Guild Wars 2

Introductions
Hello fellow thief comrades!

My name is Mugentora, you might kind of know me from my previous s/d roaming/duels video post (perhaps XD, I guess it’s been 2 months since then lol).

I have moved from SoR to SoS, as dropping into T7 made roaming relatively boring.

This video is post patch, of course, it contains more 1v1’s with a couple of 2v2 fights that were personally enjoyable. Interestingly enough, I didn’t realize that the 2v2’s were both against 2 warriors till I finished making the video and uploaded it. I consider myself a decent thief, I believe I still can improve a lot more. I hope you guys enjoy this video!

Video and Analysis

Notes about video

*The intro zooms past a bit too quickly, this was something I didn’t really pay attention to :|, so apologies if you weren’t able to catch anything from that intro. I’ll fix this up next video. Also, I was thinking of using that intro music as my-go-to-thing, let me know what you guys think and if I should change it, suggestions are appreciated.

Personal analysis

From re-watching that footage, I can say that there are a few mistakes I made which could have been the end of me in those fights. I need to also keep a closer eye on the enemy boon bar, to check for blocks. I have, however, taken your suggestions and have been attempting to use them to further improve myself as a thief and I believe that performance wise I think this video can show some of that improvement. Also, apologies for the fights not being very diverse class wise, I have extra footage which I plan to use in my next video. As always I am open to constructive critisism, as I believe that the only way to improve is knowing one’s flaws and work on reducing them.

Build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c;4Vwkb0K5R-Fd0;9;49;0TT2;621A46BIFW0I;1qObSqObSu-FvF6k1S;2bVf0l1q2x3252kVJ-2L0;9;9;9;9;9;9;0Ek3v

I have updated my build since the feature patch, this build is a lot more glassy, but I enjoy it for the challenge it brings in 3v1’s and so on. I swapped to Hoelbraks, since it was best of both worlds between Strength and Melandru’s. The condi duration reduction is very handy in WvW, and has helped me survive condi bursts more than a few times.

I swap out RFI for SR when running in group, for added support utility.

Pros

• Very evasive
• Good amount of extra health for survivability
• Extra stun breaks
• Good damage, when coupled with the minor trait in Acro, Fluid strikes, it becomes even more effective.
• Might stacks, in the duration of a fight this build can maintain around 10 stacks of might and at most 13 stacks.

Cons

• Susceptible to heavy direct damage, since there is nothing in SA or added toughness
• Condi is a relative inconvenience
• Eviscerate will usually kill you in 1-2 hit from a might stacked war.

Ending Remarks

I hope you guys enjoyed it.

I would also like to thank the many of you who have put aside their time to watch/read this, I really appreciate it.

Also a special thank you to those who dueled me!

I do apologize for the long post, hopefully it’s not too crazy hehe.

—Regards,
Mugentora

i like how you used shadow step offensively so much :> using about turn and free camera might make your withdraws more accurate though!

Nice vid, real nice comeback on the fight with the ele, assassin’s reward saves the day! lol

I use pain response instead of assassin’s reward, but that’s mainly because of my lack of hoelbrak runes, I’m still not sure which is the better option tbh. Pain response is one of those traits that you never notice working until you try fighting without it, and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy – condi food to make the runes worth it. I use shortbow offhand though, for P/D you’re probably better as you are with the extra might :P

Emi.4152:

i like how you used shadow step offensively so much :> using about turn and free camera might make your withdraws more accurate though!

Thank you. I actually do have about face mapped, I just need to start using it more often lol. As for free camera, it’s something I need to explore and get used to.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Nice vid, real nice comeback on the fight with the ele, assassin’s reward saves the day! lol

I use pain response instead of assassin’s reward, but that’s mainly because of my lack of hoelbrak runes, I’m still not sure which is the better option tbh. Pain response is one of those traits that you never notice working until you try fighting without it, and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy – condi food to make the runes worth it. I use shortbow offhand though, for P/D you’re probably better as you are with the extra might :P

Thank you! Ha-ha, yeah, I might have undermined Assassins reward before, but it’s saved my life on several occasions. I do use pain response if I know I’ll be dealing with condi heavy opponents, however, I still try to fight with AR simply due to how well it synergizes with blood sigil and life steal food. Don’t get me wrong, I think Pain Response is kitten good, I just seem to have better survival with AR most of the time.

If you don’t mind me asking, what rune set do you run?

FZeroWing.2098:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Nice vid, real nice comeback on the fight with the ele, assassin’s reward saves the day! lol

I use pain response instead of assassin’s reward, but that’s mainly because of my lack of hoelbrak runes, I’m still not sure which is the better option tbh. Pain response is one of those traits that you never notice working until you try fighting without it, and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy – condi food to make the runes worth it. I use shortbow offhand though, for P/D you’re probably better as you are with the extra might :P

Thank you! Ha-ha, yeah, I might have undermined Assassins reward before, but it’s saved my life on several occasions. I do use pain response if I know I’ll be dealing with condi heavy opponents, however, I still try to fight with AR simply due to how well it synergizes with blood sigil and life steal food. Don’t get me wrong, I think Pain Response is kitten good, I just seem to have better survival with AR most of the time.

If you don’t mind me asking, what rune set do you run?

That makes sense, I remember one time being chased around bay multiple times by a warrior and mesmer that just wouldn’t let me res my mesmer friend (it was their keep, minor detail), assassin’s reward was the main thing that kept me alive lol.

You’re welcome to ask ^^ I use pack runes atm. This is what I run, to save typing it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPx3JsPNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+GEA-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

I like the idea of might stacking but that means using power of inertia over either pain response or hard to catch, another trait that has randomly saved my life numerous times despite the hate it gets on the forums.

From my testing with hoelbrak runes in PvP I seem to average 6 (max 7) might stacks with power of inertia and signet of agility whilst dodging whenever possible, so an extra 210 power & condi damage, and thrill of the crime gives you 59% fury uptime. With pack runes I get potentially permanent fury uptime and an extra 100 precision. You do use signet of agility which gives an extra 180 precision though, whereas I don’t tend to. So you will beat me for DPS while you have fury and the signet’s passive is up, not sure about when it’s on cooldown though.

You get the extra – condi duration on hoelbrak runes which I like, but since almost everything heavily condi focussed runs +40% condi duration food and is slower than me, I’m not really sure it’s much of a benefit. That’s my two cents anyway.

I dunno, maybe I’m just too stingy to pay 60g for a set of runes lol. Sorry about the long post too, I have a propensity for unnecessary verbosity :P

Jugglemonkey.8741:

FZeroWing.2098:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Nice vid, real nice comeback on the fight with the ele, assassin’s reward saves the day! lol

I use pain response instead of assassin’s reward, but that’s mainly because of my lack of hoelbrak runes, I’m still not sure which is the better option tbh. Pain response is one of those traits that you never notice working until you try fighting without it, and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy – condi food to make the runes worth it. I use shortbow offhand though, for P/D you’re probably better as you are with the extra might :P

Thank you! Ha-ha, yeah, I might have undermined Assassins reward before, but it’s saved my life on several occasions. I do use pain response if I know I’ll be dealing with condi heavy opponents, however, I still try to fight with AR simply due to how well it synergizes with blood sigil and life steal food. Don’t get me wrong, I think Pain Response is kitten good, I just seem to have better survival with AR most of the time.

If you don’t mind me asking, what rune set do you run?

That makes sense, I remember one time being chased around bay multiple times by a warrior and mesmer that just wouldn’t let me res my mesmer friend (it was their keep, minor detail), assassin’s reward was the main thing that kept me alive lol.

You’re welcome to ask ^^ I use pack runes atm. This is what I run, to save typing it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPx3JsPNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+GEA-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

I like the idea of might stacking but that means using power of inertia over either pain response or hard to catch, another trait that has randomly saved my life numerous times despite the hate it gets on the forums.

From my testing with hoelbrak runes in PvP I seem to average 6 (max 7) might stacks with power of inertia and signet of agility whilst dodging whenever possible, so an extra 210 power & condi damage, and thrill of the crime gives you 59% fury uptime. With pack runes I get potentially permanent fury uptime and an extra 100 precision. You do use signet of agility which gives an extra 180 precision though, whereas I don’t tend to. So you will beat me for DPS while you have fury and the signet’s passive is up, not sure about when it’s on cooldown though.

You get the extra – condi duration on hoelbrak runes which I like, but since almost everything heavily condi focussed runs +40% condi duration food and is slower than me, I’m not really sure it’s much of a benefit. That’s my two cents anyway.

I dunno, maybe I’m just too stingy to pay 60g for a set of runes lol. Sorry about the long post too, I have a propensity for unnecessary verbosity :P

Apologies for the delayed reply!

Ah, I figured you might be running pack runes, it’s a set that I have looked into and I do enjoy the fury/swiftness uptime from it. You also get 125 prec passive bonus from the 6th attribute which is quite nifty.

I run SoA for the extra dodges (of course XD) and the single condi clear it comes with, I also feel it’s a pretty decent support utility when running in group as well. When it’s active, however, as you might have figured there is DPS loss, though it is not that much lower since my crit chance (with fury) is around 66% and I gain the benefit of the might stacks to somewhat counter the DPS loss (I haven’t done the math yet, but I can report back to you with proper numbers).

Ha-ha, yes 60g is quite a hefty price, I was lucky in purchasing them before they became so expensive. You do make valid points regardless, as I too used to run Pain Response with Assassins Reward before the Lyssa rune nerf.

As for the Hoelbraks, the -condi duration might not be that high, but I feel it’s enough to counteract the +40% Condi duration foods… Even if it’s only a bit it helps.