Guild Wars 2

While I am by no means a pro player, I think the fact that stealth is only going to get more and more counter-able means that thieves need more defensive options. Most of our defenses are tied into stealth. The only reliable condition cleanse, healing, and of course not being able to be seen. Having counters to stealth is fine, as I do feel pretty unfair being able to pick my battles so easily. But it’s unfair if it limits us by being our only defense.

Me personally, I enjoy playing a stealthless thief as is, and very often find it difficult to survive as. I’d like suggestions in this thread for traits, weapon skills, or even just little tweaks for thief defenses.

I’ll get the ball rolling with something that synergizes well with yo olde unicorn build;

- For every x initiative spent, you cure one condition.

Post your ideas!

So, i guess you were being sarcastic calling yourself pro player and saying that stealth is the only available defensive option? Hope so, because thief has unparalleled mobility (especially with Sword mainhand) and disengaging options which makes more sense to defensive capability than just plain stealth for 3 sec
I’m succesfully using build that has no real access to stealth beside stolen thief skill and BP+cluster bomb.

I am not theif player (well I have an 80 thief but I am terrible at it), but the very best thieves I fight are generally S/D theives who rely on shadowstepping, dodging and rolling (with heal skill and the utility).

Hard to master, or even do vaguely well (I’ve tried), but once you can play like that its really extremely hard to counter with so many evades, constant movement in and out of the fight, and frankly even keeping track of them can be a nightmare.

The very best thief I have seen play is in my guild and they almost never use stealth (at least on some builds).

I did say I’m by no means a pro player, and in that I was truthfull. And I know that thieves have unparallelled mobility, but I don’t think it’s fair that thieves only option is run away. All classes have some sort of bulky build, why can’t thieves?

The biggest problem I can see is condition cleansing, really.

Curing conditions on dodge would also be nice. It could replace hard to catch, be similar in effectiveness to eles traiting into water, and synergize nicely with the line intended to increase or evades and dodges.

Thieves should really get a parry and quick riposte skill but has it has to be tucked into the initiative system somewhere that we can’t abuse it.

I’d personally like to see smokescreen give unblockable missiles a big miss chance.

I would personally love cure conditions on dodge. I think rangers had a grandmaster trait that did that, but they nerfed it hard. Give it an appropriate icd and I think it could work

Rangers have a trait called Evasive Purity which cures poison and blind on dodging.

They didnt nerf it, they actually moved it from GM to Master.

In beta it removed any condition. Sorry should’ve clarified

Aaah ok. Didnt know that^^

dDuff.3860:

So, i guess you were being sarcastic calling yourself pro player and saying that stealth is the only available defensive option? Hope so, because thief has unparalleled mobility (especially with Sword mainhand) and disengaging options which makes more sense to defensive capability than just plain stealth for 3 sec
I’m succesfully using build that has no real access to stealth beside stolen thief skill and BP+cluster bomb.

L2read bro.

Replace hard to catch with remove condition in dodge, 5 second ICD (or whatever is balanced) and I’ll actually try a stealthless Thief. Until then, 10/30/30 is my go to for anything in WvW.

Leeching venoms can actually heal a very good amount, but most venoms seem to be best applied at the start of the fight. It’s still an option though.

Runes of the adventurer, sigil of energy, vigor on heal trait, and the 33% returned on dodge trait, and sometimes vigor on steal if you want to go that far, and withdraw can lead to a crazy dodge build independent of weapon skills. rune of water might be useful if 700 hp each heal is worth losing one dodge each heal for.
It cost 15 trait points, 6 runes, and one weapon sigil.
Add 20 more trait points to the cost if you want vigor on steal, but I don’t think 20 trait points are worth the one and a half dodges over a long period of time.

I really would like to see some sort of riposte style skill, similar to warrior sword #5. It would help stealth-less thieves a lot! Although, some major work would have to be done to make it unique from the other same-same counterattack style skills already in game.

See that’s the thing, theives already have so much self healing, it’s nuts. I think with a little tweaking, such as condition cleanses, blocks, or similar we might even make good bunkers.

I could see some sort of riposte skill as a utility maybe? It’s not something I could see being spammed.

I just gave myself an idea with my post… I created a pistol pistol thief with adventerer runes, two p/p weaponsets with energy sigils so i can swap between them for init and dodges, withdraw, leeching venoms, vigor on heal, 2 init per 10 seconds, and 20 in critical strikes so i can cripple with pistol, and actually deal damage, and zerker amulet because it’s all active defense, not toughness.

I tried it out in spvp. I think i only died once in those games and was in 1 vs 2 for most of the games except when a player would give up, or ragequit, because I dodged everything and just kept unloading bullets into them.
This is probably the most troll-like build I’ve ever made. It doesn’t do much damage except when i unload all 3 of my venoms, one at a time, for the lifesteal, but I prefer to use those defensively. I don’t even need a stunbreaker. The only stealth I use is last refuge, and it’s saved my bacon a lot.

This is the first p/p build I’ve made that I actually like. Thanks for getting me thinking.

magic fly.2041:

Leeching venoms can actually heal a very good amount, but most venoms seem to be best applied at the start of the fight. It’s still an option though.

Runes of the adventurer, sigil of energy, vigor on heal trait, and the 33% returned on dodge trait, and sometimes vigor on steal if you want to go that far, and withdraw can lead to a crazy dodge build independent of weapon skills. rune of water might be useful if 700 hp each heal is worth losing one dodge each heal for.
It cost 15 trait points, 6 runes, and one weapon sigil.
Add 20 more trait points to the cost if you want vigor on steal, but I don’t think 20 trait points are worth the one and a half dodges over a long period of time.

I really would like to see some sort of riposte style skill, similar to warrior sword #5. It would help stealth-less thieves a lot! Although, some major work would have to be done to make it unique from the other same-same counterattack style skills already in game.

its worth getting that 4 ini on heal in trickery ;, with withdraw ( dont realy need the vigor on steal seeing vigor on heal is long enough on your 15 sec withdraw cooldown )

Void.4239:

magic fly.2041:

Leeching venoms can actually heal a very good amount, but most venoms seem to be best applied at the start of the fight. It’s still an option though.

Runes of the adventurer, sigil of energy, vigor on heal trait, and the 33% returned on dodge trait, and sometimes vigor on steal if you want to go that far, and withdraw can lead to a crazy dodge build independent of weapon skills. rune of water might be useful if 700 hp each heal is worth losing one dodge each heal for.
It cost 15 trait points, 6 runes, and one weapon sigil.
Add 20 more trait points to the cost if you want vigor on steal, but I don’t think 20 trait points are worth the one and a half dodges over a long period of time.

I really would like to see some sort of riposte style skill, similar to warrior sword #5. It would help stealth-less thieves a lot! Although, some major work would have to be done to make it unique from the other same-same counterattack style skills already in game.

its worth getting that 4 ini on heal in trickery ;, with withdraw ( dont realy need the vigor on steal seeing vigor on heal is long enough on your 15 sec withdraw cooldown )

I don’t think so. It requires 30 trait points.
it’s easier to spend only 15 more into acrobatics for the 3 init on weapon swap. If you use the energy sigil, you’ll be swapping weapons often anyways. As much as possible if you use identical weaponsets. It gives less init, but is every 10 seconds rather than 15, so it gives more over time. You also don’t have to get back into range to start attacking again.

magic fly.2041:

Void.4239:

magic fly.2041:

Leeching venoms can actually heal a very good amount, but most venoms seem to be best applied at the start of the fight. It’s still an option though.

Runes of the adventurer, sigil of energy, vigor on heal trait, and the 33% returned on dodge trait, and sometimes vigor on steal if you want to go that far, and withdraw can lead to a crazy dodge build independent of weapon skills. rune of water might be useful if 700 hp each heal is worth losing one dodge each heal for.
It cost 15 trait points, 6 runes, and one weapon sigil.
Add 20 more trait points to the cost if you want vigor on steal, but I don’t think 20 trait points are worth the one and a half dodges over a long period of time.

I really would like to see some sort of riposte style skill, similar to warrior sword #5. It would help stealth-less thieves a lot! Although, some major work would have to be done to make it unique from the other same-same counterattack style skills already in game.

its worth getting that 4 ini on heal in trickery ;, with withdraw ( dont realy need the vigor on steal seeing vigor on heal is long enough on your 15 sec withdraw cooldown )

I don’t think so. It requires 30 trait points.
it’s easier to spend only 15 more into acrobatics for the 3 init on weapon swap. If you use the energy sigil, you’ll be swapping weapons often anyways. As much as possible if you use identical weaponsets. It gives less init, but is every 10 seconds rather than 15, so it gives more over time. You also don’t have to get back into range to start attacking again.

I axtualy use both 30 acro/ 30 trickery for my D/D condi thief.

But i understand how 30 trickery would limit the possible builds for an evade build.
So 15 more in acro is indeed the better chose for that and probably a must have to make them work.

Wish they would put in a 1 sec evade on unload, or at least make it able to dodge while unloading. ( like the steal skill from warriors)
I kinda like thief builds the dont need to much stealth , and there to less of them out there.