Guild Wars 2

Ok – to start off, this is not a flame attempt. After seeing this , I want to do it too.

I know nothing about playing a thief, so I want to start one. Can anyone tell me what weapon sets to use, runes/sigils as well as traits so that I can two shot people in sPvP with the following damage and test it out for myself?

1. Steal: 7k followed by
2. Backstab: 10k

or

1. Cloak and Dagger: 5.8k followed by
2. Steal: 7.5k followed by
3. Backstab: 14k

Would much appreciate some insights on how to get kills like that.

Use the signet, start casting Cloak and Dagger, Steal, CnD stealths you, instantly backstab, and use a heartseeker or two. You’ll need 25/30 in the top two trait lines. Put the remainder in whatever you want. I like getting Feline Grace personally. Just build pure crit damage, precision and power, and get all the damage modification traits possible.

As a note, you do not want to use the steal stealths you trait.

The build is popular because they have 1/2 a second warning, and the warning is a very subtle animation. Compare CnD+Steal to Bull’s Rush, for example. Much harder to avoid. It also has a smaller risk, and it can be feinted to waste the opponents dodge or blind or whatever.

Larynx.2453:

Use the signet, start casting Cloak and Dagger, Steal, CnD stealths you, instantly backstab, and use a heartseeker or two. You’ll need 25/30 in the top two trait lines. Put the remainder in whatever you want. I like getting Feline Grace personally. Just build pure crit damage, precision and power, and get all the damage modification traits possible.

As a note, you do not want to use the steal stealths you trait.

Thanks. Why not use the “steal stealths” trait? If not, how do I remain in stealth immediately after a steal to execute a backstab like in this screenshot ?

bhagwad.4281:

Larynx.2453:

Use the signet, start casting Cloak and Dagger, Steal, CnD stealths you, instantly backstab, and use a heartseeker or two. You’ll need 25/30 in the top two trait lines. Put the remainder in whatever you want. I like getting Feline Grace personally. Just build pure crit damage, precision and power, and get all the damage modification traits possible.

As a note, you do not want to use the steal stealths you trait.

Thanks. Why not use the “steal stealths” trait? If not, how do I remain in stealth immediately after a steal to execute a backstab like in this screenshot ?

Because the combo does less damage. Steal is an instant teleport, which means you can use it without interrupting the current action (even stomping for example). CnD has 1/2 second cast time. If you use Steal before CnD goes off, the damage from Steal won’t unstealth you.

The actual order of events is CnD -> Steal -> Backstab, but the damage goes Steal -> CnD -> Backstab

If you’ve ever played a frost mage in WoW, it’s like Water elemental shatters. Start casting the frostbolt, wait till it’s going toward the target, and then use Freeze.

Larynx.2453:

bhagwad.4281:

Larynx.2453:

Use the signet, start casting Cloak and Dagger, Steal, CnD stealths you, instantly backstab, and use a heartseeker or two. You’ll need 25/30 in the top two trait lines. Put the remainder in whatever you want. I like getting Feline Grace personally. Just build pure crit damage, precision and power, and get all the damage modification traits possible.

As a note, you do not want to use the steal stealths you trait.

Thanks. Why not use the “steal stealths” trait? If not, how do I remain in stealth immediately after a steal to execute a backstab like in this screenshot ?

Because the combo does less damage. Steal is an instant teleport, which means you can use it without interrupting the current action (even stomping for example). CnD has 1/2 second cast time. If you use Steal before CnD goes off, the damage from Steal won’t unstealth you.

The actual order of events is CnD -> Steal -> Backstab, but the damage goes Steal -> CnD -> Backstab

If you’ve ever played a frost mage in WoW, it’s like Water elemental shatters. Start casting the frostbolt, wait till it’s going toward the target, and then use Freeze.

Got it. What runes/sigils do you recommend? I see in the screenshot that there was a lightning strike, so sigil of air perhaps?

To answer your second question cast CnD and then immediately cast steal (Don’t wait for CnD’s animation to finish, press one button then immediately press the other).

If you use CnD you’ll notice it has a very slow animation. Due to this it’s possible to use steal while CnD is still doing it’s animation.

So the final hit goes like this: Start CnD animation → Steal/Mug to blink right next to them → CnD finishes animation and hits making you stealth. Then you can backstab if you want since you’re right next to them in stealth anyway.

Again button-wise it’s like this: CnD → (No Delay) Steal.

So to answer your question to my knowledge it’s more of a matter of going into stealth immediately after you steal.

bhagwad.4281:

Larynx.2453:

bhagwad.4281:

Larynx.2453:

Use the signet, start casting Cloak and Dagger, Steal, CnD stealths you, instantly backstab, and use a heartseeker or two. You’ll need 25/30 in the top two trait lines. Put the remainder in whatever you want. I like getting Feline Grace personally. Just build pure crit damage, precision and power, and get all the damage modification traits possible.

As a note, you do not want to use the steal stealths you trait.

Thanks. Why not use the “steal stealths” trait? If not, how do I remain in stealth immediately after a steal to execute a backstab like in this screenshot ?

Because the combo does less damage. Steal is an instant teleport, which means you can use it without interrupting the current action (even stomping for example). CnD has 1/2 second cast time. If you use Steal before CnD goes off, the damage from Steal won’t unstealth you.

The actual order of events is CnD -> Steal -> Backstab, but the damage goes Steal -> CnD -> Backstab

If you’ve ever played a frost mage in WoW, it’s like Water elemental shatters. Start casting the frostbolt, wait till it’s going toward the target, and then use Freeze.

Got it. What runes/sigils do you recommend? I see in the screenshot that there was a lightning strike, so sigil of air perhaps?

I haven’t played a thief for 3 months or so. Last I checked, the standard was going for sigil of fire, the 5% damage one, and rune of air (the lighting strike one).

edit: actually it was some sort of positional one for the 6/6. 10% damage wile flanking? something like that. That’s rune of the thief I believe.

IIRC a lot of people just use ruby orbs over runes. They give power/crit/crit damage which is better is you like the third stat.

Edit: my bad >_>

I was under the assumption this was sPvP.

bhagwad.4281:

Ok – to start off, this is not a flame attempt. After seeing this , I want to do it too.

You’re not flaming, so many people are playing thieves right now having yet another one in WvW won’t make too much of a difference.

It’ll be thieves vs thieves soon enough.

Thobek.1730:

bhagwad.4281:

Ok – to start off, this is not a flame attempt. After seeing this , I want to do it too.

You’re not flaming, so many people are playing thieves right now having yet another one in WvW won’t make too much of a difference.

It’ll be thieves vs thieves soon enough.

In the long run, that might be beneficial. Back in beta and at release, want to know what was the OP instagib no-skill, ect. ect. profession? 100B warriors. It was a requirement to bring something specifically to counter them. Guess how many warriors you see nowadays?

Thieves are not overpowered. It is simply difficult to deal with for those unfamiliar. By its nature, it is also a very attractive profession to play. Thus the two ingredients for QQ. From the pot either emerges nerfs, or an altogether more knowledgeable playerbase. ArenaNet seems to enjoy the latter.

Thobek.1730:

It’ll be thieves vs thieves soon enough.

It’s elementalist vs elementalist at the moment.

haviz.1340:

Thobek.1730:

It’ll be thieves vs thieves soon enough.

It’s elementalist vs elementalist at the moment.

To follow my above post, this is an example of legitimate balance issues. There’s nothing L2P about it.

That’s pretty suspiscious. In spvp CnD has been nerfed, but it still hit for 6k. Probably the mesemer was full berserker too (and that’s why he took so much damage) but it’s still TOO much damage taken. In wvwvw this never happens, and CnD hasn’t been nerfed in wvwvw.

I mean, I CAN hit that hard, but only vs low levels, not against a fully geared mesmer.

Well in addition to everything above, also find an enemy with light armor and no toughness whatsoever.

It’s funny that people like that mesmer build for FULL offense and then get rolled on by another full offensive player and come on the forums like they’ve been wronged. I’ve been taken out nearly as fast by mesmers shattering all their clones at once, causing over 14k damage in an instant, as an AOE. Not because the ability is overpowered, but because I did NOTHING to reduce the damage I took.

…It’s like jumping into a boxing ring with no mouthguard, losing your teeth, and then blaming the other guy for his Falcon Punch to your jaw.

Backstab thieves make me LOL. That’s so 3 months ago. Basically you only kill people now with that if:

1. They have a stunbreaker on cooldown or try to play without one
2. They are a GC
3. They don’t know how to dodge.

The combo that guy is complaining about isn’t what I call the “classic combo” of C&D^Mug^BS it’s the SR first combo where you SR sneak up on someone and hit backstab+mug at the same time. I like to do BS then a heartseeker and a mug during the HS. Only kills pure glass or already hurt people and to catch people by surprise it requires a pre-cast SR and them not noticing.

Stiv.1820:

I like to do BS then a heartseeker and a mug during the HS. Only kills pure glass or already hurt people and to catch people by surprise it requires a pre-cast SR and them not noticing.

Keep in mind that by waiting on the steal you’re missing out on some fury and might, assuming you’re at least 10 into trickery. Nice to have that fury before the BS lands.

Dairuin.5602:

Stiv.1820:

I like to do BS then a heartseeker and a mug during the HS. Only kills pure glass or already hurt people and to catch people by surprise it requires a pre-cast SR and them not noticing.

Keep in mind that by waiting on the steal you’re missing out on some fury and might, assuming you’re at least 10 into trickery. Nice to have that fury before the BS lands.

I personally use sigil of intelligence to get around this. Guaranteed back-stab crit :P I don’t have 10 in trickery either but yea it is not as consistent for those builds for sure.

So I followed the advice of people here and am not able to get 14k backstab damage against the light golem in the mists. The max I got was 5k. Of course, I just created the thief so I don’t know much. Here is my set up.

Weapon Set: D/D

Traits: Deadly Arts – 30. Critical Strikes – 30. I’ve taken Hidden killer, Mug, dagger training.

Assasin’s signet for increased damage.

Using the C&D + Steal + Backstab combo, I’m able to remove not more than 7k health in all. Backstab only gives me 5.3k even with crit. Steal only damages for 1.3k.

How do I get the massive numbers as shown in the OP linked screenshots? Namely:

Steal: 7k
C&D: 5k
Backstab: 14k

I’m using runes of air and sigils of air.

When you figure it out, you can tell us! Not sarcasm, just with the normalization of the PvP amulets I’ve never been able to hit with the numbers you linked. Playing against burst thieves in a recent match, it took 2 of them focusing me to make the burst part effective and even then each one was only hitting for 3k with mug. My thoughts on the original screenshot is that the player had a staff guardian or 2 using empower. Or maybe might stacking himself with might on dodge. You might try 25/30/0/15/0 using executioner and power of inertia while leaving everything else the same. Use sigil of bloodlust and force. Maybe runes of the infiltraitor or eagle. Get full stacks of bloodlust, then steal + CnD after dodging 3 times to get 3 stacks of might. Use the power signet and maybe another in conjunction with the trait that gives you 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds on use if a signet. You could stack 13 stacks of might + 250 power from bloodlust (for a total of 744 additional power) +60% (20% executioner, 10% runes of the infiltraitor, 10% for them having a condition, 5% sigil of force, 15% might signet activated) more damage once they drop under 50% health if I’m remembering and adding everything up properly.

Setup- dodge 3 times,
Activate 2 signets
Steal
CnD
Backstab

(In practice against other people, you should use CnD first then steal immediately after to shadowstep during the CnD as it can be hard to land against people with decent reflexes)

Edit: I have never tried this particular build myself and am not really ure if it will work. Tell us how it ends up.

That will in fact work. This was with no bloodlust, and runes of the eagle. I would suggest trying it against the NPCs though as its a better representation of what you can expect.

Against the mesmer in the mists. Changed to hidden killer instead of executioner.
You can see the drop off in effectiveness against a more heavily armored target and not that his staggering blow does more damage back to me than my backstab did to him.

Maugetarr.6823:

That will in fact work. This was with no bloodlust, and runes of the eagle. I would suggest trying it against the NPCs though as its a better representation of what you can expect.

Let me try it out tomorrow and see if I can land a 14k backstab.

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

That will in fact work. This was with no bloodlust, and runes of the eagle. I would suggest trying it against the NPCs though as its a better representation of what you can expect.

Let me try it out tomorrow and see if I can land a 14k backstab.

Well I’m betting that the light armor golem has a little over 2200 armor. That is probably making up for the 3.5k difference in damage as it represents about a 17% decrease in damage output over the 1800ish you had. The highest I can get to is 11,640 using a 25/30/0/0/15 build and blowing all 3 utilities on active signets for the 15 stacks of might. Accounting for that difference, it gives me right at 14k. I believe this is your mystery build.

Yeah I’ve never seen those numbers in actual fights either but assuming all the above with full bloodlust and maxed out might perhaps there were some stacks of vulnerability on the Mesmer?

I think the OP is going to be disappointed – not only are the numbers highly unlikely under almost any circumstance but there is also a lot of button pushing (which is counter to the popular belief that big numbers come from 2 buttons).

I haven’t tried daggers for absolutely ages though and all this talk has made me nostalgic

Faeyd.5094:

Yeah I’ve never seen those numbers in actual fights either but assuming all the above with full bloodlust and maxed out might perhaps there were some stacks of vulnerability on the Mesmer?

I think the OP is going to be disappointed – not only are the numbers highly unlikely under almost any circumstance but there is also a lot of button pushing (which is counter to the popular belief that big numbers come from 2 buttons).

I haven’t tried daggers for absolutely ages though and all this talk has made me nostalgic

Well when testing it against the NPCs, the warrior turned around and hit me for 6.5k with backbreaker…. With no defensive skills to get the might stacks required for it, I wouldn’t use it against actual people. It’s an all or nothing setup. And you’re right, its actually 6 skills and only a window of opportunity of 5 seconds every 45 seconds, not to mention a “look at me!” signet target above your head.

lol. guys, did you read the past posts from the op?

buttski.6135:

lol. guys, did you read the past posts from the op?

yep, figured the best way to show him that it wasn’t OP was to have him bounce off the first guardian he saw when he tried it then get two shot right back

Exactly

But it’s cool he is trying to do it for himself rather than just recount the same old nonsense over and over based on something they read in a thread from angry players one day like it’s law.

buttski.6135:

lol. guys, did you read the past posts from the op?

Oh lol, he’s the guy QQing on the sPvP forums who didn’t even know how to calculate Armor value correctly. GG

I haven’t been gibbed by a Thief lately on my Guardian.

How to instant gib:

• Activate Signet of Power
• Have lots of Might stacks or Vulns on your target.
• Full glass cannon. +5% damage on targets from behind, 5% increased dagger damage trait, make sure target has condition for 10% more damage, and have more than 6 initiative for 10% extra dmg.
• Get lucky RNG and crit every time.
• Have 20% increased damage trait on targets below 50%.

Last I recall, all the golems in HOTM have higher armor than glass cannon players by a decent margin. I always get higher numbers for every class on actual players.

EasymodeX.4062:

Last I recall, all the golems in HOTM have higher armor than glass cannon players by a decent margin. I always get higher numbers for every class on actual players.

I have had the opposite experience. Guess it just depends on who you face off against. The NPCs to test builds on though seem to have higher armor values.