236 replies to this topic

[dynia666]

Nalano, on 23 December 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

So on one side of your mouth you're talking about how you're god's gift to gaming and on the other side you're complaining how you're underpowered.

Excuse me as I get my seven daily chuckles.

you are moron, I didn't said im weak or QQ that class is weak, I just play and see how thiefs are weak, they try to get me on one combo they never can and they fight back and die or just simply run away and die later ^^

[Ritualist]

ArcherHenchman, on 24 December 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

The switch to utilities isn't the entire problem, but its certainly another piece of evidence towards the idea that anet has no idea what they're doing with respect to pvp.

While I agree that they are screwing up PvP, I still have to disagree that removing the ability to switch utilities is a problem. GW2 or DOTA2 are much better games with much more limited skill options. And as I said, I was absolutely shocked that this restriction wasn't in the game during the BWEs/release.
The game doesn't need the ability to switch skills in matches. What the game needs is a good PvP mode.

[FreeBooteR]

Everyone plays a glass cannon, stands still and wonders why a thief one shots them. It's a l2p issue.

[Falfyrel]

ArcherHenchman, on 24 December 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

The switch to utilities isn't the entire problem, but its certainly another piece of evidence towards the idea that anet has no idea what they're doing with respect to pvp.

And to a certain extent, their strategy is pretty clear, they're going to add pvp content over time, then introduce real rewards in order to draw people over from the robust pve playerbase they've built. From there, they're hoping to get decent stream involvement and word of mouth which will pull back the previous drop-outs. The sad part is: Its a pretty *ing good strategy. Get raw numbers by developing pve content, then segue into esports when the development is done. The only people who get *ed over are the people who bought the game for pvp from the start.

As for the diversion argument, you might be entirely correct, but given the long cooldown of the chain, the easy method of stopping it, and its inability to drop people who aren't specced for full glass, it seems that pointing out the plentiful and easy-to-use defensive options is a valid retort. Guardian hammer 4, for instance, is incredibly powerful for decapping and capping points in guardian v point holder shitfests. You save dodges specifically for that skill because of how strong the knockback is. That said, the ability to dodge it is central to how those fights play out. Pretending that the skill should be nerfed because it attracts dodges rather than, say, the guardian's auto chain, is absurd. Same applies to this.
[/background][/font][/color]

First off, the thief combo you're talking about requires the thief to be unstealthed and within 900 range of you. You can see it coming if you bother to look around. Thieves rarely hit a steal at exactly 900 range, either, because the penalty to an out of range whiff is a full cooldown.

Second, your math is wrong, demonstrably so. A big chunk of thief damage comes from their critical strikes grandmaster talent. Steal and CnD in tpvp deal around 4k each on crits. Lets be nice and pretend that steal applies rage before the mug damage calculation, which means that there's a 49% chance that both hits crit with a full crit build. If either of those miss, you're down to 2k for the hit. Now here's where stuff gets fun.

If you crit on both against a full glass individual, you've dropped them by 8k. If their total hp is under 15k, you're now dealing extra on the backstab. Great.  If they didn't both crit, no build in the game, including glassy ones, will activate the additional 20% damage. Against glass, you typically backstab for 6k. When they're under 50% hp, that goes up to mid 7k figures. Note the difference between 4k+4k+7.5k and 4k+2k+6k.

Oh, and wait, those backstabs are crits. Another 30% chance that doesn't work.
The first gibs a full glass build at 15k hp, which is where glass thieves and elementalists run. The second does 12k damage, which does not kill a single class in the game.

In tpvp, you don't have food that increases your precision and power or crit rate and crit dmg %. You also don't get the same gear options. Again, if you want to compare numbers, go beat on some golems. I'm not rolling a warrior or mesmer and leveling to 80, getting a set of full exotics, then making a youtube video for you because you're too lazy to get actual tpvp numbers to compare against. Are thieves broken in wvwvw? I don't *ing know. Nor do I really care.  All I know is that whining from that area of the game has been used to inform balance changes which have substantially *ed with tpvp, especially when wvwvw's massive blobs of bullshit make playing a thief reliant on culling errors anyways.

Still, I'm really sorry that your ping makes you rage at things that require reactions. Maybe we should balance counterstrike with 250ms in mind and make headshots not do any extra damage, because that would be unfair to the people who are forced to mash buttons and spray.

Proof, please. It's very easy to make up numbers on the Internets, and your entire posts hinges on what you admit yourself are made-up, theoretical numbers.

That being said? Your theorycrafting is extremely light on actual information, disregards stuff like Assassin's Signet/sigils, and relies far too much on "what skills usually hit for." So is your theorycrafting backed up by actual ingame footage of sPvP and the basic art of addition?



Just to help you a little bit and provide video evidence for your "claims,"  here's a video which completely corroborates your unfounded statements!


Except... no, it doesn't.
1:03. There goes that Thief with that super-weak 15k-max burst on a Warrior! Except... wait... 3.4k and stun, 1.4k, 1.4k, 4.2k, and then 10k. Again, on a Warrior. Hmm! That looks a bit like 20k to me!

Since you're doubtless going to cherrypick the video for why the Warrior was a terrible player, here's another segment of the same video: 2:24. 2.4k and cripple, 3.8k and stun, 3.4k, and then 7.2k. 16.8k burst on a Guardian,and the Thief wasn't even finished before the Guardian was downed.

(EDIT: for one last counterpoint brought to you by the crummy built-in Microsoft calculator itself, check 5:31. 3.4k + immobilize (so no stunbreak), 4k, 7.4k, 6.7k, down, 21k damage total, burst still not finished. Is three good enough for you?)

This video is chock-full of footage of the Thief putting out burst that far outpaces your theoretical numbers. If you don't like the footage in this video for whatever contrived reason of people making mistakes in video games and thus being shit-tier players, I can always find more footage. If you don't like his build too bad: we argue about the potential of Thief burst, we use a burst build, not some shitty pseudo-burst build which uses no sigils or Assassin's Signet.

There you go. Actual sPvP footage of Thief bursts that far outpaces your hashed-together burst ceiling, that doesn't rely entirely on made-up data.

Edited by Falfyrel, 25 December 2012 - 12:39 AM.

[Cordley]

I hope you do realize this video is 3 months old and many, if not most, of that "OMG op nerf it" moves are no longer possible to be executed.

[Caffynated]

ArcherHenchman, on 24 December 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

First off, the thief combo you're talking about requires the thief to be unstealthed and within 900 range of you. You can see it coming if you bother to look around. Thieves rarely hit a steal at exactly 900 range, either, because the penalty to an out of range whiff is a full cooldown

You are a shockingly bad thief.

Try this: stealth as you're approaching your target. Just before stealth runs out, begin CnMugD -> backstab to land just as your stealth expires. When stealth times out instead of being broken, you don't get a revealed debuff. Your target never knew you were there.

Quote

Second, your math is wrong, demonstrably so. A big chunk of thief damage comes from their critical strikes grandmaster talent. Steal and CnD in tpvp deal around 4k each on crits. Lets be nice and pretend that steal applies rage before the mug damage calculation, which means that there's a 49% chance that both hits crit with a full crit build. If either of those miss, you're down to 2k for the hit. Now here's where stuff gets fun.

If you crit on both against a full glass individual, you've dropped them by 8k. If their total hp is under 15k, you're now dealing extra on the backstab. Great.  If they didn't both crit, no build in the game, including glassy ones, will activate the additional 20% damage. Against glass, you typically backstab for 6k. When they're under 50% hp, that goes up to mid 7k figures. Note the difference between 4k+4k+7.5k and 4k+2k+6k.

Oh, and wait, those backstabs are crits. Another 30% chance that doesn't work.
The first gibs a full glass build at 15k hp, which is where glass thieves and elementalists run. The second does 12k damage, which does not kill a single class in the game.

I show you irrefutable math, and you try to refute it with made up numbers that you pulled from your dumper.

I'm going to walk you through 8th grade math here.

The formula from the official GW2 Arenanet wiki:

Expected damage = Base damage * (1 + (0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * Critical Chance)
27,000 = X * (1 + (0.50 + (114 / 100)

Solve for X.

27,000 = x * (1 + (0.50 + 1.14)
27,000 = x * (1 + 1.64)
27,000 = x * 2.64
27,000 / 2.64 = x
X = 10,277 noncritical damage

Apply the new sPvP critical damage of 54%

X = 10,277 * (1 + (0.50 + (54 / 100)
X = 10,277 * (1 + (0.50 + 0.54)
X = 10,277 * (1 + 1.04)
X = 10,277 * 2.04
X = 10,277 * 2.04
X = 20,863

Executioner grand master trait:
Adjusted for sPvP crit damage, CnD/Steal (6,861/6,862) add up to 10,604 sPvP critical damage. So anyone with less than 20,208 health is going to be under 50% for the extra damage from the trait.

Quote

In tpvp, you don't have food that increases your precision and power or crit rate and crit dmg %.

Food and sharpening stones (especially on a glass thief with base vit/tgh) don't make much difference, since I already factored out crit damage from food in the math.

Quote

You also don't get the same gear options. Again, if you want to compare numbers, go beat on some golems. I'm not rolling a warrior or mesmer and leveling to 80, getting a set of full exotics, then making a youtube video for you because you're too lazy to get actual tpvp numbers to compare against. Are thieves broken in wvwvw? I don't *ing know. Nor do I really care.  All I know is that whining from that area of the game has been used to inform balance changes which have substantially *ed with tpvp, especially when wvwvw's massive blobs of bullshit make playing a thief reliant on culling errors anyways.

The only substantial gear difference in sPvP vs WvW is crit damage. I already worked out that difference for you.

Quote

Still, I'm really sorry that your ping makes you rage at things that require reactions. Maybe we should balance counterstrike with 250ms in mind and make headshots not do any extra damage, because that would be unfair to the people who are forced to mash buttons and spray.

Everyone I know has similar pings during game play. It's as low as 30ms when I'm standing in a field alone, but when I'm moving and using abilities, it's over 200ms 100% of the time. It was the same way in GW1.

Attached Files

•  GW2ping.png   8.13K   25 downloads

[Falfyrel]

Cordley, on 25 December 2012 - 01:10 AM, said:

I hope you do realize this video is 3 months old and many, if not most, of that "OMG op nerf it" moves are no longer possible to be executed.

No, not really.

Within the interim, in terms of the dagger/dagger skills, utilities he used, and traits that got nerfed...

Dancing Dagger's damage got nerfed by 50% which would shave perhaps 1.2-1.5k off of one or two of the larger combos.
Cloak and Dagger's damage was nerfed by 33%.
Assassin's Signet was nerfed to 15% for 5 attacks rather than 50% for one attack. Not really much of an issue in this case, given that most of his bigger bursts were done in 5 attacks or less.
Basilisk Venom had a bugfix to remove being unable to stunbreak, and its duration was increased. Mostly irrelevant, but amusingly negates some L2P arguments in this video.

That's pretty much it, in terms of tangible nerfs. The Assassin's Signet change would probably be the largest, and depending on the location in the video, may make greater or less of an effect on the damage.

Let's use the first point in the video for example...

Cloak and Dagger + Basilisk Venom crits for 3,746. Reduce damage by 33%, it becomes 2510.
Assassin's Signet activated, plus Backstab for 9,891. This is a 50% damage buff so without Signet it would have been 6594.
1,463 x2 on auto-attack. Unchanged.
4,282, also on auto-attack. Unchanged.
10,983 on Heartseeker. Unchanged.

(By the way, I miscalculated and left out the backstab - sorry. Original damage would have been 31,828 total with backstab included.)

Let's assume that Assassin's Signet is now cast in the same place as before, and modify damage totals.
Backstab hits for 7583 after Signet.
The two autoattack hits hit for 1,682 damage.
The third autoattack hits for 4924.
Heartseeker hits for 12,630. Five attacks changed in total.

Again, let's add this all up. 2510 + 7583 + 1682 + 1682 + 4924 + 12630 = 31,011.

Fancy that. A decrease in damage of 800. What an immense nerf. At least he could actually stunbreak out of the combo now, if he hadn't blown all of his stunbreaks on the fight beforehand?

Edited by Falfyrel, 25 December 2012 - 01:50 AM.

[NuclearDonut]

Holy crap, the people defending Thief just got a butt whooping from the few posts above me. Personally, my only problem with Thief is that they can still get away if they miss their burst. I think they SHOULD be able to do 15k backstabs, but if they miss they should be pretty much insta-gibbed. But no, if they miss, they can stealth up and run away. Something needs to be done about that, as its the only major problem with Thief balance that I can see.

[jthamind]

rare footage of a Charr Thief in action:

[Caffynated]

Just saw this over on the official forums and thought I should share.



21k damage in sPvP WITHOUT CnD mixed in, and you're arguing with me about that much damage WITH CnD.

Seriously? I mean, come on, bro.

[crowsnest bomber]

@ caffynated - sorry but your math is rubbish cos u assumed far too much.. crit dmg is def not the only stat thats different in spvp compared to wvw. .  

@ falfyrel  - dude do you honestly think a heatseeker is capable of hitting for 12.5k? using 3 month old footage, without knowing when the actual footage was taken is pretty lame...

if you dont believe what archerhenchman says, honestly, take 5 mins with a thief, go to the golems in the mists.. medium, light and heavy armor, and see what you can do.. its really not that hard to do

just curious, what PvP rank are both of you? as i beleive its a good guide of experience. thanks

[Falfyrel]

crowsnest bomber, on 25 December 2012 - 04:00 PM, said:

@ caffynated - sorry but your math is rubbish cos u assumed far too much.. crit dmg is def not the only stat thats different in spvp compared to wvw. .  

@ falfyrel  - dude do you honestly think a heatseeker is capable of hitting for 12.5k? using 3 month old footage, without knowing when the actual footage was taken is pretty lame...

if you dont believe what archerhenchman says, honestly, take 5 mins with a thief, go to the golems in the mists.. medium, light and heavy armor, and see what you can do.. its really not that hard to do

just curious, what PvP rank are both of you? as i beleive its a good guide of experience. thanks

The footage is right there. Heartseeker hasn't been nerfed post-launch except in terms of damage percent it triggers at. Say that it can't happen all you want, but Heartseeker hasn't been nerfed in raw damage and this footage is clearly post-launch, which dates it to the month it was posted (September). Not to mention that - as I already have done - I've already dug through the patch archives and accounted for all of the various changes in damage  and utility in the bursts in a previous post.

I shouldn't be responsible for your blatant failure to pay attention to or even acknowledge actual evidence presented in front of you on a silver platter. If you want proof of Heartseeker doing 12k, why don't you take a look at the video I linked, and then use the times I outlined to skip to it? Because that's pretty much exactly what you should do before trying to counter it with idiotic statements like that.

But you must not have seen that since you were too busy sucking up to Henchman.

And as for your argument against Caffynated... "assumes too much?" But you back up Henchman, whose entire argument relied solely on make-believe numbers he admitted were clearly unfounded? Double-standard much? Given the numbers you're saying are correct, your position is blatantly hypocritical!

I make a point of not gloating about my sPvP rank and I don't see a reason to make an exception for you.

But here's an idea for you: why don't you read the arguments made above and actually figure out what they're talking about before making stupid statements?

Edited by Falfyrel, 25 December 2012 - 08:58 PM.

[prince vingador]

well no one likes to play a broken class,so when there is 50% thieves in a team..something must be wrong with that class,the reason is they are able to deal 15k-20k damage in a second or two,plus they can stheal and they are gone ,u will not even see them,on top they are useless to the team they think only in 1vs1 .i hate when i have to play with 4+ thieves in the team.anet should do something about this.there is no excuse to defend this class.

[ArcherHenchman]

Again, if you'd like to compare numbers, feel free to go beat up on golems in the mists with a current thief. The numbers I'm putting up are typical numbers from recent tpvp.

Additionally:

Quote

Let's use the first point in the video for example...

Cloak and Dagger + Basilisk Venom crits for 3,746. Reduce damage by 33%, it becomes 2510.
Assassin's Signet activated, plus Backstab for 9,891. This is a 50% damage buff so without Signet it would have been 6594.
1,463 x2 on auto-attack. Unchanged.
4,282, also on auto-attack. Unchanged.
10,983 on Heartseeker. Unchanged.

Grandmaster crit and infiltration or air runes + sigil changes. Again, feel free to test against the dummies in the mists if you want to be able to compare current abilities accurately.

Additionally, your numbers on the warrior are cute: He was frenzied for the last hit and had been shortbowed down over the course of 20 seconds. Oh my. Look at that: He wasn't bursted for over 15k, just like I said!

Quote

There you go. Actual sPvP footage of Thief bursts that far outpaces your hashed-together burst ceiling, that doesn't rely entirely on made-up data.

Besides the part where you used footage which was 3 months old? Again, feel free to get current numbers in the mists if you want to compare.

Quote

Expected damage = Base damage * (1 + (0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * Critical Chance)
27,000 = X * (1 + (0.50 + (114 / 100)

Solve for X.

27,000 = x * (1 + (0.50 + 1.14)
27,000 = x * (1 + 1.64)
27,000 = x * 2.64
27,000 / 2.64 = x
X = 10,277 noncritical damage

You can't work straight back like that because of how different health plateaus tier thief damage. Additionally, runes and sigils do different damage amounts and food. A plate of truffle steak, for instance, is +200 power and 10% crit. Sharpening stones also add a significant amount of power.

The reason why I ask for the golems specifically is that a lot of the shit in this thread has been out of date, inaccurate, or intentionally doctored. I can produce screenshots of 15k backstabs too, but I'll carefully omit to show that my target was frenzied or that they weren't wearing armor, that the screenshot in question is 3 months old or that the target had 20 stacks of vuln on them while the thief had 25 might stacks.
The numbers I've given are accurate for tpvp.

Quote

Try this: stealth as you're approaching your target. Just before stealth runs out, begin CnMugD -> backstab to land just as your stealth expires. When stealth times out instead of being broken, you don't get a revealed debuff. Your target never knew you were there.

Believe it or not, you don't get infinite utility skills, so if you're blowing your heal preemptively to land a combo that can be stunbroken out of before the backstab, you end up with an opponent who will heal off your cnd+mug and then proceed to faceown you as you have no follow-up stealth and you're already a good 6k hp in the hole. You could shadow refuge, but if you're trying to gib someone on a point, its either a mesmer or a guardian (of which the second isn't going down) and a mesmer who is relatively bulky is going to shrug off your combo regardless, and losing your refuge will significantly weaken your presence mid when you return there after having failed to contest the point.  A mesmer that's relatively glass will distort out of your backstab then counterburst you, forcing a shadow step, which sets the mes up to reset the fight in their favor while they're sitting on a chaos storm. Refuge not only disengages you from the mesmer, but forces them to think twice before creeping up to mid with portal. If you don't hold them on their point prior to you getting mid, generally your team gets timewarped and that's no good.

But yes, please keep thinking that bursting people in tpvp is the only thing thieves do and keep using inaccurate numbers to make that assertion.

prince vingador, on 25 December 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

well no one likes to play a broken class,so when there is 50% thieves in a team..something must be wrong with that class,the reason is they are able to deal 15k-20k damage in a second or two,plus they can stheal and they are gone ,u will not even see them,on top they are useless to the team they think only in 1vs1 .i hate when i have to play with 4+ thieves in the team.anet should do something about this.there is no excuse to defend this class.

Many teams in paids aren't running thieves. 2x guard, ranger/necro/mes is pretty common. Ranger/Necro set up huge conditions on the point with wells + traps + epidemic while the guardian binding blades opponents into the combo. Mesmer blows up the point with shatters and timewarp as per the usual.

Comps with thieves normally use them to neutralize the necro in that comp and abuse their shortbow damage, only moving in to burst once the opponents have been pressured significantly.

x2 guardian is common. NO ONE runs x2 thief. There's a reason for that: half the classes in the game can shrug off anything a thief does.

Edited by ArcherHenchman, 25 December 2012 - 11:20 PM.

[Sinnacle]

I am pretty sure those making the argument that food doesn't matter have no clue what they are talking about at all.  +100 power or +100 precision?  100 power is like 9% more damage if you don't have a alot of power already.  100 precision is +5% crit chance.

Edited by Sinnacle, 26 December 2012 - 12:38 AM.

[jthamind]

the one that gives +100 precision also gives +10% critical damage.

[Touche]

So much comedy gold. If you look at the entire gwguru forums 99% of it is found pertaining to thieves and the jokers defending the broken class.

[Falfyrel]

ArcherHenchman, on 25 December 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

Again, if you'd like to compare numbers, feel free to go beat up on golems in the mists with a current thief. The numbers I'm putting up are typical numbers from recent tpvp.

Additionally:

Grandmaster crit and infiltration or air runes + sigil changes. Again, feel free to test against the dummies in the mists if you want to be able to compare current abilities accurately.[/background][/font][/color]

Additionally, your numbers on the warrior are cute: He was frenzied for the last hit and had been shortbowed down over the course of 20 seconds. Oh my. Look at that: He wasn't bursted for over 15k, just like I said!

Besides the part where you used footage which was 3 months old? Again, feel free to get current numbers in the mists if you want to compare.

You can't work straight back like that because of how different health plateaus tier thief damage. Additionally, runes and sigils do different damage amounts and food. A plate of truffle steak, for instance, is +200 power and 10% crit. Sharpening stones also add a significant amount of power.

The reason why I ask for the golems specifically is that a lot of the shit in this thread has been out of date, inaccurate, or intentionally doctored. I can produce screenshots of 15k backstabs too, but I'll carefully omit to show that my target was frenzied or that they weren't wearing armor, that the screenshot in question is 3 months old or that the target had 20 stacks of vuln on them while the thief had 25 might stacks.
The numbers I've given are accurate for tpvp.

Believe it or not, you don't get infinite utility skills, so if you're blowing your heal preemptively to land a combo that can be stunbroken out of before the backstab, you end up with an opponent who will heal off your cnd+mug and then proceed to faceown you as you have no follow-up stealth and you're already a good 6k hp in the hole. You could shadow refuge, but if you're trying to gib someone on a point, its either a mesmer or a guardian (of which the second isn't going down) and a mesmer who is relatively bulky is going to shrug off your combo regardless, and losing your refuge will significantly weaken your presence mid when you return there after having failed to contest the point.  A mesmer that's relatively glass will distort out of your backstab then counterburst you, forcing a shadow step, which sets the mes up to reset the fight in their favor while they're sitting on a chaos storm. Refuge not only disengages you from the mesmer, but forces them to think twice before creeping up to mid with portal. If you don't hold them on their point prior to you getting mid, generally your team gets timewarped and that's no good.

But yes, please keep thinking that bursting people in tpvp is the only thing thieves do and keep using inaccurate numbers to make that assertion.

Many teams in paids aren't running thieves. 2x guard, ranger/necro/mes is pretty common. Ranger/Necro set up huge conditions on the point with wells + traps + epidemic while the guardian binding blades opponents into the combo. Mesmer blows up the point with shatters and timewarp as per the usual.

Comps with thieves normally use them to neutralize the necro in that comp and abuse their shortbow damage, only moving in to burst once the opponents have been pressured significantly.

x2 guardian is common. NO ONE runs x2 thief. There's a reason for that: half the classes in the game can shrug off anything a thief does.

I'll be patient with you and assume you're just delusional and think that burst can only happen at the beginning of the fight. I'll be patient and assume you're a bad enough Thief player to not recognize that the guy spent the fight Shortbow-kiting the Warrior to make him blow his cooldowns before bursting. I'll be patient with you and assume that even though you made up completely imaginary numbers from memory of "what should happen," you now feel that it's more relevant than actual video evidence, plus math equalizing the damage dealt to the present day.

Maybe you also missed the post where I accounted for all changes made to the Thief over the past three months in the burst, which completely discredits the "lol 3 months old" idiocy you spent half your post blathering about. Here, I'll even give you a link to it to save you the time!

http://www.guildwars...20#entry2127659

The guy was even courteous enough to post his build in the video description, and - surprise surprise - it didn't even use the Grandmaster crit trait which you keep harping on about!

I just double-checked the video to make absolutely sure, and the Warrior wasn't naked, and neither player had any boons or conditions on them before the burst began. So given that I've already accounted for changes in the past three months, I'll redo the math especially for you, factoring in Frenzy.

Cloak and Dagger initially hits for 2510.
Assassin's Signet activated, Backstab hits for 7583.
Two auto-attacks hit for 1,682 per.
Frenzy activated. Third auto-attack hits for 4,282: without Frenzy this would have been 2854 initially. Factor back in changed Assassin's Signet, this becomes 3,282.
Finally, Heartseeker hits for 10,983 initially: again, factor out initial Frenzy and this becomes 7,322. Factor back in changed Assassin's Signet, and this becomes 8,420.

2510 + 7583 + 1682 + 1682 + 3282 + 8420.
In the land of basic second-grade math, by the way, this sure as hell isn't "under 15k." It's actually 25,159 - enough damage to kill almost any class, and even if it didn't, the Thief would still have enough utilities to chase down the mortally-wounded opponent.

Also, can I ask you a question?

Why the hell do you expect me to completely drop my mathematically sound, video-supported, logically deduced argument and go run off to support your untested, make-believe, completely unsupported numbers (herp derp this is what happens in tpvp now i'm right and you're wrong), because you're too lazy to get off your own arse and support it YOURSELF instead of harping on and cherry-picking through footage on hilariously flimsy grounds? You wanna talk about "doctoring," why don't you read your own posts?

Remember everyone: if there is footage out there that completely invalidates your statements, it's obviously doctored or flawed and the people in the video are obviously doing everything wrong, because it's impossible for you to be mistaken. It's a good thing we can't all be as special as ArcherHenchman.

Edited by Falfyrel, 26 December 2012 - 08:20 AM.

[Caffynated]

ArcherHenchman, on 25 December 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

You can't work straight back like that because of how different health plateaus tier thief damage.

He didn't use HS and I already showed that Execution would have still triggered, so yes, you can work straight back like that.

Quote

Additionally, runes and sigils do different damage amounts and food. A plate of truffle steak, for instance, is +200 power and 10% crit. Sharpening stones also add a significant amount of power.

http://wiki.guildwar...f_Truffle_Steak

Plate of truffle steak is 100 power 70 precision. Using that instead of 10% crit damage food would give him lower damage in this scenario and would actually make the difference between WvW and sPvP damage smaller, not larger.

Sharpening stones are 6% toughness and 4% vitality, on a glass thief that is 91 power. It's not insignificant, but adding 91 power to 2,300 is not making a huge difference.

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The reason why I ask for the golems specifically is that a lot of the shit in this thread has been out of date, inaccurate, or intentionally doctored. I can produce screenshots of 15k backstabs too, but I'll carefully omit to show that my target was frenzied or that they weren't wearing armor, that the screenshot in question is 3 months old or that the target had 20 stacks of vuln on them while the thief had 25 might stacks.
The numbers I've given are accurate for tpvp.

The numbers you've given are imaginary and unsupported by evidence.

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Believe it or not, you don't get infinite utility skills, so if you're blowing your heal preemptively to land a combo that can be stunbroken out of before the backstab, you end up with an opponent who will heal off your cnd+mug and then proceed to faceown you as you have no follow-up stealth and you're already a good 6k hp in the hole. You could shadow refuge, but if you're trying to gib someone on a point, its either a mesmer or a guardian (of which the second isn't going down) and a mesmer who is relatively bulky is going to shrug off your combo regardless, and losing your refuge will significantly weaken your presence mid when you return there after having failed to contest the point.  A mesmer that's relatively glass will distort out of your backstab then counterburst you, forcing a shadow step, which sets the mes up to reset the fight in their favor while they're sitting on a chaos storm. Refuge not only disengages you from the mesmer, but forces them to think twice before creeping up to mid with portal. If you don't hold them on their point prior to you getting mid, generally your team gets timewarped and that's no good.

The odds of anyone reacting fast enough to avoid CnMugD -> backstab are fairly low. We've been over this before. 1/2 second with internet latency and the limits of human reaction speed make it borderline impossible to stun break and dodge/invuln before backstab lands. I almost never use my heal when I play thief anyway, so having it as an extra stealth skill is great. It's easier to break combat if things didn't go right and try again in a few seconds when they don't have their cooldowns up.

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But yes, please keep thinking that bursting people in tpvp is the only thing thieves do and keep using inaccurate numbers to make that assertion.

I never said that thieves only burst. Stop making up arguments

The numbers are actual, real world events. Things that actually happened in the game.

Your numbers happened in your mind.

See the difference?

[Cordley]

http://pl.twitch.tv/pharexys/c/1741793

If you want to see some high numbers, please watch this movie. It's a warrior POV of a paid tpvp game, so the opponents represent a higher level of skill, unlike some random hotjoin spvpers. Nevertheless, the warrior pulls some awesome high numbers. You seem great at math, perhaps you could calculate how much damage he does by using all his cooldown skills, utilities, F1 and autoattack (equivalent of thieves' CnD+mug+backstab+heartseeker+venom+elite+signet+autoattack).

Caffynated, on 26 December 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

The odds of anyone reacting fast enough to avoid CnMugD -> backstab are fairly low. We've been over this before. 1/2 second with internet latency and the limits of human reaction speed make it borderline impossible to stun break and dodge/invuln before backstab lands.

If you see a thief coming - and you should see, a proper identification of incoming threats is an element of "skill" - you can expect what will happen. It is easy to estimate 900 range, you should be able to time your dodge/invul/other defensive moves. At least I can.

Edited by Cordley, 26 December 2012 - 10:42 AM.

[crowsnest bomber]

@ Falfyrel.. The burst your talking about is a c+d, backstab, 3 auto attacks and a heatseeker.. I think this thread is only talking about the c+d and backstab combo which takes 0.5s.


Anyway,  using your example,  the cd backstab combo hits for about 9k right? Can you tell that to caffynated!!  If u throw in a 4k steal then I think that's about the max. initial burst a thief can usually do,  so about 13k

This will nearly insta kill most glass cannons but usually you will be able to survive it.. And the rest is up to you

Also if you wana see old thief videos that show ridiculous burst,  check out jinzus backstab build thread on this forum.  Last time I checked it was still on the front page..

[pestizide]

invivo, on 11 December 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

How can a class do 19,000 damage in a second and not be OP?  (Don't worry, this is not a QQ or trollbait thread, I'm asking in good faith and hope for reasonable discussion.)

The setup: I was WvWing with my mesmer, saw a guy running toward me, and stood my ground.  As soon as he got to me, I hit torch #4 to stealth, and then less than 2 seconds later (probably closer to 1 second) I was downed.

Curious as to how this character managed to get through all of my hit points (it's a big number, for a mesmer), I checked the combat history.  I got hit with Steal for 4k, and the only other thing I saw was pistol whips for ~1.5k each.  Lots of them.

Now, I'm never quick to scream "imba!" when things don't go my way.  I'm not that great at this game, and I don't play PvP often enough to learn all the things that other classes can do.  So if your only response is, "L2P, noob!", then my reply is, "duh!"  After all, I'm not hearing a million other people shouting about how imba the thief is, so clearly good players have managed to counter this build.

But I'm at a loss regarding how to avoid dying against such a massive spike of damage.  Sure, if I can dodge the first strike or two, I might be fine, but I don't think that survival should rely on a single critical dodge like that.  And I think I may have become immobilized at some point during the fight, because I tried to dodge after the first couple hits (although I may have just died faster than the keystrokes could register).

I'm not upset about losing the fight.  A more skilled player should be able to beat me, and this particular thief no doubt deserved his victory.  I just want to know why the fight was over before it had even properly begun.

Cheers!

DPS on all classes in full glass is over the top.  Know whats scary?  Mesmer can shatter for over 15k - all shatter.  Add a sword #2 for 7k and you bust for 23k hp in an immobilize.  You are on the top 1v1 class in the game.  Go glass and insta gib people.

[Mursie]

Falfyrel, on 26 December 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

I'll be patient with you and assume you're just delusional and think that burst can only happen at the beginning of the fight. I'll be patient and assume you're a bad enough Thief player to not recognize that the guy spent the fight Shortbow-kiting the Warrior to make him blow his cooldowns before bursting. I'll be patient with you and assume that even though you made up completely imaginary numbers from memory of "what should happen," you now feel that it's more relevant than actual video evidence, plus math equalizing the damage dealt to the present day.

Remember everyone: if there is footage out there that completely invalidates your statements, it's obviously doctored or flawed and the people in the video are obviously doing everything wrong, because it's impossible for you to be mistaken. It's a good thing we can't all be as special as ArcherHenchman.

Be patient all you want.  The reality is that henchman plays sPvp and has outlined comps that actually WIN tournaments.  They run x2 of a class...but it isn't thief.  Further..many comps don't even have thiefs in their group.  From your rants and your dodge to a question about your spvp rank..it is clear you only play wvw or hotjoins if you do any pvp at all.  As is typical of all mmo's... the whiners who have no actual clue of the real pvp that takes place...are often the loudest heard and unfortunately most listened too.  I have pity for henchmen and others who truly do pvp.  they must endure changes to a game that are fostered by crybabies who don't actually participate in the action they whine about.

[ArcherHenchman]

Falfyrel, on 26 December 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

I'll be patient with you and assume you're just delusional and think that burst can only happen at the beginning of the fight. I'll be patient and assume you're a bad enough Thief player to not recognize that the guy spent the fight Shortbow-kiting the Warrior to make him blow his cooldowns before bursting. I'll be patient with you and assume that even though you made up completely imaginary numbers from memory of "what should happen," you now feel that it's more relevant than actual video evidence, plus math equalizing the damage dealt to the present day.

Maybe you also missed the post where I accounted for all changes made to the Thief over the past three months in the burst, which completely discredits the "lol 3 months old" idiocy you spent half your post blathering about. Here, I'll even give you a link to it to save you the time!

http://www.guildwars...20#entry2127659

The guy was even courteous enough to post his build in the video description, and - surprise surprise - it didn't even use the Grandmaster crit trait which you keep harping on about!

I just double-checked the video to make absolutely sure, and the Warrior wasn't naked, and neither player had any boons or conditions on them before the burst began. So given that I've already accounted for changes in the past three months, I'll redo the math especially for you, factoring in Frenzy.

Cloak and Dagger initially hits for 2510.
Assassin's Signet activated, Backstab hits for 7583.
Two auto-attacks hit for 1,682 per.
Frenzy activated. Third auto-attack hits for 4,282: without Frenzy this would have been 2854 initially. Factor back in changed Assassin's Signet, this becomes 3,282.
Finally, Heartseeker hits for 10,983 initially: again, factor out initial Frenzy and this becomes 7,322. Factor back in changed Assassin's Signet, and this becomes 8,420.

2510 + 7583 + 1682 + 1682 + 3282 + 8420.
In the land of basic second-grade math, by the way, this sure as hell isn't "under 15k." It's actually 25,159 - enough damage to kill almost any class, and even if it didn't, the Thief would still have enough utilities to chase down the mortally-wounded opponent.

Also, can I ask you a question?

Why the hell do you expect me to completely drop my mathematically sound, video-supported, logically deduced argument and go run off to support your untested, make-believe, completely unsupported numbers (herp derp this is what happens in tpvp now i'm right and you're wrong), because you're too lazy to get off your own arse and support it YOURSELF instead of harping on and cherry-picking through footage on hilariously flimsy grounds? You wanna talk about "doctoring," why don't you read your own posts?

Remember everyone: if there is footage out there that completely invalidates your statements, it's obviously doctored or flawed and the people in the video are obviously doing everything wrong, because it's impossible for you to be mistaken. It's a good thing we can't all be as special as ArcherHenchman.

If you're in a 20 second long fight where the thief outplays you, it isn't .5 seconds of bursting that won you the fight. Thieves have to stay at range with shortbow 3, and warriors that attempt to walk away without using whirlwind and rush get killed. Is there an issue there?

Nope.

The 'burst' you're describing involves a full autochain, heartseeker, cnd, backstab, etc. None of this is dodged. None of it is endure pained. This isn't straight out of the gate burst. More importantly, check how much damage a 2.8k cnd does while it crits in tpvp and then tell me that my numbers are off.

Oh look, they're exactly right.

Caffynated, on 26 December 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

[/background][/font][/color]

He didn't use HS and I already showed that Execution would have still triggered, so yes, you can work straight back like that.

No you can't. The numbers for damage skills and buffs in tpvp and wvwvw are different. Period.

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http://wiki.guildwar...f_Truffle_Steak

Plate of truffle steak is 100 power 70 precision. Using that instead of 10% crit damage food would give him lower damage in this scenario and would actually make the difference between WvW and sPvP damage smaller, not larger.

Sharpening stones are 6% toughness and 4% vitality, on a glass thief that is 91 power. It's not insignificant, but adding 91 power to 2,300 is not making a huge difference.

Sorry, wrong truffle steak, there, buddy:

http://www.gw2db.com...le-steak-dinner
Its pretty good given how wipes work in wvwvw. Try it out.
200 power. 10% crit.
So basically alone it constitutes approximately a 20% damage buff.

Sharpening stone is only another 5%? Egads. Sounds like these buffs are adding up.

Maybe you'd like to compare with ACTUAL THIEF NUMBERS. GO BEAT ON SOME GOLEMS.

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[color=#282828][font=tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(229, 236, 238)]

The numbers you've given are imaginary and unsupported by evidence.

[color=#282828][font=tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(229, 236, 238)]

[color=#282828][font=tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(229, 236, 238)]The odds of anyone reacting fast enough to avoid CnMugD -> backstab are fairly low. We've been over this before. 1/2 second with internet latency and the limits of human reaction speed make it borderline impossible to stun break and dodge/invuln before backstab lands. I almost never use my heal when I play thief anyway, so having it as an extra stealth skill is great. It's easier to break combat if things didn't go right and try again in a few seconds when they don't have their cooldowns up.

People avoid it all the time. Mesmers will regularly distort backstabs even if you backstab immediately rather than move to their back. Just because you're bad doesn't mean everyone else in the world is. Warriors will just whirlwind gib you if you try and the burst doesn't kill them instantly. Rangers will generally be sitting on double traps, which means you die after you engage (Guess why trap rangers have been taking treb duty on kyhlo in paid?). Guardians don't die to the burst. F1 blinds on offensive specs, they have multiple stunbreakers and bunker builds just plain don't take enough damage to warrant mention. Necros don't point guard unless they're a bulky spec, and they're generally sitting on a full set of own-circles by the time you get there. Bunker eles are even more obnoxious than guardians, but they generally don't like opening with mistform as it lets you neutral the point from under them when you get them to 25%. Shocking aura neuters thief offense regardless. Even if it doesn't:  your burst will trigger their 25% hp mist. Same with engineers, but they also get a whole toolkit of immobilizes to dick you over if you fail.

Quote

I never said that thieves only burst. Stop making up arguments

The numbers are actual, real world events. Things that actually happened in the game.

Your numbers happened in your mind.

See the difference?

Sorry buddy, I've got over 1k thief tournament wins under my belt. I know what the damage range of classes are, and I know which ones can burst and how hard they burst. Believe it or not, running a class that's awfully susceptible to burst and one that sits back during team fights gives you a really good overview of which classes are being used for pressure, and which are being used to spike. Using wvwvw and 3 month old footage to try and get a class nerfed because your connection blows ass is lovely, but awfully misleading.

P.S. I hope I got these quotes right.

[Falfyrel]

Mursie, on 26 December 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

Be patient all you want.  The reality is that henchman plays sPvp and has outlined comps that actually WIN tournaments.  They run x2 of a class...but it isn't thief.  Further..many comps don't even have thiefs in their group.  From your rants and your dodge to a question about your spvp rank..it is clear you only play wvw or hotjoins if you do any pvp at all.  As is typical of all mmo's... the whiners who have no actual clue of the real pvp that takes place...are often the loudest heard and unfortunately most listened too.  I have pity for henchmen and others who truly do pvp.  they must endure changes to a game that are fostered by crybabies who don't actually participate in the action they whine about.

So people who are good at GW2 can't be wrong, people who debate critically about game balance are "crybabies,"  and I don't do any PvP.

Thanks for your wonderful and relevant insight, I'm sure you're a real winner yourself.

ArcherHenchman, on 26 December 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

[snip for length]

(Before I begin, why would I even argue against a 2.8k damage attack doing 2.8k damage?)

But yes, you're right. Thief burst is balanced in the scope of tPvP, and Thieves aren't run much in tPvP. These were never in question. But the only gamemode right now is Conquest - which is a game mode that very much plays directly against the Thief's strengths. Thieves are strong against single-targets, Conquest makes everyone bunch together to contest single points. Thieves have the best mobility in the game along with Elementalists, the gamemode often discourages pursuit of enemies and punishes retreating. Thief tries to stealth to play defensively, they're no longer contesting the point.

At the moment, playing 2x of Thief would be a terrible idea in spite of their strengths, if only because it'd severely impede your team's ability to defend points.

But that Thief burst is even run at all in this sort of environment should be a testament to how successful they actually are at doing their job. And in any game mode except Conquest (except MAYBE King of the Hill if they ever decide to add something like that), this is going to be exacerbated because Thieves are no longer being forced to compete in an environment that's decidedly hostile against their class's purpose.

Yes, the devs did say that they're balancing with tPvP in mind. Yeah, Thieves are mostly balanced (maybe even a little UP) at the moment in Conquest. But how will they be when a Capture the Flag mode is added, for example? Because if the Wintersday snowball fight activity is any indication, that may very well be on the horizon.

And when that happens I know I'm going to love having a highly mobile ally that can deal 20k+ damage in mere seconds, and still have enough defense thanks to stealth to get away even if they fail.

Conquest is a crutch and when that gets kicked away, maybe we can have better discussions about balancing. But as for now, it seems that no game balance discussion can take place without living in its shadow, and the people defending Thief adamantly will continue using that as ammo. In my mind it's a really half-baked, contrived, and artificial way to decide balance. But as of now, seeing that Conquest is the only tPvP gamemode...

Yeah. You're completely correct. Thieves are balanced and not OP in tPvP. But only for a week. Or a month. Or however long it is till they add a gamemode that's not yet another case of point defense, and discussion can take place while accounting for a wider variety of scenarios than the tiny assortment of ones that it's limited to right now.

As an aside, point defense is starting to bore the crap out of me.

[Caffynated]

I'm not going to bother going round and round with you again on the same crap.

Here, your precious golem damage tests:



I forgot about the CnD nerf only affecting structured, and not WvW. Sometimes I forget how retarded ANet is. My bad there.

Compare that to what my math says it should be:
Steal 6,861 WvW
Steal 5,301 sPvP

CnD 6,862 WvW
CND 3,552 sPvP

Backstab 13,246 WvW
Backstab 10,235 sPvP

Otherwise, the math worked out almost exactly, with the slight exception that backstab was actually higher than expected.

*edit - the 3rd backstab is lower because I swapped out Executioner (20% damage to targets under 50%) for Hidden Killer (100% crit chance in stealth).

*edit - more golem tests with some different trait choices:



Heavy golems for reference:



I couldn't get the light golem to stay alive long enough for a full CnMugD -> backstab, so backmugstab had to do.

Edited by Caffynated, 26 December 2012 - 11:57 PM.

[Asomal]

With shatter mesmers (god tier right now), bunker guards/elementalists roamming out there, people still complain about thieves, go figure...

[Mursie]

Asomal, on 26 December 2012 - 09:35 PM, said:

With shatter mesmers (god tier right now), bunker guards/elementalists roamming out there, people still complain about thieves, go figure...

^ this.  If you're crying over thieves and not mesmers... you clearly aren't playing the game.  No one holds a candle to mesmer atm.

[Caffynated]

Mursie, on 27 December 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

^ this.  If you're crying over thieves and not mesmers... you clearly aren't playing the game.  No one holds a candle to mesmer atm.

https://forum-en.gui...rst#post1061359

Quote

@ Mesmer: We’ll be addressing the current Mesmer build that’s spiking for insane damage. Sorry that change got through – it is something we’ll be fixing.

What is the purpose of pointing out mesmer's broken burst damage, when the devs say "yeah, that's broken and we're on it. We're sorry"?

[mofogie]

lol did someoen say dodging backstab is a low chance?   i regularly dodge ganking thieves in wvw all the time.  once you see basilisk venom and/or a thief at 900 distance, you evade.  and if you were too early, you evade again.  90% of the time, if you know how far 900 range is, you will evade the steal, screwing up their entire burst, and letting you get away with minimal damage.  I've killed thief after thief as my own thief, without even breaking a sweat or using a slot skill, just shortbow.  I'm a glass cannon  thief as well, i only have 14k hp.   When you play a glass cannon thief long enough, you learn to be fast or dead, and you take those reflexes to any class you play.

it is not hard, it just requires practice.  go out there and get familiarity with timing of thieves, and make them look like a joke.

i agree also on the mesmers.  It's fairly easy to evade one burst, but their cooldown is so short for another, and then another.  And if they mess up on their bursts, they can stealth and try again later in just 10-12 seconds.  Also the phantasms do ridiculous damage, as much as if the actual class were doing it themselves, except phantasms can soak up damage and also repeat the skill on their own.

then you have ether feast, which heals for a ton on a short cooldown.  So basically mesmers can also reset the fight quite often, on top of bursting frequently.  You never kill a mesmer once, you often have to kill him 3-4 times.  And in that time he's had 8 opportunities to do large bursts against you.