Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’m playing a thief (well i’m rerolling one -my first one was a charr, and i was not fond of his appearance) as a condition damage one, and i was wondering something : are caltrops mandatory for a cond damage thief ?
Sure, I know caltrops are a good utility skill (and i’m not talking about the one you leave behing while dodging) , but as i play a P/D thief, I think there might be something more useful.

Scorpion wire, for instance, feels like a pretty powerful ability for someone needing to stealth (#1 skill for pistol).
Do some of you skip the caltrops entirely to use something else ? Or are they really mandatory ?

not realy mandatory, but incredibly useful, they work wonders for kiting in PvE, are great against sieges in WvW, and you can toss them down to defend points in sPvP, their damage combined with cripple on a 30 sec CD is just great. what utilities are you using? I am guessing shadow refuge, and then if you use caltrops the third is still open for a few choices, the CD reduction on blinding powder gives you a 40 sec CD stealth, scorpion wire is a great pull with the buff it got, and signet of shadows is great for the movement bonus, but with your build’s swiftness on dodge roll, not as useful as it is for other builds.

bottom line though, it is just a great skill, which is why it is so widely used by cond thieves, by no means necessary though. many pistol/dagger ones don’t use it at all, since they only need to be in melee range to re-stealth

SPvP perspective:
In hotjoin, they’re great. TPvP, not as much.

In a conditions build, they’re rather amazing cap denial against non bunker builds. If you want to be a terror in hotjoins, they’re great. In a hectic melee, its easy to miss caltrops for a few seconds and eat 6 stacks of bleed, but anyone who’s been playing more than a few weeks will exit the area quickly.

In TPvP, Conditions thieves are weaker overall (since the popular ele and guard bunkers can drop your conditions rapidly and last forever regardless). Dropping caltrops on a cap might help, but a good team will just keep their bunkers on, cleansing, and knocking your team off the point.

Scorpion wire is a good substitute in a smaller skirmish (assuming they fixed the issue with scorpion wire failing to pull your target to you over completely open ground. If they didn’t, its worthless due to randomly not functioning properly.)

If you’re using Signet of malice as your heal, Caltrops are nigh necessary, its one of your biggest healing sources.

evilapprentice.6379:

If you’re using Signet of malice as your heal, Caltrops are nigh necessary, its one of your biggest healing sources.

completely forgot about the malice heal, thanks

Thanks guys.

Right now, i’m using blinding powder (the reduced cooldown since the patch is awesome) and shadowstep (something i was never able to get rid of). And signet of malice is indeed my healing skill.
I think there’s a great synergy between this signet and the #1 pistol attack while stealthed. I’m planning to invest on trickery, acrobatics and shadow arts (Infusion of shadow is great when you have to make heavy use of CnD).

yeah, shadow step gets addictive, only reason I can keep from putting it on my bar is my greater addiction to signet of shadows for my d/d cond thief. on a side note, ever try dagger storming into a zerg with signet of malice? funny as kitten when you do it to people trying to break a gate in WvW.

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

yeah, shadow step gets addictive, only reason I can keep from putting it on my bar is my greater addiction to signet of shadows for my d/d cond thief. on a side note, ever try dagger storming into a zerg with signet of malice? funny as kitten when you do it to people trying to break a gate in WvW.

Wow I can’t believe I never thought of dagger storming with signet of malice. Thanks!!!

Considering there’s a need to stay at melee range as P/D, smoke screen might be a good replacement skill. Low cooldown, considered a deception skill (considering i’m gonna invest in the shadow art tree, the cooldown could be shortened)…It might offer the one sec protection you need when you’re out of endurance.

Signet of malice is really good. On wvw its outstanding but when you encounter monster pvp players you will change this skill to hide in shadows. Must have. hide in shadows/caltrpos/ shadowstep. Two other skills are your choice. I prefer infiltrator’s signet for another stun break. Its really usefull vs 2-3 good players and some initiative gain cause of new patch you can c&d more and more.

for a condition thief, i dont know why you wouldnt take caltrops. you can easily get 4 to 5 stacks of bleed on someone with it, and if you are fighting multiple it is amazing. this combined with malice is unbelievable. you get so much healing from it, its crazy.

Its not mandatory. I use it in my 0/0/30/20/20 build, but I have seen players like wild bill use a condition spec without it. Though in all fairness wild bill plays a venom condition spec.

I don’t use it. I’m playing P/D but with my +50% bleed increase (25% from traits, 15% from rune, 10% from sigil) I get 6 second bleeds on pistol which allows me to take Shadow Refuge instead of Caltrops and still be very effective stacking bleeds. Shadow Refuge is too valuable for me on all 3 enviroments, it saves your life (and other’s lives) too many times, and more once you get experience with its uses and when to put your body so when they bombard it you still avoid damage. My other utilities are venoms. As snare I prefer Devourer Venom over Caltrops because I can shoot it, and every now and then, I can get some crippling from Dancing Dagger as I have good initiative management. Caltrops doesn’t work against fleeing foes, and they’re delicious preys.

Caltrops is a good skill, but once you start facing opponents that know where to put their feet, it starts to decrease its efficency.

Very useful, but not a necesity and you can go condition build without it.

Caltrops are not necessary for a Cond build. Nice to have, but not necessary. Particularly if you are going P/D, you can live without them a bit more than a D/D guy since you aren’t spending a ton of time in melee range anyways.

I suggest you try out all the utilities, to see which ones you find useful. I play P/D, and Caltrops goes in and out of my choices. SoS is the one I never leave behind. Then, I’ve gotten used to having Shadow Refuge that it generally fills that second slot. So the third ends up with more situational options to me: Caltrops, Scorpion Wire, Smokescreen, Blinding Powder, or Shadowstep……. with Shadowstep being the normal favored. I loves me some fast getaways and trickeration.

With the current game design I’d personally never go without Caltrops because it covers like 80% of a small node and therefore offers great ground control (probably the best gc skill in the game). It’s also a little semi-safe zone for you. Tank melee dmg while standing in your own Caltrops. It can also combined with Scorpion Wire of Thieves Guild. Short Bow offers a 2s immobilize which can be combined with Caltrops.

Sure against good players the skill is not as effective but it helps alot to keep him under control. It really shines in larger scaler fights like 3v3.

Lokheit.7943:

Caltrops is a good skill, but once you start facing opponents that know where to put their feet, it starts to decrease its efficency.

It starts to decrease in efficiency when your opponent is better than you, just like most skills. Conversely, it “increases in efficiency” if you’re way better than your opponent. Can’t really use differing skill levels to evaluate how good a skill is.

Is there a difference between the caltrops utility skill and the traited ability in the Trickery line?

stinkypants.8419:

Is there a difference between the caltrops utility skill and the traited ability in the Trickery line?

the traited ones on dodge are smaller, stack less bleeds, and don’t last as long. on the other hand you can roll 3 times in a row, and any extra cripple and bleed is useful.

Tulisin.6945:

Lokheit.7943:

Caltrops is a good skill, but once you start facing opponents that know where to put their feet, it starts to decrease its efficency.

It starts to decrease in efficiency when your opponent is better than you, just like most skills. Conversely, it “increases in efficiency” if you’re way better than your opponent. Can’t really use differing skill levels to evaluate how good a skill is.

Strawman Alert!

If you are using SoM in wvwvw, I’ve got news for you. Good Luck
Facing any non AFK opponent, with even the least amount of skill possible, will render any healing from SoM meaningless. Maybe some here have just made use of SoM facing extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY bad players in wvwvw, but when EVERY class has multiple abilities that hit between 3-15k, even when not full glass cannon will never beat the Target break (stealth), and blind if traited of HiS. That is not even counting the heal and regen or healing in stealth if traited. The only trait that directly benefits SoM is in the CS line for recharge, but no matter what when you activate SoM you lose that passive. SoM would have a case in wvwvw if there was a low tier trait that made SoM’s passive remain even while on cooldown, but there isn’t.

I don’t care if you have Assassin’s Reward, Signet use trait, and caltrops. It will still not beat HiS. Even SoM + Dagger storm doesn’t work against even the low end skill opponents, and to get the major healing effect youd have to use it against a group, which all it takes is some AOE/Boon Corrupt/Poison/Immob/Melee damage to render you dead high-speed and you are basing an entire healing ability around an elite ability with a 90 second cd.

Caltrops in this instance has little to do with your healing skill and more to do with the fact that even if your opponent doesn’t stand in the Caltrops they’ve still affected the battlespace by canalizing your opponent, assuming you’ve actually used some thought when placing them.

I run a p/d thief and I prefer to take spiders venom over caltrops. I prefer the healing debuff over the cripple. And for my build the poison ticks harder than my bleeds anyways. The only time I switch to caltrops is if im trying to cap something since most people tend to ignore caltrops when fighting on the node

Loading.4503:

And for my build the poison ticks harder than my bleeds anyways.

This is true of every build regardless of stats, poison has higher base damage and scales better (1 damage for every 10 condition damage stats, bleed gives 1 damage for every 20). The advantage to bleed is that you can apply multiple stacks, something that Caltrops is exceptional at doing.

Nothing against using Spider Venom though, it is probably the most useful venom thieves get, and an excellent option for P/D.

I run a P/D condition build and I find that caltrops is a good situational skill in PvP, and a must-have when I’m in PvE.

In PvP caltrops is really effective as a denial tool, but it isn’t as solid a denial tool as just plain killing people, or a lot of the other denial tools available to other classes.

In a WvW zerg fight? Yeah. Caltrops is hilarious. Most stairways and fort features are the perfect size to be completely covered in caltrops. For extra laughs, try long-stealthing with shadow refuge, then walking in to the middle of the enemy zerg, dropping caltrops, and running away. Its like that science experiment with soap, water, and pepper, only some of the pepper bleeds to death.

In a small 1v1 to 5v5? No. Players are generally smart enough to avoid or dodge out of it before it can have a meaningful enough effect for its cooldown. If I’m looking to get in to a smaller fight I’ll usually switch it out for blinding powder, scorpion wire, or infiltrator’s signet depending on my group, surrounding terrain, and if I’m feeling saucy.

PvE is a whole other story though. Mobs are by and large stupid enough to just walk through then, accruing bleed stacks and proccing signet of malice. I’ve singlehandedly capped bleeds on bosses with a single caltrops drop, and I bleed for 130+ damage per tick. That’s a 3k+ dps aoe that lasts for a very long time and allows you to do other things while it deals damage and heals you. It’s just plain stupidly good in PvE, and even better than casting daggerstorm in most situations. When combined with daggerstorm, the ability it gives you to severely maim or just plain outright kill massive groups of monsters is just stupidly fun.

P/D 30/0/30/0/10, 3 krait runes and 3 afflicted runes. Running mug, devour venom, and basilisk with caltrops works rather well. Lead with basilisk applied then start the caltrop animation into steal will immobilize them because of mug doing damage to apply the venom. Follow up with cloak and dagger with devour venom into your sneak attack. Thats a good 15-17 stacks of bleed and poison.

Whats great about it is if your fast enough and have the right timing then you dont even need the devour venom, just time your attacks to try and get the full 3 second stone from basilisk. That will leave you with 7 second immobilize from devour. But of course this is theory crafting so you will probably only have them stopped for maybe 4 seconds.

Thanks for your inputs, guys.

What bother me with caltrops is that they’re good. TOO good. It’s kinda paradoxical, but i like to scratch my head and think about some new ways to do things, even when an ability provides me everything i need.

For the record, i gave shadowstep up (it was a heartbreaking decision) and decided to come back to hide in shadow as my heal and main cond remover, while grabbing shadow refuge and blinding powder. I’ve just realized that Shadow Refuge allow for some Dark combo, which is pretty good when used with the #1 attack.

I still roll with Caltrops in sPvP and tPvP. I deny caps and cap, caltrops are an amazing way of forcing people to move out of the circle or slowly but surely die.

In wvw, I would only throw on caltrops for defending towers (works awesome if you refuge and run out and drop trops on the rams and spam some deathblossoms before running back in, i run p/d and d/d together). I also use them when soloing the center quaggan island and supply camps. Other then that I would rather run refuge/bp/shadow step in most wvw situations.

In hotjoin spvp, I consider caltrops mandatory. And I would put them in my refuge slot (trops, bp, shadowstep).

In pve, again I would run caltrops in replace of refuge.

IMO best utilities for D/D condition thief are Bliding Powder, Caltrops and Shadow Refuge. Shadowstep is really strong but you can do perfectly fine without it as a condition thief.

i use them in WvW and everywhere esle

If you caltrops someone and go stealth taking the 50% speed in stealth bonus trait you are effectively 100% faster than anyone

massive radius, 10sec cripple if you touch it with your toe, enough to blow a utility on removing the cripple and by the time it runs out its halfway cooled down

I love caltrops

Great for choke points and getting melee characters to move away from you.

They are only a defensive tool however and can create a scenario where you create your own terms of engagment (by standing in your own caltrops testing to see if anyone is stupid enough to come at you)

You can use them offensivley or to dictate where people dont stand on the battlefield, but you gotta be smart at placing them. Just spamming them when they are up is not going to change anything

be smart with them and they are amazing

Seriously, I can’t kill anyone with a condition damage build in WvW.

My enemies keep removing conditions so easily I run out of initiative before their HP reach 75%.

brunohstein.9038:

Seriously, I can’t kill anyone with a condition damage build in WvW.

My enemies keep removing conditions so easily I run out of initiative before their HP reach 75%.

Look into condition durations. Bleeds with my build are 7.5 seconds which seems to be a hard cap. Get super pizzas and master tuning crystals. Use 2 krait, 2 centaur, 2 afflicted runes(you don’t need these runes if you have 20 points in deadly arts as either or takes you to that 7.5s hardcap). I run 0,0,30,20,20 though which allows me to stealth non stop and has all the great survivability traits, plus dodge caltrops and lots of might stacking from both stealthing non stop and dodging non stop.

The build felt quite lackluster till I started using those nourishment’s. Now I can stack 15 bleeds quickly and keep a solid 10-15 consistently. So no matter how many times they remove the conditions I can just pop out 10-15 more bleeds in no time.

Death Blossom bleeds’ default duration is 10s. You can even steal skills that apply a 1min bleed stack. Anyway since bleeds tick every full second there is no point in getting 7.5. I’m not sure if the game rounds up though – needs testing I guess.

Malicious.6742:

Death Blossom bleeds’ default duration is 10s. You can even steal skills that apply a 1min bleed stack. Anyway since bleeds tick every full second there is no point in getting 7.5. I’m not sure if the game rounds up though – needs testing I guess.

Well I’m talking about pistol auto/sneak attack, it seems to cap at 7.5s no matter how much I stack duration(i think my deathblossom bleeds are at like 14s don’t remember offhand). You won’t reach 7s without hitting 7.5 with any combo of duration boosts that I’ve found anyways. Btw the duration provided by the runes won’t show in tooltip, but I tested by looking at the bleeds on npc’s I was hitting.

Also, when you just use the food/crystal the tooltip will say 5.5 so I don’t know if it matters or not, but the game certainly relays it.