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Intra-Class Balance Dynamic - My Perspectives - Things I'd Like To See Happen - 8/29/2020


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Thief is so strong that it does not need SB5, correct. It's too powerful at fighting and team fighting for the mobility it has now. It's why thief is completely busted.

I wouldn't remove SB5, though. I'd nerf thiefs damage, pressure, and burst. Right now you have to have a seizure at your keyboard to fail at securing kills on thief. I thought getting kills was easy on holo, but it's even easier on thief...lol

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@"Shiyo.3578" said:Thief is so strong that it does not need SB5, correct. It's too powerful at fighting and team fighting for the mobility it has now. It's why thief is completely busted.

:lol: Man you really dont know when you absolutely shouldnt double down. Its not powerful at fighting at all, let alone team fighting. Its mobility comes entirely from shortbow 5. Thief isnt "completely busted", and youd know that if you actually played thief. And no, you need shortbow 5. Its legitimately the only reason the class is playable. Without it youre like a really, really bad Holo. A fraction of the damage, a fraction of the survivability, worse mobility, worse utility, worse CC and absolutely no advantage.

I wouldn't remove SB5, though. I'd nerf thiefs damage, pressure, and burst. Right now you have to have a seizure at your keyboard to fail at securing kills on thief. I thought getting kills was easy on holo, but it's even easier on thief...lol

Yes, nerf the damage of the class that already does very little damage. You do realise that in a +1 scenario, you will secure a kill even if you do very little damage, right? Thats the point of +1ing (and the point of thief, I suppose). Now on the other hand, try to solo-kill someone as thief, and you will realise "wait shit, I legit have absolutely 0 chance of killing them". So what do you think happens if you remove shortbow 5, and make thief slower than other classes that can solo-kill? Seriously, what is it with thief haters having the weirdest ideas about thief.

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@Swagger.1459

Not sure what kind of point you're trying to make there, but the most frequent types of combat engagements are in this order:

  1. 3v3s = typical team fight, the most frequent type of engagement for most players.
  2. 1v1s = typical experience while playing side nodes, but there are less side noders than team fighters.
  3. 2v2s = typical experience when needing to bail mid and take sides.
  4. 1v2s = typical experience when you're the highest MMR/Rating in your ranked game and are being forced to carry while you have 1 or 2 of your players exploding on impact and spending 75% or greater of their time in the respawn.

^ Literally anyone who plays the game actively right now, knows that this much is true.

You actually don't see many 4v4s or 5v5s happening in conquest unless one team is steam rolled so hard that they're cornered into their spawn point.

If you're looking for a reason to come @ me, do it with some kind of accuracy.

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I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

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@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:In testimony to how passive CC has butchered the flow of balance, in conjunction with some other glaring balance issues.

Right now we are in patching where only 4 classes/builds are considered meta:

  1. Tempest
  2. Reaper
  3. Holosmith
  4. DP Daredevil

~ https://metabattle.com/wiki/Conquest

Why is it happening? Shocking Aura Share and Flashbang are running the direction of the meta and pushing out classes/builds that can't front enough CC & Stability uptime to deal with the chemistry of what's happening while still remaining viable. It's kind of happening like this:

  1. Tempest covers all of the weaknesses that the Reaper has in its defense, and then Reaper covers the Tempest's lack of direct offensive pressure. Then both of their elites Tornado & Lich, also have unusually strong chemistry when used together. It is important to note that these two classes have large amounts of CC, Stability uptime, and Stun Breaks, while still being able to run very powerful build structures. <- This is key to understand where the meta is being driven from. Post ultra nerf patch that removed so much stability & stun breaks from other classes, these two classes have found a very strong position to be able to abuse the new dynamic after the nerf patch, in a new style of "broken" that we've never really seen before. - The Tempest is by far the strongest and only Support Role needed. The Reaper is by far the strongest and only Team Fighter needed.
  2. It all begins with the Tempest & the Reaper combo, but mainly just the Tempest. The Reaper is just the Tempest's ideal right hand man. It's the Shocking Aura Share for the entire team that puts the Tempest and the Tempest alone, in a position where he is driving the current not so diverse meta. What makes the Reaper position #2 is not only because he is the Tempest's best wing man, but also because of his level of access to Stability so that he can get in at the enemy Tempest and actually deal damage without having all of his combo strings being interrupted constantly from enemy Shocking Auras. The Reaper is getting frequent Stab from Shroud 3, plenty of Stab while in Lich, or even extra frequent Stab stacks if he uses Chilled To The Bone. And this isn't to mention the Stun Breaks on his utility bar and all of the CC that his weapon skills and Shroud has, and what the Tempest buffs him with. Again, the level of Stab, CC, Stun break uptime between these two classes is unbelievably high compared to other class configurations. In a nutshell, they make it so you can't move or do anything, while they are able to still move and do things. It's that simple, and the very large bulk of this exploit is due to Shocking Aura Share, which is driving this meta.
  3. Then we have ye good ole' Holosaiyan. He's always the strongest bruiser in the game that has access to the most mechanics, that self sustains fine on his own, and deals a lot of damage while maintaining good mobility. We could argue how OP or if it is OP but that's not really point here. The point to note is that it is able to maintain a top slot in this no diversity meta for 2x reasons. First of all it has Flashbang, another passive CC that is hard and soft CC, and it happens frequently. This new and very powerful over defensive ability is for some reason available on an offensive trait line https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosives and it allows the Holosaiyan to passively be super defensive while running a glass cannon berserker amulet full damage grenade build, while it plays 100% aggressively, mechanically. The second reason and probably the bigger reason why it can hang in the remaining 4 metas, is the large amount of Stab access/uptime that it is. This allows it to be able to get in and actually deal damage to a Tempest or those around it, through the instant passive CCs of Shocking Aura. It also allows the Holosaiyan the ability to deal with other Holosaiyan passive CC. - The Holosmith is tweaked SO MUCH as a bruiser, that it can perform 3x job roles equally as well as the other: 1) Team Fighter, 2) DPS + Roamer, 3) Side Node Duelist. This specialization is packing way too much in this patching.
  4. DP Daredevil is the only DPS + Roamer that is needed. Due to how Tempest/Reaper/Holo have pushed certain specific builds/classes out of viability that normally should be able to deal with the DP Daredevil. Due to this effect, right now the DP has no contestation whatsoever in the role of DPS + Roamer. Anyone who would play something that is good at dealing with DP Daredevil, will be getting trashed by the above aforementioned classes when they try to do so. The DP is also strong at +ing against Tempests & Reapers when they are separated, which gives his job a a great deal importance within this patching. Some people may say that Thief is currently OP, but honestly it's just that Tempest/Reaper/Holo is making it look that way. The DP Daredevil doesn't worry so much about the passive CC because it can out rotate anything, especially the above 3 classes/builds.

So what happened is that the disproportionate nerfing to some classes, concerning removing access & uptime to Stab & Stun Breaks, along with the implementation of entirely passive CC skills, has resulted in a situation where most classes/builds in the game have to sit out and revel in their ineptitude. This is because passive CC play has set a standard where classes/builds are now required to have a certain level of Stab acces & uptime to be able to deal with the passive CC meta. Ironically enough, the very same classes with all of the passive CC are also the classes with high Stab & Stun Break uptime.

This problem begins and ends with Shocking Aura Share.

Even though Flashbang is also an entirely broken design, it stands in the shadow of the tall tall problem that is Shocking Aura Share post nerf patch that removed so much Stab access & uptime on so many classes/builds.

^ Fix it please. In a game with 9 classes that each have 3 specializations each, surly our meta during a given patching should be a larger list than 4 builds.

While aura share is surely one problem, it is not the problem. They should not just change support tempest and then wait another six months watching whether holos still dominate.

Yes, change support tempst. As suggested in other threads: the possibility to mass cleanse in fire was the cause. Make that more egoistic or force support tempests into earth with other changes.

And then delete all those ridiculous holo traits and adjust grenades. Holos would be just as strong if FB were in tempests place or there would be no support at all.Just like thief has always been strong in almost any meta. None of your arguments pointed out how those three enable thief to be strong - which build used to hard counter thieves except a side node heavy meta (looking at you, spellbreaker, but you would be weak no matter how strong or weak tempest/reaper/holos are)?

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@Yasai.3549 said:It's not really condi meta, but bunker meta.Just so happen that the best bunkers, Necro, Herald and Guard, primarily play Condi.

Is not a bunker meta , the only bunker part of pvp is sidenoders , main pvp comp is nades holo ,reaper, tempest(healer suport not a bunker) , daredevil and scrapper . Thr only bunker there is scrapper . Ofc there os comps with triple renegade played by only team but they got beaten r55(who plays that comp)

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

Class, not build. Power Herald may die because of Unrelenting Assault, but Revenant as a whole remains playable. Whether its condi rev or Renegade. However
every
thief build dies with SB 5.

But that is actually an argument for getting rid of SB 5....If a skill becomes that mandatory on a class, then it holds too much of the power budget hostage. Without that skill, Anet would be allowed to buff thief in other areas and make them good at something else besides just decapping.

The problem is that Shortbow 5
is
thief. Remove it, and you remove thief and replace it with something new. Dont get me wrong, I would like that, but I know a lot of players wouldnt. So its a non-starter.

Remove shortbow 5 and u will have all slowly bunker low skill stuff back , nerf shadow arts but dont kill thief wich gives rotations a mean

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@Shiyo.3578 said:If your hard counter is the most mobile class in the game WITH stealth that ALSO gets every boon in existence for you playing said class, your class is literally useless. IDK why it's so hard for the devs to understand this.

Thief is a bigger issue than holo in pvp AND wvw small scale.

Wvw small scale ye, u mean thief in wvw is good for killijg big groups on random ppl cuz on a serious gvg small group v snall group no one would pick a thief and this is proven. There is couple of 5v5ing between roaming guids and no one had thief on their comps

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@wevh.2903 said:Being meta doesnt mean it is not balanced ,Yes I agree, but thief is more than "meta". Look at any competitive team, they have 4 anything and 1 thief in their team.

mesmer could be with portalYeah the ultimate "nobody uses" skill.

Ye but thats not bad , thief makes game fluid and counters slowly stuff , i mean ofc it is good af there is no way to negate it but i feel its role totally needed.

Also thief can co-exist with other roamer specs like power rev/nades holo or including mesmer. With portal i mean the not nerfed portal . This skills made pvp lot more competitive while making mesmer have some value over thief .

how can a mesmer exist in a game where every team is guarantee to have a hard counter to you? even funny you would put mesmer as a roamer, you know. To contest the thief that hard counters you. As long as thief is overpowered as kitten, and mandatory in every team. Mesmer will not be viable choice unless its equally overpowered as kitten.

Mesmer was viable with portal roaming together with a thief. Ye both of them on a team comp .

Mesmer with portal without actual nerf woulf be meta for sure . It allows to do a lot of stuff , conquest is about rotation and portal there is a masterpiece.

its not a masterpiece when mesmer is so kitten its forced to use portal as a survivability tool every time. Its a win more ability, yes often its fun and you can make cool things but its a win more ability and those in general are unhealthy.

Remove sb 5 on thief, see how awesome it still is. U go on a out how broken thief is yet if u remove sb5 its basically in same position as mesmer, except mesmers gank outa stealthis 16k not 7k like a booned up power thief's burst. Yeah mesmers get countered by thief but thief has its counters as well, most classes do. Thief is taken every match because its mobility lends greatly to the cap/decap mechanic in conquest, if it was purely combat based thief would drop tiers fast. All mesmer needs is it portal back.

yes, if you remove ability from a class it becomes worse, what a surprise, guys, holo is not OP, cuz if you dont take explosions you dont 1shot people! so its fine.it doesnt matter how much damage mesmer can do from steath if its permanently dead, it cant stealth or run like thief can, so when I whiff my combo, im kitten punished for it. Thief cant be punished so by default its better. Always.

Can you think of any other class, where, if you remove
1
weapon skill. Not an elite. Not a profession mechanic. Not even a utility skill. But
1
weapon skill. Where if you remove that, the class immediately goes from "you should have one on your team" to "so unplayable that if you get one on your team, you lose".

Power Herald, Unrelenting Assault.

I dont think sword 3 is that crucial on power rev

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Ben P- “GW2 PvP is essentially a team mode”.

Keyword there bud, is "essentially"

Conquest is a 5v5 team mode where things like 1/3/1 splits are happening around the map at all times during a match.

The keywords of Ben’s statement are “team mode”.

Honestly, what are you expecting the devs to do for balance? Review each weapon skill, slot skill, trait, and class mechanic for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, 5 person pve modes, 10 person pve modes, open world pve modes, and XvXvX wvw mode? How would those balance notes work when the fundamental design of GW2 is as a team based game?

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@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for damage. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically nothing for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

Shadow arts was a defensive traitline. Keyword WAS. While it was a defensive traitline, it was largely unpicked. Then a while back they changed it around a bit, and now its not used as a defensive traitline. In fact, the reason its picked now is because of shadow siphoning, leeching venoms and Rending Shade. 3 traits with no real defensive value. In fact, lets look beyond that. The remaining 3 traits are the 2 minor traits (stealth when using healing skill. Redundant since HiS is used anyway. Provides no defense. Increased stealth duration from skills. Also pointless, no defense.) And Hidden Thief, which gives Stealth on steal (used for quick backstabs) and cd reduction. So tell me, where in this pile of traits do you see any defense. Its used as a damage traitline with minor utility.

Daredevil is picked 100% for damage, dash is just gravy. Remember, it wasnt so long ago that the meta thief build was DA/SA/Trickery. The only reason Daredevil was picked again over DA was because DAs damage was hard nerfed, and now Daredevil gives more damage. If Daredevil was picked for mobility, why was it ignored in favour of DA? And Trickery is the only one that isnt picked for damage. Its picked because its mandatory for initiative. But even so it provides a decent chunk of damage. In order, the #1 reason to pick these traitlines is damage (Shadow Arts), damage (Daredevil) and initiative with a bit of damage (Trickery). Its more damage-focused than most classes.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

Shadow arts was a defensive traitline. Keyword
WAS
. While it was a defensive traitline, it was largely unpicked. Then a while back they changed it around a bit, and now its not used as a defensive traitline. In fact, the reason its picked now is because of shadow siphoning, leeching venoms and Rending Shade. 3 traits with no real defensive value. In fact, lets look beyond that. The remaining 3 traits are the 2 minor traits (stealth when using healing skill. Redundant since HiS is used anyway. Provides no defense. Increased stealth duration from skills. Also pointless, no defense.) And Hidden Thief, which gives Stealth on steal (used for quick backstabs) and cd reduction. So tell me, where in this pile of traits do you see
any
defense. Its used as a damage traitline with minor utility.

Daredevil is picked 100% for damage, dash is just gravy. Remember, it wasnt so long ago that the meta thief build was DA/SA/Trickery. The only reason Daredevil was picked again over DA was because DAs damage was hard nerfed, and now Daredevil gives more damage. If Daredevil was picked for mobility, why was it ignored in favour of DA? And Trickery is the only one that isnt picked for damage. Its picked because its mandatory for initiative. But even so it provides a decent chunk of damage. In order, the #1 reason to pick these traitlines is damage (Shadow Arts), damage (Daredevil) and initiative with a bit of damage (Trickery). Its more damage-focused than most classes.

Daredevil is taken for mobility and shadow arts for stealth. Comparing to an old build is well redundant since that build was used for like a month and basically absent for like 5 years. Shadow arts is still by definition a defensive traitline. It has options of stealth or defensive traits and then life shipon which is still fairly defensive. Only offensive one is basically rending shade which isn’t always picked so yeah no.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

Shadow arts was a defensive traitline. Keyword
WAS
. While it was a defensive traitline, it was largely unpicked. Then a while back they changed it around a bit, and now its not used as a defensive traitline. In fact, the reason its picked now is because of shadow siphoning, leeching venoms and Rending Shade. 3 traits with no real defensive value. In fact, lets look beyond that. The remaining 3 traits are the 2 minor traits (stealth when using healing skill. Redundant since HiS is used anyway. Provides no defense. Increased stealth duration from skills. Also pointless, no defense.) And Hidden Thief, which gives Stealth on steal (used for quick backstabs) and cd reduction. So tell me, where in this pile of traits do you see
any
defense. Its used as a damage traitline with minor utility.

Daredevil is picked 100% for damage, dash is just gravy. Remember, it wasnt so long ago that the meta thief build was DA/SA/Trickery. The only reason Daredevil was picked again over DA was because DAs damage was hard nerfed, and now Daredevil gives more damage. If Daredevil was picked for mobility, why was it ignored in favour of DA? And Trickery is the only one that isnt picked for damage. Its picked because its mandatory for initiative. But even so it provides a decent chunk of damage. In order, the #1 reason to pick these traitlines is damage (Shadow Arts), damage (Daredevil) and initiative with a bit of damage (Trickery). Its more damage-focused than most classes.

Daredevil is taken for mobility and shadow arts for stealth. Comparing to an old build is well redundant since that build was used for like a month and basically absent for like 5 years. Shadow arts is still by definition a defensive traitline. It has options of stealth or defensive traits and then life shipon which is still fairly defensive. Only offensive one is basically rending shade which isn’t always picked so yeah no.

You cant just repeat a wrong thing until it turns true. It will stay false. Shadow Arts is not taken for defense, or stealth, its taken for damage. Why do you think it went unpicked entirely (Even while providing boosts to stealth) all the way up until they added leeching venoms and shadow siphoning? In fact, lets take a closer look, shall we? It does actually have a few defensive traits. Shadow's Embrace. No longer picked. Flickering Shadows, not picked (despite being a 33% damage reduction while revealed). Shadow Saviour, not picked. Instead, its only picked for traits that have no defensive value and are purely offensive. Like the siphon traits (that you only proc when you engage a fight 95% of the time, and as such the healing goes to waste). Shadow Siphoning is an offensive trait. Leeching Venoms is the only offensive trait in a slot that has 2 defensive traits, and its picked 100% of the time. Rending Shade is offensive and picked 90+% of the time. Hidden thief is offensive and used 90+% of the time.

I dont know how I can simplify it further for you, but the simple fact is that its purely taken as a damage traitline. Oh and as for the "oh its picked for stealth thing", D/Ps primary stealth source is black powder + heartseeker, which doesnt benefit from SA. Meld with Shadows theoretically would, but you already have swiftness. The stealth on heal does nothing, since your heal stealths anyway (And you only use your heal in combat, where you want to drop stealth ASAP, so the duration does nothing). The increased stealth from skills does nothing for similar reasons.

As for Daredevil my point still stands. Of course I can compare it to the build that immediately preceded it. Especially because that build followed from a Daredevil build, where Daredevil was dropped in favour of DA because DA did more damage. And of course it was absent for 5 years, Shadow Arts used to be a defensive traitline after all. Which meant no one ever picked it. But after it was changed to a damage traitline, it replaced DA originally, before people figured out "hey, DA also adds more damage than Daredevil, so lets just drop Daredevil". But then DA was nerfed hard, and people went back to Daredevil. Mind you, when the patch that obliterated DA dropped, Sindrener explained why DD D/P is now recommended over DA D/P, and he specifically said its because DA was nerfed so much it just does less damage. Dash is just gravy.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

Shadow arts was a defensive traitline. Keyword
WAS
. While it was a defensive traitline, it was largely unpicked. Then a while back they changed it around a bit, and now its not used as a defensive traitline. In fact, the reason its picked now is because of shadow siphoning, leeching venoms and Rending Shade. 3 traits with no real defensive value. In fact, lets look beyond that. The remaining 3 traits are the 2 minor traits (stealth when using healing skill. Redundant since HiS is used anyway. Provides no defense. Increased stealth duration from skills. Also pointless, no defense.) And Hidden Thief, which gives Stealth on steal (used for quick backstabs) and cd reduction. So tell me, where in this pile of traits do you see
any
defense. Its used as a damage traitline with minor utility.

Daredevil is picked 100% for damage, dash is just gravy. Remember, it wasnt so long ago that the meta thief build was DA/SA/Trickery. The only reason Daredevil was picked again over DA was because DAs damage was hard nerfed, and now Daredevil gives more damage. If Daredevil was picked for mobility, why was it ignored in favour of DA? And Trickery is the only one that isnt picked for damage. Its picked because its mandatory for initiative. But even so it provides a decent chunk of damage. In order, the #1 reason to pick these traitlines is damage (Shadow Arts), damage (Daredevil) and initiative with a bit of damage (Trickery). Its more damage-focused than most classes.

Daredevil is taken for mobility and shadow arts for stealth. Comparing to an old build is well redundant since that build was used for like a month and basically absent for like 5 years. Shadow arts is still by definition a defensive traitline. It has options of stealth or defensive traits and then life shipon which is still fairly defensive. Only offensive one is basically rending shade which isn’t always picked so yeah no.

You cant just repeat a wrong thing until it turns true. It will stay false. Shadow Arts is not taken for defense, or stealth, its taken for
damage
. Why do you think it went unpicked entirely (Even while providing boosts to stealth) all the way up until they added leeching venoms and shadow siphoning? In fact, lets take a closer look, shall we? It does actually have a few defensive traits. Shadow's Embrace. No longer picked. Flickering Shadows, not picked (despite being a
33%
damage reduction while revealed). Shadow Saviour, not picked. Instead, its only picked for traits that have
no
defensive value and are purely offensive. Like the siphon traits (that you only proc when you engage a fight 95% of the time, and as such the healing goes to waste). Shadow Siphoning is an offensive trait. Leeching Venoms is the only offensive trait in a slot that has 2 defensive traits, and its picked 100% of the time. Rending Shade is offensive and picked 90+% of the time. Hidden thief is offensive and used 90+% of the time.

I dont know how I can simplify it further for you, but the simple fact is that its purely taken as a damage traitline. Oh and as for the "oh its picked for stealth thing", D/Ps primary stealth source is black powder + heartseeker, which doesnt benefit from SA. Meld with Shadows
theoretically
would, but you already have swiftness. The stealth on heal does nothing, since your heal stealths anyway (And you only use your heal in combat, where you want to drop stealth ASAP, so the duration does nothing). The increased stealth from skills does nothing for similar reasons.

As for Daredevil my point still stands. Of course I can compare it to the build that immediately preceded it. Especially because that build followed from a Daredevil build, where Daredevil was dropped in favour of DA because DA did more damage. And of course it was absent for 5 years, Shadow Arts used to be a
defensive
traitline after all. Which meant no one ever picked it. But after it was changed to a damage traitline, it replaced DA originally, before people figured out "hey, DA also adds more damage than Daredevil, so lets just drop Daredevil". But then DA was nerfed hard, and people went back to Daredevil. Mind you, when the patch that obliterated DA dropped, Sindrener explained why DD D/P is now recommended over DA D/P, and he specifically said its because DA was nerfed so much it just does less damage. Dash is just gravy.

You didn’t simplify anything just make it more complicated by mixing stuff up from over the course of many years. And no daredevil isn’t taken for more damage it’s taken becuz the additional mobility is very worth the trade off of slightly higher damage and yeah I’ve seen sinderners argument he said even if you took DA it would only ever be slightly more damage. The additional stealth and mobility are just so huge on this build that the trade offs are barely present and the damage like wise is good enough without these things as well as being incredibly simple and effective with all the stealth and mobility on top.

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@Swagger.1459 said:

Ben P- “GW2 PvP is essentially a team mode”.

Keyword there bud, is "essentially"

Conquest is a 5v5 team mode where things like 1/3/1 splits are happening around the map at all times during a match.

The keywords of Ben’s statement are “team mode”.

Honestly, what are you expecting the devs to do for balance? Review each weapon skill, slot skill, trait, and class mechanic for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, 5 person pve modes, 10 person pve modes, open world pve modes, and XvXvX wvw mode? How would those balance notes work when the fundamental design of GW2 is as a team based game?

Q: What am I expecting the balance team to do for balance?A: Balance the game.

Dude no one said it wasn't a team mode. Knock it off with that.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Yes, thief damage is a huge problem. The fact they can run zerker and still have 15k hp due to daredevil is one of the issues.

UNOwen I recommend you play other classes for a few months so you can get a better perspective on why people(including top players) think thief is the best class in the game next to holo.

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Remove sb 5 on thief, see how awesome it still is. U go on a out how broken thief is yet if u remove sb5 its basically in same position as mesmer, except mesmers gank outa stealthis 16k not 7k like a booned up power thief's burst. Yeah mesmers get countered by thief but thief has its counters as well, most classes do. Thief is taken every match because its mobility lends greatly to the cap/decap mechanic in conquest, if it was purely combat based thief would drop tiers fast. All mesmer needs is it portal back.People would switch to rifle as secondary weaponset and spam 4 for fast travel. As long as there exists a not too trashy deadeye build for the +1 and decap role, a removal of sb5 would not change anything for thief.

I guarantee you that for all the silver gold division players this would be even worse than what we have now because the deadeye build has a much higher damage potential and still superior disengage capability. Such a meta is just held back because no one has to adapt to it currently because shortbow is more braindead to use.

The game is full of really strong things most of the community is not aware of because 99% of the players just copy paste matabattle and godsofpvp. Sindrener has shown several times how builds that everyone calls trash become meta over night.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Its specced almost entirely for
damage
. You pick Daredevil because its the traitline that gives the most damage (after DA, the traitline previously picked over it, was nerfed hard). You pick SA because its the most reliable damage (it does basically
nothing
for your sustain, especially now that people are using hidden thief). And you pick Trickery because its mandatory (though it also gives a lot of damage). And ontop of that it runs Berserkers amulet.

And for how all-in it goes on damage, it hits pretty poor. Backstabs on a squishy class hit for 5k. If the enemy has any toughness, it hits for less. Heartseeker can hit for 5.5k on a squishy class at <25%, less on toughness again. Thats very little. I do close to that damage on core engineer just using grenades. While actually picking an entire traitline purely for defense (Id hit harder if I used Firearms, but core engineer cant run away with ease, so I cant exactly lower my survivability to as low as thieves).

Shadow arts is and has been a defensive trait line since gw1 are u such an online miracle that you can change the definition of the trait lines since before the game was created? I think not, there are some damage modifiers but the #1 reason for these lines are mobility(DrD) intiative(trickery) and stealth(shadow arts). None of these traitlines are specifically taken to improve damage it’s just in the long run they add some, mostly from modifiers though that are not even close to 100% guaranteed to be present.

Shadow arts was a defensive traitline. Keyword
WAS
. While it was a defensive traitline, it was largely unpicked. Then a while back they changed it around a bit, and now its not used as a defensive traitline. In fact, the reason its picked now is because of shadow siphoning, leeching venoms and Rending Shade. 3 traits with no real defensive value. In fact, lets look beyond that. The remaining 3 traits are the 2 minor traits (stealth when using healing skill. Redundant since HiS is used anyway. Provides no defense. Increased stealth duration from skills. Also pointless, no defense.) And Hidden Thief, which gives Stealth on steal (used for quick backstabs) and cd reduction. So tell me, where in this pile of traits do you see
any
defense. Its used as a damage traitline with minor utility.

Daredevil is picked 100% for damage, dash is just gravy. Remember, it wasnt so long ago that the meta thief build was DA/SA/Trickery. The only reason Daredevil was picked again over DA was because DAs damage was hard nerfed, and now Daredevil gives more damage. If Daredevil was picked for mobility, why was it ignored in favour of DA? And Trickery is the only one that isnt picked for damage. Its picked because its mandatory for initiative. But even so it provides a decent chunk of damage. In order, the #1 reason to pick these traitlines is damage (Shadow Arts), damage (Daredevil) and initiative with a bit of damage (Trickery). Its more damage-focused than most classes.

Daredevil is taken for mobility and shadow arts for stealth. Comparing to an old build is well redundant since that build was used for like a month and basically absent for like 5 years. Shadow arts is still by definition a defensive traitline. It has options of stealth or defensive traits and then life shipon which is still fairly defensive. Only offensive one is basically rending shade which isn’t always picked so yeah no.

You cant just repeat a wrong thing until it turns true. It will stay false. Shadow Arts is not taken for defense, or stealth, its taken for
damage
. Why do you think it went unpicked entirely (Even while providing boosts to stealth) all the way up until they added leeching venoms and shadow siphoning? In fact, lets take a closer look, shall we? It does actually have a few defensive traits. Shadow's Embrace. No longer picked. Flickering Shadows, not picked (despite being a
33%
damage reduction while revealed). Shadow Saviour, not picked. Instead, its only picked for traits that have
no
defensive value and are purely offensive. Like the siphon traits (that you only proc when you engage a fight 95% of the time, and as such the healing goes to waste). Shadow Siphoning is an offensive trait. Leeching Venoms is the only offensive trait in a slot that has 2 defensive traits, and its picked 100% of the time. Rending Shade is offensive and picked 90+% of the time. Hidden thief is offensive and used 90+% of the time.

I dont know how I can simplify it further for you, but the simple fact is that its purely taken as a damage traitline. Oh and as for the "oh its picked for stealth thing", D/Ps primary stealth source is black powder + heartseeker, which doesnt benefit from SA. Meld with Shadows
theoretically
would, but you already have swiftness. The stealth on heal does nothing, since your heal stealths anyway (And you only use your heal in combat, where you want to drop stealth ASAP, so the duration does nothing). The increased stealth from skills does nothing for similar reasons.

As for Daredevil my point still stands. Of course I can compare it to the build that immediately preceded it. Especially because that build followed from a Daredevil build, where Daredevil was dropped in favour of DA because DA did more damage. And of course it was absent for 5 years, Shadow Arts used to be a
defensive
traitline after all. Which meant no one ever picked it. But after it was changed to a damage traitline, it replaced DA originally, before people figured out "hey, DA also adds more damage than Daredevil, so lets just drop Daredevil". But then DA was nerfed hard, and people went back to Daredevil. Mind you, when the patch that obliterated DA dropped, Sindrener explained why DD D/P is now recommended over DA D/P, and he specifically said its because DA was nerfed so much it just does less damage. Dash is just gravy.

You didn’t simplify anything just make it more complicated by mixing stuff up from over the course of many years. And no daredevil isn’t taken for more damage it’s taken becuz the additional mobility is very worth the trade off of slightly higher damage and yeah I’ve seen sinderners argument he said even if you took DA it would only ever be slightly more damage. The additional stealth and mobility are just so huge on this build that the trade offs are barely present and the damage like wise is good enough without these things as well as being incredibly simple and effective with all the stealth and mobility on top.

Please dont try to evade answering my question. So tell me once again. Which part of SA is supposed to be defensive? Why was it only picked after its defensive capabilities were nerfed, and it instead got several offensive traits added? Why is it that only the offensive traits get picked instead of defensive alternatives in the same slot? Go ahead, answer it.

No, Daredevil is taken because its more damage than DA. There is no trade-off, DA just adds less damage because it was nerfed. Thats why when DA did provide more damage, you picked it over Daredevil. Because the additional mobility of dash is pretty minor considering you have shortbow 5. There is no additional stealth. Full stop. You could make hidden thief and concealing restoration both do nothing for stealth, and people would still pick SA 100% of the time, because those traits are irrelevant as they are. You pick SA for damage.

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@Shiyo.3578 said:

@"Dantheman.3589" said:I think thief damage is fairly busted. The dp build is almost entirely specced for mobility, stealth and sustain- granted it uses berserker amulet but it still hits insanely hard granted what it’s specced for. It can get by just spamming backstabs and heartseekers etc which I’ve seen hit like 6-7k per at times. It’s not 100% necessary as some suggest, but it might as well be since it has no boundaries due to mobility and stealth and has instant high impact and also insanely high passive impact due to the idea that “o they can stealth for 10s and get across the map in that time”.

Yes, thief damage is a huge problem. The fact they can run zerker and still have 15k hp due to daredevil is one of the issues.

Its not, its quite low.

UNOwen I recommend you play other classes for a few months so you can get a better perspective on why people(including top players) think thief is the best class in the game next to holo.

I have been playing core Engineer and only core engineer for about a year now. I know why thief is good, but its the same thing its always been. Thief is not "the best class next to holo" (especially because Scrapper is arguably better than Holo as is). Thief is a mandatory 1-of due to its superior mobility that makes up for its inferior everything else. But you never want more than one thief on your team, else you will lose. Does that sound like a best class to you?

The truth is that Thieves damage is pretty pathetic. Its enough to win +1s, but you need very little to win +1s. If you compared it to any other roamer, every single one blows thief out of the water. Same with defense, same with CC, same with utility. But it doesnt matter because Thief gets to the +1s fast than anyone else. Thats also why, if you took away shortbow 5, thief would instantly become unplayable. Because suddenly thief doesnt get to them faster than anyone else. And then its inferior everything else just makes it trash tier.

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@KrHome.1920 said:

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Remove sb 5 on thief, see how awesome it still is. U go on a out how broken thief is yet if u remove sb5 its basically in same position as mesmer, except mesmers gank outa stealthis 16k not 7k like a booned up power thief's burst. Yeah mesmers get countered by thief but thief has its counters as well, most classes do. Thief is taken every match because its mobility lends greatly to the cap/decap mechanic in conquest, if it was purely combat based thief would drop tiers fast. All mesmer needs is it portal back.People would switch to rifle as secondary weaponset and spam 4 for fast travel. As long as there exists a not too trashy deadeye build for the +1 and decap role, a removal of sb5 would not change anything for thief.

They wouldnt. Ignoring how janky Deaths Retreat is, its also just not faster than what other classes can bring. Suddenly thief would not be the fastest, and the fact that theyre the weakest would kill the class.

I guarantee you that for all the silver gold division players this would be even worse than what we have now because the deadeye build has a much higher damage potential and still superior disengage capability. Such a meta is just held back because no one has to adapt to it currently because shortbow is more braindead to use.

Much higher damage potential than "very little damage" doesnt mean much. And disengage capability is inferior, because shortbow 5 is thieves disengage cpability.

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