Guild Wars 2

Melandru Runes are also a viable option against Conditions. Runes seem to be a lot more of a choice/counter-play option since the expansion than what they used to be.

Narcarsis.5739:

Melandru Runes are also a viable option against Conditions. Runes seem to be a lot more of a choice/counter-play option since the expansion than what they used to be.

Thanks for the tip. I’ll give them a try. And that is something I love about the changes since the expansion. Before we pretty much had a few runes that were viable and for Thieves that meant Vamp Runes or be inferior. Now with the changes and removal of some runes we have more options which equals to more diversity among builds.

I have to say, after running with this build, I have had the most fun I had in Pvp in months. Instead of going daredevil runes, I opted for runes of the scrapper, to aid in some damage mitigation. And it helps A LOT. I can actually survive a DH trap burst instead of just dying, buying myself enough time to disengage.

I am by no means an extremely good thief player, being more of a pve thief. (playing staff zerk valk mix in magumma with 14k hp kind of helps i think), and I am probably up against not very skilled players (will provably die to pros), but I think most of us lie in this stage, the not too bad but not extremely pro skill level)

Which that being said, It’s amazing. Instead of being that +1 and decap guy, I can actually brawl in mid, and be extremely effective and deadly, while hardly ever dying unless I am outnumbered.
The amount of dodges and mobility I have is unreal, and with bound dodges doing up to 3k crits, stacking vulnerability with autoattack, and avoiding almost everything thrown at me. It’s has been a long while since I am able to take down condi mesmers (bounds instantly destroys illusions lol), celestial engineers and celestial d/d elementalists. I even killed reapers and Dragonhunters with this build, but I have to admit trying to fight a bunker druid took so long that I just disengaged.

This is by no means a bursting build. You have to get up close, dodging intelligently towards where they are. Bound actually resulted in a ton of kills for me, so don’t underestimate it. Vault can deal up to 5k crits onto celestial eles, which is huge as you can do up to 4 vaults if you use it well.

However, once I got lucky having 3 semi low health enemies grouped together. I used bound followed by a vault, and panic strike procs. With 3 immobed targets, I unloaded 2 vaults, stole and did 1 more vault, and I have 3 downed targets right under my feet. I haven’t felt so strong as a thief… Ever. Sure it’s a rare accourance and unreliable, but the fact that we can unload up to 20-30k damage in a small AOE in a few seconds? It’s not OP, but is actually viable. VIABLE. THIEF IS VIABLE AGAIN (daredevil at least).

Impact strike is amazing and ridiculously fun to use, although I admit I use it to secure a stomp more often then deal damage, but when I do get lucky and stomp a person from low health, they almost have no time to react.

With this build, I can confidently say I can 1v1 most classes again. This build is just SO annoying to fight against, as I keep seeing ‘evade’ flying all over my screen. And sometimes when rngeesus smiles upon me and resets my signet of Agility when I steal, I actually start giggling. Seriously I haven’t giggled in a Pvp match in a long time.

‘but vault is so telegraphed, it’s easy to avoid’ well, fun fact, most people can’t tell the difference between Bound and vault admist all the action. I had a few players who actually dodged my bounds, not knowing I’m just using it to close the distance before actually using vault.

The main problem I forsee players will face is that this build really relies on aiming ground targeted skills, and may take a while getting used to. But after playing exclusively as a staff daredevil since the launch of HoT, using action camera even in Pvp, I had no problems landing most of my hits, slowly wearing down my enemy’s hp. (if doing 5-8k aoe hits can be called wearing down their hp)

I may have expressed a LOT of enthusiasm into this post, I’m still giddy playing daredevil in PvP, a thrill I have not felt in months. While sure, we are not the strongest class by a long shot, but with this, we can finally play a different role then +1 decapper.

Daredevil is a brawler. Go mid. Don’t run away, you can 1v1 most classes again. (just careful not to step on DH traps).

Edit: I blame my phone.

I like the builds. Pretty similar to mine except i run dash and s/d. S/d isn’t that great or anything but I’m kind of a sword/dagger loyalist so I’m always trying s/d builds. Anyway…I really like bound but…what the HECK do you do about run speed? I feel sooooo slow without swiftness!

MADAIR.1948:

what the HECK do you do about run speed? I feel sooooo slow without swiftness!

You have Infiltrator’s Arrow for mobility ^^

Narcarsis.5739:

MADAIR.1948:

what the HECK do you do about run speed? I feel sooooo slow without swiftness!

You have Infiltrator’s Arrow for mobility ^^

Ha! Well yes that’s true. I was referring more to how sometimes I will just run out of a telegraph instead of dodging while attacking with melee, and having 35% more speed helps me do that faster. It enables me if I want, to choose to save or use my dodge in those situations or similar to that. I guess its a trade off. . .atleast in the way that I play.

MADAIR.1948:

Ha! Well yes that’s true. I was referring more to how sometimes I will just run out of a telegraph instead of dodging while attacking with melee, and having 35% more speed helps me do that faster. It enables me if I want, to choose to save or use my dodge in those situations or similar to that. I guess its a trade off. . .atleast in the way that I play.

Run speed is far more a luxury in WvW I think where you’re running around a large map almost constantly and even during an encounter you’re all over the place trying to corral a zerg or weave in and out of one ebb and flow fight that can last a second or an hour. In spvp two or three shortbow #5’s can likely get you to where you’re going.

If you run Pack Runes and Thrill of the Crime, you also have 13sec of swiftness everytime you steal, and with the passive proc of pack runes and you stack a pretty good amount of swiftness.
Add to that any swiftness you might have gotten from allies during a fight and it becames pretty rare to rotate somewhere without having enough of it on you already.

Do you ever find uncatchable to be of any use? Especially when another melee is looking to pressure you and you need to create space.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Do you ever find uncatchable to be of any use?

Not exactly something I’d run but the cripple could help land vault depending on if you can stack it high enough. Flanking Strikes only affects your auto chain and Dust Strike, while Thrill of the Crime is probably more consistent, and provides team support. I would probably take Thrill over Uncatchable.

How do you feel about where thieves are at? I kind of feel we are a bit lack luster after the expansion. Also what hours do you usually stream around?

Just wanted to stop by and say thanks Caed for the guides and streams for thief over the years. Nice work!

I have no schedule, generally stream when I find free time and I’m not exhausted. If you want to know when I stream the best thing to do is probably follow and set up the notification.

D/P is largely team dependent. Staff is more versatile. Both are viable although I largely prefer staff over D/P. It has better match-ups, better team fight presence, and is generally more survivable. In the end of the day it’ll depend on how you play and your team, however I don’t think Thief needs buffs at all. Small quality of life changes perhaps, but the class is fine.

Edit: Anet censors the silliest things…

Narcarsis.5739:

I have no schedule, generally stream when I find free time ankitten ot exhausted. If you want to know when I stream the best thing to do is probably follow and set up the notification.

D/P is largely team dependent. Staff is more versatile. Both are viable although I largely prefer staff over D/P. It has better match-ups, better team fight presence, and is generally more survivable. In the end of the day it’ll depend on how you play and your team, however I don’t think Thief needs buffs at all. Small quality of life changes perhaps, but the class is fine.

Take my opinion maybe with a grain of salt, but I can say this is very accurate and pretty much on point. Thief is alright currently, but I wouldn’t be against tuning down some of the more potent abilities of other classes. Has decent matchups, but gets wrecked by dragonhunters and tempests specifically. If played right with sufficient patience/map awareness of enemy team members, thief is a potent force with alright survivability.

Perhaps it is not an issue of what the class can do, but more of an issue for newer players? The class has arguably more intricacies than most other classes.

Aeroxe.8140:

Take my opinion maybe with a grain of salt, but I can say this is very accurate and pretty much on point. Thief is alright currently, but I wouldn’t be against tuning down some of the more potent abilities of other classes. Has decent matchups, but gets wrecked by dragonhunters and tempests specifically. If played right with sufficient patience/map awareness of enemy team members, thief is a potent force with alright survivability.

Perhaps it is not an issue of what the class can do, but more of an issue for newer players? The class has arguably more intricacies than most other classes.

Granted I haven’t played this game in a long kitten time, and only recently have started playing again. And perhaps this isn’t the thread to post this, but I tend to think that it would be a better equilibrium for the game if the thief didn’t need slight of hand to just function with the trade-off of higher opportunity costs in the form of longer cooldowns/shorter ranges. But that’s just me, I guess.

In terms of intricacies? I’d probably chalk the most intricacies up to the Ranger class. Everyone says power ranger is boring, but there are so many subtle micro enhancements a person can make when they play ranger. Meh, whatever.

Well, most of the thief community has been very vocal about the mandatory aspect of Trickery and the poor use of the 23rd June specialization patch in that regard, while mesmer basically got a full traitline worth of stuff baseline during the same patch.

I’m also coming to an agreement that thief is probably fine. We needed time to see what works. The nerf to shiro revenant made them something that wouldn’t contest our spot, so our unique advantage to conquest are still there.

Now we bite our lips and wait for the dragonhunter nerf so we can’t play a bit less stressed.

By the way, I really appreciate that you’re taking the time to interact and discuss stuff here Caed. Not many people of the “pro” scene do it and it’s always nice to discuss stuff in depth.

Chicago Jack.5647:

In terms of intricacies? I’d probably chalk the most intricacies up to the Ranger class. Everyone says power ranger is boring, but there are so many subtle micro enhancements a person can make when they play ranger. Meh, whatever.

Ahahahahahahahahah

Wow man… tears… literally tears

<3

It was really surprising to see that you value dust strike so highly as it is the skill that i probably use least. Though it also may be that the build i run is more defensive and it really feels like i have to save ini for vault if i want to kill something in reasonable time.

e: also nice to see people who don’t just complain like thief is some super underpowered class.

Zaerah.1630:

It was really surprising to see that you value dust strike so highly as it is the skill that i probably use least. Though it also may be that the build i run is more defensive and it really feels like i have to save ini for vault if i want to kill something in reasonable time.

usually enemy will start hard so using blind to negate the dmg/cc is good

Zaerah.1630:

It was really surprising to see that you value dust strike so highly as it is the skill that i probably use least. Though it also may be that the build i run is more defensive and it really feels like i have to save ini for vault if i want to kill something in reasonable time.

e: also nice to see people who don’t just complain like thief is some super underpowered class.

I was on a staff thief vs another staff thief, and literally 70% of his damage was from dust strike. Theres no question I’m not good at thief, but my god it was so annoying.

Zaerah.1630:

It was really surprising to see that you value dust strike so highly as it is the skill that i probably use least. Though it also may be that the build i run is more defensive and it really feels like i have to save ini for vault if i want to kill something in reasonable time.

The skill often hits twice as it travels (happens most while people run away). If both are critical hits it will land around 3.5-4.5k damage with sigils. The range is also respectable, and it makes kiting staff much more difficult.
It will clear things like Bandit’s Defence and Counter-attack (it will proc the counter and blind it at the same time). Blind is also a very valuable utility for covering downtime in dodges.

I have to say, thief is in an alright spot right now. DA is pretty good but could use some minor changes. CS could use a couple of tweaks, but largely is fine. SA could use some rearranging. Acro needs to be redone. Trickery could have a couple of things rolled to baseline, but is pretty good. Daredevil is actually pretty cohesive with at least 2 good traits per tier.

Staff is well done. I find I use every skill on it at some point in a fight. I wish the reflect on 1.3 would be moved to 2, and a short daze on it would be nice somewhere, but overall its one of my favorites now. If they put the same work into P/X and did some minor modifications to X/D, I’d be really happy overall. S/X has a few bugs that need addressing, but it’s not bad.

Edit: We don’t need a buff so much as some of the ridiculous stuff needs to be toned down.

How do you feel about Smokescreen over Blinding Powder? I feel like Blinding Powder doesn’t offer enough for it’s cooldown. Or even Shadow Refuge being used as a blind spam (with leap finishers), heal, and de-targeting tool?

Hammerguard.9834:

How do you feel about Smokescreen over Blinding Powder? I feel like Blinding Powder doesn’t offer enough for it’s cooldown. Or even Shadow Refuge being used as a blind spam (with leap finishers), heal, and de-targeting tool?

I don’t like the cast time. It’s too long to be a defensive cool-down when you need it. Easily interrupted and can’t be cast while CC’d. If you don’t like Blinding Powder you can run whatever you want, but I already explained Refuge and I think Smokescreen only works as utility, and not as a defensive skill.

Thanks for the write up Caed, I’ve been running mostly your build and it’s alot of fun and I feel thieves are in a pretty solid place. We don’t need any buffs and will be very good whenever anet decides to nerf some of the outliers in other classes. Just a few questions.

How do you like to open? I usually do something like Precast weakening charge>steal>debilitating arc>dust strike>into a bunch of vaults. That’s usually my ideal opener, not sure if it’s the best.

Speaking of weakening charge, when do you use this skill? I really only use this skill for my opener and I’m not really sure when else I need it. It feels kinda strange to use since it locks you into the animation.

Not a question but I’ve noticed that healing seed you get from rangers is REALLY good with this build. Not only is the condi cleanse invaluable but with bound and vault you can do a ton of burst healing giving you a nice edge against rangers in a 1v1.

Maugetarr.6823:

I have to say, thief is in an alright spot right now. DA is pretty good but could use some minor changes. CS could use a couple of tweaks, but largely is fine. SA could use some rearranging. Acro needs to be redone. Trickery could have a couple of things rolled to baseline, but is pretty good. Daredevil is actually pretty cohesive with at least 2 good traits per tier.

Staff is well done. I find I use every skill on it at some point in a fight. I wish the reflect on 1.3 would be moved to 2, and a short daze on it would be nice somewhere, but overall its one of my favorites now. If they put the same work into P/X and did some minor modifications to X/D, I’d be really happy overall. S/X has a few bugs that need addressing, but it’s not bad.

Edit: We don’t need a buff so much as some of the ridiculous stuff needs to be toned down.

I agree with the toning down of other classes, but let’s be realistic here.

There’s been 2 major power creeps in the game since June, and the thief has been left behind in both of them significantly. Truth be told you either need to nerf 6-8 classes or just buff 1 class. I’m of the mind that the devs will go for the easiest road.

Either way I find thieves underwhelming to fight against or on.

Nero.6813:

Speaking of weakening charge, when do you use this skill? I really only use this skill for my opener and I’m not really sure when else I need it. It feels kinda strange to use since it locks you into the animatio

I have no sensible reason for when I use Weakening Charge so I’d also like to hear from more competitive players when the best time and best way to use it is. I’ve been using it when I get the instinct that it will be a threepeat hit so it’s been more an opportunistic skill to bank for me. In action camera mode it’s not at all hard to drive Weakening Charge and you can get creative in how you want space your starting and end points or to shave away multiple targets. Aside from that I just think of it as a team utility because it hits three targets and gives weakness and a whirl.

Azukas.1426:

Maugetarr.6823:

I have to say, thief is in an alright spot right now. DA is pretty good but could use some minor changes. CS could use a couple of tweaks, but largely is fine. SA could use some rearranging. Acro needs to be redone. Trickery could have a couple of things rolled to baseline, but is pretty good. Daredevil is actually pretty cohesive with at least 2 good traits per tier.

Staff is well done. I find I use every skill on it at some point in a fight. I wish the reflect on 1.3 would be moved to 2, and a short daze on it would be nice somewhere, but overall its one of my favorites now. If they put the same work into P/X and did some minor modifications to X/D, I’d be really happy overall. S/X has a few bugs that need addressing, but it’s not bad.

Edit: We don’t need a buff so much as some of the ridiculous stuff needs to be toned down.

I agree with the toning down of other classes, but let’s be realistic here.

There’s been 2 major power creeps in the game since June, and the thief has been left behind in both of them significantly. Truth be told you either need to nerf 6-8 classes or just buff 1 class. I’m of the mind that the devs will go for the easiest road.

Either way I find thieves underwhelming to fight against or on.

Well, the thing is that our offensive lines are largely fine, especially when both used simultaneously. If we had Preparedness and the CD reduction rolled into baseline, I don’t think that would be overwhelming in terms of power creep, but it would make the line less mandatory for PvP. The problem is our defensive lines. SA is ok, but there’s little build variety and the master tier is pretty bland. Acro has been severely outclassed by Daredevil. The thing is that it was never really that good except for the old version of FG. Daredevil is much more cohesive than acro ever was. Acro really needs to be reworked to bring some survivability and utility that’s unique from Daredevil. So my opinion of where we need buffs largely boils down to the fact that any defensive line
is not worth losing one of our offensive lines, and therein lies the problem. I don’t mind trading damage for survivability, but the gains are so minimal that it makes the thief feel extremely weak. Until our defensive lines get some attention, I’d recommend building survivability in gear choices and going full offense for traits. Before the patch I was playing DA/CS/Tr S/D and getting decent results. Removing the CS line for either SA or acro resulted in about 20% less damage, but added nowhere near 20% more survivability.

Nero.6813:

Speaking of weakening charge, when do you use this skill? I really only use this skill for my opener and I’m not really sure when else I need it. It feels kinda strange to use since it locks you into the animation.

Against Tempests mainly. Significantly reduces their damage output and survivability if you keep it up. Against anything else it’s probably only good in combination with Steal, but I usually use other things in that case. The other situation is peeling burst classes off team mates where the weakness can give them some breathing room. It would be my least favourite skill on the weapon set.

As for the openers. The only thing I would consider an opener is what I use to close the gap and begin a fight – everything after that point is reactionary or has a purpose, not a rotation. Bound/Steal, Weakening Charge/Steal, Dust Strike/Steal, Bound -> Vault. It would depend on the situation and what I’m fighting.

This is good stuff. You have given me some minor tweaks to think out.
With the Marauder having the 60% crit chance, the fury does not seem necessary.

I have been running d/p with daredevil runes for the auto crit backstab, but maybe it is not necessary. I just haven’t really found a power rune set that I like. I suppose if I took Pack runes, I could drop Thrill of the crime and pick up the haste trait.

From your write up, seems like staff thief is almost a team fight build. At least moreso than a d/p for sure.
Thanks again.

After having fooled around with many, many staff builds your’s is one that seems to work best for me, though I do indeed (desperately) need the extra condi removal and evade from Roll for Initiative. (plus rune of the scrapper) (– And yet against good DD/condi thieves or PU condi mesmers I still don’t stand a chance).

As a casual player without a proper team, nor the time to actually play in a balanced team I still feel thief is one of the hardest and frustating classes to play in sPVP at the moment though.

It might not be thief so much that I feel is underpowered, I just think there is way too much damage and AE Condi around… and, well, Dragonhunter traps ARE op. Adding to that in my opinion there are too many passive mechanics (that thieves don’t have access to in the same amount).

Honestly Trapperdruid, Dragonhunter, Minionreaper or PU Mesmers are so much easier to play. Having fun in PVP with a thief starts to feel like an exclusive “pro” thing – which is sad, because I really like it (it’s my main since beta).

So all in all I agree with my foreposter:

Azukas.1426:

I agree with the toning down of other classes, but let’s be realistic here.

There’s been 2 major power creeps in the game since June, and the thief has been left behind in both of them significantly. Truth be told you either need to nerf 6-8 classes or just buff 1 class. I’m of the mind that the devs will go for the easiest road.

Either way I find thieves underwhelming to fight against or on.

To but it in other words, not thief but PVP is in a bad spot – at least from a casual players point of view.

Hammerguard.9834:

How do you feel about Smokescreen over Blinding Powder? I feel like Blinding Powder doesn’t offer enough for it’s cooldown. Or even Shadow Refuge being used as a blind spam (with leap finishers), heal, and de-targeting tool?

Blinding Powder… it forces a drop target (excluding channeling skills) and can be used when stunned. Add in that it can be used offensively (Knockdown/Pulmonary Impact) and that it is an instant AoE stealth. It is a skill that has many uses on a thief’s bar.

As much as I like Bandit’s Defense and Shadow Refuge, neither is as versatile. Caed’s build mirrored my own before I saw his so I am guessing we both arrived at the same conclusion on those utility skills.

Caed,

Thanks for posting this. I may actually dust off my thief and give this a try.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to play this? Is there a video out there?

I keep loosing against pretty much any class in 1 vs 1 situations. Except maybe warri.

I know I’m not a good player, but I really wonder how you guys make it work.

What do you think about this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MB9OhFOBWmCkmiFqiyLEShSoLCCgDYu63+xH-TZBFABiXGom9Ha7SAswRAAgHAAA

I kind of feel better with Acrobatics instead of Deadly Arts. Hard to Catch has nice synergy with Bounding Dodger and I feel I get into situations where I need an extra Stun break quite often. I like the extra Vigor that adds a lot to my survivability and it doesn’t feel like sacrificing too much damage. I’m not really sure about the grandmaster though, none of them seems really good.

Utilities:

I really like the interupt and damage on short cooldown of Fist Flurry although I know there might be better utilities. I’m getting the “No Valid Path” message very often, so on certain maps Shadowstep became a bit unreliable to me. (probably a l2p issue) I might try Scorpion Wire as some of you sugested, but it seems very unreliable too in many situations. I tried Smoke Screen and that seemed fun.

1 vs 1 Situations:

Besides of Dragonhunter and Tempest I too have big problems fighting Druids (takes forever) and especially Sword (Staff) Revenants. I haven’t found a good way to counter Sword 3 yet without blowing too many dodges at once. If I don’t dodge at least twice I’ll find myself dead in most situations. Then they switch to staff and CC-kill me with Staff 5 – Does anyone have advice?

I guess “aiming” and actually hitting foes is one of my big problems with staff. I find it hard to hit good players with Dust Strike and Vault because of the long telegraphs both abilities have. It’s similar with Bounding Dodger. All of those abilities are pretty easy to evade, you can literally just move out of the way. So I have to kind of anticipate where my enemies will move.

Anyway, cheers, and have great fights,
herzeleid

Wow! I just found the solution to all my problems with Staff:

it’s called “Snap Ground Target to Current Target” – I can’t believe I’ve missed that. In pair with Fast Cast Ground Targeting it’s amazing how much more damage I now deal!!!!

Daredevil rocks! :-)

(And I love Flanking Strike proccs with Impact Strike! :-) )

herzeleid.3719:

Can anyone give me some advice on how to play this? Is there a video out there?

I keep loosing against pretty much any class in 1 vs 1 situations. Except maybe warri.

I know I’m not a good player, but I really wonder how you guys make it work.

I stream occasionally, link is below.

herzeleid.3719:

What do you think about this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MB9OhFOBWmCkmiFqiyLEShSoLCCgDYu63+xH-TZBFABiXGom9Ha7SAswRAAgHAAA

I kind of feel better with Acrobatics instead of Deadly Arts. Hard to Catch has nice synergy with Bounding Dodger and I feel I get into situations where I need an extra Stun break quite often. I like the extra Vigor that adds a lot to my survivability and it doesn’t feel like sacrificing too much damage. I’m not really sure about the grandmaster though, none of them seems really good.

Utilities:

I really like the interupt and damage on short cooldown of Fist Flurry although I know there might be better utilities. I’m getting the “No Valid Path” message very often, so on certain maps Shadowstep became a bit unreliable to me. (probably a l2p issue) I might try Scorpion Wire as some of you sugested, but it seems very unreliable too in many situations. I tried Smoke Screen and that seemed fun.

1 vs 1 Situations:

Besides of Dragonhunter and Tempest I too have big problems fighting Druids (takes forever) and especially Sword (Staff) Revenants. I haven’t found a good way to counter Sword 3 yet without blowing too many dodges at once. If I don’t dodge at least twice I’ll find myself dead in most situations. Then they switch to staff and CC-kill me with Staff 5 – Does anyone have advice?

I guess “aiming” and actually hitting foes is one of my big problems with staff. I find it hard to hit good players with Dust Strike and Vault because of the long telegraphs both abilities have. It’s similar with Bounding Dodger. All of those abilities are pretty easy to evade, you can literally just move out of the way. So I have to kind of anticipate where my enemies will move.

Anyway, cheers, and have great fights,
herzeleid

It’s not a build I’d run, but if it works for you then use it. You lose a lot of utility (Mug, Panic Strike, Improvisation, Serpent’s/Lotus) and Damage (Mug, Exposed Weakness) from dropping Deadly Arts. Shadowstep is also the last utility I would drop. It’s a lower cool-down than RFI and clears seperate conditions (Withdraw). Palm Strike is a nice offensive utility but too hard for me to fit into staff because I need another way out if things go South where I am.

As for match-ups. Avoid fighting Druids and Tempests alone if they’re running meta builds. Revenant is mainly about timing. You can usually land a Vault at the end of Unrelenting and trade with them. Make sure you land your Steal. The Essence Sap is extremely good against them. You should be able to avoid Staff 5 in most situations. If you get hit by it it’s usually better to stun-break immediately than to wait and see if the rest hit you.

Don’t you think that S/D is in a good spot now ? I feel like the combo infiltrator’s strike + fist flurry is a really high dammage burst, which was lacking on that set.

Wargameur.6950:

Don’t you think that S/D is in a good spot now ? I feel like the combo infiltrator’s strike + fist flurry is a really high dammage burst, which was lacking on that set.

I find S/D lacking in usefulness. They don’t really bring very much. The reason staff works is that it provides AoE cleave with survivability. S/D has some evades but staff overshadows it with Staff Master returning endurance.

Narcarsis.5739:

Wargameur.6950:

Don’t you think that S/D is in a good spot now ? I feel like the combo infiltrator’s strike + fist flurry is a really high dammage burst, which was lacking on that set.

I find S/D lacking in usefulness. They don’t really bring very much. The reason staff works is that it provides AoE cleave with survivability. S/D has some evades but staff overshadows it with Staff Master returning endurance.

I feel like I’m having more success with d\p using your traits build. But I guess cos I’m fighting still few people with reveal. For you staff is still superior to D/P?

Kolly.9872:

I feel like I’m having more success with d\p using your traits build. But I guess cos I’m fighting still few people with reveal. For you staff is still superior to D/P?

It honestly depends on what you’re fighting and your team. If you’re on a tankier team D/P will work because they can hold their own without you being in the fight for a while. Your role becomes to wait until someone is low enough to gank. As far as match-up on D/P go it’s dependant heavily on their stability access (Pulmonary Impact). Overall staff is more flexible/adaptable to a wider array of situations than D/P is, while D/P is extremely effective at the one thing it does (Stealth and gank).

Narcasis, do you forsee a similar Staff + Shortbow build working out in Raids and Fractals?

Iohanna.4863:

Narcasis, do you forsee a similar Staff + Shortbow build working out in Raids and Fractals?

Palm Strike over blinding powder, Executioner over Improvisation, Channeled Vigor over Withdraw. Drop Trickster for Bountiful – keep Thrill of the Crime. Scholar Runes, Zerker gear (can go with mix of Zerker/Marauder if your group sucks).

I still prefer escapest absolution over staff mastery as my condi clear. Also have shatow step because most condi users are some form of tank bunkers anyway so I don’t bother to engage them most of the time. I will give a go but norn ally just let them sleep on point and I’ll go somewhere else.

People will cry for a bug fix soon on steal + weakening charge. Was duality guildys in our hall last night and they kept saying it’s broken and aids and needs to be fixed as it too easy. 1 guy in pvp was moaning that all staff can do is 1 tricky pony with that combo (that’s coming from a DH lol)

Still not given up on my short bow as 2nd weapon. Everyone needs a ranged weapon and I belive shortbow is a far better ranged weapon then p/p aka, unload spam. (Yeah that can hurt)

Not done any wvw since hot came out so I cant comment on that but I have changed my gear around – ready when I do go back but I would agree taking reduced on physicas for more healing

Thanks Caed for your help and feedback.

Changing my game options to “Snap Ground Target to Current Target” really did the trick for me and changed my gameplay and performance completely. My damage output has encreased tremendousely, so playing more offensive actually makes a lot more sense now – that way DA line indeed provides lots more utility and I don’t need Palm Strike for damage anymore.

In WvW I do however prefer Acro over DA. I even use Dash instead of Bounding Dodger, which was lots of fun. Your almost impossible to catch (especially with buff food +40% endurance regen and might on evade). Fights are long and not always easy but lots of fun and you have a chance to win or at least get away in almost every situation. (I have to say it’s a bit of a troll build…)

Shadow Step comes even more handy in WvW of course, so it is a must. I found myself using Escapist Absolution too in WvW to compensate for all the condi flying around… but I still use my old Runes of the Strength set, so changing to a more defensive runeset (Melandru) and using Staff Mastery would probably turn out better.

Thanks for sharing your builds and opinions Caed. I can’t however, understand how you can say Thief is ‘fine’. I’m not a PvP god, but before HoT I could definitely hold my own playing Thief. Nowadays I feel completely useless. Can’t kill except in +1 situations, all I can do is run and decap. Now, this could be attributed to my skill level, but upon viewing some recordings of your streams I notice that you don’t get a lot of kills yourself. For a player with as much experience in this class as yourself, this can’t be a good sign? Maybe I’ve been watching the wrong recordings, or we differ in our views on the Thief’s roll.

I’ve tried different builds and playstyles for a couple of days, but nothing seems viable enough to warrant me spending time playing Thief. I’m beginning to feel like the concept of the Thief is flawed. It’s either too powerful, or too weak. It’s squishyness is not balancing out the massive damage it used to have when played right, because of it’s stealth and mobility. Take away/nerf the damage and all you have left is a squishy class that’s only strength is mobilty. This, I sadly conclude, is quite an accurate description of Thief’s current state.

I really hope I’m wrong.

PureLuck.8795:

Thanks for sharing your builds and opinions Caed. I can’t however, understand how you can say Thief is ‘fine’. I’m not a PvP god, but before HoT I could definitely hold my own playing Thief. Nowadays I feel completely useless. Can’t kill except in +1 situations, all I can do is run and decap. Now, this could be attributed to my skill level, but upon viewing some recordings of your streams I notice that you don’t get a lot of kills yourself. For a player with as much experience in this class as yourself, this can’t be a good sign? Maybe I’ve been watching the wrong recordings, or we differ in our views on the Thief’s roll.

I’ve tried different builds and playstyles for a couple of days, but nothing seems viable enough to warrant me spending time playing Thief. I’m beginning to feel like the concept of the Thief is flawed. It’s either too powerful, or too weak. It’s squishyness is not balancing out the massive damage it used to have when played right, because of it’s stealth and mobility. Take away/nerf the damage and all you have left is a squishy class that’s only strength is mobilty. This, I sadly conclude, is quite an accurate description of Thief’s current state.

I really hope I’m wrong.

I have a disclaimer but it’s fairly easily missed. I do not play the same in queues as I do in tournaments. Queues are usually just for fun, I mess around and I put myself in situations I wouldn’t in a competitive setting just to see certain situations and try to improve or pick up on things I can work on. Realistically speaking Thief match-ups are back to what they used to be somewhere in 2013. Things are fairly 50-50 across a lot of classes, with DH, Druid, and Tempest having advantages (5-95 or Higher, 15-85, 30-70 respectively) and Thief holding advantage over Reaper, Mesmer, and Warrior (75-25, 70-30, 95-5). Keep in mind these numbers are just estimates and more towards my interpretation. It’s almost always better to avoid 1v1 on Thief because you can out-rotate and attempt to snowball the map before your opponent can catch up.

Thief also holds a place in team fights. It has good survivability, can stick on targets, can get out of fights, can instant stomp, and has huge amounts of cleave. I don’t see it as overly squishy – I think Reapers, Dragonhunters (depends a little on their utilities), and Warriors are far easier to lock down and kill as a team under most circumstances. They have few options for escaping being trained in comparison to Thief.

So yea, I honestly think Thief is fine competitively. It’s not bad, it’s not the best – but it’s more than viable and brings some unique things (impact strike, mainly). If other classes get toned down it will be in a good spot. I don’t think it needs buffs, at all. I don’t want more power creep in the game because it’s a lot harder to balance at that point. I think the overall design of Daredevil is good, and the only thing I don’t like is staff 2 (Weakening Charge) due to it being extremely clunky.

Wargameur.6950:

Don’t you think that S/D is in a good spot now ? I feel like the combo infiltrator’s strike + fist flurry is a really high dammage burst, which was lacking on that set.

Nothing is beating S/P including staff for pure damage output. Pistol Whip is by far the hardest hitting skill a thief has and is far more powerful than Vault; even it’s evade is better. The basic attack of S/P is also better than staff. Infiltrators Strike/Return is flat better than anything on the staff as far as utility. Black Powder is a great stomp skill. Hook Strike is considerably better than Tactical Strike but hardly enough to warrant a change.

Narcarsis.5739:

PureLuck.8795:

Thanks for sharing your builds and opinions Caed. I can’t however, understand how you can say Thief is ‘fine’. I’m not a PvP god, but before HoT I could definitely hold my own playing Thief. Nowadays I feel completely useless. Can’t kill except in +1 situations, all I can do is run and decap. Now, this could be attributed to my skill level, but upon viewing some recordings of your streams I notice that you don’t get a lot of kills yourself. For a player with as much experience in this class as yourself, this can’t be a good sign? Maybe I’ve been watching the wrong recordings, or we differ in our views on the Thief’s roll.

I’ve tried different builds and playstyles for a couple of days, but nothing seems viable enough to warrant me spending time playing Thief. I’m beginning to feel like the concept of the Thief is flawed. It’s either too powerful, or too weak. It’s squishyness is not balancing out the massive damage it used to have when played right, because of it’s stealth and mobility. Take away/nerf the damage and all you have left is a squishy class that’s only strength is mobilty. This, I sadly conclude, is quite an accurate description of Thief’s current state.

I really hope I’m wrong.

I have a disclaimer but it’s fairly easily missed. I do not play the same in queues as I do in tournaments. Queues are usually just for fun, I mess around and I put myself in situations I wouldn’t in a competitive setting just to see certain situations and try to improve or pick up on things I can work on. Realistically speaking Thief match-ups are back to what they used to be somewhere in 2013. Things are fairly 50-50 across a lot of classes, with DH, Druid, and Tempest having advantages (5-95 or Higher, 15-85, 30-70 respectively) and Thief holding advantage over Reaper, Mesmer, and Warrior (75-25, 70-30, 95-5). Keep in mind these numbers are just estimates and more towards my interpretation. It’s almost always better to avoid 1v1 on Thief because you can out-rotate and attempt to snowball the map before your opponent can catch up.

Thief also holds a place in team fights. It has good survivability, can stick on targets, can get out of fights, can instant stomp, and has huge amounts of cleave. I don’t see it as overly squishy – I think Reapers, Dragonhunters (depends a little on their utilities), and Warriors are far easier to lock down and kill as a team under most circumstances. They have few options for escaping being trained in comparison to Thief.

So yea, I honestly think Thief is fine competitively. It’s not bad, it’s not the best – but it’s more than viable and brings some unique things (impact strike, mainly). If other classes get toned down it will be in a good spot. I don’t think it needs buffs, at all. I don’t want more power creep in the game because it’s a lot harder to balance at that point. I think the overall design of Daredevil is good, and the only thing I don’t like is staff 2 (Weakening Charge) due to it being extremely clunky.

When i interpret your post correctly, you are solely refering to a staff build. This probably means D/P is out of the meta and we are forced into playing staff? Because i have a hard time seeing these advantages you are talking about, in any other thief build.