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

GewRoo.4172

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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.

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 :(

God I dont know the exact names, but there is one that heals on consume, one that heals on energy skills, one on upkeep I think? Just look through the herald traitline.

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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.

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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp without Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

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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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

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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.

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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

You said worlds, people usually use that as a synonym for world championship, rather than a world tournament series. If both exist, anyway. And uh, no actually. The 2016 meta had necro as one of the arguably best classes, they still got third. Likewise they only got second in a meta where mesmer wasnt even a thing and necro was picked by all 4 teams, still beaten out by an EU team. And no, A, I based it on numerous tournaments (they also fared worse in the pro league that year), B, they definitely didnt run a comp for the purpose of fun (I dont know why you keep repeating that myth. They ran the exact same comp they ran in the pro league that same year. They didnt pick it "for fun", they picked it because they thought it was the best comp).

I mean, youre from NA, perhaps that is why you havent seen anyone place them lower. But if you were around in 2016, you will have heard this opinion a lot, since the Abjured just kept being outclassed back to back to back by european teams. They lost every cross-region tournament held that year. Also, just because you think a majority holds that opinion doesnt mean they do. I dont know for sure what the majority holds, but given the general reaction back then, Id be surprised if the majority rated them higher than third.

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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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

You said worlds, people usually use that as a synonym for world championship, rather than a world tournament series. If both exist, anyway. And uh, no actually. The 2016 meta had necro as one of the arguably best classes, they still got third. Likewise they only got second in a meta where mesmer wasnt even a thing and necro was picked by all 4 teams, still beaten out by an EU team. And no, A, I based it on numerous tournaments (they also fared worse in the pro league that year), B, they definitely
didnt
run a comp for the purpose of fun (I dont know why you keep repeating that myth. They ran the
exact
same comp they ran in the pro league that same year. They didnt pick it "for fun", they picked it because they thought it was the best comp).

I mean, youre from NA, perhaps that is why you havent seen anyone place them lower. But if you were around in 2016, you will have heard this opinion a lot, since the Abjured just kept being outclassed back to back to back by european teams. They lost
every
cross-region tournament held that year. Also, just because you think a majority holds that opinion doesnt mean they do. I dont know for sure what the majority holds, but given the general reaction back then, Id be surprised if the majority rated them higher than third.

No they didn’t run the same comp, they ran a different one with a Druid in it and after they crashed and burned they changed back. Yes there was necro, but like how I was also right about them playing Druid, but necro was not nearly as heavy realitive to Mesmer at the time. The reason the majority hold the opinion that the abjured were the 1st or top 2 team(with r55) is because they were the best in the metas heavy in necro, though when Mesmer become meta they lost some, like you mentioned though you failed to mention anything besides what happened in a short time frame, again why your belief just isn’t common

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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.

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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

You said worlds, people usually use that as a synonym for world championship, rather than a world tournament series. If both exist, anyway. And uh, no actually. The 2016 meta had necro as one of the arguably best classes, they still got third. Likewise they only got second in a meta where mesmer wasnt even a thing and necro was picked by all 4 teams, still beaten out by an EU team. And no, A, I based it on numerous tournaments (they also fared worse in the pro league that year), B, they definitely
didnt
run a comp for the purpose of fun (I dont know why you keep repeating that myth. They ran the
exact
same comp they ran in the pro league that same year. They didnt pick it "for fun", they picked it because they thought it was the best comp).

I mean, youre from NA, perhaps that is why you havent seen anyone place them lower. But if you were around in 2016, you will have heard this opinion a lot, since the Abjured just kept being outclassed back to back to back by european teams. They lost
every
cross-region tournament held that year. Also, just because you think a majority holds that opinion doesnt mean they do. I dont know for sure what the majority holds, but given the general reaction back then, Id be surprised if the majority rated them higher than third.

No they didn’t run the same comp, they ran a different one with a Druid in it and after they crashed and burned they changed back. Yes there was necro, but like how I was also right about them playing Druid, but necro was not nearly as heavy realitive to Mesmer at the time. The reason the majority hold the opinion that the abjured were the 1st or top 2 team(with r55) is because they were the best in the metas heavy in necro, though when Mesmer become meta they lost some, like you mentioned though you failed to mention anything besides what happened in a short time frame, again why your belief just isn’t common

Ah, I see, they did play Druid in a couple matches. Still, that isnt a "for fun" comp either. Every team brought Druid. It was kind of a good build. And no, more teams brought Necro than Mesmer, it was more heavy. And again, no, youre wrong on that. They still got outclassed by european teams when Mesmer was a non-factor and Necro was the most played class. They werent even the best in metas that favoured them, and they got a lot worse in metas that didnt. That to me doesnt sound like best team material. And I dont know about you, but I wouldnt call "1 year out of the 2 years that had actual esports" a "short time frame". And again, you, much like me, cant say what opinion the majority holds. That being said, in 1 year they were hopelessly outclassed by european teams, even in metas that, as you say, heavily favoured them.

What about the other year? They fared better, they won 2 world tournament series out of 3. The other was still won by europe. By Rank 55 dragons, under their old team name. But thats 1 year of being completely outclassed, and one year of narrowly pulling ahead. Hell, to make it even clearer, here is the funny thing: Every time Abjured won, Europe got second place. Only half of the time europe won abjured got second place, the other half was europe. Plus, were talking about full regions, if NA only has one team that competes with europe, but europe has 3, that also makes it clear which region is better. And keep in mind, thats considering that that other year didnt even have team Vermillion yet, that one only appeared in 2016. And of course, the other problem. The year closest to ours, when teams had time to continue improving, that is when they lost a lot. They won before that, but thats quite reminiscent of what happened in league. In season 1, TSM was actually a contender. And after that it just got worse and worse.

So now I have mentioned the other half of the timeframe, and it doesnt put them in a much better light. They were at best the third-best team. The Civilized Gentlemen and Rank 55 Dragons were both certainly better. Beating them even in metas you claim favoured them. So unless you have a good reason why a team that narrowly beat out european teams in 2015 and then fell off completely in 2016 should be considered the best, I think we can safely say they arent.

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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.

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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

You said worlds, people usually use that as a synonym for world championship, rather than a world tournament series. If both exist, anyway. And uh, no actually. The 2016 meta had necro as one of the arguably best classes, they still got third. Likewise they only got second in a meta where mesmer wasnt even a thing and necro was picked by all 4 teams, still beaten out by an EU team. And no, A, I based it on numerous tournaments (they also fared worse in the pro league that year), B, they definitely
didnt
run a comp for the purpose of fun (I dont know why you keep repeating that myth. They ran the
exact
same comp they ran in the pro league that same year. They didnt pick it "for fun", they picked it because they thought it was the best comp).

I mean, youre from NA, perhaps that is why you havent seen anyone place them lower. But if you were around in 2016, you will have heard this opinion a lot, since the Abjured just kept being outclassed back to back to back by european teams. They lost
every
cross-region tournament held that year. Also, just because you think a majority holds that opinion doesnt mean they do. I dont know for sure what the majority holds, but given the general reaction back then, Id be surprised if the majority rated them higher than third.

No they didn’t run the same comp, they ran a different one with a Druid in it and after they crashed and burned they changed back. Yes there was necro, but like how I was also right about them playing Druid, but necro was not nearly as heavy realitive to Mesmer at the time. The reason the majority hold the opinion that the abjured were the 1st or top 2 team(with r55) is because they were the best in the metas heavy in necro, though when Mesmer become meta they lost some, like you mentioned though you failed to mention anything besides what happened in a short time frame, again why your belief just isn’t common

Ah, I see, they did play Druid in a couple matches. Still, that isnt a "for fun" comp either. Every team brought Druid. It was kind of a good build. And no, more teams brought Necro than Mesmer, it was more heavy. And again, no, youre wrong on that. They
still
got outclassed by european teams when Mesmer was a non-factor and Necro was the most played class. They werent even the best in metas that favoured them, and they got a lot worse in metas that didnt. That to me doesnt sound like best team material. And I dont know about you, but I wouldnt call "1 year out of the 2 years that had actual esports" a "short time frame". And again, you, much like me, cant say what opinion the majority holds. That being said, in 1 year they were hopelessly outclassed by european teams, even in metas that, as you say, heavily favoured them.

What about the other year? They fared better, they won 2 world tournament series out of 3. The other was still won by europe. By Rank 55 dragons, under their old team name. But thats 1 year of being completely outclassed, and one year of narrowly pulling ahead. Hell, to make it even clearer, here is the funny thing: Every time Abjured won, Europe got second place. Only half of the time europe won abjured got second place, the other half was europe. Plus, were talking about full regions, if NA only has one team that competes with europe, but europe has
3
, that also makes it clear which region is better. And keep in mind, thats considering that that other year didnt even have team Vermillion yet, that one only appeared in 2016. And of course, the other problem. The year closest to ours, when teams had time to continue improving,
that
is when they lost a lot. They won before that, but thats quite reminiscent of what happened in league. In season 1, TSM was actually a contender. And after that it just got worse and worse.

So now I have mentioned the other half of the timeframe, and it doesnt put them in a much better light. They were at best the third-best team. The Civilized Gentlemen and Rank 55 Dragons were both certainly better. Beating them even in metas you claim favoured them. So unless you have a good reason why a team that
narrowly
beat out european teams in 2015 and then fell off completely in 2016 should be considered the best, I think we can safely say they arent.

I mean if winning World Series if barely scraping ahead but either way I’d have to assume they are way better and have a more solid understanding of the meta than u. I mean your meta advice so far has been like what I would tell a bronze player who struggles to get under 10 deaths per match, while u rip on top teams in the world. In the end it’s just l2p issue every time.

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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.

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 kitten 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

Both of the finalist teams, and the winning team, ran Druid. Actually the only thing they did was that they ran a comp
without
Druid. But they hadnt run Druid in the Pro League either. They picked it because they thought it was better that way. And no, there was only one world championship. They won a World Tournament series though. Anyway, its because while they did well, their ultimate track record is outclassed by european teams. I would put them at place 3. Rank 55 dragons and The Civilized Gentlemen both performed generally better (TCG being the better of these 2), and you could even make a case for Vermillion at place 3. Anyway, EU performed better in tournaments, thats why I said that they seemed better.

I said s world which is correct. As far as of what teams were better- abjured was by far the best team in metas with necros while other teams could finally beat them in metas with mesmers which was not nearly as often. U r the only person I’ve ever talked to who would place them that way and you only did based on 1 tournament where they ran a comp for the purpose of fun, which is probably why a strong majority of ppl don’t hold that opinion

You said worlds, people usually use that as a synonym for world championship, rather than a world tournament series. If both exist, anyway. And uh, no actually. The 2016 meta had necro as one of the arguably best classes, they still got third. Likewise they only got second in a meta where mesmer wasnt even a thing and necro was picked by all 4 teams, still beaten out by an EU team. And no, A, I based it on numerous tournaments (they also fared worse in the pro league that year), B, they definitely
didnt
run a comp for the purpose of fun (I dont know why you keep repeating that myth. They ran the
exact
same comp they ran in the pro league that same year. They didnt pick it "for fun", they picked it because they thought it was the best comp).

I mean, youre from NA, perhaps that is why you havent seen anyone place them lower. But if you were around in 2016, you will have heard this opinion a lot, since the Abjured just kept being outclassed back to back to back by european teams. They lost
every
cross-region tournament held that year. Also, just because you think a majority holds that opinion doesnt mean they do. I dont know for sure what the majority holds, but given the general reaction back then, Id be surprised if the majority rated them higher than third.

No they didn’t run the same comp, they ran a different one with a Druid in it and after they crashed and burned they changed back. Yes there was necro, but like how I was also right about them playing Druid, but necro was not nearly as heavy realitive to Mesmer at the time. The reason the majority hold the opinion that the abjured were the 1st or top 2 team(with r55) is because they were the best in the metas heavy in necro, though when Mesmer become meta they lost some, like you mentioned though you failed to mention anything besides what happened in a short time frame, again why your belief just isn’t common

Ah, I see, they did play Druid in a couple matches. Still, that isnt a "for fun" comp either. Every team brought Druid. It was kind of a good build. And no, more teams brought Necro than Mesmer, it was more heavy. And again, no, youre wrong on that. They
still
got outclassed by european teams when Mesmer was a non-factor and Necro was the most played class. They werent even the best in metas that favoured them, and they got a lot worse in metas that didnt. That to me doesnt sound like best team material. And I dont know about you, but I wouldnt call "1 year out of the 2 years that had actual esports" a "short time frame". And again, you, much like me, cant say what opinion the majority holds. That being said, in 1 year they were hopelessly outclassed by european teams, even in metas that, as you say, heavily favoured them.

What about the other year? They fared better, they won 2 world tournament series out of 3. The other was still won by europe. By Rank 55 dragons, under their old team name. But thats 1 year of being completely outclassed, and one year of narrowly pulling ahead. Hell, to make it even clearer, here is the funny thing: Every time Abjured won, Europe got second place. Only half of the time europe won abjured got second place, the other half was europe. Plus, were talking about full regions, if NA only has one team that competes with europe, but europe has
3
, that also makes it clear which region is better. And keep in mind, thats considering that that other year didnt even have team Vermillion yet, that one only appeared in 2016. And of course, the other problem. The year closest to ours, when teams had time to continue improving,
that
is when they lost a lot. They won before that, but thats quite reminiscent of what happened in league. In season 1, TSM was actually a contender. And after that it just got worse and worse.

So now I have mentioned the other half of the timeframe, and it doesnt put them in a much better light. They were at best the third-best team. The Civilized Gentlemen and Rank 55 Dragons were both certainly better. Beating them even in metas you claim favoured them. So unless you have a good reason why a team that
narrowly
beat out european teams in 2015 and then fell off completely in 2016 should be considered the best, I think we can safely say they arent.

I mean if winning World Series if barely scraping ahead but either way I’d have to assume they are way better and have a more solid understanding of the meta than u. I mean your meta advice so far has been like what I would tell a bronze player who struggles to get under 10 deaths per match, while u rip on top teams in the world. In the end it’s just l2p issue every time.

Given that both of the times they won, they won narrowly, and the european teams got second, yeah Id call it "barely scraping ahead". I mean hell, their track record is slightly inflated because they are the only decent NA team, while EU had up to 3 on roughly the same level, so in the WTS it was always Abjured for NA, but Europe swapped between teams in each. And sure, but europe has an even better understanding of the meta than they do, and they ditched S/D completely, so there is that. Also ironic that you keep going "bronze this, bronze that", while promoting a tactic very popular amongst actual bronze thieves, which is "go in a teamfight and try to melee DPS". A tactic notably absent from top thieves.

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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