting the full build and testing environment there's little value in the post itself and the math smells funny.

As for the role of thief RN, it depends on the meta. FB bunker and the likes would outright prevent decaps since it couldn't be moved off point without taking losses elsewhere, and you'd be trying to decap endlessly or hitting the FB on respawn even if it dies, so kills were the big thing, especially for the S/P and D/P AS metas.

I'm just speculating, but with AS nerfs and thief's kill pressure reduced (and with everyone's reduced as a whole as well), I'm not sure where it really shines in any situation, since as a whole, some duos are much harder to take down than others, and with initiative up on movement skills, it's possible another class fulfills the role better. If I put a thief in a position to play, I'd wager +1 is probably back where it is, probably as S/D for the 3spam unblockable boon denial.

Just speculation, though. It's been a long time since I've played sPvP seriously and even then it was almost entirely on reaper, and not for very long.

I mean these are just the differences in average “decent” hit for these attacks, so not much calculation to comprehend - simple subtraction achieved these numbers.As far as the point it’s just showing that claims that “never could there ever in match be a damage difference of over 1k” to be just wrong and also to point out claims of only SA dp as being only meta choice, which has been debunked since forever, since for one the weapon nerfed least and that fits a tanky meta is in all cases sd. Most ppl just find dp to be fun, but I don’t see it do any better in ats unless you are a burst comp and again it’s a tanky meta not a burst one

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Dantheman.3589

Dantheman.3589

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it.
No
other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

S/D runs
none
of those traits. Not a single one. The only one that could be considered (because its the only one in a traitline S/D uses) is Escapist's Fortitude, but you use Marauders Resilience.

A lot of players at this point don’t use marauders resilience. For one only reason ppl consider that is when they want to take trickster which honestly many are not and even when they run the trickster variant many don’t play marauders resilience. Even kat who won the mat on NA, who was on berserkers, had trickster and escapist fortitude because it’s just a by far better trait even with a lower health pool.

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Killthehealersffs.8940

Killthehealersffs.8940

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I checked the common argument of that thread that thief does bad damage and that running SA is equal damage to crits and Da. I found that there might be a trend of slight convergence at the lowest end possible, but that’s totally expected and on average not true. Here’s some numbersExtra damage per BS with DA- 1k+ in addition to mug damage of possibility 1k moreExtra damage for high end heart seekers- up to 2.5k with maraudersSo that’s quiet a good bit extra damage on average backstab and this extends to all skills more or lessLet’s look at a crit strikes hiddenkiller + valk buildExtra damage on decent backstab - up to 3.5k and can still go up just lolExtra damage on crit of shadowshot- 1.5k extra

Now it seems to me that extra damage is actually abundant, as your burst backstab + steal can improve a lot and so can all your other skills. Granted SA has leeching venoms for like 2 stacks of tick damage, but that won’t make up for it. So it seems to me that if you think thief isn’t doing enough damage and run the lowest dps version of a build as possible, that maybe you deserved what you got

Just out of curiosity, this "extra damage" is using Executioner, right?

Nah I don’t run executioner and stuff like heart seekers , which is pretty spammable, hits on the high end iteration in the 6ks on a Da build while the SA one would hit for barely 4K. It just seems wild how I get that and maybe 1-1.5k more per backstab/shadowshot and up to 1k mug. At least to me this doesn’t seem close dps wise and crit strike builds seemed to have an even higher end

In that case Im going to have to ask, how? Deadly Arts only has 2 modifiers that can affect backstab. Executioner is one of them. Exposed Weakness the other. And for exposed weakness to add 33% damage the target would need 17 conditions. Which is higher than the highest number of conditions that exist. That is actually part of the DA problem, it doesnt really add that much damage unless the target is below 50% or had a bunch of conditions applied by whomever youre helping out with your +1.

Hey some modifiers are better than none. In the case of Sa the only extra damage is venoms which are dodgable and like about enough to make up for mug at best, whilst u get decent condition modifiers and multiple conditions some boons and improv which is probably better than anything in SA on its own. Crit strikes has better mods imo which is probably why on the highest end I’m seeing like 8k backstabs on core

Not exactly. The problem is that the modifiers, most of the time, will either be low, or redundant. SA gives you less damage, but damage is not the reason to play thief anyway, and the utility it provides is better. Thats why people dropped DA after all. Not because it doesnt do damage, but because the damage is too low either way to be worth speccing for.

I think Dans point is that u can play thief with all it's class related advantages AND the dmg output if you trait for it (maybe CS/Valk).

My point is that you cant. You can have a thief with a damage output that goes from absolutely pathetic to just pathetic, but its still pathetic. On the other hand, you lose utility. Rending Shade in particular. You also fare worse against bunker builds, since you dont have armour-ignoring damage.

See I would be fine if that was the argument but quiet literally the arguement on the other thread is that running deadly would at the most possibly give up to 1k damage to any burst and that it’s just not worth it for damage, while your argument is just it’s not worth it to spec damage. From what I saw is like I said - an average burst skill would be 1k to like 3k depending on what we are talking about, like heart seeker which I would think a 2-3k minimum difference per use on a spammable skill is pretty decent.

Except as I said, the only damage modifier you get from your version (Improv, Im assuming?) is Exposed Weakness. It wont make a 3k difference. It wont even make a 2k, or usually even a 1k difference. It will make a difference of around 800 damage.

Either way I’m just pointing out some of the arguements weren’t true and that it’s possible to do decent damage on thief, though I might be able to put it to shame with another classes numbers

I wouldnt call 8k on the burst of a full glass cannon "decent". That fails to take even half health on another squishy class, let alone anything thats got any kind of tankiness.

Yes on a heart seeker hitting someone below 25%, say a necro in shroud so u can maybe get of like 5 of these in a row, there will literally be min 2-3k damage difference with the build I’m running on average in match.Actually the build I mentioned which can hit for 8k backstab is tankier than any of the aforementioned builds, so I don’t get where ur coming with “glass cannon”Also bud those are the numbers I’m getting and Btw you cannot disprove my numbers simply by quoting me and coming up with your own

Yeah Im gonna call kitten on that. Youre using DA and CS (or trickery), none of which grant any defense. Youre certainly not going to be able to avoid using Berserkers because otherwise the damage differential would just screw you up. And you dont even have a choice in runes and sigils, because trying to swap them means loss of damage multipliers, which negates any added damage you could possibly get from DA. So, how pray tell are you trying to be tanky?

I can show that swapping SA for DA, without using executioners, makes those numbers impossible. But, just to be sure, I tested it. Backstab damage with DA was 5478. Backstab damage with SA was 4646, + 577 off of Shadow Siphoning. Even if we dont include that, or Leeching Venoms, youre still looking at only an 800 damage boost. Heartseeker wont be much better, if used right after maybe 1k. If a bit later, possibly no damage boost at all, because you need condis to do more damage in the first place. And the more armour the target has, the worse the comparision gets.

Now, lets throw Critical Strikes into the mix. I assume were going 3-2-1 because that makes the most sense. Now this time, we do get a juicy chunk on a crit. I got 6913. Compared to the DA one, thats about 1500, compared to the SA one, its just over 2k if you dont count Shadow Siphoning or Leeching Venoms. Its under 2k if you do. Thats ... not great, for losing both any utiltiy and survivability from SA, and everything Trickery gives you. Thats not ideal.

Oh and if you want the Valkyrie version, that loses you about 200 damage on the backstab. Still just over 2k if you dont count Siphoning/leeching.

Great you tested it getting similar numbers which will just go up, possibly significantly, in team fights thanks for confirming my original quote

You said you got upwards of 1k, all the way up to 3k. I tested and got considerably less. Granted, this is with steal, without stael it goes
down
significantly. Oh and in teamfights, it goes down
way more
than just that. Teamfights right now involve stuff like Prot Holo. Youre lucky if there are even any conditions that dont get converted, let alone no protection. Go ahead, if you want to play a class that in teamfights does like 4k burst damage and then gets obliterated, be my guest. That doesnt seem useful to me.

Wowowo u got almost 1k on a number that will usually go up to what I pointed out as average in actual matches. Though I’ll have to correct you as u probably don’t know the meta in top tier- prot holo is never going to be in team fights unless you in like bronze or something. When focusing something like a necro or idk a mirage even guards , when they aren’t running some like knights amulet which a prof holo might, in a team fight this number will always go up.

A thief wont be in teamfights either. Youll be +1-ing. And who would be in a position to be +1d? Why, the Prot Holo.

Also, no, even in teamfights the number goes
down
. Not up. Down. Significantly so, even. If youre not going to be screwed over by protection from the guard, or the necro, conditions will just be cleansed off. Including the blinding that made the difference almost 1k. So youll do minimal damage, and then the enemy turns out and obliterates you. Because youre a thief who decided to get up close in a teamfight, something thief is not able to do.

Lol I’ve never seen anyone confuse a prof holo with a team fight and a team fight for a plus 1. I’ll correct you again but this is approaching insanity levels- a plus one is a thief going to out number a fight with team mates meaning you will join a team fight to our number or join a side noder on your team etc. no where in the world will you “plus one” an enemy prot holo instead of a team fight. Unless ofc you are so bad at the game that out numbering actually turns into an advantage to the enemy, which from what I hear is the case often in bronze elo etc

Ok now I have to question if you even play thief. A +1 is when the thief joins a 1v1, or a 2v2, or any kind of small scale skirmish, and makes it uneven. You
never
+1 a teamfight. Of course you dont, youre just irrelevant. You try to get up close and you get blown up and die and are forced to respawn, while the opposing roamer enjoys his free decaps. And of course, who do you find in a 1v1, say a fight between the kind of sidenoder playstyle? Why its our old friend, Prot Holo.

Also, the thief trying to +1 a teamfight by going in and trying to backstab people
does
end up being an advantage for the opposing team. Because the theif basically renders himself useless either until he gets the hell out of the teamfight he is irrelevant in, or respawns after being blown up. Turning a 1v1 or a 2v2 into a 1.5v1 or a 2.5v2 is very effective. Turning a 3v3 or a 4v4 into a 3.5v3 or a 4.5v4 is not.Kids these days. I do play thief for 1 in your average match you cannot find 1v1s the whole time and even when u do all you need to do is give a decap or node and leave. If all your doing is finding side noder well ur gonna be afk half the time...Also thief plussing a team is one of the best ways to down a firebrand and has been that way since pof came out. Maybe you blow up in tfs but you also think a prof holo is in team fights which is bronze tier usually

Of course you cant find 1v1s the whole time. But your priority is always, decap > +1s >>>>> teamfights. And even in teamfights, you wont be going for melee burst. You poke from afar using shortbow. And yes, sure, your 4k burst will
totally
help down that poor Firebrand. I mean what can he do, just immediately heal back what little damage you did, CC you and ensure your death? Actually, that does sound
exactly
like what the Firebrand will do. Hm. Guess thats not so good an idea, is it? I mean, its not like Firebrand has to be able to handle Revenants, which actually
do
burst in teamfights and do burst
way
harder than you do.

You know you have no real argument if you need to strawman. When you +1, you +1 a 1v1 or a 2v2. In those, you will find prot holo. Because thats where prot holo thrives. In small scale skirmishes on the sidenodes, aka
exactly
where you +1. So good luck with your +1ing on a prot holo.

I didn’t know prot Holos thrive during straw mans sounds like less reason to plus them. But no you pretty much only swap to Shortbow to poke at ppl after you down someone in a team fight allowing you to put poison on the down and stun anyone who wants to Rez. This is another misconception I have seen commonly among thief players in bronze as they are either to scared to do melee dps or just don’t understand combos like sword 3 + steal

Of course youd rather +1 something less tanky than a prot holo. Unfortunately, you have no real option. And no, you only start using Shortbow 4 when someone is downed, but in the unfortunate event that a teamfight is the most useful thing you can be doing, and youre not lucky enough to have one of the enemies stray from their teammates far enough, a shortbow is all you have. And no, its not a misconception, its experience. They have tried to melee DPS before and noticed that the damage they did was extremely irrelevant not enough to influence the fight, let alone swing it, while they were dead within seconds, and usually forced to burn shadowstep if they wanted to live. Because thats what happens.

Youre a squishy, low-damage class. You cant burst anyone down. You cant survive in a teamfight for more than a couple seconds. So trying to melee DPS in a teamfight is the
worst
thing you can do. Also, sword 3? D/P is the meta build, S/P is completely useless and S/D is just bad. Also, sword 3 + steal, the only sword builds run Daredevil. If youre close enough to swipe, your enemies have already killed you.

And that is why you dont fight in a teamfight. And why going for damage is a terrible idea. Again, I dont know what you think is going to magically happen if the thief enters a teamfight. Maybe their burst goes from 4k to 10k? Well, it doesnt. It stays at 4k. Their sustained damage remains pathetically low as well. While the damage they can take is also very low, and its reached quickly.

S/d is one of the meta builds and at least with the comps that are run on NA it is the meta as dp is only niche on NA atm and even mats were won by an sd thief. As far as sustained damage, low? No even team USA admitted that thief sustain is higher by quiet a bit from rev where as damage maybe lower, but tbh decent sword 3s are hitting hard rn

I admit, Im not familiar with NA. Im not playing on NA, and it always seemed to be the weaker regions when we still had big active tournaments, so I dont know how much I would trust NAs meta calls. And yes, sustained damage is very low,
far
lower than Rev. And Larcenous Strike hits slightly less hard than Shadowshot does. And Shadowshot isnt great. It should hit, on a normal meta target, for 3k or so. More if theyre squishy and no defenses are around. Thats not great for how (relatively) slow it is.

Edit: and if you mean sustain as in, healing, evasion/active defense and so on, its no contest, Rev blows thief out of the water. Thief has Withdraw and Mug for healing. And thats it.
No
other way of regaining health. Rev has a number of ways. As for active defense, a bit more, but still not as much thanks to Sword 3 being so expensive.

S/D runs
none
of those traits. Not a single one. The only one that could be considered (because its the only one in a traitline S/D uses) is Escapist's Fortitude, but you use Marauders Resilience.

A lot of players at this point don’t use marauders resilience. For one only reason ppl consider that is when they want to take trickster which honestly many are not and even when they run the trickster variant many don’t play marauders resilience. Even kat who won the mat on NA, who was on berserkers, had trickster and escapist fortitude because it’s just a by far better trait even with a lower health pool.

Trying to think something here that he said :.....if he uses Marauders Resilience ....-10% damageand https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakening_Strikes ....another -10% damage

and his Sword 3 , steal some protection ....-33% damage ..fromthe Prot Holo from the side-base ... or steal my Might that i wasted so many cds to increase ...or stole mine imaginery girlfriend and credit card ...Ontop with the evades+dodgefrom a single tree .... i dont know , i need some sleepMaybe Rev need a buff or something ...but he said that Rev outshines Thief in survival/healing ...so nerf Rev ?

Edit: Good night

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