Guild Wars 2

One of the issues a Thief has and in particular those that do not rely heavily on the SA line is the amount of condition pressure they will face. Prayer to kormir is very useful here. on my HUMAN thief , I have often switched out a utility for prayer to Kormir when facing condition heavy enemies and found this can turn the battle totally in my favor.

This especially true as a roamer.

Honesty I never use any racial skills on my thief, and don’t see any real situation which would make a racial skill advantageous over any other thief utility.

Babazhook mentions prayer to Kormir, however I don’t really see an advantage to using this skill over the usual thief utilites of Signet of agility, Signet of Infiltration, Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep, or Blinding Powder. If you’re looking for condition clear, signet of agility or Hide in Shadows should work well enough unless you’re being mobbed by +2 in which case no amount of condition clear will save you really. Plus the 1s activation time and 40s cd imo makes it less desireable over signet of agility (1 condi removed plus 2 extra dodges insta activation (allows it to cleanse fears!) and 30s cd).

Basically I don’t see any real advantages for racial skills on thief. Thief actually have some excellent utilities that complement the overall class and synergy fairly well together.

Also “investing heavily in SA” being 2 points into SA is kind of a poor definition. If you want to have really no troubles with conditions while not using SA too much just use 6 0 2 0 6 D/P and you should be pretty much set.

Helly.2597:

Honesty I never use any racial skills on my thief, and don’t see any real situation which would make a racial skill advantageous over any other thief utility.

Babazhook mentions prayer to Kormir, however I don’t really see an advantage to using this skill over the usual thief utilites of Signet of agility, Signet of Infiltration, Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep, or Blinding Powder. If you’re looking for condition clear, signet of agility or Hide in Shadows should work well enough unless you’re being mobbed by +2 in which case no amount of condition clear will save you really. Plus the 1s activation time and 40s cd imo makes it less desireable over signet of agility (1 condi removed plus 2 extra dodges insta activation (allows it to cleanse fears!) and 30s cd).

Basically I don’t see any real advantages for racial skills on thief. Thief actually have some excellent utilities that complement the overall class and synergy fairly well together.

Also “investing heavily in SA” being 2 points into SA is kind of a poor definition. If you want to have really no troubles with conditions while not using SA too much just use 6 0 2 0 6 D/P and you should be pretty much set.

2 points in SA will only cleanse one condi on stealth. In many builds this is not enough. Signet of infiltration does not cleanse any conditions. It is a stun breaker. Signet of agility will only clear one condition and this not nearly enough for a condi bomb that you get from a necro OR P/D thief.

There are other sets to play outside d/p . As example Kormir works very well with a p/p build . Withdraw is preffered heal in a p/p set (and I would rather not use heals just to get rid of conditions in any case) and P/P has little use for Blinding powder. Since you fight at range the 1 second activation time is not as big a deal. SR can be easily countered and should one be loaded with conditions and unable to get into SR nothing will save you. SR can be used with Prayer to Kormir. Most builds have one utility slot where the person can slot in a number of different utilities without compromising the build. I have found Kormir works well here and is very often the best option.

As to not being able to deal with a 2v1 with the enemy using conditions. This has not been my own experience. I have won such battles JUST because I had Kormir . Indeed what prompted me to try this was one night running into two Necro’s that kept taking turns loading condis on me. I kept dropping until I loaded up Kormir (along with purity/cleanse on alternate weapon sets) and then they stood no chance. They could not keep conditions on me.

Typically there are better choices and I generally do not have Kormir running but I assure you Kormir does have its uses. Of the racial skills thief it the only one I have yet to use and find effective.

The Sylvari one DOES intrigue me for use in an Immobilize heavy build but I have yet to try it.

babazhook.6805:

2 points in SA will only cleanse one condi on stealth. In many builds this is not enough. Signet of agility will only clear one condition and this not nearly enough for a condi bomb that you get from a necro OR P/D thief.

There are other sets to play outside d/p . As example Kormir works very well with a p/p build . Withdraw is preffered heal in a p/p set (and I would rather not use heals just to get rid of conditions in any case) and P/P has little use for Blinding powder. Since you fight at range the 1 second activation time is not as big a deal. SR can be easily countered and should one be loaded with conditions and unable to get into SR nothing will save you. SR can be used with Prayer to Kormir. Most builds have one utility slot where the person can slot in a number of different utilities without compromising the build. I have found Kormir works well here and is very often the best option.

As to not being able to deal with a 2v1 with the enemy using conditions. This has not been my own experience. I have won such battles JUST because I had Kormir . Indeed what prompted me to try this was one night running into two Necro’s that kept taking turns loading condis on me. I kept dropping until I loaded up Kormir (along with purity/cleanse on alternate weapon sets) and then they stood no chance. They could not keep conditions on me.

Typically there are better choices and I generally do not have Kormir running but I assure you Kormir does have its uses. Of the racial skills thief it the only one I have yet to use and find effective.

The SA trait removes 1 condition every 3s while in stealth with the first being removed immediately after stealthing. This results in pretty much every stealth application removes 2 conditions minimum. In fact, using your p/p example, having 2 points in SA and using blinding powder and p/p 5 you could remove 3 conditions every 40s while gaining access to stealth along with the only activation needed being the p/p 5 instead of the full 1s activation you get from Kormir.

With SR you gain 15s of stealth, which leads to the removal of 6 conditions, which would couple the effect of Kormir x2 on a 60s cd instead of 80s (40s x2). It does this while also allowing you to mitigate damage coming in through stealth.

Not taking heals to get rid of conditions? That is your decision, but HiS is strong due to its condition removal.

Signet of agility allows for fewer conditions to be applied to you overall due to evades. But if you’re getting condition bursted so hard a simple shadowstep will cleanse 3 and break any stun you were under anyways with no activation (which makes it have more utility than Kormir).

As for your anecdotal account of your 1v2 against the 2 necros, it really does appear that they simply weren’t that good of necros. 2 necros have the potential to keep you feared for 4s straight (master of terror being traited or any condition duration otherwise). If you’re feared you can’t use your 1s activation skill anyways effectively making it useless. Also if the necros were intelligent, they would have noticed the 1s activation and started to chain fears whenever you started to activate it.

Well than we will agree to disagree. I play p/p extensively in wvw and know what works and what does not work. Withdraw is by far the superior heal and I have tried every iteration. Immobilize is a greater threat to p/p then is fear. (I find it odd you would point out the long cast time of Kormir as comapred to SOA when Hide in shadows has that same 1 second cast time)

Traits of greater impact can be taken over the SA line. More often then not the only condi clear I have is from shadowstep and it all that needed unless I run into those condition focused builds. I do not have to give up traits I find of greater importance to a p/p build to get that extra cleanse if I take Kormir.

(another alternative of course is to use Lyssa runes which also works well in a p/p build at the cost of power)

Those necro’s were two fear chaining necro’s by the way. Again I was using p/p. this is at range. The fear was not my concern. It was not fears that were affecting me. It not so easy to get fear on a person at range. When they go into death shroud I just pull back until it passes. Marks are rather easy to avoid and take almost as long to cast as does my cleanse. They are not going to be able to counter me in 1/4 of a second with reapers.

The bulk of the other fears only affect people that are at close range.

SOA does not have to be given up either in a P/P build. Indeed I will often drop SR over SOA as my P/P build is heavy on the dodges. SR is of greater use when fighting larger scale battles.(And speaking of fear drop an SR and see how quickly that area MARKED) Thus withdraw/soa/shadowstep/PLUG IN/DS on the utility bar and that plug in will usually be RFI but can be SR or Kormir depending on circumstances. a 15 second gap opener heal is of far greater import especially since I trait for ON heal effects.

The bulk of the other fears only affect people that are at close range.

TymX.8017:

Asura:
-Radiation field: Poison and weakness sound good, but the enemy can just walk out of it Can be good if you are condi and flip camps a lot
-Technobabble: Can save my life, but I already have a daze on my steal In hands of a good thief, it’s deadly, especially if opponents don’t expect this and use their stunbreaks on basi/daze from steal. Tho I found this skill to be best on ele.

Sylvari:
-Grasping vines: 10sec immob on a 45 sec cooldown can be deadly Never tried

Charr:
-Shrapnel: Can be good to a pistol/dagger thief, but as a sword dagger not much use for me I didn’t like any of the charr racials, either the dmg wasn’t good or they didn’t fit my playstyle

Human:
-Only their elite, Reaper of Grenth sound useful Actually the condi removal skill can be quite good. Cooldown on Grenth is just too long

What are your opinion? What is the best thief race for wvw?

I’d go with human or asura.

Charr can give you the charrzooka the skill N°2 got a really nice knockback something that the thief lack combine this with stealth and you got some really nice tool for wvw trolling and backup CC.

The new wvw map is gonna be full of edges (supposedly) so you can think in the future too.
and yeah the n5 skill got a nice aoe too especially if you are a full zerker.

I don’t think any of the race skills is really worth it.
They’re certainly no reason to go with one race over another.
I’ve seen a few people using the Asura and Human racials on several builds, mostly these have been uplevels that didn’t have their Sleight of Hand trait yet etcetera.
Point is, Thieves got plenty of better alternatives to any racial ability if they got access to what they want, be it more cleansing, another daze or whatever you’re looking for.

If anything racial related, I’d look at size. Being small has it’s benefits (especially if you do WvW with guilds).
But yeah… just go with what you enjoy looking at since you’re going to spend a lot of time looking at whatever fine backside you give your character… Best make it worthwhile!

Just got to end it on one final note:
Asura master race!

… You can combine [Shadow Refuge] with [Melandru’s Avatar] to set up [Binding Roots] out of Stealth – if your opponent doesn’t die from boredom before, leaves your range during the astronomical cast or random dodges it.

It’s more of a trolling combination than a useful one (and inferior to Rangers ‘Rektangle’ in almost every way), but just too funny if it works out and totally surprises someone