Guild Wars 2

Zoltreez.6435:

i dont see a single thief in..

any City
WvWvW
out in the openworld
hell even in Spvp is barely any

and even those realy few thiefs that i see all of them runing around in one single backstabb build.

are you guys all changed class or left the game or what ?

its funny going in a WvWvW and seeing only like 2 max 3 thief in a Huge group fight
and yes one of them is me lol

Still on thief, always will be on thief. Now 1400 gameplay hours 1200 of which are thief, not about to just give up on my favorite class. Also, not a backstab build as I find that a weak one trick pony.

Whether it’s viable or not doesn’t matter to me, it’s the playstyle of the builds that I like or don’t like that has me choose one. My normal use of stealth build is lacking and awkward now and the other builds don’t really suit my playstyle. I’ll keep trying though since I’ve invested too much into my thief to rr.

When I was playing PvP ( Months ago) Pistol Whip was cool, decent damage, honestly not too high not too low for a class that is squishy and should deal at least good damage with burst and constant attacks.
First they nerfed PW : if you check it right, it does the same or almost the same damage as your auto-attack. If you full crit with auto-attack you do much more damage then the actual “dual skill” supposed to help you to burst.
Now they nerfed haste by 50% ! 50 % !!! And give us 1 sec more. Honestly, I tried it ONCE, and I didn’t like it. It’s not balanced. 1 sec more traded with -50% is not right imo.

To answer your question I never use tactical strike. The only time I ever stealthed was from heal or shadow refuge. Basically the burst goes like this: PW, steal, haste, PW, PW, infiltrators strike (remember it has an immobilize on hit) auto attack, target dead.

Now against a good player they will pop stun break. Opposing thieves would shadow step away so it’s pretty easy to counter. Infiltrators strike in, PW - when they shadow step, steal to them, PW again. If they shadow step back double tap infiltrators strike to teleport back to them, pop haste, PW and dead thief. Can also use your own shadow step to get back in range of them if you’re running low on initiative. The stuns from pw and the immobilize from infiltrators strike are plenty to lock someone down. It’s about movement, lockdowns etc. Rarely used headshot as not worth the initiative unless it was to stop a heal. Beauty of this build is its MUCH better in a team fight as you are not only doing crazy damage you are setting up the rest of your team to spike since the enemy pretty much can’t move.

Raine Akrune.8416:

One day perhaps, it’ll be fun to teach another cookie cutter thief about thinking outside the box. =)

My build is definitely not cookie cutter, heh… It’s fairly unique, and I’ve never seen anyone run anything quite like it. There are certainly some common elements to it, but I also get a few “wtf, how are you doing that” type comments, too. I don’t share it though; everyone else can figure it out for themselves if they want.

Hasted PW’s are the thieve’s answer to fury HB warriors, and we know what kind of reputation they have…

Yea it was lame anyway lol, I hope will have a sword offhand with a decent dual skill.
S/D if much more fun too.

They need to buff thief’s condition build not wreck it further into the worst professional
build. I play wvw ,and i have a hard time as condition thief but I like the skills so i have geared it up but as it is i am all geared and cant do anything against anyone unless they are low lvl or not geared.Also bleeds NEED to be increased a lot if they cut the time down…(

Kryshade.6075:

To answer your question I never use tactical strike. The only time I ever stealthed was from heal or shadow refuge. Basically the burst goes like this: PW, steal, haste, PW, PW, infiltrators strike (remember it has an immobilize on hit) auto attack, target dead.

Now against a good player they will pop stun break. Opposing thieves would shadow step away so it’s pretty easy to counter. Infiltrators strike in, PW – when they shadow step, steal to them, PW again. If they shadow step back double tap infiltrators strike to teleport back to them, pop haste, PW and dead thief. Can also use your own shadow step to get back in range of them if you’re running low on initiative. The stuns from pw and the immobilize from infiltrators strike are plenty to lock someone down. It’s about movement, lockdowns etc. Rarely used headshot as not worth the initiative unless it was to stop a heal. Beauty of this build is its MUCH better in a team fight as you are not only doing crazy damage you are setting up the rest of your team to spike since the enemy pretty much can’t move.

Normally, I can’t imagine getting a high proportion of those Pistolwhips to land against a skilled player. Too many durable builds with lots of dodges, teleports, stun breaks, etc…or even just counter CC. A lot of thieves running lots of both stealth and evades and shadowsteps can avoid a lot of that while PW drains 5 ini a pop. Some thieves running SoA for endurance refill can even chain 6 dodges all in a row and they haven’t even dipped much into their tool bag.

As part of a comprehensive team strategy, I can definitely see it working…just imagine three S/P thieves focusing one target a chain immobilizing/stunning/crippling it into oblivion by taking turns. You wouldn’t even have to coordinate all that much because of duration stacking and everything adding in small, frequent increments if they condition clear.

The thing there is, when you open it up into team strategies, you’re competing with all kinds of different stuff various classes can bring. Lots of people can bring various forms of immobilize or other CC or utility. And other classes that can deliver a lot more burst damage when presented with a stationary CC’d target. S/D Thief w/ venomshare and Devourer+Basilisk teamed with a warrior that does the actual killing can do some pretty fun stuff.

I had a brief taste of post-patch but then my GPU died, so I’m currently waiting for replacements to arrive before I can properly play. If I find my builds are properly kitten I have a Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist and Ranger to play around with, so it’s not a big loss. I’ll just transmute the two legendaries to a different character and keep her for trolling nubs in WvW with perma C+D which is STILL not fixed. /facepalm

Mackapacka.9462:

sry there arent viable weps besides d/d and sb…and d/d is now crap aswell:D guess we should all go ele guys:D

Lol xD No swords and pistols exist for us huh xD
The amount of tunnel vision I am seeing in this forum is hilarious :P

Kryshade.6075:

You guys are crazy if you think S/P isn’t a viable build. I play strictly high level tPvP and I can assure you a well played S/P thief will destroy any other build on tournament play. Most thieves run d/p or d/d. S/P is a fantastic counter to that as the dazed,lockdowns and teleports will destroy most backstabbing thieves. After the haste nerf not so much unfortunately but saying that s/p isn’t viable is just noobish.

Don’t bother mate. These ignorant d/d and d/p thieves will continue to cry so long as their cookie cutter builds they google’d no longer work. +1 for effort though.

Kryshade.6075:

To answer your question I never use tactical strike. The only time I ever stealthed was from heal or shadow refuge. Basically the burst goes like this: PW, steal, haste, PW, PW, infiltrators strike (remember it has an immobilize on hit) auto attack, target dead.

That is an interesting combo.

Now against a good player they will pop stun break. Opposing thieves would shadow step away so it’s pretty easy to counter. Infiltrators strike in, PW – when they shadow step, steal to them, PW again. If they shadow step back double tap infiltrators strike to teleport back to them, pop haste, PW and dead thief. Can also use your own shadow step to get back in range of them if you’re running low on initiative. The stuns from pw and the immobilize from infiltrators strike are plenty to lock someone down. It’s about movement, lockdowns etc. Rarely used headshot as not worth the initiative unless it was to stop a heal. Beauty of this build is its MUCH better in a team fight as you are not only doing crazy damage you are setting up the rest of your team to spike since the enemy pretty much can’t move.

But if you really want to set someone up for your team to have a feast on, I strongly believe that you are better off with S/D. You don’t only daze your target for 1.5s (in PvP – compare to 0.5s stun of PW) but you also strips boon (using FS) on top of immobilize from IS and cripple from Dancing Daggers.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Kryshade.6075:

To answer your question I never use tactical strike. The only time I ever stealthed was from heal or shadow refuge. Basically the burst goes like this: PW, steal, haste, PW, PW, infiltrators strike (remember it has an immobilize on hit) auto attack, target dead.

That is an interesting combo.

Now against a good player they will pop stun break. Opposing thieves would shadow step away so it’s pretty easy to counter. Infiltrators strike in, PW – when they shadow step, steal to them, PW again. If they shadow step back double tap infiltrators strike to teleport back to them, pop haste, PW and dead thief. Can also use your own shadow step to get back in range of them if you’re running low on initiative. The stuns from pw and the immobilize from infiltrators strike are plenty to lock someone down. It’s about movement, lockdowns etc. Rarely used headshot as not worth the initiative unless it was to stop a heal. Beauty of this build is its MUCH better in a team fight as you are not only doing crazy damage you are setting up the rest of your team to spike since the enemy pretty much can’t move.

But if you really want to set someone up for your team to have a feast on, I strongly believe that you are better off with S/D. You don’t only daze your target for 1.5s (in PvP – compare to 0.5s stun of PW) but you also strips boon (using FS) on top of immobilize from IS and cripple from Dancing Daggers.

Yup, recently threw venom sharing into the mix and omg, coupled with the CC already from S/D…..everyone else on my team stunning/immobilizing/chilling is insane.

There is a strong difference between daze and stun. Daze only locks out skills, players can still move. Stun = can’t do anything. The stun from PW is the real beast because when hosted you are chaining stuns which means they aren’t moving. When/if they do move or break stun you simply follow up with infiltrators strike for the immobilize. Most people can’t react to both and simply crumple to the ground. Believe me, the build works and works extremely well especially against other thieves. Stability hurts but it only requires tactical planning on when to pop your burst. Bow and sword auto attack are fantastic fill ins for when you need to wait for stability to drop or retaliation to wear off.

Daze locks out stun breakers, Stun doesn’t. So it’s no clear cut.

Kryshade.6075:

There is a strong difference between daze and stun. Daze only locks out skills, players can still move. Stun = can’t do anything. The stun from PW is the real beast because when hosted you are chaining stuns which means they aren’t moving. When/if they do move or break stun you simply follow up with infiltrators strike for the immobilize. Most people can’t react to both and simply crumple to the ground. Believe me, the build works and works extremely well especially against other thieves. Stability hurts but it only requires tactical planning on when to pop your burst. Bow and sword auto attack are fantastic fill ins for when you need to wait for stability to drop or retaliation to wear off.

You see, S/D can strip off Stability and Retaliation. Again S/D is ahead of S/P in that situation.

EDIT: Movement restriction is handled by Dancing Daggers and IS. Daze for 1.5s is better than Stun of 0.5s (may be even shorter in PvP, not sure).

What you are forgetting is that s/p also gives you a pretty incredible amount of damage via pistol whip as well as the movement restrictions/stuns. I run 20 into trickery for the boon strip on steal so I’m not losing out on that ability.

I’ve honestly not played much with s/d so I wont’ comment on it’s effectiveness in high level tourny play. My point was that thieves claiming that s/p wasn’t viable need to stop and think outside the box for a bit.

Alas, the nerf to haste (because a hasted PW was critical to the build) has severely cut down the effectiveness of it to the point I don’t think I can run PW in tournies anymore.

So… massive nerf to almost every build… some guy that wasn’t hit by the nerf says it’s fine… surprise surprise.

The nerfs kittened far too much and didn’t solve the problem it was supposed to fix. If a no stealth thief is the only viable one, then that’s pigeon holing thieves… while giving no more options to compensate. That’s obviously not at all what a good nerf should do…

Before the nerf thieves were already nearly non-existant at high level tPvP. Skilled players had no problem with thieves before the patch… so why nerf them more? Oh whiney noobs… that’s right… balance the game for the lowest level skill gameplay because they’re crying the loudest.

Dev’s catering to complainers totally makes this game seem like it should be an e-sport. Not.

Generally speaking, I find dazes superior to stuns because dazes generally last long enough to be more meaningful and have fewer counters. A dazed target is completely defenseless other than being able to move. As long as you can continue to damage them either on the move or with ranged….it doesn’t really matter that they can move. Let them move; they’re going to die anyway.

The exception is when you’re instead trying to kill them with attacks requiring the target to stand in a tiny damage zone. Hundred Blades, Pistol Whip, AoE zones, etc. Then, daze isn’t so good. However, in this case I tend to still find superior options with Immobilize abilities over stun abilities, again because they usually last longer and/or are more repeatable.

It’s not that stuns are bad. After all, their durations are so short and there’s so many stun breakers exactly because they are powerful. It’s just that I usually find it easier to build dependable and repeatable team strats (or individual play builds) out of the other effects.

Kryshade.6075:

What you are forgetting is that s/p also gives you a pretty incredible amount of damage via pistol whip as well as the movement restrictions/stuns. I run 20 into trickery for the boon strip on steal so I’m not losing out on that ability.

You mention now 20pts on trickery yet you mentioned earlier that you are waiting for Stabs/Retal to fall off. Hmm…

Is it because you can only strip boons every so often?

30pts in Trickery only reduce the Steal CD to 30s, hardly comparable to FS’s boon-stripping ability.

I’ve honestly not played much with s/d so I wont’ comment on it’s effectiveness in high level tourny play. My point was that thieves claiming that s/p wasn’t viable need to stop and think outside the box for a bit.

Well, in your case, since you have not effectively used S/D, that will make S/D outside of your box that you have not tried yet — right?

Alas, the nerf to haste (because a hasted PW was critical to the build) has severely cut down the effectiveness of it to the point I don’t think I can run PW in tournies anymore.

That I agree. Critical Haste is so useless now. 10% of haste for 2s with 30s CD. Garbage!

They added 1s on Haste (skill) but not on Critical Haste.

Yes I can only strip boons from stealing so there is that limitation, however FS only removes 1 boon so the initiative spent to do that is high. I’m also not sure how high the damage of FS is. I do know that standing around in a fight is not a good idea for any thief because AOE’s will destroy us.

Yes, trying s/d would be outside my box as I haven’t played that build much. From my understanding though it’s reliant on stealth which just got nerfed as well so maybe not as effective anymore either.

FS damage isn’t bad, once you get good enough with it to hit your target reliably.

Kryshade.6075:

Yes I can only strip boons from stealing so there is that limitation, however FS only removes 1 boon so the initiative spent to do that is high. I’m also not sure how high the damage of FS is. I do know that standing around in a fight is not a good idea for any thief because AOE’s will destroy us.

The context of using S/D is setting up your target for your team mates to feast on. So comparing that to S/P, I was suggesting that S/D is better or more viable in that regards.

Yes, trying s/d would be outside my box as I haven’t played that build much. From my understanding though it’s reliant on stealth which just got nerfed as well so maybe not as effective anymore either.

Not so much reliant on stealth since the main usage of the set is evasion, not stealth. The synergy of boon-stripping and daze (prevents re-casting boon) is superb IMO. By the time Revealed falls off, your target is flattened on the ground.

Ainween.1953:

Raine Akrune.8416:

Try switching your weapons and builds up. My thief was 100% UNTOUCHED by this update and I’m still out there kicking kitten with my pre-patch build.

When u have a 200 gold build with t3 divinity runes…fire sigil and bloodlust and all is backstab based…u won’t just pass throught a bug…u would be abile to play YOUR KITTEN BUILD cause Someone fixed this bug…

You built around a gimmick build that was destined to be nerfed and then are upset it was nerfed. Simple as that.

I’ve been here since the beginning and thieves became majorly FOTM because they could do some pretty silly OP things. They have been reigned in. PVE has suffered because of it, it will be fixed. These fixes will likely give you better non-stealth play.

Go find the next FOTM and drop 200g into that so you can come back shocked again. Seriously, I want another laugh. Also 200g? Gimme a break. I’ve dropped far more than 200g into WvW.

Ralathar.7236:

Ainween.1953:

Raine Akrune.8416:

Try switching your weapons and builds up. My thief was 100% UNTOUCHED by this update and I’m still out there kicking kitten with my pre-patch build.

When u have a 200 gold build with t3 divinity runes…fire sigil and bloodlust and all is backstab based…u won’t just pass throught a bug…u would be abile to play YOUR KITTEN BUILD cause Someone fixed this bug…

You built around a gimmick build that was destined to be nerfed and then are upset it was nerfed. Simple as that.

I’ve been here since the beginning and thieves became majorly FOTM because they could do some pretty silly OP things. They have been reigned in. PVE has suffered because of it, it will be fixed. These fixes will likely give you better non-stealth play.

Go find the next FOTM and drop 200g into that so you can come back shocked again. Seriously, I want another laugh. Also 200g? Gimme a break. I’ve dropped far more than 200g into WvW.

He’s talking about the Hidden Killer bug. He has a totally legitimate grievance and you jump on his case. That has NOTHING to do with a nerf. Don’t be such a condescending POS.

Ralathar.7236:

Ainween.1953:

Raine Akrune.8416:

Try switching your weapons and builds up. My thief was 100% UNTOUCHED by this update and I’m still out there kicking kitten with my pre-patch build.

When u have a 200 gold build with t3 divinity runes…fire sigil and bloodlust and all is backstab based…u won’t just pass throught a bug…u would be abile to play YOUR KITTEN BUILD cause Someone fixed this bug…

You built around a gimmick build that was destined to be nerfed and then are upset it was nerfed. Simple as that.

I’ve been here since the beginning and thieves became majorly FOTM because they could do some pretty silly OP things. They have been reigned in. PVE has suffered because of it, it will be fixed. These fixes will likely give you better non-stealth play.

Go find the next FOTM and drop 200g into that so you can come back shocked again. Seriously, I want another laugh. Also 200g? Gimme a break. I’ve dropped far more than 200g into WvW.

Way to understand the guy’s post..

Rolling d/p in spvp right now, didn’t roll thief before patch. Still destroying everything and i see many other thieves. believe it or not, thief is still the most op class in spvp if you use it right

Logged in my d/d stealth yesterday. I was just doing a quick run to cursed to gather. Only thing I noticed is getting surrounded by mobs at arah and stealth didn’t work at all. Click stealth – click stealth – click stealth – nothing, zip and zilch. Watching BSG this evening, so maybe try again tomorrow… I assume it is/was broken or something. My thief isn’t glass, but then it’s not a heavy armor tank either :P not that there was a down, but still..

i am still rolling the same backstab build that was nerfed… personally, i can work around the 4 seconds.. hidden killer is a pain.. so im using executioner until that is fixed.. thank goodness executioner is a very good trait.

Auesis.7301:

Ralathar.7236:

Ainween.1953:

Raine Akrune.8416:

Try switching your weapons and builds up. My thief was 100% UNTOUCHED by this update and I’m still out there kicking kitten with my pre-patch build.

When u have a 200 gold build with t3 divinity runes…fire sigil and bloodlust and all is backstab based…u won’t just pass throught a bug…u would be abile to play YOUR KITTEN BUILD cause Someone fixed this bug…

You built around a gimmick build that was destined to be nerfed and then are upset it was nerfed. Simple as that.

I’ve been here since the beginning and thieves became majorly FOTM because they could do some pretty silly OP things. They have been reigned in. PVE has suffered because of it, it will be fixed. These fixes will likely give you better non-stealth play.

Go find the next FOTM and drop 200g into that so you can come back shocked again. Seriously, I want another laugh. Also 200g? Gimme a break. I’ve dropped far more than 200g into WvW.

He’s talking about the Hidden Killer bug. He has a totally legitimate grievance and you jump on his case. That has NOTHING to do with a nerf. Don’t be such a condescending POS.

My apologies, I got lost in the terrible english and grammar and misunderstood. Maybe I’m not as abile as I thought.

Seriously though, it’s a really recent bug. They changed something recently, it just broke, it’ll be fixed pretty quickly. Somehow I doubt he’ll get much sympathy from non-thieves considering they include Engineers, Necro’s, and Rangers, who have had 10 times the buggage to face since step one. 2 of those 3 classes he likely slaughtered on a regular basis with the imbalanced thieves have had.

If he’s in WvW, just buy some rares and/or run a different build for a short time. If he is in PVE then 200g isn’t even a fraction of what 200g is to a WvW player.

I’ve been running a dagger pistol build around blind, healing power and precision. Use blood sigils, power precision weapons and Armor with healing runes. My jewelry us all vitality toughness. Seems to be working for me. I’ve only gotten to level 40 though.

shrug

Raine Akrune.8416:

Daeqar.8965:

Raine Akrune.8416:

I’ve been playing a S/P thief and beat d/d and d/p thieves all the time in WvW/sPvP.

S/P in WvW…wow, I hope I run into you out in the wild someday. I can always use another sparkly bag.

Although, I could see you catching some glass cannon builds or low skill players flat-footed and blowing them up. Against a high skill player patiently running a balanced build with D/D or D/P, you’d be pretty severely handicapped, though.

One day perhaps, it’ll be fun to teach another cookie cutter thief about thinking outside the box. =)

S/P thief is pretty terrible in wvw nowadays. 90% of the time you are going to be pistol whipping the air while the other player is /shugging and laughing at you while killing you.

S/D is superior to S/P in basically every way you can think of. S/P is only superior in PvE for black powder/rooted evasion that works in dungeons and vs trivial content.

DanH.5879:

they are out in the streets, burning cars in protest
, will be back in a month or so

or not…they nerfed thief too much.
there are other games around to play, kitten this.

Never really had problems facing a S/D thieves. My first reaction is to always use black powder and just react to their move. I let them initiate the first move since I feel comfortable inside my black powder.

I run D/P and SB and roam solo or in 2s and 3s as a scout. I guess my approach to every fight is to not burst them right away and just surprise them with the burst mid fight.

Joshiasi.2840:

Never really had problems facing a S/D thieves. My first reaction is to always use black powder and just react to their move. I let them initiate the first move since I feel comfortable inside my black powder.

I run D/P and SB and roam solo or in 2s and 3s as a scout. I guess my approach to every fight is to not burst them right away and just surprise them with the burst mid fight.

If they are smart enough, a sword thief would realize their attack range allows them to stand outside your field and pummel you while you stand in it without getting blinded.

Adaneshade.2409:

Joshiasi.2840:

Never really had problems facing a S/D thieves. My first reaction is to always use black powder and just react to their move. I let them initiate the first move since I feel comfortable inside my black powder.

I run D/P and SB and roam solo or in 2s and 3s as a scout. I guess my approach to every fight is to not burst them right away and just surprise them with the burst mid fight.

If they are smart enough, a sword thief would realize their attack range allows them to stand outside your field and pummel you while you stand in it without getting blinded.

Even if they do stand far HS will land me closer to them and grant me stealth and a chance at a BS then reapply blinding powder again. Even the #3 skill works if you don’t have the initiative to work with.