Guild Wars 2

I’ve only run a few matches, but I’ve been using S/D and Shortbow.

Things seem to die VERY quickly… including me. I had to switch from the Assassin’s amulet to the Marauder pretty much instantly :-P

Flanking Strike makes me happy! And Haste has made its way onto my utility bar! :-D

i play condi pistol/dagger shortbow. condition damage seems to be around 1/3 damage prior to patch. hopefully just a bug.

I am loving 1558 ferocity!

I tried a few configuration.
Damage seems to go quiet up as far as i checked it but you still need both crit and deadly arts for that purpose.
As for condi it does not seemed any different for me than before with one exception of apply poison which gives quiet a buff at dmg when you use it.
SA is quiet same as before.
Acro is my disappointment. It so obvious that they balanced it only around s/d set. It is quiet okay if you use it with this set but with any other it is trash compared to what was before. Main reason of this is change of feline grace which favors weapons with evade so as a result we have acro usless for anything besides s/d or maybe s/p

i play still Dagger Pistol,but not with critical stikes and no executioners,double steal seems op you can vs guards more easy

I’m playing d/p with marauder and it seems pretty strong. The damage is just unreal for every class though. It’s just one shot heaven right now. 5k clusterbombs is just lol.

Cele eles are insane right now

In sPvP I’m playing P/D with maximum condition damage and some toughness. Using venoms (spider, skale, basilisk) with venomous aura and making sure to apply them to allies aswell. It’s literally the best thief build I’ve ever used. I usually win about 50% of matches, now im up at 70-80%, at least during the last 13 games.

yeah dmg is high, just ate 13k shatter :|
3-4k assisting shots from engis (passive trait, 10 sec cd, activates on anything)
burning is insane~

marauder seems like a must on thief, too low HP to run anything else atm (for non condi that is)
acro sd feels like lacking~
oddly enough i landed some confusion on mesmer even though i didn’t have throw gunk or trait for that, not sure where it came from, need more testing
too many bugs, hopefully get fixed soon and not in 1 year~

flanking strikes has put our old beloved s/d back into the map. although nothing is stopping other sets from having it too, it kinda is somewhat innate with us since acro. kinda wished the cd was 20ish though but hey i’m not complaining much

however

the cancer weapon set out there is still cancer weapon set and is on the way to becoming super ultra duper cancer weapon set.

Ye olde D/P is much tougher now with more health and Shadow Rejuv (with Marauder Amulet). Double item from Improv can get ridiculous and enables game changing plays.

Also, we rez really quickly and efficiently, which surprised me a little bit.

Liking it overall. Pretty much same old stuff, but D/P got a bit more forgiving and received sustain. Wasn’t getting blown up nearly as much as I expected.

Cynz.9437:

yeah dmg is high, just ate 13k shatter :|
3-4k assisting shots from engis (passive trait, 10 sec cd, activates on anything)
burning is insane~

marauder seems like a must on thief, too low HP to run anything else atm (for non condi that is)
acro sd feels like lacking~
oddly enough i landed some confusion on mesmer even though i didn’t have throw gunk or trait for that, not sure where it came from, need more testing
too many bugs, hopefully get fixed soon and not in 1 year~

Don’t worry, we’ll only have to sift through this sewage of gameplay / bugs for another 6 – 12 months before they make it anything even remotely enjoyable.

#Esports!!!

I actually threw togther a different type of build on two of my thieves. One using d/d and P/p in a trappers Condi set , just to stay away from PD. The PP takes a little more skill to time those interrupts but is deadly. Swicthing to D/D can load on bleeds quickly.

Trappers respite is an absolute blast, while on a 18 second cooldown using witdraw as a heal that dropping into stealth really takes the pressure off and when you sneak attack and reappear they tend to run at you through that trap.

Improv works great here because with withdraw/traps/and basi venom chances are real good one gets recharged and that makes a huge difference. Double steal on a mesmer works great albeit you do not get that resistance boon.

I also went PP power set just because unload was so fun. I acturally hit harder WAY harder in my unload. I switched back and forth between practiced tolerance and the 10 percent trait for PP and the PP hit harder with the latter. That said I played s/d with the alternate set and PT worked way better there.

PP will NOT die . Yeah the bounce missed as is the range but 1v1 it better.

I did try the acro line with a few variants of weapons and justy could not find anything that worked all that well. Vigor really got nerfed so overall dodges went down> I am not discoutning it just yet, just need to tinker.

That all said I am much more fragile then I was as the peopel I fight got their own tweaks. I have only tangled with a few other professions in WvW. I am going to spend some time owrking on all my other professions as well so I can better determine what I will come up against.

Overall I am liking the changes. I am staying away from the meta builds for now as I never was much one for playing those.

babazhook.6805:

I actually threw togther a different type of build on two of my thieves. One using d/d and P/p in a trappers Condi set , just to stay away from PD. The PP takes a little more skill to time those interrupts but is deadly. Swicthing to D/D can load on bleeds quickly.

Trappers respite is an absolute blast, while on a 18 second cooldown using witdraw as a heal that dropping into stealth really takes the pressure off and when you sneak attack and reappear they tend to run at you through that trap.

Improv works great here because with withdraw/traps/and basi venom chances are real good one gets recharged and that makes a huge difference. Double steal on a mesmer works great albeit you do not get that resistance boon.

I also went PP power set just because unload was so fun. I acturally hit harder WAY harder in my unload. I switched back and forth between practiced tolerance and the 10 percent trait for PP and the PP hit harder with the latter. That said I played s/d with the alternate set and PT worked way better there.

PP will NOT die . Yeah the bounce missed as is the range but 1v1 it better.

I did try the acro line with a few variants of weapons and justy could not find anything that worked all that well. Vigor really got nerfed so overall dodges went down> I am not discoutning it just yet, just need to tinker.

That all said I am much more fragile then I was as the peopel I fight got their own tweaks. I have only tangled with a few other professions in WvW. I am going to spend some time owrking on all my other professions as well so I can better determine what I will come up against.

Overall I am liking the changes. I am staying away from the meta builds for now as I never was much one for playing those.

Big fan of P/P, can you share your build?

D/p is much more effective than any sword variant, much quicker. Also laying out 3 hits and then being able to get +200 power being revealed makes my gamble more worthy. D/p skill 3 is better than sword skill 2, if you choose roll of initiative you can easily make up in a 1v1

D/p does seem to have some huge burst. With a da/SA/trickery build using stealth on steal and haste flanking strikes, you can get a feel for the burst by hitting a golem using steal→aa→heart seeker.

D/P S/D S/P D/D maybe even SB all seem to have maybe a 20% base dmg inc, they just feel overall burstier. Pistol mainhand not so much, looks like the same power burst. Also the 5 bleed stacks from pistol seems to not tick as hard as condi spec. Right when I was thinking condi was gonna be the new meta because of the confusion changes and burning dmg buff, seems I was wrong, atleast for condi theif.

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.

RFI:30 second CD, 3 Initiative gained. It really can’t compete with Shadow step at a traited 48 second CD while only removing 1 damaging condition.

Haste: Add swiftness for 5 seconds and put it on a 40 second CD and I’ll bite. While not emptying your endurance anymore, it seems like it still shortens evade frames (and possibly heartseekers, but more testing is needed).

Scorpion Wire: the skill I want to love, but it always lets me down. Have it shadowstep your opponent to you instead. That’s in the theme of a tricky skill. Shadowstep an engi away from their turrets or a pewpew ranger into the melee brawl? Such trick. Much lols. No more pull stun though to balance out the fact that it would actually function as intended.

Caltrops: perfectly fine.

Withdraw: perfectly fine.

Quick Pockets: while not actually a trick, I feel it could be made into a strong contender for the other 2 GM traits if it would only give 1 initiative on swap, but reduce swap cooldown to 5 seconds.

Other thoughts: Acro is mediocre for D/X builds. For now, CS just seems like the better choice. Combat is faster overall now cause moar deeps from everyone. It’s closer to how the game shipped. Overall, I’m happy. A few tweaks here and there to numbers and everything should be good.

terrible at wvw.. only thing we can kill now is afk people and other thieves lol

People keep going on and on about D/P

Lemme just say D/D makes them rage more. I’m 100-0 just about anyone and if I can’t then they only an AA or two away.

+1’n as a thief is even more deadly. Our sustain took a crap though

T raw.4658:

People keep going on and on about D/P

Lemme just say D/D makes them rage more. I’m 100-0 just about anyone and if I can’t then they only an AA or two away.

+1’n as a thief is even more deadly. Our sustain took a crap though

T, is this in WvWvW or sPvP? I love D/D but D/P just offered too much sustain and utility. I’d love to know that D/D has something more than viable now.

I assume you did a signet burst build, but maybe you went bleed condi. Care to share? Thanks!

Maugetarr.6823:

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.

Even if it reduced cooldowns by 50% and removed multiple condis, bountiful theft would still be better since it, with sleight of hand, allows us to instantly kick stomps/rez/etc. even through stab.

I’d like the trick trait to be worthwhile, but it doesn’t stand a chance in it’s current position.

we got shafted. people go on about how OP shadow arts is, but compared practically every other profession this is simply the opposite, it’s underwhelming.

Bananaling.9673:

terrible at wvw.. only thing we can kill now is afk people and other thieves lol

You’ve now got 10-12K backstabs, near perma fury, boon stripping on demand and critical damage out the wazoo, yet the most you can kill is thieves ???

I see a L2P issue here…

One of the main issues is of course sustain. Thieves have a very limited health pool and there no way of addressing it through traits.

honestly im loving the 10k + backstabs.. went roaming with a few guildmates in EBG yesterday (a ranger, necro and me) against a necro, guard and thief) it was awesome!

Necros + thief is such a nice combo now that we can share venoms and play off each other with boon sharing/stripping.. my necro rips boons and spams condis while i go in doing +10% to any enemy with a condi.. you can destroy tank builds in seconds!! The downside of this is you are squishy, squishy squish.. squishy, that counter thief could get me down in about 5 seconds if you didnt pay attention to him.

I like the change it reminds me of the old beta days where power builds were a double edged sword.

I went into EOTM with a thief last night with some heavy zerg fighting and found it to be utterly amazing with the shortbow (only exotic armor/weapons, mostly zerker items). Invigorating Precision + signet of malice kept me alive and zerker build just ripped them. Went with Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts, Trickery. Also, I would just sit on champs and spam cluster bomb for instant 25 might stack and hit them with about 10,000 damage with each bomb, as you can imagine my health stayed at almost 100% the whole time as the setup gave me instant healing during the fight. And this was with my son’s account (helping him build up some karma).

I can only imagine what I can do with my own 100% ascended, Scholar Rune berserker thief (armor ready in about a week). I can see changes coming because it was just too easy. I will also have to see what it is like to fight on the regular WvW maps.

I’m actually disappointed in Thief in this patch:

• no Build Diversity (you’re stuck with d/p in competitive PvP)
• more counters vs thief (even mesmers can now beat thief np) while thief doesnt get more to counter
• still same +1 and decap role
• Thieves didnt got what they were promised (higher heal for higher cd, we only got higher CD HAH, what a joke)

killtl.9703:

I went into EOTM with a thief last night with some heavy zerg fighting and found it to be utterly amazing with the shortbow (only exotic armor/weapons, mostly zerker items). Invigorating Precision + signet of malice kept me alive and zerker build just ripped them. Went with Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts, Trickery. Also, I would just sit on champs and spam cluster bomb for instant 25 might stack and hit them with about 10,000 damage with each bomb, as you can imagine my health stayed at almost 100% the whole time as the setup gave me instant healing during the fight. And this was with my son’s account (helping him build up some karma).

I can only imagine what I can do with my own 100% ascended, Scholar Rune berserker thief (armor ready in about a week). I can see changes coming because it was just too easy. I will also have to see what it is like to fight on the regular WvW maps.

You can kill people in 2 shots, but they can kill you in 2 shots too… Thats why I like the current version of pvp. High risk, high reward.

Mattigan.6395:

T raw.4658:

People keep going on and on about D/P

Lemme just say D/D makes them rage more. I’m 100-0 just about anyone and if I can’t then they only an AA or two away.

+1’n as a thief is even more deadly. Our sustain took a crap though

T, is this in WvWvW or sPvP? I love D/D but D/P just offered too much sustain and utility. I’d love to know that D/D has something more than viable now.

I assume you did a signet burst build, but maybe you went bleed condi. Care to share? Thanks!

PvP using signet build

Been practicing in dueling areas. I feel like thief is a bit weak atm. But then again I’ve been playing against a lot of mesmers so maybe it’s just that they’re strong right now (Invulns + stealth + burst damage makes it to where I haven’t won a single duel against a good memser yet).

Don’t really like the traits offered at the moment. Feel like I have to choose the lesser evil of Crit + Deadly Arts for more damage than I need or Crit/Deadly Arts + Acro/Shadow Arts for an adequate amount of damage but poor condi removal/defensive stats. Haven’t tried dropping trickery yet so that might prove fruitful. Also haven’t done condi builds yet, but I like how those are looking more viable. Diversity and whatnot.

In the setting I was playing last night, it was more like I mow them down with low risk, again the healing I received from Invigorating Precision + signet of malice was amazing. I admit was downed twice, and popped back up each time, but I was being very aggressive and jumping in the middle of the other zergs at those times in berserker gear. I wouldn’t be that aggressive in the real WvW but it was a lot of fun in EOTM.

Dahkeus.8243:

Maugetarr.6823:

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.

Even if it reduced cooldowns by 50% and removed multiple condis, bountiful theft would still be better since it, with sleight of hand, allows us to instantly kick stomps/rez/etc. even through stab.

I’d like the trick trait to be worthwhile, but it doesn’t stand a chance in it’s current position.

I agree that it’s poorly placed. I can’t really think of a place it might get more use (acro in the guarded initiation spot?) because the trickery line has some other great things. Maybe if there were things to buff trick traits too instead of everything on steal. How about changing flanking strikes to the next attack stealing a boon after trick use. If Scorpion Wire were changed as per my suggestion, it would stop stability stomps also.

Dunno. Like I said, I want it to be a thing, but the tricks need adjusting and the traits need adjusting since they’re going up against some powerful synergy with steal. They’re aware some stuff needs adjusting, so maybe Karl will stop by again to see how we’re liking (or disliking) the changes.

They need to put the fall damage trait back into Acro adept where it belongs, and give Acro back its energy.

I’m Loving it

Ohoni.6057:

They need to put the fall damage trait back into Acro adept where it belongs, and give Acro back its energy.

That would not give acro back its energy. Acro feels lackluster in most builds now due to the nerf to vigor and the functionality change of feline grace. In fact, if they just reverted feline grace and left everything else alone, it would be 1 dodge every 4 seconds which seems about right for the lack of other defensive boons. In fact, without heavily traiting for it, our vigor uptime isn’t great. Meanwhile ’engis can pick up a +50% endurance trait which is permanent, baseline vigor which requires no skillful use.

Unless you are using S/X, I don’t see the reason to trait into acro. Might as well trait into shadow arts and pick it up there.