Pistol thief

[fumcheg.1936]

The main and only problem with this build is that people complaining do not understand how this build work. That's where all this "free stealth on dodge", "condition burst not revealing" and other stuff comes from. Create thief yourself and try it. Once you learn how to kite and clean condies you will be fine with this build, I'm quite sure about it.

[UNOwen.7132]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:If anything needs to be changed about condition thief ASAP it's their capacity to apply conditions like Bewildering Ambush, Deadly Ambition, and Spider Venom that don't reveal them from stealth. Slap like 1 bit of power damage so that when they engage you it reveals them, like every other condition skill in the game but that is clearly an oversight on these skills and traits snd straight up toxic nonsense.

spider venom CAN NOT be applied from stealth

Pretty sure you can apply it, steal, and steal will proc spider venom without breaking stealth.

it wont.

the first given is 1s in stealth.

an attack of power must be made to apply any spider venom, a revealing attack

Steal counts as an attack. I'm almost certain it can apply venoms. Test it. I'm at work.

Why are you bringing up the automatic stealth stacks? That has no impact on what I'm talking about here.

here is one steal from seen, and one from stealth.

both have venom applied.

I see. It's Deadly Ambition that applies poison from stealth on steal without causing reveal.

Put 1 flat damage on that too.

Deadly Ambition only applies poison on dual wield attacks. Steal is not a dual wield attack.

[Raiden The Beast.3016]

Isnt it time to add rating, badges or whatever to indicate players level to,

• help them better to overcome "OP" , annoying builds
• to have better discussions
• to ignore trolls ...?
• ...

Why not? Toxic discussions, we already have these, ...

[Crab Fear.1624]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:If anything needs to be changed about condition thief ASAP it's their capacity to apply conditions like Bewildering Ambush, Deadly Ambition, and Spider Venom that don't reveal them from stealth. Slap like 1 bit of power damage so that when they engage you it reveals them, like every other condition skill in the game but that is clearly an oversight on these skills and traits snd straight up toxic nonsense.

spider venom CAN NOT be applied from stealth

Pretty sure you can apply it, steal, and steal will proc spider venom without breaking stealth.

it wont.

the first given is 1s in stealth.

an attack of power must be made to apply any spider venom, a revealing attack

Steal counts as an attack. I'm almost certain it can apply venoms. Test it. I'm at work.

Why are you bringing up the automatic stealth stacks? That has no impact on what I'm talking about here.

here is one steal from seen, and one from stealth.

both have venom applied.

I see. It's Deadly Ambition that applies poison from stealth on steal without causing reveal.

Put 1 flat damage on that too.

Deadly Ambition only applies poison on dual wield attacks. Steal is not a dual wield attack.

the trait he means is serpents touch.

1 stack untrained or 2 with potent poison.

[Klypto.1703]

At some point they either will have to stop caving in or just put this game on maintenance mode.

[saerni.2584]

@Pati.2438 said:@saerni.2584 ....... the exact comb is stealth (Blinding Powder or Hide in Shadows in comb with Basiklisk Venom if you have it) , Spider Venom, Sneak attack. All you doing then is porting to foe and spaming 3 like a monkey and running away. Enemy has like near no chance to get ya and will be instantly death after 3 seconds if he dont kite or condi cleanse. If he cleanse or Kite .... ezy you have enough stealth so ...... stealth and spam stealth attack port on him and spam 3 ..... well rly skill needed kitten right? xD

Uh, Blinding Powder for stealth is D/P and Shadowstrike is P/D. So we are either talking about either a weapon swap (with no shortbow) or burning a heal that has at least 24 second cooldown. More likely they are in SA and getting stealth off the steal.

Some suggestions:

You see the condi pop on your bar you can dodge away and then all they can do is land Sneak Attack while they chase you. They can also use Body Shot to try to immobilize you but that projectile is slow and harder to hit 100% with. AoE and ranged pressure work well to make them give up. This is when you keep pressuring them with reveal skills and gap closers as long as you have the skills to gap close repeatedly or safely (covered by a hard cc on the thief or some projectile hate).

Then, if they land Shadowstrike you should be blocking/LoS/or counter pressure. This will probably be where they have landed a steal and Shadowstrike together. Hold your panic cleanse until they have landed a decent number of hits and then cleanse the whole burst. Don’t attack into having confusion on you.

Also, if they pop thieves guild you should burn a evade skill or two. Venoms deplete when skills are evaded. So if the thief properly venom shared to the NPCs you can just evade and get them to waste the charges. You can also cleave and LoS because they are dumb NPCs. This advice also applies to your example where the thief only self applies venom. Dodge the first Sneak Attack and most of the venom charges will be wasted.

Finally, because you seem to misunderstand. P/D itself has low stealth in terms of duration. It would need to be combo’d with specific utilities/weapons/specs to get stealth outside of melee range off Cloak and Dagger. I can give advice for countering the stealth play on particular builds. But I can’t give good advice unless I know whether you are facing a particular build. Most P/D builds I’ve seen other players using don’t have much stealth access.

[bethekey.8314]

I think it's a L2P issue for inexperienced thieves who can't perform well without broken builds.

[Eugchriss.2046]

@saerni.2584 said:

@bethekey.8314 said:I think it's a L2P issue for inexperienced thieves who can't perform well without broken builds.

Lol. Everyone with experience is saying how much counterplay there is.That was the case for every broken build that existed. But yet, I am pretty sure you too were asking nerf for some of them.

[ZDragon.3046]

The main thing that needs to be nerfed in the build is the pistol stealth attack.By no means should all 5 shots be 100% chance of projectile finishers making it a rapid blind applicator which pretty much heavily limits any counter pressure as the smoke field the used for stealth is usually still in play when they unload the attack on you.

No other rapid fire skills in the game have 100% projectile finisher chance anymore im not sure why it still exist on thief pistol stealth attack (its likely because anet missed it) way back when the redid the projectile finisher combo system.

The other mild issue as why people find the build super frustrating to fight is because like any stealth build in this game stealth makes up 80% of the fight time which leaves minimal counter pressure. Condis are also the safer options right now with strike damage being reduced. Basically if you dont have high burst condi cleanse, and a reveal on the ready your odds of having a fair chance to win the build match up is very minimal imo especially if you are built offensive.

The way stealth works in this game i consider some one who stealth's for 80% of the time it takes for one of the two players to die is basically equal to not having a target to fight which is even worse if you are locked to melee combat.

Thief players might not agree but people are right the counter play is a bit out of line here. Between blind application and stealth access there should not be a question as to why it frustrates people to no end when they get hit with it.

That said i get thief is in a crappy ish spot right now but yeah its certainly not an enjoyable exp to fight against. I think aside from ranger, pistol condi thief has some of the highest condi burst ive ever been hit with in the game. It melts me insanely fast.

[saerni.2584]

@ZDragon.3046 said:The main thing that needs to be nerfed in the build is the pistol stealth attack.By no means should all 5 shots be 100% chance of projectile finishers making it a rapid blind applicator which pretty much heavily limits any counter pressure as the smoke field the used for stealth is usually still in play when they unload the attack on you.

No other rapid fire skills in the game have 100% projectile finisher chance anymore im not sure why it still exist on thief pistol stealth attack (its likely because anet missed it) way back when the redid the projectile finisher combo system.

The other mild issue as why people find the build super frustrating to fight is because like any stealth build in this game stealth makes up 80% of the fight time which leaves minimal counter pressure. Condis are also the safer options right now with strike damage being reduced. Basically if you dont have high burst condi cleanse, and a reveal on the ready your odds of having a fair chance to win the build match up is very minimal imo especially if you are built offensive.

The way stealth works in this game i consider some one who stealth's for 80% of the time it takes for one of the two players to die is basically equal to not having a target to fight which is even worse if you are locked to melee combat.

Thief players might not agree but people are right the counter play is a bit out of line here. Between blind application and stealth access there should not be a question as to why it frustrates people to no end when they get hit with it.

That said i get thief is in a crappy ish spot right now but yeah its certainly not an enjoyable exp to fight against. I think aside from ranger, pistol condi thief has some of the highest condi burst ive ever been hit with in the game. It melts me insanely fast.

Not sure how the projectile finisher is too powerful...most of the time blind from Dancing Dagger is what I use because it cripples as well as adding blind. Blind doesn’t stack so you really have to time it for the projectile finisher % to matter.

As with the counter play I mentioned...to the extent that this build isn’t in stealth it is hugely vulnerable. So as much as 80% stealth uptime is concerned that’s a “either the thief seems impossible to kill or the thief just dies” situation to me.

I’d agree the burst on landing everything boosted with venoms is a lot...but that might be more about whether spider venom makes sense when it basically adds 9k poison damage without even needing to share it to another ally or summon. It’s not P/D so much as the utility in combo.

[Bast.7253]

@"fumcheg.1936" said:The main and only problem with this build is that people complaining do not understand how this build work. That's where all this "free stealth on dodge", "condition burst not revealing" and other stuff comes from. Create thief yourself and try it. Once you learn how to kite and clean condies you will be fine with this build, I'm quite sure about it.

It can still be a difficult built to counter if you're not building for condi cleanse, due to the fast reapplication of conditions. I play the core condi build myself, and I think it's balanced in the fact that like every other thief build you're only op if your team is good enough to allow you the chance. But in 1v1 scenarios it can be quite annoying.

As far as conquest goes, your burst primarily comes from stealth. If they survive your first venom stack burst or reveal you, you're either running away or just toying with them long enough for your cooldowns to come up and providing much benefit in terms of capping a point.

There really aren't THAT many cover conditions though. I do love wrecking some holos and core guards with it though, and it's a great build for draining life force on necros.

At high rank I can't see the build being viable though.

Also, yes, if you're complaining about Repeater then you'd probably lose either way. Repeater isn't the main source of damage for this build and if you're running pistol/dagger it's pretty difficult to even land the first chain to unlock it. The main damage, as with all thief builds (correction* since heartseeker I believe is the bread and butter of dagger/pistol now and sword/dagger is just a teleport spamming nuissance), will be coming from the stealth attack.

[bethekey.8314]

@saerni.2584

Sounds like you're insulting me personally. Please try to stay on topic Mr. Thief! Or maybe you need to resort to petty insults and API stalking like @omgdracula.6345 because you have nothing else to turn to. Also still waiting on you to take your own advice and own up about me deleting my own thread, literally posted the forum mod logs :)

[bethekey.8314]

@"saerni.2584" said:Lol. Everyone with experience is saying how much counterplay there is.

Anecdotal evidence again :( Maybe you didn't see the actual videos I posted for us to break down. Is Grimjack experienced enough? I think he's around rank 1 still.

https://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/HonorableKawaiiSharkWutFace?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=timehttps://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/TransparentBlitheRamenJKanStyle?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

I'd appreciate seeing a just a few top players describe why they think condi thief is perfectly fine right now. Should be easy if it's everyone. What's your experience by the way?

[Crab Fear.1624]

@bethekey.8314 said:

@"saerni.2584" said:Lol. Everyone with experience is saying how much counterplay there is.

Anecdotal evidence again :( Maybe you didn't see the actual videos I posted for us to break down. Is Grimjack experienced enough? I think he's around rank 1 still.

https://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/HonorableKawaiiSharkWutFace?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

https://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/TransparentBlitheRamenJKanStyle?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

I'd appreciate seeing a just a few top players describe why they think condi thief is perfectly fine right now. Should be easy if it's everyone. What's your experience by the way?

lol.

so, he got plussed then ran down to escape, next scene was a few moments later and he was caught off guard by the thieves guild elite.

otherwise, there would not be enough damage.

thief wasnt the only enemy in the clip, not including the elite either

[bethekey.8314]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:lol.

so, he got plussed then ran down to escape, next scene was a few moments later and he was caught off guard by the thieves guild elite.

otherwise, there would not be enough damage.

thief wasnt the only enemy in the clip, not including the elite either

Ackshually Mr. Thief, if you look closely (I know its hard), you'll notice the mesmer only did about 2K damage to him, and left a minority of confusion. The animations of the mesmer were much more clear and avoidable too! The thief does the lions share of the damage, instantly, and essentially one shots him :)

In the second clip, he heals up, burst clears the first wave of condis, gets away from the thieves guild, and then the steal around 16 / 17 seconds one shots him again :)

• Are you going to say he needs to have perfect, instant reflexes to deal with the instant cast condi burst?
• And if not then it's fine that an instant cast teleport burst can 1 shot?
• Or maybe that he shouldn't have moved with torment OR used skills with confusion?

Still waiting on evidence from your side :(

[Crab Fear.1624]

@bethekey.8314 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:lol.

so, he got plussed then ran down to escape, next scene was a few moments later and he was caught off guard by the thieves guild elite.

otherwise, there would not be enough damage.

thief wasnt the only enemy in the clip, not including the elite either

Ackshually Mr. Thief, if you look closely (I know its hard), you'll notice the mesmer only did about 2K damage to him, and left a minority of confusion. The animations of the mesmer were much more clear and avoidable too! The thief does the lions share of the damage, instantly, and essentially one shots him :)

In the second clip, he heals up, burst clears the first wave of condis, gets away from the thieves guild, and then the steal around 16 / 17 seconds one shots him again :)

• Are you going to say he needs to have perfect, instant reflexes to deal with the instant cast condi burst?
• And if not then it's fine that an instant cast teleport burst can 1 shot?
• Or maybe that he shouldn't have moved with torment OR used skills with confusion?

Still waiting on evidence from your side :(

how many stacks of confusion does bewildering ambush apply?

it also wasnt one shot, he was also running with torment lol. (11 stack of confusion casting skills lol O.0)

rewatch it yourself lol

[Grimjack.8130]

You guys are all missing the point, I disengaged from the 2 fights both times, and I still almost downed or did down even after I created enough space to not get hit by any/many pistol autos, repeaters, or shadow strikes. Thats where my issue is, if a Thief wants to instant steal on me, to force me off by doing 5k damage off it, thats great, more power to you, I'm cool with that, but when a Steal is doing 10k+ damage, theres an issue. This is before Venoms from hits, or Deadly Ambition procs, or anything like that, thats the issue.

[bethekey.8314]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@bethekey.8314 said:

Ackshually Mr. Thief, if you look closely (I know its hard), you'll notice the mesmer only did about 2K damage to him, and left a minority of confusion. The animations of the mesmer were much more clear and avoidable too! The thief does the lions share of the damage, instantly, and essentially one shots him :)

In the second clip, he heals up, burst clears the first wave of condis, gets away from the thieves guild, and then the steal around 16 / 17 seconds one shots him again :)

• Are you going to say he needs to have perfect, instant reflexes to deal with the instant cast condi burst?
• And if not then it's fine that an instant cast teleport burst can 1 shot?
• Or maybe that he shouldn't have moved with torment
  OR used skills with confusion?

Still waiting on evidence from your side :(

how many stacks of confusion does bewildering ambush apply?

it also wasnt one shot, he was also running with torment lol. (11 stack of confusion casting skills lol O.0)

rewatch it yourself lol

It's like you pride yourself on avoiding any sort of real discussion! Please expand the previous quotes in this post. I've highlighted the relevant parts to make it ez.

What's your definition of one shot? Mine is dying to a single instant burst like that.

I'll ask it again, are you saying he shouldn't have moved or used abilities at all? Mind you, he does have burst condi clear! He had already used a good chunk of it on the first burst unfortunately :(

[Crab Fear.1624]

@bethekey.8314 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@bethekey.8314 said:

Ackshually Mr. Thief, if you look closely (I know its hard), you'll notice the mesmer only did about 2K damage to him, and left a minority of confusion. The animations of the mesmer were much more clear and avoidable too! The thief does the lions share of the damage, instantly, and essentially one shots him :)

In the second clip, he heals up, burst clears the first wave of condis, gets away from the thieves guild, and then the steal around 16 / 17 seconds one shots him again :)

• Are you going to say he needs to have perfect, instant reflexes to deal with the instant cast condi burst?
• And if not then it's fine that an instant cast teleport burst can 1 shot?
• Or maybe that he shouldn't have moved with torment
  OR used skills with confusion?

Still waiting on evidence from your side :(

how many stacks of confusion does bewildering ambush apply?

it also wasnt one shot, he was also running with torment lol. (11 stack of confusion casting skills lol O.0)

rewatch it yourself lol

It's like you pride yourself on avoiding any sort of real discussion!

What's your definition of one shot? Mine is dying to a single instant burst like that.

I'll ask it again, are you saying he shouldn't have moved or used abilities at all? Mind you, he does have burst condi clear! He had already used a good chunk of it on the first burst unfortunately :(

he got double teamed and the important condies got covered.

analyze the situation.

[bethekey.8314]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

he got double teamed and the important condies got covered.

analyze the situation.

I think I'm just unable to communicate effectively with someone of your...caliber, I'm sorry :( Going to have to leave our debate here for another day.

[bethekey.8314]

@Grimjack.8130 said:You guys are all missing the point, I disengaged from the 2 fights both times, and I still almost downed or did down even after I created enough space to not get hit by any/many pistol autos, repeaters, or shadow strikes. Thats where my issue is, if a Thief wants to instant steal on me, to force me off by doing 5k damage off it, thats great, more power to you, I'm cool with that, but when a Steal is doing 10k+ damage, theres an issue. This is before Venoms from hits, or Deadly Ambition procs, or anything like that, thats the issue.

Sorry to put you on the spot like this with the clips. I just felt they were good, recent representations of this build.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@bethekey.8314 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

he got double teamed and the important condies got covered.

analyze the situation.

I think I'm just unable to communicate effectively with someone of your...caliber, I'm sorry :(

ill break it down for you.

in the first part, the mesmer came up from the shrine below and began their assault.

the mesmer tried to pistol lock him, and the thief was still on the ground.

the mesmer had put attacks on him, when he used his axe skill, the thief venom shared.

after grimjack ported, he had 5 stacks of confusion on him, and the 7 poison.

the thief stole as he landed up there and you can see the confusion stacks spike up to 11 (thats another 6 from bewildering ambush)

the thief was also using p/3 and put 4 stacks of torment, and used the repeater skill.

that added 2 poison from that and 2 from steal, and after the others venoms dropped off you can see it was 9.

all of this was covered by the cripple the mirage apply and the torment.

so 11 stacks of confusion hits pretty hard.

(a good chunk of the damage came from the combined efforts and when thief shared venom on the clones)

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Grimjack.8130 said:You guys are all missing the point, I disengaged from the 2 fights both times, and I still almost downed or did down even after I created enough space to not get hit by any/many pistol autos, repeaters, or shadow strikes. Thats where my issue is, if a Thief wants to instant steal on me, to force me off by doing 5k damage off it, thats great, more power to you, I'm cool with that, but when a Steal is doing 10k+ damage, theres an issue. This is before Venoms from hits, or Deadly Ambition procs, or anything like that, thats the issue.

Because I want to abuse this 10k steal, can you please tell me how it is done before all those procs?

[bethekey.8314]

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:ill break it down for you.

in the first part, the mesmer came up from the shrine below and began their assault.

the mesmer tried to pistol lock him, and the thief was still on the ground.

the mesmer had put attacks on him, when he used his axe skill, the thief venom shared.

after grimjack ported, he had 6 stacks of confusion on him, and the 7 poison.

the thief stole as he landed up there and you can see the confusion stacks spike up to 11 (thats another 5 from bewildering ambush)

the thief was also using p/3 and put 4 stacks of torment, and used the repeater skill.

that added 2 poison from that and 2 from steal, and after the others venoms dropped off you can see it was 9.

all of this was covered by the cripple the mirage apply and the torment.

so 11 stacks of confusion hits pretty hard.

(a good chunk of the damage came from the combined efforts and when thief shared venom on the clones)

Right after grimjack ports: https://imgur.com/a/Y3aB5eX

I see...not? what you said. Uh oh.

I DO see 5 stacks of the confusion from the mesmer, no poison, the thief right there, and no clones...

Please, it's just embarrassing now...

[Crab Fear.1624]

@bethekey.8314 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:ill break it down for you.

in the first part, the mesmer came up from the shrine below and began their assault.

the mesmer tried to pistol lock him, and the thief was still on the ground.

the mesmer had put attacks on him, when he used his axe skill, the thief venom shared.

after grimjack ported, he had 6 stacks of confusion on him, and the 7 poison.

the thief stole as he landed up there and you can see the confusion stacks spike up to 11 (thats another 5 from bewildering ambush)

the thief was also using p/3 and put 4 stacks of torment, and used the repeater skill.

that added 2 poison from that and 2 from steal, and after the others venoms dropped off you can see it was 9.

all of this was covered by the cripple the mirage apply and the torment.

so 11 stacks of confusion hits pretty hard.

(a good chunk of the damage came from the combined efforts and when thief shared venom on the clones)

Right after grimjack ports:

https://imgur.com/a/Y3aB5eX

I see...not? what you said. Uh oh.

I DO see 5 stacks of the confusion from the mesmer, no poison, the thief right there, and no clones...

Please, it's just embarrassing now...