Guild Wars 2

Hi fellow Thieves!
I’ve been curious how do you find recent revealed buff for one of Ranger’s shouts. I can’t really see that many Rangers roaming with it on WvWvW (Not talking about tPvP for obvious reasons), I don’t do so too, but tried it couple times with nice effect.
Are you more aware of Rangers now or anything? I’ve seen multiple QQs before the patch hit and on patch day and after that…silence. No QQs about Sick Em!.
Does it affect your WvWvW gameplay in any way?
If it does, how do you counter it/plan to counter it?
Just wondering, personal curiosity, mind me

Haven’t really encountered sick em yet, guess its because most rangers are still on their petting zoo parade.

first player I encountered after this patch was a ranger…. and they alt 4’ed on me. If a ranger actually has to use this skill to counter/beat me then the problem isn’t the thief…

Pretty sure I’m not alone in thinking this either.

It’s actually suprisingly un-horrible.

The few rangers I’ve fought that used it well saved it for stomping or popped it on thieves following a stun, or on thieves that sat a shadow refuge too far away before they could run in to it.

I think the opportunity cost on it seems pretty fair, given it’s extremely niche use (granted, it’s a niche use attached to an otherwise somewhat useful utility) but I do wonder what the overall point was aside from assuaging some QQ about stealth, as its actual effect in combat is largely negligible. This is far better than the heavy-handed 10s reveal everyone feared, and is generally about as effective and annoying as Last refuge, which, I mean, is fair.

The more I play with it, The more overpowered I think it would of been if it was 10 Seconds.

4 Seconds is probably to short, but 6 to 8 would of been fine, 6 Probably would of been the best stopping point.

But yea.. 10 seconds would of been blatantly oped.

From my personal experience, as I play LB/SB quite balanced power build on WvWvW, without any signets or spirits, still roaming with nice effect:
-“Sick Em!” has one big problem…It’s useless for everything that’s not D/P Thief and we usually run with something else. I’m still testing if it’s worth more than “Protect Me!” shout (great for cancelling any opener burst for 3-4 seconds).
-When I’m prepared for a Thief, have Sick Em! equipped I find it….quite nice. After initial rotation (AA, RF, PBS) with longbow most D/P Thieves try to Powder+Leap and that’s the point when I use shout, most of the times. From now on, it’s all about if he panics or not. Most still panic, rolling over keys and because of that I can kill them quite easily with constant high SB power damage/CC. However, I’ve already fought better Thieves, which turn either 100% offensive trying to counterpressure and stop some damage or ones kind of ready with shortbow porting.
@jonwar Please note I’m talking about WvWvW in here since Sick Em! is totally useless in sPvP. Haven’t seen many “petting zoo” spirit builds on WvWvW roaming yet.

Reason its useless in SPvP has more to do with the fact that Movement Speed runes aren’t available in there.

You can’t fit Sic’Em in a build unless you run those types of runes

Xsorus.2507:

Reason its useless in SPvP has more to do with the fact that Movement Speed runes aren’t available in there.

You can’t fit Sic’Em in a build unless you run those types of runes

Superior Runes of Speed have been fixed with recent update so they work in sPvP.
I’ve switched to them in a heartbeat after the patch Vitality isn’t most-demanded stat and Traveler ones (I use them on W3, same you I suppose) would be still much better choice. But at least I can get rid of that crappy SoH

Ahh, wasn’t sure if it was changed yet in SPvP

Xsorus.2507:

Ahh, wasn’t sure if it was changed yet in SPvP

Glad to bring good news, I’ve tested them and they seem to work

I didn’t notice it while playing s/d thief in hotjoin yesterday :P

They are dangerous in groups. It makes it significantly harder to 1v3 if the ranger in the 3 group is spamming Sic Em.

I used to see Rangers as free kills, they are higher on the priory list now.

Sic’em is basically an I button win against thieves in group play. The reason why there hasn’t been much complaints against it is 1. Warrior is currently a far bigger problem
2. lot of thieves don’t even realize sic’em has been used on them (needs to have more obvious animation and yes some thieves are that bad). 3 there is’nt that many rangers in wvw, most people atm are playing Warriors and Guards. 4. Not that many rangers even run sic’em, its very situational and there has been a decrease in the amount of thieves and mesmers played and an increase in heavy class professions.

At the end of day its an extremely powerful skill against the thief in group play. It should be avoidable if dodged at the right time but there are currently bigger issue at hand than sic’em.

I haven’t played a stealth build in months so I really don’t care, stealth is dead in my book. (spvp)

I have yet to encounter a ranger who has used Sic ‘Em against me and it doesn’t really surprise me. Why bring Sic ’Em when you can just steamroll stuff as a spirit ranger.

Even when they’re not running a spirit build, thieves aren’t really a big enough threat to merit bringing a hard counter to stealth.