Guild Wars 2

Article written by the leader of [Teef]

Last night, NA members of [Teef] plus 2 randoms who kittened out at the first wipe managed their way through the mini guardians up to Vale Guardian. Most that participated were new to the raid but not new to the profession, me included. That much was expected. We pretty much gave up after several attempts at VG. That was also expected. What I didn’t expect was for the group to wipe less than 3 times average per guardian and then manage to not only get to VG in a timely manner, but also get him down at least 1% before wiping.

> The first guardian (green) was dropping people. We didn’t have dedicated ninja nurses and I doubt they would’ve made an impact on the fight anyway since pretty much everyone was ressing eachother. The guardian itself didn’t do much damage but I remember the blue orbs hitting me for 3k. In fact i think that was the only thing that was really flooring me. The constant 1k tick was being outhealed by Signet of Malice and the portals were walked out of 80% of the time. This was pretty much true for everyone.

> The second guardian (blue) was a bit tougher. This was where we lost the two fairweathers people, leaving 8, and where we wiped the most (~3 times). The loss in DPS didn’t do anything for the fight (not like we really needed them anyway) and we managed to kill it. Mobility for the green circles wasn’t an issue since thief has good in combat mobility. There were L2P issues at first but that quickly got resolved.

> The last guardian (red) wiped maybe once or twice. The issue with this fight was essentially a mixture of the blue and red orbs which wasn’t a problem when mostly everyone switched to ranged.

> The Vale Guardian was the end for the [Teef] event though. We kept wiping in under a minute every attempt. The amount of AoE amounted to too much pressure for the remaining group and it fell off from there. In fact, I got on my adorable and glassy AF staff ele and survived twice as long as the group. And I barely know how to play ele.

Which brings me to my observations (>) and thoughts (+) and possible things a thief can do to make their time in a raid easier (—).

> The greatest issue thieves have to deal with for this whole ordeal is the constant AoE. Switching to ranged combat mitigates this alot but then it also takes away from DPS, especially condition dps. I know I was having issues keeping my bleeds high when I realized that staying in a single spot would melt my HP and I was running a mixture of Sinister and Valk. HP was ~18k. And being on the condition team I noticed that once I was taking too much damage it was switch or die. And I ended up switching to p/d.

+> This made me realise something I should have done. I figured that instead of splitting the group into specific roles/jobs that the whole raid could have just gone hybrid with everyone taking all roles and we would be golden. See since thief’s defense is very much about avoidance we wouldn’t have to worry about defensive stats. Secondly, having almost all weaponsets available on each thief participating would be enough to diversify the group. Same concept for the raid mechanics. Our weapons are more like tools anyways. More tools the better.

— However if you really plan on being the tank, P/D can be useful in kiting which means you can hybrid it and provide decent damage while not dying so much. It really helped when we were facing the red guardian and it decided to target me. Using Nullification Sigils will make boon stripping the invincibility thing braindead. Also s/d can help in that aspect aswell.

— DPS is simple, however going ranged will make it easier on you since everything is killing you at once all over the place.

— You also will want to consider switching between Channeled Vigor and Signet of Malice depending on how often you’ll be hitting things. Stealth doesn’t really stop the raid wide wipe mechanic or the AoE damage tick and Withdraw might put you in a spot you don’t want to be in. Skelk Venom is a must if you plan on running venomshare since it is really the only a supportive option.

> As much as I hate venomshare, it is effective at healing. In fact in an organized AF raid group, a full group venomshare thieves will survive really well. Not with all venoms mind you but mainly Skelk and BV +1.

+ I was a bit bummed that my adorable and glassy AF ele did better in the raid than my thief though. Maybe one of these days I’ll do a Mostly-Thief raid so I can bring my ele…. or reaper. Reaper is fun.

+ Like any game, its important that you don’t be a lil kitten and kitten out at the slightest hint that you are not going to be carried maintain your team integrity and do your best. Because nobody is going to carry your kitten in life the point is to have fun with friends.

+ Yes I am salty because of those two guys! Also kitten venoms!

Anyways these are just my thoughts and ramblings. I’ll be planning on doing this again at some point. But for now we wait for EU to get their’s done and our video to get posted. Until then, I have included a picture of my adorable ele.

Article written by the leader of [Teef]

Yes, that’s pretty cute.
I still yet have to be in a raid – so I can’t constructively comment otherwise.

thank you for your explanations.
I’m trying to join the EU team but we are not enough for now.

Were you close to start phase 2? Was the boss life decreasing fast?

FYI, here is my condi build, it is as efficient as engi

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAV4YnMJC1NhFNBONB8PhjWiyXGtRKyX0joI0BQXsAA-TByBQBdRpi0UWBgLCQjUCusnAoRgZ6Cem6PGc/BSBooyK-e

Of course venoms sharing is mandatory +33% damage via poison and condi duration makes 10-12k/seconds for 20sec every 32second (ignoring the direct damages, only poison)
Torment, bleeding are very low compared to poison so spam 1 dagger allows +15%
damages if you don’t spend any initiative (see trait).

Sinister stuff allows direct damages to be quite nice even if focusing on the condi role.
The pet trap is also a nice trick, it synchronizes well with the venom CD.

2 thieves + their 2 pets with shared poison makes most of the work for phase 2 & 4.
My mate and I handle phase 2 in 50 sec. Compared to 3 engi doing it in 40s, it’s not that bad.

Basilik MUST have for stun requirement but 2 guys taking are enough.

Venom heal is mandatory, very nice sustain don’t forget we have no healer.

About the red orbs, use as much traps as possible, mainly needle and tripwire (+ needle on heal trait), with 10 thieves, there could be 10 traps and that will slow down the orbs. One thief specialized in “immo” could also take care of the red orbs

What time was your try? I could try to join you next time.

yolo swaggins.2570:

— However if you really plan on being the tank, P/D can be useful in kiting which means you can hybrid it and provide decent damage while not dying so much. It really helped when we were facing the red guardian and it decided to target me. Using Nullification Sigils will make boon stripping the invincibility thing braindead. Also s/d can help in that aspect aswell.

as the tank, I didn’t have much issue staying alive (until the green circle team started dying)

another idea is to continually drag the boss away from the seekers so that only the green circle team needs to worry about them much

Hmm, I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t possible in an all thief group, but I doubt you’ll see this happen with this type of group. Aiming to have dedicated rez duty just sounds like a pretty bad chance of success from the start, even if you didn’t actually get the “ninja nurses” you wanted.

I gotta admit, a lot of the problems sound like experience was the main issue for the group. The damage in the fight isn’t that bad, particularly if your group can handle seekers well. I’m not sure what strat you used to handle these, but I could imagine these were tough to entirely avoid as thieves don’t have reliable ranged knockbacks like you can get from warriors, engis, mesmers, eles, etc.

Even just the occaisional clipping of seekers can add up to make it feel like you’re taking a lot of AoE damage, which is often the difference between new and experienced groups.

yes, experience was most definitely the biggest issue

reikken.4961:

yes, experience was most definitely the biggest issue

I imagine this would be the hardest part of making a successful thief raid: Finding 10 players who are both experienced with raids as well as experienced with playing thief.

reikken.4961:

yes, experience was most definitely the biggest issue

There might have to be changes in tactics since thief doesn’t play like the others.
Also buffs to ranged weapons would be nice.

EDIT: If there is a double post, the forum is being buggy. Been trying to delete it for the past 5 minutes.