Guild Wars 2

With the 30-40% nerf to backstabs and most crit builds, where does the thief excel post patch?

I’ve always been a S/D thief ( even after inf. return became useless cause I’m stubborn.) However, since patch I’ve tried almost every build out there (my own ideas as well as what I’ve seen from other players). I’ve been messing around in WvW as a cheesy power/condi p/d d/d sb roamer, its fun for 5 seconds but lacks the fulfillment I used to get from backstabbing someone and then switching to S/D and watch them panic while dazed. The latter no longer does enough damage to be viable and I find myself getting hit like a truck from any other profession more so than in the past.

In sPvP I’ve been dueling 1v1 against a lot of different professions (good players mind you), using every build out there and I don’t think I won a single fight since patch. Sorry, not true, I won one fight against a mesmer who then one-shotted me afterwards with his downed state phantasm. (12k hit wth?) I’m not gonna pretend to be a great player, so I’m sure there is a few post patch L2P issues here, but I’m by no means a bad player either and I think I’ve always been pretty skilled with thief.

In group fights I’m fine, I can pester, annoy, distract, and pick off some weaker members of the opposition, but I can’t tell how useful I actually am cause I have my own team for support. So to go back to 1v1 scenarios, what are you guys doing to succeed? sPvP and WvW respectively.

Thanks in advance o the advice, I always felt highly about the thief regardless of what anyone else says, but lately I feel horribly underwhelmed by anything I’m doing out there.

We’re still very good at focusing down squishy/low health players. We’re also the best at running away from engineers & necros because there is no way we can win against an equally skilled one right now….

Edit: I still win most of my 1v1’s in spvp running trickery d/p + sb just like before patch. The only thing I changed is grabbing the air sigil rather than the sigil of force (more dps over time). Stay in shortbow and spam clusterbombs vs mesmers, steal the tree from rangers and and clusterbomb in the radius to damage him and heal yourself, use the warrior steal inside of black powder against warriors, interrupt dps guardian’s whirls or dodge away, keep using shadow shot against ele’s to keep up.

There’s tons of tips out there I can’t list them all. If you want to stay s/d give 10/30/0/0/30 a try with ogre runes. Lyssa got overnerfed so you shouldn’t use it anymore. This build has quite a bit more dps and utility compared to the old 10/30/0/30/0 build but it’s a lot squishier so you have to react fast.

Try watching this video:
http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/b/521739728

Caed uses d/p and s/d in there so you can get an idea of what I was talking about.

Hope this helps!

I mean…we can steal. As it stands it seems a lot of power based builds got the short end of the stick on this one. Conditions are becoming more prominent which confuses me since it’s like Anet wants to focus on passive fighting and active dodging and defending which the two don’t really meld together. I’ve been using some S/D builds in sPvP that do alright but it certainly feels like I’m hitting lesser now and getting hit harder, also having a sort of identity crisis at the moment. On the character selection screen there is a funny little paragraph when you choose your profession and you select thief, it says they are deadly in one on one combat. I’ve come to the conclusion that this was because we spike, which they took that away from us. “Condition builds do well in 1v1, P/D thief melts with condi builds.” True, but I’d rather run around in circles spamming bombs and grenades at my feet like an engineer or use my awesome necromancer.

S/D and D/P is still a solid choice, I guess. I no longer see D/D on par with these two though. Well in general I no longer see glass cannon builds to be viable anywhere. The risk is just too great now as opposed to the reward with the crit damage nerf.

Tachii.3506:

S/D and D/P is still a solid choice, I guess. I no longer see D/D on par with these two though. Well in general I no longer see glass cannon builds to be viable anywhere. The risk is just too great now as opposed to the reward with the crit damage nerf.

I’ve played s/p post patch and it still wrecks but I hate it so much I always switch out of it. It’s just too boring even though it’s very effective.

Is the pistol whip balance to 6 init in sPvP noticeable?

Tachii.3506:

Is the pistol whip balance to 6 init in sPvP noticeable?

Not really, just throw in a few more autoattacks than you did before to keep the regen matching your expenditure.

Tachii.3506:

Is the pistol whip balance to 6 init in sPvP noticeable?

In my first after patch pvp match I got killed couple of times and then proceeded to read patch notes). But yes, you just need to change timing a bit and it/s still ok.

Hello

You may try this if you want : condis are not op

Lacks some movement compared to the other thief’s specs for spvp though.