Guild Wars 2

I run my Guardian everywhere, and last night I willy nilly made a build that worked surprisingly well. It’s more DPS oriented by far, and I was roaming, takin supply camps, dolyaks, and sentries easy. Took on 2-3 ppl at once, and was winning (albeit one was an upleveled engi), but the only issue I always have is dealing with thieves. Namely D/P thieves that perma stealth. -__-’ Any advice? I’ve leveled one, and I know once I find them, for the most part they drop, but getting crit for 8K even with 28+ toughness is aggravating, to say the least.

Big patch today and big thief changes, especially to perma stealth thieves.

As guardian myself, if they do not want to be killed you will not kill them.
The only way to actually kill a thief is to wait for him to make a mistake.

A few tips:
If he is using CnD for stealth then wait till after his burst to blind him or block. Because then he will not be able to go stealth and has to use a utility.
If he is using D/P and using Blinding Powder while already invisible, then move into the field. Because he will most likely hit you. This does not work if he uses blinding powder while visible though.

I don’t know what armor/build you’re using, that could be one issue. What weapons are you using? That could be another.Are you time you’re shouts together to get the most out of your boons? Are you using Tome of Courage or Renewed Focus? Are you watching for his blind fields?

These are some of the things you need to think about. Feel free to send me a PM and I can answer any questions you may have.

complain about anytime stealth constantly on the forums, less Anet get complacent and think CnD or BP+HS are acceptable to the community at large.

limit the amount of incombat stealth Anet /shakes fist.

Raven.9603:

complain about anytime stealth constantly on the forums, less Anet get complacent and think CnD or BP+HS are acceptable to the community at large.

limit the amount of incombat stealth Anet /shakes fist.

IMO a better solution is to make a thief a thin silhouette that you can see but can’t target when he gets just outside of backstab range.

Or, if you’re pro like I’ve seen a few people do and also do myself, watch your combat log, it shows when you hit the thief

I like to know too what others use against thief, have been playing guardian only for 10 days. Most luck, that is to say force thief to flee, with sword+torch, mace+focus, Judge’s Intervention and Purging Flames, then maybe Bane Signet. Blocks/blind, almost constant burning and teleports cause some thieves to panic and flee.

Simply ignore thieves, they are just there to troll you.

This is how I deal with thieves…let them down me…..then…..

http://i.imgur.com/veQOx9x.jpg

Just went 1v1 twice with the same S/D thief, fights were ~30 minutes apart (swear this guy just had a narb for me or somethin), first time he runs off while chasing me cuz my guildies were there. As they leave, he comes in again, so we fight and I take him down. 30 minutes later, same guy, only this time he takes forever to kill me, and I can’t really do anything except play defensive, he’s hoppin all over the place with that dam stun abuse. I lose. Oh well, kitten happens, but I realized I only won because HE messed up. It wasn’t that I was more skilled, it was because he made a mistake, and I was able to use it. Is that seriously the only way to take out a thief? I don’t have to be that skilled, as long as they screw up? -__-’

Kaizz.7306:

I don’t have to be that skilled, as long as they screw up? -__-’

True of all the classes and
Pretty much the reason I wvw. I suck something horrible. On the good side lots of people are worse.

Love for thief vs mesmer (in wvw) ? Yes: Blurred Frenzy and Into the Void (both useless now).

If you run hammer, and have AoE burns, trap them in the Ring of Warding and then burn their kitten. Thieves do lack for condition removal, especially against burns.

Roll with the zergs….

Anet has no intention of changing anything regarding the thief class, and if you make a good argument against the class, they will delete you post and give an infraction for arguing in favor of a class being nerfed.

You will only kill a thief is he wants to die, is new to WvW and upleveled, or you have 10+ people with a load of AoE. Otherwise you can forget it, he will eithre kill you or escape with ease. The new patch did nothing to the thief, it can still troll 5+ people and kill you no matter how tanky you are.

I hear next patch thieves get a instant teleport anywhere on the map skill with 5 sec cooldown that gives 20sec invulnerability and a 2000/tick damage aura for 10sec, stacking in intensity. It’s good to be the devs favorite class

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth_Disruptor

UrMom.4205:

This is how I deal with thieves…let them down me…..then…..

http://i.imgur.com/veQOx9x.jpg

your right, but sometimes i use:

tsubus.8761:

You do know that if you log out while in combat, you die and the enemy still gets xp and loot bag, right?

well….egg on the face for me then..

Thrumdi.9216:

If you run hammer, and have AoE burns, trap them in the Ring of Warding and then burn their kitten. Thieves do lack for condition removal, especially against burns.

Thief lacks condition cleanse? Lol, are we playing the same game? Thief has the best condition cleanse period in game. Stealth removes 2 condition over 3 sec, spammable too. Shadow step removes condition, and stun breaker too, and its spamable. And there is signet cleanse. Even elixir engi don’t have so many spammable cleanse.

Stack toughness and a guardian should rarely if ever get cracked for 8k. Well built guardians can handle thieves most of the time. They may not be able to catch and kill them due to a lack of overall mobility but that is the side effect for being such a strong group class.

D/P thieves, walk into the circle on the ground before they leap out of it. S/D thieves, do not fight where there are ledges and other terrain limiting areas. They often blink around terrain obstacles. D/D thieves, avoid dropping below 50%. Boons are your friend since most thief builds cannot manage those at all.

noobftw.9654:

Thief lacks condition cleanse? Lol, are we playing the same game? Thief has the best condition cleanse period in game. Stealth removes 2 condition over 3 sec, spammable too. Shadow step removes condition, and stun breaker too, and its spamable. And there is signet cleanse. Even elixir engi don’t have so many spammable cleanse.

It is 1 condition every 3 seconds in stealth and numerous classes can stack multiple conditions way faster than that. Shadow Return is no longer a stun breaker. Shadowstep is only spamable with the S/? build. The thief most certainly does NOT have the best condition removal not even close. The D/D ele is vastly superior (and does it for groups) as well as the necro. Even a ranger can get better condition removal if traited for it.

The D/P thief can HARDLY be countered.. really. Just a condition spam (HGH engi) can save you, without, of course, killing the thief (since he can just permastealth and go away). Check my video to see how much it can be OP :/

noobftw.9654:

Thrumdi.9216:

If you run hammer, and have AoE burns, trap them in the Ring of Warding and then burn their kitten. Thieves do lack for condition removal, especially against burns.

Thief lacks condition cleanse? Lol, are we playing the same game? Thief has the best condition cleanse period in game. Stealth removes 2 condition over 3 sec, spammable too. Shadow step removes condition, and stun breaker too, and its spamable. And there is signet cleanse. Even elixir engi don’t have so many spammable cleanse.

Purging Flames pulses 5 times over 5 seconds, reapplying the burn. It’s deadly when the thief is trapped in its AoE by Ring of Warding.

Straegen.2938:

Stack toughness and a guardian should rarely if ever get cracked for 8k. Well built guardians can handle thieves most of the time. They may not be able to catch and kill them due to a lack of overall mobility but that is the side effect for being such a strong group class.

D/P thieves, walk into the circle on the ground before they leap out of it. S/D thieves, do not fight where there are ledges and other terrain limiting areas. They often blink around terrain obstacles. D/D thieves, avoid dropping below 50%. Boons are your friend since most thief builds cannot manage those at all.

noobftw.9654:

Thief lacks condition cleanse? Lol, are we playing the same game? Thief has the best condition cleanse period in game. Stealth removes 2 condition over 3 sec, spammable too. Shadow step removes condition, and stun breaker too, and its spamable. And there is signet cleanse. Even elixir engi don’t have so many spammable cleanse.

It is 1 condition every 3 seconds in stealth and numerous classes can stack multiple conditions way faster than that. Shadow Return is no longer a stun breaker. Shadowstep is only spamable with the S/? build. The thief most certainly does NOT have the best condition removal not even close. The D/D ele is vastly superior (and does it for groups) as well as the necro. Even a ranger can get better condition removal if traited for it.

dd ele full cantrip build with 30 in arcane 30 in water has 1 cleanse every 40/3 sec (3 cantrip calc’ed with lowest cd) + 1 cleanse from evasive arcane in water (every 10 sec) + 1 cleanse from water attunement(every 10 sec). That’s about 1 cleanse every 4+ sec. Rune of dwayna is not included coz ele rarely used dwayna.
And thief has 2 cleanse every 3 secs plus extra cleanse from shadowsteps.
Number speaks.

Thrumdi.9216:

noobftw.9654:

Thrumdi.9216:

If you run hammer, and have AoE burns, trap them in the Ring of Warding and then burn their kitten. Thieves do lack for condition removal, especially against burns.

Thief lacks condition cleanse? Lol, are we playing the same game? Thief has the best condition cleanse period in game. Stealth removes 2 condition over 3 sec, spammable too. Shadow step removes condition, and stun breaker too, and its spamable. And there is signet cleanse. Even elixir engi don’t have so many spammable cleanse.

Purging Flames pulses 5 times over 5 seconds, reapplying the burn. It’s deadly when the thief is trapped in its AoE by Ring of Warding.

shadow step or sword 2 outta the ring, easily countered.

Thief is nowhere near ‘lack of condition removal’.

Straegen.2938:

Even a ranger can get better condition removal if traited for it.

Ranger’s cleanse is highly unreliable, being cleanse from the bear (if anyone still runs bear), or signet of renewal or the 30 major WS trait, all depends on the pet being alive some even depends the pet being close. Ranger don’t have any counter to condition burst and is really weak against immobilize.

@noobftw
1)“noob for the whine” suits you perfectly, nice name.
2)Thief needs to attack from stealth and far not all builds have 4 s of it, so if thief waits for 3 s in stealth then he miss bs. So in reality it’s only 1 cond per 4 – 5 s (don’t forget about reveal).

noobftw.9654:

Straegen.2938:

Even a ranger can get better condition removal if traited for it.

Ranger’s cleanse is highly unreliable, being cleanse from the bear (if anyone still runs bear), or signet of renewal or the 30 major WS trait, all depends on the pet being alive some even depends the pet being close. Ranger don’t have any counter to condition burst and is really weak against immobilize.

You forgot about healing spring.

Riko.9214:

@noobftw
1)“noob for the whine” suits you perfectly, nice name.
2)Thief needs to attack from stealth and far not all builds have 4 s of it, so if thief waits for 3 s in stealth then he miss bs. So in reality it’s only 1 cond per kitten (don’t forget about reveal).

1) you are calling others noob and you can’t do a good perma stealth chain? lol. Count 3 sec in your mind and use CnD or smoke at 2.5. You will get out of stealth for only 0.x sec then enter stealth again. You can do that on a wall, on a siege, on the dolyak or wild animal even when you sip on beer. Heck you can even macro this and both your hands can be on something else.
2) why do you want to get yourself revealed when you got a whole bunch of condition to cleanse say from a condi engi? And you dps is probably better than a BM ranger without pets even if you are only doing CnD or smoke+leap attack every 3.x secs. (shrug)
3) even for a noob like you 2 cleanse in every 4 secs and occasionally revealing yourself, you got a pretty decent condition removal there. And that’s exactly the point of my argument against ‘Thief lacks condition removal’.
3)

Fenrir.6183:

noobftw.9654:

Straegen.2938:

Even a ranger can get better condition removal if traited for it.

Ranger’s cleanse is highly unreliable, being cleanse from the bear (if anyone still runs bear), or signet of renewal or the 30 major WS trait, all depends on the pet being alive some even depends the pet being close. Ranger don’t have any counter to condition burst and is really weak against immobilize.

You forgot about healing spring.

true healing spring is the only reliable cleanse ranger has. IMO troll unguent works better than it in wvw but you are right, ranger do have one on-demand cleanse , with 30s CD. It still takes no more than 2-3 timed and undodged immobilize to make BM ranger cry.

Any decent BM ranger isnt put off by immobilize, purely because they can still use all their evades while immobilized. Sure, you might not actually move, but you still evade all the same. BM are much weaker to stuns and knockdowns because a lot of the BM builds dont have a stunbreaker or stability.

But back on topic, it depends a lot on the theifs build, but most theives are weak to pretty much anything. They often have poor condition removal, poor defence and a low health pool. You just need to predict their attacks and movements in stealth and AoE, spam #1, and dodge backstab.

Tankier builds fair better against theives, so you might also consider more toughness/vitality.

noobftw.9654:

Riko.9214:

@noobftw
1)“noob for the whine” suits you perfectly, nice name.
2)Thief needs to attack from stealth and far not all builds have 4 s of it, so if thief waits for 3 s in stealth then he miss bs. So in reality it’s only 1 cond per kitten (don’t forget about reveal).

1) you are calling others noob and you can’t do a good perma stealth chain? lol. Count 3 sec in your mind and use CnD or smoke at 2.5. You will get out of stealth for only 0.x sec then enter stealth again. You can do that on a wall, on a siege, on the dolyak or wild animal even when you sip on beer. Heck you can even macro this and both your hands can be on something else.
2) why do you want to get yourself revealed when you got a whole bunch of condition to cleanse say from a condi engi? And you dps is probably better than a BM ranger without pets even if you are only doing CnD or smoke+leap attack every 3.x secs. (shrug)
3) even for a noob like you 2 cleanse in every 4 secs and occasionally revealing yourself, you got a pretty decent condition removal there. And that’s exactly the point of my argument against ‘Thief lacks condition removal’.
3)

I didn’t call you noob, you did. I only saw tons of your whining comments and call you whiner (you might argue that all this “OMG thief is so OP” is not whining but it is a metter of perception and looks totaly like whining to me)

Never sad thiefs lack cond removal, just you are trying to make it look the best in the game which is bs…

Kaizz.7306:

I run my Guardian everywhere, and last night I willy nilly made a build that worked surprisingly well. It’s more DPS oriented by far, and I was roaming, takin supply camps, dolyaks, and sentries easy. Took on 2-3 ppl at once, and was winning (albeit one was an upleveled engi), but the only issue I always have is dealing with thieves. Namely D/P thieves that perma stealth. -__-’ Any advice? I’ve leveled one, and I know once I find them, for the most part they drop, but getting crit for 8K even with 28+ toughness is aggravating, to say the least.

D/P generally don’t run with a tons of hp or toughness so you can hit them hard IF you catch ’em.
My advice is to CC them in their black powder.
Or simply put a stealth disruptor trap…

We only got PVT gear at WvW in the begining, then everything else.

Oldschool is allways the best.

noobftw.9654:

Ranger’s cleanse is highly unreliable, being cleanse from the bear (if anyone still runs bear), or signet of renewal or the 30 major WS trait, all depends on the pet being alive some even depends the pet being close. Ranger don’t have any counter to condition burst and is really weak against immobilize.

Rangers have a few ways to ditch conditions. One is a trait that removes a condition about every 8 seconds. The other is a signet that does it every 10. Then we have the bear that pulls all conditions and when put on peace mode will likely always be up. Lastly they have healing springs that directly removes conditions. I am not saying a ranger is going to take all those, but they could.

noobftw.9654:

dd ele full cantrip build with 30 in arcane 30 in water has 1 cleanse every 40/3 sec (3 cantrip calc’ed with lowest cd) + 1 cleanse from evasive arcane in water (every 10 sec) + 1 cleanse from water attunement(every 10 sec). That’s about 1 cleanse every 4+ sec. Rune of dwayna is not included coz ele rarely used dwayna.
And thief has 2 cleanse every 3 secs plus extra cleanse from shadowsteps.
Number speaks.

Unless I am missing something, the thief trait removes ONE condition every 3 seconds not two. Maybe there is some other effect or synergy I am unaware of though.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

Every time a bunker d/d ele heals, a condition can be removed which often includes any use of a cantrip. Dodge in water, condition gone. Every heal in the water line throws two conditions off. Every time the player switches to water attunement, condition gone. They can even use use ether renewal which also cures conditions. Also worth mentioning is many of these abilities/traits are removing conditions from allies as well. I am sure I am missing some to boot.

The best a thief can do is 1 condition every 3 seconds while in stealth and this presumes they are in stealth every 3 seconds. Add 3 for shadowstep which is on a 50s cooldown. If they are s/? they can add one more to that. Good but not the best. That title belongs to the Necro IMO.

@Straegen
What he meant is actually 1 condition is removed upon entering the stealth and another one if thief stays in it for 3s.

If it would remove cond only after staying 3s in stealth it would be totaly useless.

Anyway +1 to you, those whiners are pathetic

Straegen.2938:

Rangers have a few ways to ditch conditions. One is a trait that removes a condition about every 8 seconds. The other is a signet that does it every 10. Then we have the bear that pulls all conditions and when put on peace mode will likely always be up. Lastly they have healing springs that directly removes conditions. I am not saying a ranger is going to take all those, but they could.

the trait removes it every 10 seconds, if the pet is near / alive (probably not in wvw).

the bear removes a single condition, after his mandatory anet-cant-fix-pet-f2-activation 5second casting delay. the bear also has to be very close to you. 25sec cd. running a bear as a ranger is also public omission of being absolutely terrible (though the rangers running bear are often unaware of this, so feel free to kill them and let them know).

no elementalist on the planet is going to waste a cantrip (other than cleansing fire, obviously) on condition removal. the cooldowns are too long, and the utility is too important. mostly, the trait the enables this is taken as a way to get vigor. they can remove 1-2 conditions by swapping to water, +1 if they dodge roll in water, +1 if they use waterdagger5. Hint: wait until they leave water, you will have 10-12 seconds of free condition application.

How to deal with thieves: continually make forum posts about how broken and unenjoyable unlimited in-combat restealthing is, so that Anet knows how the community feels about Cloak&Dagger and BP+HS.

So ANet made a game called “GUILD wars” and a part of this game called “WORLD vs WORLD vs WORLD” where solo roaming is 5-10% of what is important. And 20-30 people here on forums disagree and keep spaming it with ideas of making WvWvW some kind of dueling-roaming arena. Why should ANet care about those 20-30 among thousands who play? Why would they change the whole game design for those few?

Riko.9214:

So ANet made a game called “GUILD wars” and a part of this game called “WORLD vs WORLD vs WORLD” where solo roaming is 5-10% of what is important. And 20-30 people here on forums disagree and keep spaming it with ideas of making WvWvW some kind of dueling-roaming arena. Why should ANet care about those 20-30 among thousands who play? Why would they change the whole game design for those few?

The entire idea for WvW comes from DAoC, where groups of 8 would roam looking for other groups of 8 and engage in small scale combat. Likewise smaller groups or singles would roam to the gates and look for other small groups or stealthers to fight. GW2’s WvW is inspired heavily from that game, so there are a lot of players here who look for that.

WvW is a have-fun-sandbox. If you’re there to roll in a giant blob and take things for points and “win the ppt”, good for you. If you’re there to get in big fights, good for you. If you’re there to find small fights, good for you.

You don’t like that players want something different than what you want? Suck it up.

@Raven
Well I will actually agree with you here that WvWvW is designed in a huge portion of it for small GROUPS. When did thiefs become superior for that kind of things? Did I miss something?

Sorry if I missunderstood you, but I thought you was whining about thiefs being superior for SOLO-roaming, which is, as I sad before, is not what important for ANet’s balancing. If you are saying that thief class is superior for 5vs5 or 8vs8 and such scale…. its just so wrong… but it’s not what you meant, right?

Riko.9214:

@Raven
Well I will actually agree with you here that WvWvW is designed in a huge portion of it for small GROUPS. When did thiefs become superior for that kind of things? Did I miss something?

Sorry if I missunderstood you, but I thought you was whining about thiefs being superior for SOLO-roaming, which is, as I sad before, is not what important for ANet’s balancing. If you are saying that thief class is superior for 5vs5 or 8vs8 and such scale…. its just so wrong… but it’s not what you meant, right?

i didnt say anything about the thief class being superior anywhere, or wanting to reduce their ability to roam (Edit: in fact, i give a large amount of credit to how good they appear to be to the amount of zerg-specs people run, where thieves tend to run dueling specs). I was voicing that the ability to stealth anytime as often as wanted is not acceptable to the community at large and is destructive to many players enjoyment of wvw (see: stealth trolling, unlimited potential to flee no matter how committed to a fight).

Take a look at other games. DAoC, WoW, WAR, Rift, heck even SWTOR, any major mmo with stealth. The stealth classes have very, very strong openers, and limited ability to restealth in combat. This does a few things:

• it gives stealthers the option to double-open
• it gives stealthers the option to flee
• it allows game designers to balance the durability of the stealther by expected exposure time.

Note that the first 2 are mutually exlusive in those other games, but not in GW2. Thats a problem. In GW2, because thieves can restealth as often as they want, they can use nothing but huge backstabs and avoid most damage as they restealth for another backstab. I have an 80 thief, combat in wvw is almost entirely stealth>Backstab>repeat. And if they screw up, they can leave. Or, more often, they have no intention of winning, and really only want to troll players who they know cant possibly catch them.

Thats not enjoyable for the community as a whole. There is never any commitment to a fight for a thief outside of sPvP or a duel, like there is for rogues in other games. That is a problem. On top of this, because thieves can stealth unlimited amounts of times in combat, Anet is hesitant to give them any sort of durability to make non-stealth specs viable. This infinite restealth mechanic thus holds them back from excelling at large group wvw, spvp and pve content because Anet keeps them too fragile.

Thieves need to be made much more durable out of stealth, and they need to have fairly limited in combat restealthing to compensate. it would help thieves in PvE, sPvP, and be the most rejoiced improvement to the overall wvw community since the culling fix cut back on portal bomb abuse.

@Raven

I play thief and necro now (enjoy both in WvW and up to now like 98% of changes with patches). Also planing to make a warrior (just need to find those 5-6 h to level and equip him)

Have no trubels with thiefs disengagement and here is the reason:

Thief designed to play on the enemies backyard (flipping camps, towers by sneaking in and killing dollyes), not on the main front of battels and for this thief need to be able (have a chance) to escape from multiple enemies chasing him. As a consequence it could be used to troll people, well I do not see a big deal (just do not feed trolls…).

With all respect to your point of view:

I play not only thief and currently mostly necro, but I like how the game works now.
I will not be too sad if ANet change thief towards what you preffer, but I like their unique ninja-stile gameplay (you want to make them another warrior type class).
And most importantly I do not think ANet gona change meta.

gl anyway)

they would still have that option to “always” escape under the traditional MMO stealth system, but in doing so they would have to keep at least one of their vanishes in their backpocket (thus limiting the number of backstab attempts per fight), and it would eliminate the ability to stealth troll.

ANet needs to give classes abilities that slap a 10 second ‘revealed’ debuffs on enemies.

Riko.9214:

@Straegen What he meant is actually 1 condition is removed upon entering the stealth and another one if thief stays in it for 3s. If it would remove cond only after staying 3s in stealth it would be totaly useless.

Fair point, but the way it was written it implies that two conditions are lost every three seconds when it really isn’t. If a player goes stealth for ten seconds, 4 conditions are removed not 6 (two every 3 seconds).

Raven.9603:

the trait removes it every 10 seconds, if the pet is near / alive (probably not in wvw).

The only time I lose a pet is when I am in a zerg and I don’t need CR in a zerg. Besides players can keep the pet in peace mode, run a full on BM regen build or use pets that sit at range all of which are viable strategies for keeping pets in the fight. The trait removes 3 CD every 10s add in the signet and that is 4 conditions passively removed every 10s not counting the heal, Evasive Purity or the bear ability.

Raven.9603:

no elementalist on the planet is going to waste a cantrip (other than cleansing fire, obviously) on condition removal. the cooldowns are too long, and the utility is too important.

Well the trick is cantrips can regen with Soothing Disruption, that regen triggers the CR with Cleansing Water. So Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash and Mist Form all remove conditions when traited for it. Many bunker eles run this setup for this reason. Every use of a cantrip then applies regen, vigor and condition removal. Now a player could also add in Stop Drop and Roll to fling off chill and burning, Cleansing Wave or Cantrip Mastery all of which increase condition removal. An ele built to remove conditions can sling off a lot of conditions.

Straegen.2938:

Well the trick is cantrips can regen with Soothing Disruption, that regen triggers the CR with Cleansing Water. So Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash and Mist Form all remove conditions when traited for it. Many bunker eles run this setup for this reason. Every use of a cantrip then applies regen, vigor and condition removal. Now a player could also add in Stop Drop and Roll to fling off chill and burning, Cleansing Wave or Cantrip Mastery all of which increase condition removal. An ele built to remove conditions can sling off a lot of conditions.

of course an ele built for condition removal can sling off alot of conditions. you can say that about any class in the game (im lookin at you, lemongrass), but you cant have a discussion about condition removal on the assumption that every class is going to max out their cleansing abilities.

I understand what the trait can do, what I’m saying is, elementalists, even ones that took that trait, are not going to use a cantrip (unless its cleansing fire) to remove a condition. ever. cantrips are important. lightning flash, mist form, these have to be used at certain times, and “oh-snap-i-need-to-clear-1-condition” is not one of them. Ele’s take the trait for regen and vigor uptime, not for the synergy it has with condition removal. no one uses stop drop and roll either. DD ele’s will run signet, staff ele’s will usually run Glyph, the few that run ether renewal are easily interrupted (lol 3 second cast times).

the ranger trait doesnt remove “3” conditions, it removals all of them. its pretty awesome, if your pet is close by and alive. sure, some rangers keep their pet on passive all the time, and some run with a bear or devourer. bads, all of them. spiders are probably the only acceptable “range” pet atm, and even then range pets dont provide the utility needed for skirmishing that melee pets do without specific trait investment for immobolize abuse.

tl;dr: off-topic argument about semantics of condition removal in a thread thats supposed to be about thieves.

Don’t know what to say about guardian, but if your Mesmer, pull them and push them around, kitten them up while they invised then kitten them up hard when they come out due to being pulled and pushed.

Gotta use skills that don’t require targeting.

Raven.9603:

I understand what the trait can do, what I’m saying is, elementalists, even ones that took that trait, are not going to use a cantrip (unless its cleansing fire) to remove a condition. ever.

My original point stands: The thief is not the best at condition removal. At the very least necros and eles are better at condition removal than thieves. Many bunker eles take the water line and pick up those traits because they can be vulnerable to conditions and those traits are very group friendly. This isn’t just theory crafting.

Raven.9603:

the ranger trait doesnt remove “3” conditions, it removals all of them. its pretty awesome,

I was referring to the trait Empathic Bond not activating the skill Signet of Renewal. If you know the trait removes all conditions, you should contact GW2 because their wiki has it wrong (in my experience it is 3 not all):

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_Bond

Raven.9603:

if your pet is close by and alive. sure, some rangers keep their pet on passive all the time, and some run with a bear or devourer. bads, all of them.

The bear and the devourer are the toughest of all the pets and the devourer recently had its damage reduced in a patch it was so bad. As an example (pre-patch), I used the bear as an off pet so when my jag was getting ready to die I could switch to the bear knowing it would live 15s to bring my jag back without incurring the dreaded 60s timer. The bear also removes conditions from allies and stands in for a rez better which are small but tangible benefits.