PvE Help
What weapons, utility, specs/traits, runes, and sigils are you using?
’ I can only take 1-3 hits before I’m downed, ’ Thats where the problem is. You are not supposed to take 1-3 hits, you should have more than enough evades to avoid that.
HoT content is annoying to play as a thief. There’s just so much dangerous stuff around, no way you can keep track of every animation and every possible threat. Use your shortbow unless you feel safe enough not to, in groups stay with the group, if youre alone it should be easier. Some people also recommend marauder for HoT.
Also, one advice that i cant possibly get tired of giving: invigorating precision!
It is not necessarely required, it may mean a dps loss, but if a pve thief thinks he is squishy and gets killed all the time, it means he is not using that trait but should.
If youre doing HoT stuff i would also recommend unhindered combatant and a quick hand on shadowstep, but only for the stuff i know (dragons stand), dont know exactly what you are doing.
At this point I’m just solo playing through the quest stuff in HoT, then I’ll go into some group content when I’m ready. But I can’t hardly do anything without dying multiple times. As far as weapons go, I want to use staff, but right now I keep dying. So I’m open to other stuff. But yeah, every time an event happens and there’s a boss, I’m forced to switch to short bow, otherwise I’ll be 2 shot if I try to melee. But I only have so much initiative and endurance before they can get to me, and then it doesn’t take long for me to go down. For my gear, as I said I’m full Berserker for the most part. I’m all for speccing into different stats and traits if that’s what needs to happen. But I was just wondering if there are others out there who are having an easier time without having to modify their builds that much for casual solo play.
Consider taking a few Vitality/Thoughness trinkets and amulets, just to give you some health.
Back when I was doing the solo HoT content, I was rolling mostly D/D as I don’t like the staff much (all this whirling around tend to place you into dangerous cleave/AoE situations. Being able to stealth often does help a lot for survivability, but be ready to dodge a lot to avoid the attacks they send at you.
If you’re running Dragon Stand, just grab a ranged weapon and avoid going melee as much as possible. There’s so much damage thrown at melee range of the mobs that it’s just impossible to fight toe to toe with anything (anyway, SB is best for tagging multiple mobs).
My thoughts are this: My mate rolls a thief main, and he switched to Marauder gear as well. It actually helps your precision and vitality over berserker gear at a minor loss of power and ferocity, but he found he was much more survivable with that gear. Also I agree about invigorating precision, or you can use assassin’s reward or the Signet of Malice healing skill. passive heals are a thief’s best friend.
Edit: Try the traits and skills first. If that doesn’t help enough, then try the Marauder gear, but hang on to the Berserker gear, because hopefully you will eventually hit your stride on active defense and knowing how to deal with the threats in Maguuma so you can switch back to it.
(edited by bearshaman.3421)
Thanks for all the tips guys. For now I’ve switch to a D/D venom spec for solo play with Carrion gear. 20k HP, lots of evades, life steal, and solid damage. Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol
Life steal? Did I miss something. You cant be talking about signet of malice, it doesnt heal enough by its own. Sigil of blood or rune of vampirism aswell…maybe all 3 of them…
Carrion>no crits>no invg precision. Or are you actually referring to assassins reward?
Do people use assassins reward in pve? Nah, I dont think so. And if they do: sage over carrion. It scales greatly with healing power now. Then again: less condidamage.
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.
Life steal? Did I miss something. You cant be talking about signet of malice, it doesnt heal enough by its own. Sigil of blood or rune of vampirism aswell…maybe all 3 of them…
Carrion>no crits>no invg precision. Or are you actually referring to assassins reward?
Do people use assassins reward in pve? Nah, I dont think so. And if they do: sage over carrion. It scales greatly with healing power now. Then again: less condidamage.
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.
Sage? did you mean apothecary?
It comes down to dodging. It’s why I recommend Acrobats and Daredevil for open world, because you have to access to a lot of mobility.
Pretty much every mob in HoT can be dealt with as a thief if you understand their mechanics and know how to engage them. You also need a ranged weapon that can do damage. I recommend P/P if you use Zerkers for the burst.
Here is some examples.
The giant frogs, Crushers and Floppers, are very easy fights for thiefs, because they are big, slow and their big, slow attacks are heavily telegraphed with a lot of time to avoid. Crushers are a breeze, because their attacks so slow that you can easily dodge each one without disengaging and never run out of energy. Floppers are a bit more difficult. They have a cone attack that pulls you in and you have to watch for it and dodge to their backside. If you get caught in it, you will get stun locked and the resulting combo it’s triggers from them will one shot you. Same thing in the jump in the air; you have to immediately dodge out.
Shadowleapers and Bladedancers are a bit more difficult. You have to burst them down hard. Engaging anything more than a veteran without help is suicide. They don’t telegraph a number of their skills and a single mistake will punish you hard.
When Shadowleapers do their backflip, you need to dodge immediately, because their rapid fire from that attack will down you instantly.
Bladedancers I recommend just enganging from ranged with P/P and just dump your initative bar into bursting them down. If you engage them in melee range, you have to pay attention to their animations. At some point, they will sling their bow on their back and when that happens, you have to dodge out immediately. When they sling their bow, they switch to their dagger and stunlock you while doing a ton of damage. If you stay within melee range when they do this, the stun chain will outlast your stunbreakers and you just eventually get locked down and die without being able to do anything. When they resume using their bow, then engage; their is always like a 2 second delay once you get in melee range before they switch from bow back to dagger.
Snipers are a little bit more difficult. Their kick attack isn’t telegraphed very well, so you have to learn the AI to anticipate when they are going to do it. Their primary attack is a single shot that they wind up to use which puts a target on your head. You need to interrupt when they do this; repositioning does nothing to avoid this, because they will adjust to keep you in their sights. If you can’t interrupt, just dodge out and run away to get outside the range, then renegage. If you know the the timing, you can dodge out right as they release the bow, but it’s difficult and danger. The initial shot will take half your life away and the proceeding tick from the line it leaves on the ground will take your other half.
A lot of other stuff can be made very easy with P/P and Unhindered Combatant. Morgrem Mounts, Legendary Blademaster Diamand, Arrowheads…just kite and shoot.
Another example is Champion Trolls. P/P makes soloing them a walk in the park. As long as you keep moving constantly, you will always walk out from undereneath the hives they throw at you. When they send the bees at you, just dodge to stay ahead of them as you kite. When they disappear just go back to moving to avoid the hives while your endurance bar regens for the next bee phase. Rinse and repeat and just keep unloading on them until they die.
Sky is the limit when it comes to PvE as a thief. It all downs to skill. Once you get really good, everything is a breeze. I have 13k hp on my Daredevil and yesterday, I ran DS as a commander where I was the first person running head first into groups of mobs and was downed like 2-3 times total.
But with that said, the game will punish you very very hard for missing a dodge. If those kind of swings frustrate you, roll a MM reaper and just faceroll everything.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol
If you are near a cliff, just AA for the poison. You should be running Dagger Training and Potent Poison, so the AA DPS will be close enough to DB.
Life steal? Did I miss something.
…
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.
Leeching Venoms
Thanks for all the tips guys. For now I’ve switch to a D/D venom spec for solo play with Carrion gear. 20k HP, lots of evades, life steal, and solid damage. Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol
If you roll this, don’t expect it to be a silver bullet. It’s not and the survivability is almost marginal compared to my Zerker Staff spec. The ramp up time on the conditions makes killing trash with this build take twice as long; a good crit off a vault or bound with Zerker Staff will one-shot groups of weak trash.
I think it’s actually worse solo, because time is not on your side. The best way to deal with a lot of kitten in HoT is just heavy burst damage that just kills trash before the AI has time to do anything that will make your life miserable. The damage potential of trash Mobs in HoT should not be underestimated, particularly if they live long enough to use their major attacks.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
Do people use assassins reward in pve? Nah, I dont think so.
I do now that they fixed it so a number of ranged attacks still heal even if you miss. If your heal is on CD and you take a big hit, you can just disengage, switch to your ranged, begin kiting and slowly fill your health bar back up. In the worst case scenario, you can disengage even further and just start spamming skills. Even though they don’t do damage, because you are out of range, you still get the heal.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Life steal? Did I miss something. You cant be talking about signet of malice, it doesnt heal enough by its own. Sigil of blood or rune of vampirism aswell…maybe all 3 of them…
Carrion>no crits>no invg precision. Or are you actually referring to assassins reward?
Do people use assassins reward in pve? Nah, I dont think so. And if they do: sage over carrion. It scales greatly with healing power now. Then again: less condidamage.
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.Sage? did you mean apothecary?
Yeah, right. Sage is pvp amulet, not a stat combination. My bad. But you know, what I mean, do ya?
Only problem is accidentally Death Blossoming off the ledges lol
If you are near a cliff, just AA for the poison. You should be running Dagger Training and Potent Poison, so the AA DPS will be close enough to DB.
Life steal? Did I miss something.
…
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.
Leeching Venoms
So. You would use leeching venoms for health? Is that…viable? I mena…i did that in pvp pre hot for a while, but after that…You heal for about 400-500 if im not mistaken. That is about as much as I reg with a single crit on a single enemy with invigorating precision.
So. You would use leeching venoms for health? Is that…viable? I mena…i did that in pvp pre hot for a while, but after that…You heal for about 400-500 if im not mistaken. That is about as much as I reg with a single crit on a single enemy with invigorating precision.
He simply said he had life steal, not that it is a primary source of healing, or is better than IP or SoM. However, considering it is 1950 healing on each Spider Venom use and 650 on Basilisk, I’d say it easily counts as a source of sustain. Not to mention your whole team benefits from it.
(edited by Zodryn.4216)
Edit: Somehow double posted when I edited my previous post. Keep in mind also that besides having better healing than mug, LV also gives the group might and some extra damage.
(edited by Zodryn.4216)
Life steal? Did I miss something. You cant be talking about signet of malice, it doesnt heal enough by its own. Sigil of blood or rune of vampirism aswell…maybe all 3 of them…
Carrion>no crits>no invg precision. Or are you actually referring to assassins reward?
Do people use assassins reward in pve? Nah, I dont think so. And if they do: sage over carrion. It scales greatly with healing power now. Then again: less condidamage.
What the hell, i dont know but i would be really interested in what that ‘lifesteal’ is supposed to be.Sage? did you mean apothecary?
Yeah, right. Sage is pvp amulet, not a stat combination. My bad. But you know, what I mean, do ya?
No I didn’t. I don’t PVP, so I had no frame of reference for that.
I had the best success in HoT with p/p + staff, around 2.4k armor ~15k hp, and the rest zerker. You can survive 1 hit of most strong attacks, and can dodge like crazy. This was with crit/trick/dd. p/p for single target, and staff for aoe and evade. A p/p thief can do some nice damage while staying out of harms way with dd traits, and if you get swarmed staff with careful timing on your skills can avoid anything.
I’ve never had more fun in HoT PVE than on my thief with this build. So much mobility, good damage, evades out the wazoo, and you can heal to full quickly. Good luck, and just remember that Thief in HoT takes practice, but it also very rewarding. And is not faceroll. On my condi mesmer, I’ve soloed many very hard hero cahllenges (hard on engie, thief, necro, ele, rev) with only my auto attack. I actually ate a meal while doing some of them. Sad the difference in difficulty, but what can you do, thief is more fun and engaging. And with enough practice, you can finish all the hero challenges solo. (at least that was my experience)
Yeah, I wish I could use my staff, but I don’t have enough trait points to spec out Daredevil fully. Right now I only have minor traits and it’s really lacking in usefulness at the moment. That’s why I’m running D/D Carrion (with some toughness weaved in there), so I can use the trait lines I have unlocked to maximize my spec. I think if I were to a burst build, I’d go Marauder for the extra life so I don’t get one shot.
As for my “life steal.” I have Leeching Venoms (running 4 venoms), Rune of Scavenging, and I’ll eventually have Driven fortitude. So I have plenty of healing for solo play, which is what I was going for.
I know a condition build isn’t the best for solo or PvE, but it’s really my only option right now until I get spec into Daredevil more.
I started using DD as soon as I unlocked it. Staff Autos are strong enough that you can get away with it, and Vault is perfect for a number of HoT enemies (pocket raptors, for example). Also, it barely takes any time to get the HPs you need for the spec. I did it before the HP requirement nerf and it still went really quick.