Guild Wars 2

I have lots of trouble with Hot mobs, to the point that I prefer to use shadow refuge often to simply avoid battles.
I’ve learned to fight some of them, and I’d love to hear some advice for others that still give me trouble.

first there´s the mushrooms, specially the bombers and chargers, I use staff and those 2 gave me hell before I decided to simply use ranged weapons with them (specially p/p #3 skill). so mushrooms are more or less clear for me now (if someone has more advice feel free to let me know)

other mobs that I tend to avoid:

-pocket raptors: specially big packs of them. I think short bow might work for them, but many times they close the gap too fast and get to me and kill me before I can kill them.

-mordrem snipers: they hit really hard and many times kill me with their lava looking straight line skill.

-the shadowleaper frogs: annoying as hell, always use stealth and appear behind me on range and hit like a truck too.

those spinning dragons, I try to evade them, but they keep on doing their charge attack. I guess I should try ranged too.

I really want to use staff and learn to play with it, I understand some enemies are much easier to fight with ranged weapons, but I wold prefer to not be forced to switch every battle to another weapon.
I may be forgetting some enemies, but from the ones I remember these are the ones that give me the most trouble.

Also, I’d love to hear about the combos you guys use. I mainly use autoattack and skill #2 for damage and #4 for blindness. I’ve heard some of you use #5 and #2 most of the time, is that so?

Partly because I was too lazy to switch out of pvp weapons, but D/P and SB worked well. Spam ports to get to the challenge/mission/point location, BlackP+BlindingP/HS to get past concentrated groups and when you don’t know exactly where to go, to allow some time to go slower and look about. When you got to kill something, shadow shot makes it easy, and bounding dodger when you got it makes it easier. For hero points where you got to kill something with not many players around, switch to p/p, improvisation, critical strikes and thieves’ guild.

If you’re just looking for someone to say "yes staff works, here is how to win:" I’d imagine the pvp approach of 5 dodge 5 dodge 5 dodge while melee will suffice in PvE, but once out of initiative/endurance you will need to range for it to regenerate.

XD thanks! I’ll try that.

coso.9173:

I have lots of trouble with Hot mobs, to the point that I prefer to use shadow refuge often to simply avoid battles.
I’ve learned to fight some of them, and I’d love to hear some advice for others that still give me trouble.

first there´s the mushrooms, specially the bombers and chargers, I use staff and those 2 gave me hell before I decided to simply use ranged weapons with them (specially p/p #3 skill). so mushrooms are more or less clear for me now (if someone has more advice feel free to let me know)

other mobs that I tend to avoid:

-pocket raptors: specially big packs of them. I think short bow might work for them, but many times they close the gap too fast and get to me and kill me before I can kill them.

-mordrem snipers: they hit really hard and many times kill me with their lava looking straight line skill.

-the shadowleaper frogs: annoying as hell, always use stealth and appear behind me on range and hit like a truck too.

those spinning dragons, I try to evade them, but they keep on doing their charge attack. I guess I should try ranged too.

I really want to use staff and learn to play with it, I understand some enemies are much easier to fight with ranged weapons, but I wold prefer to not be forced to switch every battle to another weapon.
I may be forgetting some enemies, but from the ones I remember these are the ones that give me the most trouble.

Also, I’d love to hear about the combos you guys use. I mainly use autoattack and skill #2 for damage and #4 for blindness. I’ve heard some of you use #5 and #2 most of the time, is that so?

For jungle, you really need a mix of range and melee weapon to do well on it.

Personally I use staff and SB for the jungle right now.

There’re certain mobs that simply not good to just melee them, for example, the dinasaur with hard shield back and mushrooms. They charges and kb too much.
It’s better just to spam range attack to kill them.

For Raptors, this is very easy for staff Daredevil. All you need to do is spam Vault on them while dodging when you out of initiative. Most raptors should die in 2~3 vaults if you are full zerker. Not to mention Vault is count as evade, and has no delay between each cast. You should be safe to use Vault to clear all raptors.

Also, you have numerous dodges, so use them well to avoid key attacks.

For safety, I do grab Shadow Art and stealth utilities in case of emergency though.

oh thanks! I didn’t know it also counted as an evade

For boss fights, such as the wyverns, I personally stick to a ranged weapon – On a rev that is hammer (lol, yup, I kittening chuck hammers at 1200 range… LOL oh and they pierce too xD). Sooo… the thief equivalent, of a ranged weapon that does damage, would be something like P/P or P/D. Mainly because the toxic/fire kitten that the wyverns spew and then sit in really does damage … I shudder to think what that damage feels like on a thief…

Well, I have always stayed away from any kind of Zerk or Sin gear for enjoyable builds on my Thief/Daredevil, so I use Soldier’s almost all the time with captains trinkets which work very well in the jungle. I roll Staff and P/P on my Daredevil with Trickery and Acro lines. Hard to Catch trait in Acro helps me recover from a slip up against those mobs that have the kb/kd, otherwise I just use bounding dodge to initiate a fight, then go into a Vault followed with either Debilitating Strike or Weakening Charge into Debilitating Strike then repeat from dodge. I tend to go with Staff Master as my Master trait for the endurance back per point of initiative spent deal so I can always have a dodge ready, and I always have Channelled Vigor as my heal for immediate endurance regain plus the Vigor on heal from Acro line. For those Rolling Devils, any form of soft or hard cc will stop them, that includes cripple, so I just use Debilitating Arc on them or Scorpion Wire, or Steal because of Sleight of Hand trait, then I can make them melt. The Snipers are easy for me to deal with, I just use Scorpion Wire and immediately start using Fist Flurry, by the time they come to, Palm Strike from Fist Flurry just interrupts them again and then a dodge into Vault normally kills them. For the Shadowleapers, closing the distance is key, so dodge into a Vault to engage, and if they Shadowstep away, use Vault and steal in midair to make sure that Vault lands, then use Scorpion Wire to interrupt their Stealth Bomb animation and to get them in melee range.

Oh wow thanks a lot! That was very useful!

Just swap out “No Quarter” for “Invigorating Precision” in the standard meta build, and you’ll have all the sustain you need. You lose 100% up-time on fury and 250 ferocity, but you’ll rarely die.

I’m using Staff & P/P I’m usually fine in melee vs most things that aren’t champs. against champs i have to ranged sometimes even if I have help.

Dodge, 5, auto attack or try to use weakening charge if u think u canget all 3 hits in, when you see them trying to attack, dodge appropriately (try to hit them with bound if possible) staff #5 then back to auto attack/#2.

When I get caught by a knockdown or stun or whatever i use Bandit’s Defense. When i need space i just swap to P/P for a bit spam unloads heal back up and go back in.

I also realize that ranged is a lot easier to play with in HoT maps. If you wanna go melee with a squishy class (and as far as I know thief is the squishiest melee class so its extra important as a Thief) you will really have to learn the mob’s attacks and dodge them well.
But that’s part of why I’m starting to love Daredevil in HoT.