Guild Wars 2

The key to roaming is being able to escape from a bad situation while at the same time being able to stop someone from running back to their base.

I agree with Furiousbeard’s post.

I never noticed my Thief squishy, while leveling or in PvP. Perhaps it is your gear or your playstyle.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

You just found the famous uncompleted jp of AC, just a dev sandbox left wrongly open at launch, never fixed.
Still wondering how so many months have been passed and still that sandbox area is accessible to players..

It is never a good idea to remove content. Just add a treasure chest at the end with a ghost potion and call it good.

No matter how many times I change my build, I always come back to 0-10-20-30-10. With full Cantrips and all the Aura buffs.

I run with 2-3 people as a roaming WvW and love being the guy rushing into a fight and chasing runners.

These all sound like valid changes that would fix the Elementalist class.

Lightning Whip ftw!

Great post with a lot of valid points. I hope they improve the game, because I currently cannot talk myself into logging back on after 3 weeks away.

I have every square inch of WvW memorized and thousands of badges with nothing to do. But hey, Joe blow over there just spent $80 and bought Commander, so let’s follow him.

Water is really all you need in water. Of course, when waiting on cooldowns, the other ones are decent time fillers.

Just remember to throw up the Ice wall before you do Tidal Wave. This forces the mobs to hold still and allows for the chance to finish off a stack of mobs with 1 Tidal Wave hitting for every hit. Missing Tidal Wave sucks.

In all honesty though, I have found every other class to be superior in water. The only saving grace was the old Whirlpool, before they nerfed it 3×.

D/D and P/D Thiefs are insanely powerful leveling up, and not too shabby at 80. P/D for the 1v1 and D/D for multiple mobs.

Not sure what other class can solo Champions and easily handle multiple Veterans.

If you can afford it, grab some Pizzas for your food.

oZii.2864:

100% duration is just 8 sec bleed 75% duration is 7 sec easy to achieve 7 secs without food.

If you can achieve 75% without food, then wouldn’t 115% with food be better?

swinsk.6410:

Albane.8367:

Cloak and Dagger needs to cost 9 initiative and all stealth buffs need to apply a similar length Revealed debuff after they fade.

lol…

Are you just that bad on your warrior or what?

My warrior is level 14, so I am not defending the class. I only mention Warrior because he was trying to compare their Charge to Cloak and Dagger. Pretty ridiculous comparison.

Cloak and Dagger is over powered and only selfish players who care nothing about balance will argue other wise.

Daecollo.9578:

Albane.8367:

ZLE.8293:

Albane.8367:

Thieves are stupidly overpowered right now because of Cloak and Dagger and culling. It is why 99% of the thief builds you see have an offhand dagger.

You are aware that thief can only use 2 kind of weapons in his offhand,right?Pistol and dagger.Mathematically this makes 50% chance a thief to have dagger in his offhand.if it’s more,so be it.If we look warrior,how many of them have greatsword equiped in some way?I would guess 100%.Is that making it OP too?

Does the warrior have an ability on that greatsword with a 6 second cooldown (time to recoup the initiative cost) that can regen him for 2800 health, cure 2 conditions, make him untargettable by all enemies, increase his movement speed by 50% and lasts 5 seconds?

Warriors do similar damage to thieves, but you can see them coming and you can stop them from going. Warriors are probably the most perfectly balanced class in the game.

Yes, they do its called: “Charge!” its a warhorn skill, it cures almost all conditions, can convert one of them to regeneration (heal.) and gives them swiftness so they can run away or out of a fight so they can’t be targeted by any enemies, AND its a group buff.

It also increases his movement speed by 50% (33%, because its capped, making the trait almost useless.)

First problem, you were trying to say Greatsword is OP because they all use it. Then you mention Warhorn to counter my argument.

Warhorn does not cure conditions, just movement impairing effects, once. Swiftness does not let you run away, so comparing it to stealth is moronic. Charge has a 20 second cooldown, so another flaw in your argument.

Cloak and Dagger needs to cost 9 initiative and all stealth buffs need to apply a similar length Revealed debuff after they fade.

ZLE.8293:

Albane.8367:

Thieves are stupidly overpowered right now because of Cloak and Dagger and culling. It is why 99% of the thief builds you see have an offhand dagger.

You are aware that thief can only use 2 kind of weapons in his offhand,right?Pistol and dagger.Mathematically this makes 50% chance a thief to have dagger in his offhand.if it’s more,so be it.If we look warrior,how many of them have greatsword equiped in some way?I would guess 100%.Is that making it OP too?

Does the warrior have an ability on that greatsword with a 6 second cooldown (time to recoup the initiative cost) that can regen him for 2800 health, cure 2 conditions, make him untargettable by all enemies, increase his movement speed by 50% and lasts 5 seconds?

Warriors do similar damage to thieves, but you can see them coming and you can stop them from going. Warriors are probably the most perfectly balanced class in the game.

OP, you forgot to add Shadow Protector to your build for another 1200 health regen from stealthing.

Thieves are stupidly overpowered right now because of Cloak and Dagger and culling. It is why 99% of the thief builds you see have an offhand dagger. You can use CnD on creeps for an easy stealth while running away as well. Specced properly, Cloak and Dagger gives you 4 seconds of stealth plus 1 second of culling, leaving you visible for 1 second every 6 seconds. During which time you can dodge and drop caltrops.

Even better, you can cloak and dagger a downed player for an easy stomp.

If you actually can’t win the fight or are losing (a good d/d ele will give you a run for your money), you can bail out any time you want and safely escape from all combat.

Daendur.2357:

a glass cannon that doesn’t raise precision at all ?
a naked untraited character has 916 precision …

The 5% bonus to a stat traits only use the stat bonus from your gear. So if you have 1000 naked Precision and then add another 1000 from gear, you would get 50 vitality from it, because the first 1000 does not count.

This was very disappointing on my Thief when I tried to trait for 5% vitality from Precision and only received about 400 health.

Honestly though, you are all insane if you think Eles need any kind of buffs without getting a huge nerf to the standard d/d build that is dominating the game in all aspects.

I would never go Asura, but it has nothing to do with looks or skills. Their voice is irritating, and I couldn’t stand listening to that every time I attune.

OptimistPrime.9283:

Want to combat a thief? Look at what your skills do. Every class has something that can combat a thief. .

Which class gets the “See Stealth” skill?

At level 14, Death Blossom, death blossom, dodge, death blossom, dodge and run away for 3 seconds. Repeat this on 3-4 mobs every 20 seconds until you are level 80. It gets better when you get caltrops on dodge at level 20 with the 10 point trait.

Stack Condition gear.

Increase RTL to a 30 second cooldown. Force Elementalists to be a little wiser in their fight selection.

Fix Mist Form, so that the Cantrips 20% reduction works on it. Not needed, but it is still an irritating bug.

Caltrops on dodge are all I need. Thanks.

Tornado is great when you run into Thieves. Nothing better for destroying a house.

What gear are you wearing?

Can you throw this build into this, with gear?
http://intothemists.com/calc/

How would this build work with 3 thieves in vent marking targets?

Do you feel like you are exploiting the flaw with the reveal debuff not having a chance to get applied?

The issue with the D/D build is not just about mobility, it is when you combine that mobility with the burst damage potential (15k AoE from the standard combo), support potential (including heals), and tanking potential that a D/D has.

1v2 isn’t special or even tough as a D/D ele. Go for a 1v5+, burst down someone while tanking with 22k health, 2800 armor and 10 seconds of Protection and then stomp them in Mist form and RTL away. That is when you see just how broken this spec is (Especially when using Reaper of Grenth).

RTL needs to have a 30 second cooldown. With this one fix, the d/d spec would be balanced. Currently, you RTL into the enemy, unload with your combos, and RTL out fairly safely. Most of the time, i don’t bother using Cantrips other than Earth Armor.

Increase the RTL cooldown to solve most of the issues you guys discuss.

I would go with 2 thieves both being condition build d/d for leveling. You will not have too much trouble with the 25 stack limit on bleeding, since I rarely went higher than 12 on my thief solo, as mobs were dying so fast. With 2 of you, you would kill normal mobs with 2 death blossoms each and then move to the next stack of 4 mobs.

Put 10 points to the last trait line for Caltrops on dodge, as this gives you more damage and a free snare that will make kiting easy.

The biggest issue with Thieves that makes them OP is the same issue with Elementalists.

Too much evasion and mobility when compared to other classes. Both classes get to pick their fights and can easily escape from a bad situation. The solution for Elementalists is to double the cooldown on Ride the Lightning. The solution for Thieves is to take away some of their evasion on attacks and not allow stealth for longer than 5 seconds without breaking for 3 seconds before applying it again. Being able to combine 3 stealths for 18 seconds is too much.

You are not doing a ton of healing, just a lot of regenerating, which is why Toughness is more valuable than Vitality. For this reason, your best option is to run Toughness/Precision/Condition gear.

Combine Krait, Afflicted and Centaur 2 piece Rune for 45% Bleed duration. You will see a huge difference in your damage. Use a Sigil of Agony for another 10% to make your 4 seconds bleed last 7 seconds.

I keep making very small changes to my build and gear. Might on dodge is one of my new favorites with how much I dodge. I pretty much always have 4+ stacks from this, which is 140 condition/power damage. Combined with the Hidden Assassin trait, you will be able to keep up 6+ mights indefinitely.

With this build, everytime I CnD and sit in stealth for 4 seconds between Sneak Attacks, I regen 3000 health. (Assassin’s Reward only heals for 400 for 6 initiative, not worth it, imo)

CUT AND PASTE
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cR333;0RwkZ0J5VOkd0;9;6TT9;423A1582;0KZF48;1dZm9fRk02Vp

BTW, this build will probably be getting nerfed soon, since you are immortal against less than 4 players, if you play smart.

2x Rune of Krait, 2x Rune of Centaur, 2x Rune of Afflicted.

This will give you 45% more duration on Bleeds. My dots tick for about 8% less a tick than when I had 6 Runes of Undead, but they tick for 45% more damage over all.

I might have to try the 2x Sigils of Agony next, if they are not too expensive.

Running Precision/Condition/Toughness gear and I can easily fight 2 players and win. I really wish there was Condition/Toughness/Vitality gear though.

Good one there Moirweyn.

1- Autoloot bags (at least badges)
2- Autoloot bags
3- Autoloot bags

Hmm.. Shadow Protector could be interesting. It would proc a 5 second regen every time you use CnD, since you count as an ally. Combined with Shadow rejuv and Assassin’s reward, you could heal for about 2200 health every time you use CnD.

Add a true purpose to win in WvW and a penalty for losing. Currently, the game is a big zerg fest where 50 people run a big circle capping the same points over and over again.

I was really hoping this game would have something similar to DAoC in terms of rewarding those people who put in the effort in WvW.

1 . I guess the first thing I would do is remove all way points and force people to run for at least 5 minutes when they lose a battle and have to release.

2. If your World wins the week and you have over 50 kills, you get 50 badges. 10 for Second place world, 2 for Third place (you lost, try harder).

3. Allow players to buy Legendary weapons for 1500-2500 badges. ~5x the cost of Exotic weapons.

Cempa.5619:

You make a strong case, both of you, and I like your utilities.

After seeing your build I find myself asking Blinding Powder or Caltrops?

I like Caltrops, but I have found that the extra stealth is has been too important for survival and sometimes finishing someone off. The dodging Caltrops do the job of snaring anyway and you will find yourself moving around a lot.

Vigorous Recovery will only give Vigor when you use your Hide in Shadows. Thieves have no other “healing” skills than this heal slot.

Shadow’s Embrace is huge for PvP and is a must in all builds that are about survival and not burst.

Venoms are not as good as you first think and you will find yourself missing the other skills you have to drop in order to have a couple Venoms.

I am currently running this build and I think it is similar to what you are after. You will not be killing anyone fast, but you will be able to defeat everyone you come up against. You can swap the secondary set for the bow, if that is what you are after, but I find Heartseeker does a good job of chasing runners and dealing damage for the same initiative as the bow teleport.

CUT AND PASTE
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cR333;0RwkZ0J5VOkd0;9;6TOE;453A58-2;0JJ-44;1dZm9fRk02Vd

So this pretty much your build?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=XdF333;0Rwk0-J5VOkd0;9;5JTJ;225-35A18;25RV0;9-5gU

I have found that condition damage is the best way to deal out total damage against silvers, golds, and champions. Even 2 thieves will be hard pressed to stack 25 bleeds on a mob consistently.

A good group can skip most, if not all of the trash content in a dungeon through proper group stealthing. I wish I didn’t have to explain this to every non guild group i get into.

No such thing as condition removal overkill. Especially against a decent P/D thief with almost unlimited Caltrop snares.

Why isn’t everyone using Omnomberry Pies with a build like this? 66% chance on crit for a 400 damage lifetap with no cooldown.

Death Blossom only hits 3 mobs at a time, and gathering more than 3 is normally a pain. Use Pistol to gather and then Death Blossom and Caltrops to finish 3 mobs fast with little risk to yourself.

Mobs also do not reset as fast with bleeds in effect and snared.

If you decide to go D/D and then P/D for ranged, you only need to buy 2 daggers, as you can keep the offhand empty on your second weapon set and it will use your first set’s off hand.

Stack condition damage and Death Blossom to drop stacks of mobs with relative ease. Put 10 points into the bottom Trait tree for the caltrops on dodge so you can easily kite everything between blossoms.

For leveling up, you are better off gong with Condition gear and D/D, as stated above. You can easily handle 3+ mobs at a time and you will be able to solo those Veterans for Skill points and events. Get 10 points into Trickery for the Caltrops on dodge for an easy snare/bleed.

Slow and Steady-

I am running a 0-0-30-25-15 build and loving it. Full condition/precision/toughness gear. 30% chance to lifeleech on crit combined with 66% chance to life leech on crit food is really nice for keeping your health full.

Cloak and Dagger heals for about 1000 with Shadow’s rejuvenation while stacking bleeds.

CUT AND PASTE
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlUmiP3ey5E95EB3ji60m6f4r9MwqVB;TIAAzCpA

My only problem is chasing runners, because of the lack of a root or stun.
I thought I had created this build, because I couldn’t find anything like it. Then I mentioned it in guild chat and was told it is a pretty common survival build, or near the common build for survival/condition.

EDITING MY POST:

Thieves are not challenging at all to play and need to be nerfed. Hopefully they do something about CnD, because currently it takes no thought or decision making on when to use it. The initiative should be 9, not 6. I will come back to playing a thief, when it actually takes skill.
What is funny, I made a thief because I got bored with my Elementalist, who is also OP.

I am running a 0-0-30-25-15 build and loving it. Full condition/precision/toughness gear. 30% chance to lifeleech on crit combined with 66% chance to life leech on crit food is really nice for keeping your health full. Cloak and Dagger heals for about 1000 with Shadow’s rejuvenation while stacking bleeds.

CUT AND PASTE
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlUmiP3ey5E95EB3ji60m6f4r9MwqVB;TIAAzCpA

My only problem is chasing runners, because of the lack of a root or stun.

I thought I had created this build, because I couldn’t find anything like it. Then I mentioned it in guild chat and was told it is a pretty common survival build, or near the common build for survival/condition.

How about adding a Trait for thieves, similar to what an Elementalist has, Written in Stone? Keep the passive effects of the signets, even while they are on cooldown.

Put this trait deep in the Critical Strikes tree, so that you have to build for it, and it isn’t a freebie.

Lion’s Arch is where you go when looking for a group. Just watch the map chat and throw out your LFG every now and again as well.

Their vapor form should definitely not allow the usage of door portals. That is a pretty big flaw in this game.

Hipster Elementalist played Ele before they were considered OP.

Svarty.8019:

Jonas.9716:

being focused by a player under any circumstances will kill you quickly unless you pop the right skills/evade the right things.

Thanks for the formula.

I’m really getting hit hard by dd ele and thieves particularly. They’re laying out well over 10k damage before I can do much. Any tips?

Dodge/Block.

If you make a D/D ele and play about 10 games of sPvP you will be able to easily see what combo they plan on using on you and dodge at least half the damage, leaving them on cooldowns for 10 seconds waiting for their attunements to recharge for damage.

Same with a thief.

The real issue you are going to have is that without some help, both of these classes will run away from you if the fight is not going their way.

Guardians are not meant to chase down runners. Sorry, but every single alt I have can escape from a Guardian with little effort.

It is the bots in Orr that are driving up prices.

I ran past about 40 of them last night, 20+ gathered in one location opening up the way points all over Orr. Considering I have only seen about 20 bots total in the past 3 months, seeing this many at once was pretty disheartening. I stopped to report them all, but doubt anything will be done about it.

Bots flood the markets with coins causing all prices to go up. Get rid of them, and watch the prices come back down.

Thank you ComeAndSee. I will wait to see who gives the best answer, but you gave me the info I was after.

Leveling up in this game takes little skill, so i have reached level 80 without doing much PvP. I am now practicing in the sPvP to figure out where I am going to spend my badges and money, because buying multiple set of gear is not an option for me with my limited play time. The only problem, sPvP has a bugged Knight set that gives Vitality and not Toughness, so I cannot get a true representation in there.

My current plan is to go with the 0-10-30-30-0 for the shouts/healing/2h weapon setup. Knights armor with Soldier’s Trinkets.
Similar to this, but not set in stone.
(CUT AND PASTE THE LINK)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlYgqCnFyvDf4EhVBCi9AjZE+XPooDZIA;TQAA2Cts+Y8B

My questions are:

1. How exactly does AH work, with details please?

2. Sword or Staff for my second weapon? I plan on doing a lot of roaming in WvW with friends. Seems like the Might buff will be a nice heal with AH.

3. What Runes should I go for?

Thank you for your assistance.