Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious. It’s easily understandable why warriors or eles would be wanted in dungeons. Even rangers can have a place (as small as it might be).

But thieves as far as I know (and I do have an 80 thief, just haven’t used it much) are good for sheer dps and stealth-skipping. Is there something else they’re supposed to bring to the table in dungeons?

Easy, constant access to a smoke field (blind is one of the strongest support against trash mobs). Blast finishers. For pugging, they’re also one of the classes that can bring a projectile absorb which is always nice to have in random group composition from LFGing.
One of the strongest ability to peel off defiance from a boss, through pistol 4 allowing for another icebow deep freeze.
And, as you said, the sheer dps. It’s in the top tier right next to ele.

How can you think rangers have more of a place than thieves?

I didn’t think rangers were more important than thieves, I just didn’t know what thieves were good for in dungeons aside from stealth and dps.

Theives are brought primarily for their Interrupts/Defiance Management (the one you missed), DPS, and Stealth. Blinds on trash mobs are also invaluable. They also bring lots of blast finishers.

There are also the obvious niche situations (or more common situations outside of organized runs) where other utility they bring (like extra dodges + condi clear from agility signet) or could bring is pretty valuable.

They hide the people who are bad at runs and dual pistol unload through fire fields for MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

Basically 2 things. p/p. Sb. pp for unload. SB for smoke screen and only relevant utility will be SR.

DonQuack.9025:

They hide the people who are bad at runs and dual pistol unload through fire fields for MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

Basically 2 things. p/p. Sb. pp for unload. SB for smoke screen and only relevant utility will be SR.

Did…did you just unironically claim that p/p is viable in dungeons?

edit: or maybe my sarcasm detector is broken?

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

Yeah it’s mostly stealth for me as to why I bring thief, with the additional benefit of pistol 4 controlling defiance.

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

Thieves have top tier damage, smoke field with no cd, defiance control, spammable blast finisher and a +10% damage with bundles trait.

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

If Stealth is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring thieves into their party for dungeons.

Mainly for the Stealth, which isn’t so bad. It’s unique and it’s very Thiefy.

EcoRI.9273:

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

If Stealth is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring thieves into their party for dungeons.

With current defiance i could see there still being a place, with the changes coming /shrug I imagine there are burstier CC options (inc slick shoes meta! ) though the blind is very very nice in many situations.

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

Above average damage? They have the highest single target DPS in the game so…

…

EcoRI.9273:

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

If Stealth is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring thieves into their party for dungeons.

I will, simply because I love to play thief!

Purple Miku.7032:

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

Above average damage? They have the highest single target DPS in the game so…

…

Hey, even the highest damage is technically above the average!
But yeah, that should’ve been phrased less conservatively, though when it comes to damage I tend to classify everything in two tiers, eles and everything else :P

Well why are eles loved? I mean they only bring sheer dps and offensive boons like might and fury.

robertul.3679:

Well why are eles loved? I mean they only bring sheer dps and offensive boons like might and fury.

“only” sheer dps and offensive boons?
…
get out >:(

Seriously though, a good ele can carry a stack of random pugs with all the increased damage output from the party-wide might/fury and personal dps.
Also ice bow is still the best CC in the game so there’s that.
Add to that projectile absorbs, great mobility (fgs), more blasts than you can shake a stick at as well as blinds, and you’ve got the most awesome class in the game.

robertul.3679:

Well why are eles loved? I mean they only bring sheer dps and offensive boons like might and fury.

Lies.

They bring unblockable chill, instant 25 vuln for short encounters, best cc in the game for PvE (deep freeze), best aoe damage in the game, permanent fury uptime, 2nd highest might stacking potential only to PS warr but without ruining their own personal DPS in the process, can bring projectile blocks and personal tanks to distract bosses (rock elementals), the arguably best blind field in the game (sandstorm), can help maintain high burning uptime as well, give the most swiftness to the party out of all classes, cleanse conditions, and blast like hell in all combo fields.

Ele #1 buddy, don’t you forget it!

DonQuack.9025:

They hide the people who are bad at runs and dual pistol unload through fire fields for MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

Basically 2 things. p/p. Sb. pp for unload. SB for smoke screen and only relevant utility will be SR.

OMG YES

I hope we’re getting UZI skins one day so my unload can be even more incredible!

EcoRI.9273:

If Stealth is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring thieves into their party for dungeons.

If banner is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring warrior into their party for dungeons.

If grenade is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring engineer into their party for dungeons.

We can all play that game. The bias is strong in this one.

Fierce is right though. If stealth was removed, people would bring Ranger or engineer instead of Thief.

Tangent: (why) are dagger/focus eles welcome in lower level dungeons?

ISTM they don’t DPS like staff or buff like scepter, they’re just eles who wanted to be less squishy. They often turn up with defensive utilities and no icebow.

If I wanted to play a medium DPS character less squishy than staff/scepter ele, I’d play dual banner warrior or frostspotter ranger. But I am not well versed in the theorycrafting of this game. Enlighten me.

Morte.5916:

Tangent: (why) are dagger/focus eles welcome in lower level dungeons?

ISTM they don’t DPS like staff or buff like scepter, they’re just eles who wanted to be less squishy. They often turn up with defensive utilities and no icebow.

If I wanted to play a medium DPS character less squishy than staff/scepter ele, I’d play dual banner warrior or frostspotter ranger. But I am not well versed in the theorycrafting of this game. Enlighten me.

Well it still does 10-15% more dps than a Warrior or Guardian. True overall it give less than S/X or Staff elementalist, but it’s a decent build that still bring some might and vulnerability to the group. I won’t bring one in a record run, but other than, D/F is more than good. It’s also more fun to play for a lot of ppl. If they bring or not Icebow isn’t related to the build. Most if not all Elementalist should bring Icebow, whatever their build.

D/F is meta if you cant use staff effectively. The prestacking is almost as good as S/F. But its selling point is the high dps and sustained might stacking. Theres no reason to stay scepter when you can swap to dagger after stacking might.

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Lightning whip #1

And with a LH build you can swap to dagger before spawning the LH. So if in a pug you run out of LH charges you atleast have a decent weapon set if the boss is still alive.

spoj.9672:

And with a LH build you can swap to dagger before spawning the LH. So if in a pug you run out of LH charges you atleast have a decent weapon set if the boss is still alive.

True. How many times I end up with no LH because I downed or because a pug (Or one of my trolling guildmate) took it.

Thanks.

The whole business of swapping is problematic for me in pugs because, well, mostly because warriors. They hurtle off to aggro and I get stuck on the might stacking set.

I’ve been working on it… Running staff with a staff build (quite close to scepter build), and prestacking on scepter dagger, but with a hammer for insurance in case I get stuck. I haven’t really done this enough to know where I’m going with it, yet.

OK, the experiments will continue.

Jerus.4350:

EcoRI.9273:

Lorgus.6148:

EcoRI.9273:

Stealth to skip content, otherwise they are garbage in dungeons.

I wouldn’t call defiant stripping, above-average damage, blinds on trash, blast finishers and projectile absorb to be “garbage”

If Stealth is removed from the game, I doubt people will want to bring thieves into their party for dungeons.

With current defiance i could see there still being a place, with the changes coming /shrug I imagine there are burstier CC options (inc slick shoes meta! ) though the blind is very very nice in many situations.

Honestly in dungeons with optimal play(as in if you want to blaze through dungeons) in consideration, I can’t see defiance stripping with a thief being a good reason to bring them. Most bosses die before you can even remove all the defiance for a second shot at CC. And even if you can do so for some bosses, it is not optimal play, it is safe play( which then goes into the same catagory as why some people bring a healer guardian to dungeons.). As for blinds, you bring thieves to stealth skip trashmob, if you are fighting trashmobs, you are doing something suboptimally.

I love a thief blasting my fire field with shortbow pre fight tbh and the blinds can be life saving for squishies like us.

Nikaido.3457:

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Doesn’t S/F hav the potential for 18-21 stacks of might indefinitely while D/F is more like 15?

DT→Pheonix→A.Wave→ A.Bril→Comet→Magnetic Wave →LH’s First blast

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

Though, yeah, often I find myself losing a LH through various ways (mainly someone picking it up…) which hurts, so personally I run D/F and accept the little less might and damage, it’s more fun anyways.

Jerus.4350:

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

That’s the crux of it, I think. If the fight is short, or somebody is maintaining lava fonts, S/D-LH is very strong in a PUG. Otherwise, it’s one of the options.

I consider staff my “preferred” setup, and it’s like an article of religion for me to maintain lava fonts and slip the icebow/meteor stuff in between them. But since I got on this scepter kick, I’ve noticed how often they’re conspicuous by their absence.

EcoRI.9273:

Honestly in dungeons with optimal play(as in if you want to blaze through dungeons) in consideration, I can’t see defiance stripping with a thief being a good reason to bring them. Most bosses die before you can even remove all the defiance for a second shot at CC. And even if you can do so for some bosses, it is not optimal play, it is safe play( which then goes into the same catagory as why some people bring a healer guardian to dungeons.).

For most encounter yes, but here some example where a defiance ripping capability of the thief will be useful.
- Arah path 1 : The Tar is quite tough to kill. Even in a record run, it take about 50sec to kill. In this situation, it’s better to use Icebow one after the other, rather than all in one shot. In normal speed run or pugs run the Tar will take enough time to kill than 2 or even 3 rounds of Icebow will probably be needed.
- HotW path 1 : The final boss can be a pain in the kitten and hard to melee. A thief keeping the boss wihtout defiant and Icebow to keep the boss almost perma Deep Freeze is the most efficient way of doing this boss that i know off.
- Arah Path 2 : An efficient way or killing him is by using cc to interrupt his beserker mode. It’s faster and your team can continue to dpsing.

That’s three places that come to mind quickly where the cc capability of the Thief is more efficient.

EcoRI.9273:

As for blinds, you bring thieves to stealth skip trashmob, if you are fighting trashmobs, you are doing something suboptimally.

You are right, but I think that you are talking through your hat here. For exemple in TA up, in record run you at Malrona you gonna stealth to here, only kill the last group of spider and kill Malrona. In 99% of the party won’t do that. They will kill all spiders before fighting Malrona. Aggroing all groups in one shot with a thief blinding them is a far superior technique than aggroing these groups one by one.

Same with TA foward in the last fight before the final boss. In a record run, all three adds will die in seconds, while Leurent is Deep Freeze. But that’s aint gonna happen in most group. These adds will land a couple of hits before dying and either a guardian or a thief will be of great help if you want your group to kill all 4 mobs in one shot.

Yes you are right that in optimal situation, you never gonna need the thief blind. But unless you are in a record run guild, almost nobody will be able to reach optimal situation.

Jerus.4350:

Nikaido.3457:

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Doesn’t S/F hav the potential for 18-21 stacks of might indefinitely while D/F is more like 15?

DT->Pheonix->A.Wave-> A.Bril->Comet->Magnetic Wave ->LH’s First blast

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

Though, yeah, often I find myself losing a LH through various ways (mainly someone picking it up…) which hurts, so personally I run D/F and accept the little less might and damage, it’s more fun anyways.

The difference is D/F maintains 15 might and high damage without the help from teammates. S/F LH drops off unless someone drops a fire field under your LH.

spoj.9672:

Jerus.4350:

Nikaido.3457:

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Doesn’t S/F hav the potential for 18-21 stacks of might indefinitely while D/F is more like 15?

DT->Pheonix->A.Wave-> A.Bril->Comet->Magnetic Wave ->LH’s First blast

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

Though, yeah, often I find myself losing a LH through various ways (mainly someone picking it up…) which hurts, so personally I run D/F and accept the little less might and damage, it’s more fun anyways.

The difference is D/F maintains 15 might and high damage without the help from teammates. S/F LH drops off unless someone drops a fire field under your LH.

Does it? I mean I’m no master, but for practice I’ve sat on the Golems in the mists and ran 21might permanently… well until I screw up. Now likely you will only hit that 18 as if you have to dodge the timing to get the LH blast in isn’t thre, but it’s still 1 more stack than a perfectly rotated D/F isn’kitten or do I just suck at D/F because I can’t get over 15 with it. Again though, I prefer D/F more fun and fluid, I find I can on average perform better because I have the rotation broken into 2 parts allowing me to do quick spurts instead of trying to do a full 6 blasts while watching for dodges and all that.

In the end I’ve just always seen S/F as the optimal, though more susceptible to bad play, and D/F as the far more consistent option, at least for me. Am I missing something about S/F with this thinking, cause I’m still counting 1-2 more blasts usable in rotation than what I see with D/F.

In a group with a good defiant stripping thief, you don’t want to include your comet during mid fight. As an ele, you will most likely to give up your second conjured weapons to the thief (who obviously has to go with x/pistol and Improvisation trait). The fight will be short enough that it should end after running through ice bows, lightning hammer and to some extend, fiery greatsword. Also, the thief will need to reserve their initiatives to strip defiance, they will not be likely to use Black Powder outside of stealth. Thus, blinding accompanied trash mobs will be the role of Lightning Hammer. In my opinion, D/F is fun but lacks group synergy. I often find myself slow or out of tunes with D/F in coordinated groups. Last but not least, scepter/x allows the maximum numbers of blast for repeated might stacking and lasting stealth in a quick run.

Also, several people says Scepter DPS is bad. It is true if the fight is long. But if the boss has only 20k-30k HP left and you run out of LH charge? The burst damage of Scepter/Focus or Dagger is very nice. It is easy and fun to pull off a few combos to finish the bosses off in matter of seconds.

tl;dr: Scepter/x isn’t as obsolete as many make it sounds. Ele can find it extremely useful outside of combat as well.

hybrid.5027:

Fierce is right though. If stealth was removed, people would bring Ranger or engineer instead of Thief.

Don’t get that point. If you remove a other skill, f. e. banners on war then people might again bring thiefs because of the higher damage output! We can play that game for all of the classes. >.>

GrimmR.3541:

hybrid.5027:

Fierce is right though. If stealth was removed, people would bring Ranger or engineer instead of Thief.

Don’t get that point. If you remove a other skill, f. e. banners on war then people might again bring thiefs because of the higher damage output! We can play that game for all of the classes. >.>

The whole point of my claim is to identify the key feature of a class. Everything else in a thief’s kit is just pork barrel. I guess what I am also trying to say is I see most thieves in pugs utilizing all these secondary kits but can not stealth if their lives depended on it. Dungeon thieves need to know how to stealth every path.

Wish that thief who joined my team for CoE earlier had read this post before running the dungeon and saying “If you stack what do you need a thief for?!?!?” needless to say, he didn’t take a conjured once, didn’t give 1 stack of blindness, didn’t do half interrupt (not even to help at Bjarl.) As useful as 4 manning without a thief.

Thaddeus.4891:

EcoRI.9273:

Honestly in dungeons with optimal play(as in if you want to blaze through dungeons) in consideration, I can’t see defiance stripping with a thief being a good reason to bring them. Most bosses die before you can even remove all the defiance for a second shot at CC. And even if you can do so for some bosses, it is not optimal play, it is safe play( which then goes into the same catagory as why some people bring a healer guardian to dungeons.).

For most encounter yes, but here some example where a defiance ripping capability of the thief will be useful.
- Arah path 1 : The Tar is quite tough to kill. Even in a record run, it take about 50sec to kill. In this situation, it’s better to use Icebow one after the other, rather than all in one shot. In normal speed run or pugs run the Tar will take enough time to kill than 2 or even 3 rounds of Icebow will probably be needed.
- HotW path 1 : The final boss can be a pain in the kitten and hard to melee. A thief keeping the boss wihtout defiant and Icebow to keep the boss almost perma Deep Freeze is the most efficient way of doing this boss that i know off.
- Arah Path 2 : An efficient way or killing him is by using cc to interrupt his beserker mode. It’s faster and your team can continue to dpsing.

That’s three places that come to mind quickly where the cc capability of the Thief is more efficient.

EcoRI.9273:

As for blinds, you bring thieves to stealth skip trashmob, if you are fighting trashmobs, you are doing something suboptimally.

You are right, but I think that you are talking through your hat here. For exemple in TA up, in record run you at Malrona you gonna stealth to here, only kill the last group of spider and kill Malrona. In 99% of the party won’t do that. They will kill all spiders before fighting Malrona. Aggroing all groups in one shot with a thief blinding them is a far superior technique than aggroing these groups one by one.

Same with TA foward in the last fight before the final boss. In a record run, all three adds will die in seconds, while Leurent is Deep Freeze. But that’s aint gonna happen in most group. These adds will land a couple of hits before dying and either a guardian or a thief will be of great help if you want your group to kill all 4 mobs in one shot.

Yes you are right that in optimal situation, you never gonna need the thief blind. But unless you are in a record run guild, almost nobody will be able to reach optimal situation.

Next time for Malrona, try guardian line of warding and a icebow, they will die instantly and your team mates will have 100% HP if the guardian does it right. There are over 20spiders and blinds can only hit 5max

Thaddeus.4891:

For exemple in TA up, in record run you at Malrona you gonna stealth to here, only kill the last group of spider and kill Malrona. In 99% of the party won’t do that. They will kill all spiders before fighting Malrona. Aggroing all groups in one shot with a thief blinding them is a far superior technique than aggroing these groups one by one.

Can a thief do that, without running into “max 5 targets”? I’ve never seen one try on a full pull. Full pulls I have witnessed in PUGs ended badly.

If it’s possible, would Glyph of Storms in Earth work too?

Jerus.4350:

spoj.9672:

Jerus.4350:

Nikaido.3457:

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Doesn’t S/F hav the potential for 18-21 stacks of might indefinitely while D/F is more like 15?

DT->Pheonix->A.Wave-> A.Bril->Comet->Magnetic Wave ->LH’s First blast

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

Though, yeah, often I find myself losing a LH through various ways (mainly someone picking it up…) which hurts, so personally I run D/F and accept the little less might and damage, it’s more fun anyways.

The difference is D/F maintains 15 might and high damage without the help from teammates. S/F LH drops off unless someone drops a fire field under your LH.

Does it? I mean I’m no master, but for practice I’ve sat on the Golems in the mists and ran 21might permanently… well until I screw up. Now likely you will only hit that 18 as if you have to dodge the timing to get the LH blast in isn’t thre, but it’s still 1 more stack than a perfectly rotated D/F isn’kitten or do I just suck at D/F because I can’t get over 15 with it. Again though, I prefer D/F more fun and fluid, I find I can on average perform better because I have the rotation broken into 2 parts allowing me to do quick spurts instead of trying to do a full 6 blasts while watching for dodges and all that.

In the end I’ve just always seen S/F as the optimal, though more susceptible to bad play, and D/F as the far more consistent option, at least for me. Am I missing something about S/F with this thinking, cause I’m still counting 1-2 more blasts usable in rotation than what I see with D/F.

Pretty sure the might drops off before your first LH runs out? Dont know for sure not played it in like forever. And whenever i did it was in TA speedruns so everything died in like 2 hits. x)

spoj.9672:

Jerus.4350:

spoj.9672:

Jerus.4350:

Nikaido.3457:

It’s also more sustained might stacking which is very useful in pugs where things don’t die too fast (although the prestack of might you can do in AC is enough to go staff ele).
Scepter is useful for prestacking might but it doesn’t sustain it well and has horrible dps. It’s only used in conjunction with LH builds, and LH players only really sustain might if someone else puts out fire fields.
Aaaaand.. to be honest, the fun rotation has a lot to do with the appeal of that build. It’s one of the only two DPS rotations in this game that are actually somewhat involved and fun, the other one being rifle kit engineer.

Suggesting dual banner warrior as an alternative to that.. it’s like going from high quality single malt whiskey to boring run of the mill blends. Some people don’t want to fall asleep on their keyboard while playing their character.

Doesn’t S/F hav the potential for 18-21 stacks of might indefinitely while D/F is more like 15?

DT->Pheonix->A.Wave-> A.Bril->Comet->Magnetic Wave ->LH’s First blast

While also having potential to up that number if someone tosses down another fire field for your LH.

Though, yeah, often I find myself losing a LH through various ways (mainly someone picking it up…) which hurts, so personally I run D/F and accept the little less might and damage, it’s more fun anyways.

The difference is D/F maintains 15 might and high damage without the help from teammates. S/F LH drops off unless someone drops a fire field under your LH.

Does it? I mean I’m no master, but for practice I’ve sat on the Golems in the mists and ran 21might permanently… well until I screw up. Now likely you will only hit that 18 as if you have to dodge the timing to get the LH blast in isn’t thre, but it’s still 1 more stack than a perfectly rotated D/F isn’kitten or do I just suck at D/F because I can’t get over 15 with it. Again though, I prefer D/F more fun and fluid, I find I can on average perform better because I have the rotation broken into 2 parts allowing me to do quick spurts instead of trying to do a full 6 blasts while watching for dodges and all that.

In the end I’ve just always seen S/F as the optimal, though more susceptible to bad play, and D/F as the far more consistent option, at least for me. Am I missing something about S/F with this thinking, cause I’m still counting 1-2 more blasts usable in rotation than what I see with D/F.

Pretty sure the might drops off before your first LH runs out? Dont know for sure not played it in like forever. And whenever i did it was in TA speedruns so everything died in like 2 hits. x)

Only if you spend a lot of time not attacking (doding/moving/whatever) and your LH lasts longer than it should. Well, or if you don’t use strength runes, but I assumed people would, because you also drop in D/F quite a bit if you don’t use them there either.

Morte.5916:

Thaddeus.4891:

For exemple in TA up, in record run you at Malrona you gonna stealth to here, only kill the last group of spider and kill Malrona. In 99% of the party won’t do that. They will kill all spiders before fighting Malrona. Aggroing all groups in one shot with a thief blinding them is a far superior technique than aggroing these groups one by one.

Can a thief do that, without running into “max 5 targets”? I’ve never seen one try on a full pull. Full pulls I have witnessed in PUGs ended badly.

If it’s possible, would Glyph of Storms in Earth work too?

Drop Black Powder/ Smoke Screen then use Dagger Storm on top of it. Profit!

Yup. Black Powder/Smoke Screen. At that point I usually take an Icebow on the ground because nobody is taking the freaking Icebow on the ground otherwise. Even my guildmate have a really hard time with that.

But there is several option possible. Yup the Line of Warding + Icebow work, but you need to have several ppl using Icebow and might stacking before would help. If i’m in an organized group, then i’ll stealth to Malrona directly so, this is more for Pugs or Half guild group/half pug, or guild group with not so good member in it. You can also have a guardian spaming F1 + Earth Glyph of storm. But you really need 2 source of AOE blind. Just one ain’t gonna cut it.

That’s why I like Thief smoke screen + Smoke field. You can take care of it all by yourself, without coordination.

A lot of people seem to forget that stealthing from a thief perspective is mostly “press 5 and let the group blast”. It’s more of a team effort really.

robertul.3679:

A lot of people seem to forget that stealthing from a thief perspective is mostly “press 5 and let the group blast”. It’s more of a team effort really.

God I wish most of the time taht was all I had to do, only with good players.

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