Guild Wars 2

A small overlook; What build? What did you play before the patch? Did you reroll something else? Is GW2 still installed? Waiting for better days perhaps? Are thieves ok and those who QQ are bad? Should thieves be nerfed?

sPvP:
25/30/0/0/15 – D/D + SB
10/30/0/0/30 – D/P + SB
10/30/0/0/30 – S/D + SB
WvW:
10/30/30/0/0 – D/D + SB
5/0/30/20/15 – P/D x2
PvE:
…

still testing new builds since they moved my aR. and s.step shadowsteps me into a zerg and imobilizes me.

15+ hours later. getting a bit closer.

Ima non stealthy thief though.

What build?
sPvP: 5/0/30/20/15 (close to it…):
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmCN3aS3E95EB3jk60mqp4m2sTBWlPA-TsAgyCuIgRNjbGDMSfs+MCY9xcBA
PvE/WvW: um random kitten put togather since it doesn’t really matter… as in what exactly are we good for?

What did you play before the patch?
Same thing, the my build for sPvP didn’t really get touched… PvE/WvW um, we were never good to being with?

Did you reroll something else?
Yup, Guardian (lvl 47) and Warrior (lvl 38). Leveling is boring… but at least easy with those two.

Is GW2 still installed?
Given I have 3TB drive used for storage/crap, it probably always will be. I believe the only post i said i would quit if X happen was someone suggested priority queues for WvW that can be bought off of the gemstore. If that happens I WILL quit, you can hold me to it (but i will still troll the forums <3).

Waiting for better days perhaps?
Not really. I’m waiting for them to nerf us down into oblivion so they can move on to nerf other classes. In fact I can’t wait for the next nerf, and really wish that kitten on the Nerf Wish List comes true.

Are thieves ok and those who QQ are bad?
No, and no. QQ’ing is part of the Interwebz (welcome! if you’re new to it).

Should thieves be nerfed?
Yes. Why shouldn’t they? I mean, is this really a question? Are there other classes they can nerf every patch?

:D tell me what I scored and what it’s out of.

10/0/0/30/30 was still fine before the patch.

After Sword 2 was absolutely demolished, though, I’m not sure any sword build is good, whether it’s S/D or S/P.

Zero Day.2594:

…

:D tell me what I scored and what it’s out of.

That’s a clear 10/10, you are really good at this!

Imo the S/D nerf hurt most in areas where we were already fragile.
Magic bullet, fearspam, engineer condi spam.

Personally never had any bigger problems with warriors, taking a skullcrack on top of the shadow return point was ofc annoying, what I’m mostly concerned about warriors is them pretty much outhealing 60% of our dmg output in active fights.

25/30/0/0/15 PvE only… (my laptop is too wimpy to run PvP/WvW)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoYVlUmiPXeS6E+5Ey2jdqC5J/DglODcqlA-jACBYfCik3QEBBMRqIaslhFRjVZDT9iIq2erIa1SBEjwI-e

Used to be a S/P build with a few skills switched up but same traits. Runs just as well now as it did pre-patch. In fact, I survive longer than warriors and guardians when fighting in dungeons/fractals/champions/world bosses. And before you say that I stayed out of the fight, I will tell you I was in the middle of it longer than the other members of my party. This isn’t bullkitten, it just smart playing and good use of stealth.

This is what i’m doing right now (you’ll note not everything is exotic, because I haven’t got everything i need yet…). It’s mostly PvE, but i do run with some friends from time to time in WvW. My SPvP is much different, but i haven’t been doing as much lately and I’ll probably change it when I do.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoa6YlUmKO3eS+E9JFymiKcn4PkUaKopWq/QUB-jEDBYLDimoI00IBK5RQMRSZtMsIasqHYqSK1KXA6XQ2bBybYZ1CBEYBA-w

I played basically the same thing before the patch.
I haven’t rerolled, but i play a few other characters. I just like thief the most.
Still playing, GW2, i do think thieves got hit bad, but i also think that people just need time to adjust. Things will always change.
I don’t think thieves need anymore downgrading for a while, no.

S/P
0/20/0/20/30

WvW: 10/30/30/0/0 d/d + sb
PvP: Not playing any more
PvE: everything except condi

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjkO9uBPGPMRA

I started off playing S/D, but the nerfs have basically chipped away at it over the years that I don’t feel like it resembles the thing I started playing back when Heartseeker/Quickness builds were all the rage and I wanted to be ‘different’. Today I feel like it is a mostly ineffectual bag of tricks that just tickles the enemy until they decide to smash me into the pavement.

Dancing Dagger loosing all of its damage took away the burst potential of the set. I no longer had anything to really… DO with my initiative. Before I would need to plan out between my damage and the evasive/cc abilities. With that option gone the set kind of became really defensive, with the most damage oriented thought I had being whether or not I was going to follow through with my entire auto-attack or dodge. I had no way to put pressure an an opponent anymore; just be generally annoying. The mind game potential was gone.

Tactical Strike never really felt worth it. I could blind my enemy, but I’m right up in their face so a simple auto-attack gets rid of that problem right away. I can stun my enemy for… a whole second, but I haven’t really gained anything damage-wise for it, and their back in my face before I can even get an auto-attack off. There was no big pay-off for it. Again, I just felt like I was mildly bothering the enemy without any real gain.

I hate the way Flanking Strike operates now as it feels unnecessarily clunky. I think the thieves who complained about it didn’t realize you could simply run forward after the dodging part of the animation finished and very reliably hit your enemies. Both portions of the attack require my input to execute which I find really tedious. Maybe it’s a result of my hiatus, but I feel like these abilities in particular have a lot of lag between when I hit the button and when they actually execute.

Finally, Infiltrator’s Strike has taken on their lag. Nevermind the meta-game and it’s stun-happy stun-fest, the ability just doesn’t feel good to use anymore. Rather than simply teleport out of the way of something and then charge back in I do this rather obvious animation before leaving. You wouldn’t really think 1/4 seconds could hurt an ability so much but it basically added a bunch of lag onto something I considered a dodge (on a set that is already full of laggy dodges).

Ultimately Sword/Dagger went from a fluid, tactical set to a bag of kind of ineffectual strikes and I stand out in the open with an enemy who is much better at crushing my skull than my auto-attack can hope to be.

I decided to delete my original Sword/Dagger thief as the character concept wasn’t melding anymore as the frustrations with the playstyle took over. While I did this before the nerf, the anticipation of it certainly didn’t improve my disposition.

I remade the character as a sword/sword warrior and… quite honestly it’s everything that I ever wanted my Sword/Dagger thief to be. He’s fast, mobile, does good damage, and has a decent amount of strategy that can be derived from the playstyle. I like not having the constant anticipation that it might get nerfed every update too, or inadvertently nerfed to take care of some other problem unrelated to it.

I’ve been leveling up a Dagger/Pistol thief as I absolutely love the synergy in the set and the damage it is capable of doing. It feels very similar to how Sword/Dagger used to be back when Dancing Dagger was a viable method of dealing damage. I can control the battle with blinds if I need to survive, or burn a foe down quick my backstabbing nonsense. Thematically I am evasive, stealthy, and assassin-y, which are all the feelings that I SHOULD be getting from a class called “thief”.

At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how long before that gets nerfed too, and I really hate that the thief playerbase in particular seems to live in constant fear of that crap because their class is under so much scrutiny from the rest of the playerbase. I feel like any time a Thief wins a combat situation we get some kind of invisible counter added to the “nerf-thief-o-meter”, because the rest of the playerbase doesn’t seem to be content unless they have complete dominance over this one class in particular.

Mostly D/D 0/30/25/15/0 in both sPvP and WvW. Tried dueling guild friends today though with P/D 0/0/25/15/30 and I have a feeling that that one is probably next on the chopping block. I’m not gonna stay P/D as I don’t really care for conditions even though right now they seem far more effective than direct damage. It seems like they finished nerfing D/D (directly) a while ago so Ill probably stick with that. While it takes a lot of effort to play thief I think they would have to nerf backstab directly before I throw in the towel on it. The playstyle suits me.

Have to agree with Warkupo though as every time I land a backstab in WvW for 7-8k against a glassy opponent I have a feeling someone is tallying the number of kills and planning the next nerf.

Current build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlYmiOHfy4E/5Ey2jdqCJKeGOVS1f4qA-jkCBYfAYLRksAiIAkKAI5RZN7RQsMsIas6aYKXER1A-w

I usually bounce around, but currently 0/30/0/20/20 S/P, P/P. My usual mainstay is 0/30/25/15/0 S/D, Sb, CC.

WvW – 10/30/30/0/0 D/D + SB
PvP – 10/30/0/0/30 D/P + SB

I used to play D/D + S/D in WvW, but the nerf to Sword 2 ruined the entire fluidity of the set for me. My favorite playstyle (D/D) hasn’t seen any nerfs in a while, though. In fact, I feel my D/D spec was buffed.

Thief is my main and always will be. It’s the only class I can truly get a grasp of how I want to play. I’ve adapted nerf after nerf, and I will continue to adapt. If there ever comes a time where I am unable to continue playing my Thief, that will probably be the end of the road for me in this game.

s/p + SB venom share with clerics, so good in SoloQ cause it can help you team win a fight :p

Current build:
0/30/30/10/0
I/III/XII
V/VI/XI
I
D/D
Heal – Hide in Shadows
Utilities – Shadowstep, Shadow’s Refuge, Blinding Powder

It’s pretty much Yishis’ build, but when I’m in sPvP, I’ve been playing it with Power of Intertia (I) in acro.

I know that D/P is generally more accepted for sPvP and I did play as D/P for a long time, but with Cloaked in Shadow, I’ve really been having a lot of success with D/D, so I’ve stuck with it. I also like the playstyle of D/D a bit more for 2 reasons:
– Since you don’t have to leap a combo field to stealth, it plays a bit faster
– The was very initiative efficient before the patch and is even more so now, meaning that I don’t have to play as conservatively with it and rely less on auto attacks

I haven’t really been doing dungeons on my thief lately since I tend to do those on my guardian, but if I did, I would go back to using the standard 25/30/0/0/15 D/D build.

Before the patch
Pretty much the same since this was only buffed. Same goes for the 25/30/0/0/15 PvE build.

Reroll?
lol, no. However, as mentioned, I tend to bring my guardian to dungeons more than my thief since he generally brings more utility. Thief is more fun in dungeons though.

Uninstall?
lol, no.

Other questions about state of thief
Most thief builds are fine, but people who ran S/D were hit hard. Fortunately, I was never a huge fan of that build. I do miss S/P having a decent stun, but that wasn’t a nerf from this patch. D/P thieves who relied heavily on the perma-stealth aren’t in good shape, but D/P is still fine overall. However, I think this is a good time for a lot of thieves to give D/D another chance. You really have to get your timing down well and you have to pay attention to blinds/aegis/etc. to utilize the stealth well, but when you do, it works well.

And no, thieves don’t need to be nerfed.

I tried D/D before I eventually settled on D/P. Ultimately I felt like D/D was just an inferior version of the same thing. The whole Black Powder + Heartseeker > Backstab combo is better at defense and getting you into position for what you want to do. I really liked Death Blossom, but it felt out of place with the rest of the set and ultimately didn’t offer better damage/mitigation than BP/H> B.

I’m back to playing S/P again but not really using sword 2 which makes me rather upset with it. I still run 10/30/0/0/30 with it. Perhaps not optimal anymore, but I don’t know.

Warkupo.1025:

I tried D/D before I eventually settled on D/P. Ultimately I felt like D/D was just an inferior version of the same thing. The whole Black Powder + Heartseeker > Backstab combo is better at defense and getting you into position for what you want to do. I really liked Death Blossom, but it felt out of place with the rest of the set and ultimately didn’t offer better damage/mitigation than BP/H> B.

I went through the same thing. I liked D/D initially until I got used to D/P, then really loved the utility of the blind field.

However, lately, I guess I just came full circle back to D/D.

sPvP:
D/D – 0/0/30/20/20
S/P – 10/30/0/0/30

WvW:
D/D – 10/30/30/0/0
S/P – 10/0/0/30/30

PvE:
S/P – 10/0/30/0/30

not playing right now no. they introduced a new bug with the patch that they still haven’t fixed.

Excalibur.9748:

not playing right now no. they introduced a new bug with the patch that they still haven’t fixed.

Which one?

S/P and P/P 30/30/0/10/0

30 DA for 5.5s Immob on 50% or less
30 CS for 20% dmg on 50% or less

Stacking Vuln with crits. I get you down to 50% and you are completely screwed. Anyone who uses a stunbreak to dodge the Immob gets hit with 2-3 more. PW and they’re dead. Hitting about 8-10k per PW.

Dahkeus.8243:

Excalibur.9748:

not playing right now no. they introduced a new bug with the patch that they still haven’t fixed.

Which one?

the one where if you dodge at the end of an infiltrator arrow you sort of CC yourself and roll on the spot instead of moving forward.

Excalibur.9748:

Dahkeus.8243:

Excalibur.9748:

not playing right now no. they introduced a new bug with the patch that they still haven’t fixed.

Which one?

the one where if you dodge at the end of an infiltrator arrow you sort of CC yourself and roll on the spot instead of moving forward.

Hmm, never noticed that…but it’s probably because I almost never dodge immediately after inf arrow.

DakSevkla.3278:

S/P and P/P 30/30/0/10/0

30 DA for 5.5s Immob on 50% or less
30 CS for 20% dmg on 50% or less

Stacking Vuln with crits. I get you down to 50% and you are completely screwed. Anyone who uses a stunbreak to dodge the Immob gets hit with 2-3 more. PW and they’re dead. Hitting about 8-10k per PW.

Big numbers are great and all, but sacrificing that much survivability to hit hard isn’t good for anyone, especially when you’re rooted by Pistol Whip and can be 1-shotted at the end of your evasion. Get some vitality man!

DakSevkla.3278:

S/P and P/P 30/30/0/10/0

30 DA for 5.5s Immob on 50% or less
30 CS for 20% dmg on 50% or less

Stacking Vuln with crits. I get you down to 50% and you are completely screwed. Anyone who uses a stunbreak to dodge the Immob gets hit with 2-3 more. PW and they’re dead. Hitting about 8-10k per PW.

+1 to this. S/P and Shortbow here. My WvW spec is similar, although I go 30/30/0/0/10 for Fury on Thrill of the Crime, and occasionally trade Panic Strike for Residual Venom to combine with Basilisk Venom (and Lyssa runes). I also take Quickness on crit in the CS line.

Knight’s Armor, Zerker trinkets, Blood/Accuracy/Precision sigils, and food is either on-crit lifesteal, power/precision, or power/vitality as need dictates.

PvE I just use the same spec, because lolPvE, and I don’t PvP.

Running with the zerg in Wv3 -

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoYVnkEFaapJunwfaig7hTh6T1ecTbGzuCXF-j0CBoLCisCCipQFRjtVoIas6FYqSoKXCRaXwmzDR2bA1jADA-w

Havoc/roaming in Wv3 -

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAoYVlYmiPHdy9E+5EB3Dna0mq9gmtEmdFuKA-j0CBoLCisCCipQFRjtVoIas6FYqSoKXCRaXwmzDR2bA1jADA-w

Viking Jorun.5413:

DakSevkla.3278:

S/P and P/P 30/30/0/10/0

30 DA for 5.5s Immob on 50% or less
30 CS for 20% dmg on 50% or less

Stacking Vuln with crits. I get you down to 50% and you are completely screwed. Anyone who uses a stunbreak to dodge the Immob gets hit with 2-3 more. PW and they’re dead. Hitting about 8-10k per PW.

Big numbers are great and all, but sacrificing that much survivability to hit hard isn’t good for anyone, especially when you’re rooted by Pistol Whip and can be 1-shotted at the end of your evasion. Get some vitality man!

Nah, I played PW for a good while with a zerker amulet and it was fine. In WvW, yea, you probably want at least your armor in full valk, but that’s pretty much with any build.

Blinds and evades replace passive defense from stats when you use them right.

25/30/15/0/0 – S/P + P/P – for both sPvP and WvW
25/30/0/15/0 – S/D + P/P – PvE

You know the feeling when you ask Santa for a real jet plane and all you got was a plastic plane that doesn’t even fly and you have to pretend that it’s the real thing? That’s how I feel playing these builds — just pretend they are viable.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Zero Day.2594:

…

:D tell me what I scored and what it’s out of.

That’s a clear 10/10, you are really good at this!

Imo the S/D nerf hurt most in areas where we were already fragile.
Magic bullet, fearspam, engineer condi spam.

Personally never had any bigger problems with warriors, taking a skullcrack on top of the shadow return point was ofc annoying, what I’m mostly concerned about warriors is them pretty much outhealing 60% of our dmg output in active fights.

Nailed it! (10/10)

Personally never played (but tried) S/D in sPvP, or the D/P perma-stealth in WvW (dislike roaming, and being full glass in a zerg doesn’t help – plus SB cluster bomb spam is the only thing I think “works” in a zerg, if you use it like a shotgun(I can see this being nerfed, making it not possible to detonate right after firing))… But it’s pretty kittening obivious they both got hit hard. Forgot to mention in my post too, the build that I’m running got no MASSIIVVEEE buff, i really can’t notice the difference before and after Dec 10 patch. I, personally feel, conditions are OP (if your kittened opponent doesnt bring a cleanse of some sort), and they work pretty well on warriors especially #3 on P/D (:D torment then kite4dayz)… they’re still a kitten cuz (even though they nerfed the damage) if you get stunned by those hammer warriors, you’re a bit screwed….

Dahkeus.8243:

Viking Jorun.5413:

DakSevkla.3278:

S/P and P/P 30/30/0/10/0

30 DA for 5.5s Immob on 50% or less
30 CS for 20% dmg on 50% or less

Stacking Vuln with crits. I get you down to 50% and you are completely screwed. Anyone who uses a stunbreak to dodge the Immob gets hit with 2-3 more. PW and they’re dead. Hitting about 8-10k per PW.

Big numbers are great and all, but sacrificing that much survivability to hit hard isn’t good for anyone, especially when you’re rooted by Pistol Whip and can be 1-shotted at the end of your evasion. Get some vitality man!

Nah, I played PW for a good while with a zerker amulet and it was fine. In WvW, yea, you probably want at least your armor in full valk, but that’s pretty much with any build.

Blinds and evades replace passive defense from stats when you use them right.

In sPvP it’s worse. The new s/p meta is 10/30/0/0/30 using a soldier’s amulet and knight’s jewel. You just aren’t viable running full zerk in any PvP setting, including WvW (unless you’re a back line staff ele).

Viking Jorun.5413:

The new s/p meta is 10/30/0/0/30 using a soldier’s amulet and knight’s jewel.

I agree, I’ve seen a lot of this build over the weekend.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlYmqN3dS2E/5Eymiean0Zwg4UPjtirA-TsAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsYZxsAA

Just as a different flavor to 10/30/0/0/30.

Fun to play, but wouldn’t try running it outside soloQ or hot join.

Primary reason for choosing 25 into two lines instead of 30 into critical is because extra dmg from 6+ ini and executioner is not always available, whereas the 2 +10% from condi and <100 endurance should always be available (in theory, since you can control both pretty easily).

Also want to try to see if possible to not go 30 into crit for dmg build. That 30 point commitment pretty much kills build diversity.

Why PVT + Knights? S/P has evades on the BnB skill, and you have ready access to Blind in the kit. I don’t get the Toughness overload. I run some Toughness due to Signet of Malice, but it’s a WvW build.

ryokoalways.3450:

Primary reason for choosing 25 into two lines instead of 30 into critical is because extra dmg from 6+ ini and executioner is not always available, whereas the 2 +10% from condi and <100 endurance should always be available (in theory, since you can control both pretty easily).

You’re not DPSing when you are manually evading, so that ought to be a consideration when you’re trying to boost your damage by pushing V. Easy to keep conditions on for free, though, as you say.

None. Just not playing (PvP is the only thing that I do in this game).

I’m not a huge fan of D/P, D/D is like less effective D/P in most situations.

P/D is too stealth heavy for capture point play.

S/D was first weakened by the LS nerf which prevented it from actually countering boon-bunkers, then Sword mainhand was finished off entirely by the IR nerf – S/D can no longer threaten boon bunkers, and S/X no longer allows for skilled players to make up for the S/X’s other shortcomings.

Try a 10/30/0/30/0 S/P + SB build for sPvP. It’s not so bad once you are “used” to the sword nerf(actually means you must be more carefull and can’t do any “tricks” anymore with it).

Seen many S/P thieves recently, some who actually were really skilled and utilized immobilizes really well.

One totally outplayed me on my PU mesmer I created 2 days ago, ofc PU mesmers mostly die once they give up caring about living, but he would surely have killed me if he brought 1 more team mate.

WvW – 10/30/0/0/30 S/P + SB