Guild Wars 2

Hi! I’ve happened to play this exact trait point spread for a while so I definitely have some advice for you.

First of all, if you feel you are lacking for speed, there are three things you can do: switch pistol to focus, switch to traveler runes, or swap staff with GS. The last option might not make much sense initially but the point is that staff has slow projectiles and is really bad for chasing enemies. Of course, if you want this to be a support build, you won’t be able to do that.

Secondly, I would suggest you take the focus off of this build being a mantra build. Mantras imo simply aren’t very good to focus on, and while its okay to have one or two, transforming your build into a mantra build probably isn’t the way you want to go. As a result, I would change MoRecovery to Ether Feast and X in Inspiration to XIII (with focus), III, or IV.

The final major change I would suggest is that you make your build more offensive. Changing to zerker stats doesn’t sacrifice much in terms of survivability (you have tons of health and condi removal) and does wonders for making the build more fun imo.

Otherwise, there are a few accuracy changes you could make throughout the build (trait changes, sigil changes, rune changes, etc) but I’d suggest you first try out what I suggested in PvP.

EDIT: I should also note that all I’ve said is from the perspective of a more offensive player so doing things like making yourself more aggressive don’t necessarily correspond with what you want, which is okay. And also Inspiration III is a great support trait (and trait in general imo), I’d suggest changing your first two traits in Inspi to III and IV if you don’t run focus, and incorporating Signet of Inspiration which is a pretty good support utility

I thought the new update was really good though honestly the main thing I care about from it is the 1st person camera. I really enjoy it- I played for maybe an hour and I thought WvW skirmishes and Tequatl and the like looked great in first-person. I stopped using it after a while though because the amount of shakiness during combat that the camera experiences is insane like. I understand it’s supposed to be at least a little shaky because it’s coming from the first-person perspective, but during combat the camera goes wild and it’s impossible to focus on combat or to avoid getting a headache. Please fix. <3

EDIT: also another good option might be to have a bar that can adjust the amount of shakiness the camera experiences for people that like it currently

Amir.1570:

Lopez.7369:

This is probably the most math- and logic-troubled post I’ve ever read on this forum.

Yeah I was just that bored. I honestly think Assassin’s needs some love though. It just doesn’t feel like it’s consistent with other amulets even though it’s total stats are 2232.

Frankly speaking, even though it has better precision/crit rate, I don’t think it’s better than Berserker either.

That’s because precision and ferocity are mathematically crap traits that scale better with power than each other. Depending on your point of view, they even “scale” better with vitality and toughness than they do in combination with one another.

Please get rid of (or make massive changes to) Mad King Says skills. They’re game-breakingly impossible to counter right now, and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t have that much fun playing the game last year and am having even less fun this year.

Also, as has been mentioned a few times before, make killing ghosts more of a possibility than it currently is, and give ghost deaths a larger penalty than what they’re currently receiving.

Arikyali.5804:

As great as acro s/d is, you’re a sitting duck if you don’t invest at least 2 points shadow arts. The meta for WvW is condi, and condi will shred any decent thief if they don’t have a reliable source of cleanse. Stealth mechanics are simply too necessary of an asset to trade off in WvW. It’s almost a guarantee that you’ll end up in outnumbered fights, especially if you go out solo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-Roaming-Havoc-Build/first This is a WvW havoc build I made awhile back, but it follows the same principle mechanics as s/d. Maybe you can get some ideas from it. Just swap out the weapons, or run the tried and true 20606.

If you are really dead-set on going with zero points in SA, there is a 2nd, but expensive option. Get your shortbow equipped with a sigil of generosity and sigil of purity.

This is complete nonsense, I run my standard 20066 build in WvW and it works out just fine. I don’t usually need cleanse too much in WvW, but I’ve run Runes of Lyssa even after they were nerfed (they’re still just fine to use) and they’re a relatively cheap and effective option if the OP is really in need of condition cleansing. Tbh the OP doesn’t really need runes of the pack because if you’re running through WvW and play your cards just right, you can get 95-100% Swiftness uptime via Expeditious Dodger and Thrill of the Crime combined with +30% boon uptime from going 6 into Acro. With Shortbow, Infi Strike, Infi Signet, Steal, Shadowstep, etc 20066 is arguably the fastest build in the game.

@OP: your build is good (I would know- I’ve run almost exactly this build for ages) but you should really get rid of Quick Pockets for Assassin’s Reward (my personal favorite, and for some reason extremely underrated. Honestly, just looking at the amount of health you get for every point of initiative, it’s totally worth it, especially once you’ve calculated the average number of initiative you gain per second with a build like this), Pain Response (the standard for sPvP), or Vigorous Recovery. Also, swap Quick Pockets for Vigorous Recovery or Pain Response. With this build I run Power of Inertia, Vigorous Recovery, and Assassin’s Reward and it’s worked very well for me. Otherwise, your traits are great, and I’m happy to see that you picked up Hastened Replenishment which is another highly underused trait for S/D builds that is great in both sPvP and WvW.

With swapping out Quick Pockets, trade one of your S/D sets for Shortbow. It’s honestly necessary IMO to have Shortbow in WvW just because of the necessity for AoE and the mobility provided by Infiltrator’s Arrow.

I mentioned earlier to trade out Runes of the Pack- you don’t really need them for this build, since you can get a long swiftness uptime by using Steal out of combat for the Swiftness via Thrill of the Crime and Expeditious Dodger. With Shortbow, you’ll need it even less because you get so much more mobility from Infi Arrow.

Replace the Cavalier’s gear with Soldier’s gear- the additional power and vitality is much more useful than that extra bit of ferocity and toughness.

Finally, swap the sigils of Accuracy for Sigils of Fire or Force. Mathematically (if I remember correctly) they’re both a bit better, and in WvW the AoE potential of Fire sigil is going to be tremendously important. Definitely put a Fire sigil on your Shortbow.

Otherwise it all comes down to how you play the build. This build was originally made for sPvP but it works very well for WvW. If you really feel the need to improve your gameplay then playing after playing lots of sPvP matches you’ll start getting much, much better. That definitely worked for me, at least.

Not really a trick but Shadowstep+Infi Signet+Infi Strike+Steal = 3600 range in ~2 seconds.

MailMail.6534:

I think that’s messing too much with the mechanics. If iWarden is ground targeted, I’d want consistency with all phantasms, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Yeah, I agree, the same way I think that Chaos Storm should be placed where you’re standing to maintain consistency within staff and Confusing Images should also apply torment to maintain consistency within Scepter.

Freedan.1769:

I have two questions, and I hope someone can answer. First, can someone link me to the PvE mantra builds that are currently “meta” right now?

Second, I like to use more balanced builds in most play that aren’t glass cannon/zerkers/sins setup all the time. I feel more at home knowing I can survive a long time than just duke nukem style. Are there any good builds that can deal damage while utilizing say, healing power, to maximize one’s heals while still being able to do significant damage on the field? I haven’t explored healing power much, and wanted to get thoughts. “It doesn’t work” is a realistic answer, but its not a fun one, so I would prefer experimental builds and let trial and error decide it for me afterwards. I love experimenting, so builds/armor/weapon sets are what I prefer to discuss.

Well I can’t answer the first one. As for the second one, you could always take a look at my build, although the usage of healing power in that build is more coincidental than anything else. It actually does decent damage and is still very viable more than half a year after its creation, but you have to test it out to see whether or not you really enjoy it.

Honestly, healing power is mathematically a pretty crappy stat- I wouldn’t take it before power, vitality, or toughness, and probably not even before precision or ferocity (both of which are way overrated, given that they don’t scale very well to increase your damage- though I still love using Zerker stats). However, if you do want to invest a little bit into healing power, I think a x/2/x/6/x build with zerker or soldier (for much more survivability) stats is a pretty solid way to go to get a decent bit of defense along with good damage. I wouldn’t invest into healing power via amulets/accessories/etc though, because honestly healing power isn’t really worth sacrificing one of the aforementioned stats for (although the Inspiration tree is IMO a very underrated and powerful tree which, coincidentally, contains healing power).

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Video guide, on how to use Infinite Infiltrator’s Strike:
http://youtu.be/o1vW5kfyoXE

Very nice. Definitely adding this one in.

Kagamiku.9731:

At least the “dubious” redditor (although he’s not dubious, he is pretty well known…) provided an equation and reasoning behind his stats, everyone I see doubting him have provided nothing but random guesswork and assumptions.

First of all, I mostly used the term “dubious” to refer to his result as opposed to him himself, though I honestly have never heard of him before anyways.

Secondly, the term “equation” doesn’t mean anything in and of itself. Especially to me, given the extent to which I’ve mathematically analyzed stats in this game. An equation has to have some kind of meaning behind it and justification for its usage, and in my experience DPS equations have tended towards lacking either or both of those things. Now, looking at the way that this Redditor gathered his data (or whoever it was that gathered this data), it’s pretty obvious that he is ignoring a near infinite number of factors that could factor into how much damage you actually do. Furthermore, it’s difficult to say that the builds he is using (which all seem to begin with high points in the first two trees and a few points in one or two others) are even the strongest. Mesmer builds don’t frequently benefit very much from an additional two into dueling, for instance, and thieves have a large amount of damage that can stem off of trees such as Trickery and Acro.

But that aside, the point is that the rankings are completely and utterly useless. The person who collected this data didn’t take into account whether a person is simply dealing high damage or just spiking a lot, and the implications that an opponent’s evasion could have on damage; how conditions affect individual builds; how mobility, positioning, teammates, animations, effects, psychological effects of a build etc etc etc affect DPS. I’m looking at this guy’s methodology and the best thing we can hope is that he used the same boss who was fairly unpredictable multiple times in order to calculate DPS with standard team settings, but even then this says absolutely nothing about sPvP and WvW where all the aforementioned factors come into account where the mere idea of DPS is flawed because the ability to do 3k DPS doesn’t mean much if you only last 3 or 4 seconds.

This isn’t random guesswork, these are all variables that either have not been investigated by the person who did these calculations or have been investigated by other members of the community and a large number of tournaments. I’m certain you didn’t know that Soldier’s Gear is arguably (with a large amount of mathematical evidence behind it- at least, the last time I checked, since stats have shifted around a little since I formulated my first equations to model stats in this game) the best gear in the game, and yet glass cannons and bunkers and the like are extremely commonplace because of in-game and very difficult to measure factors such as the initiative (not the resource, but who’s on the attack vs the defense), positioning, speed, team buffing, and so on- none of which our dubious redditor seems to care much about.

SlimChance.6593:

Yeah, I’m seeing these guys too. (definitely a signet build.) Spatial Surge was doing a whole 9 damage against these guys. And they can just stay on point and take their time waiting for you to mess up, then pound the pulp out of you. They hit pretty hard too. Like Chaos said, its just better to move on, wait for a 2v1 situation.

Its crazy how “tanky” some professions can get.

Idk dude I’m not sure they really have 56.8k+ toughness you know

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

yolo swaggins.2570:

CobOfCorn.6352:

Because we have the highest personal dps in game.

Warrior actually has the highest DPS in the game. Thieves have the best spike damage.

DeceiverX.8361:

Eles actually have the highest DPS and burst in the game, although on two different builds.

Yeah, you are both wrong…

The dps ranking at the very moment are:

thief
Ele
Engineer
Ranger
Warrior
Guardian
Mesmer
Necro

*Ranking brought to you by a dubious Redditor

You do realize that you can’t just do “DPS tests”, right? Like, there are so many factors that go into fighting an opponent that DPS testing is going to be extremely unreliable, particularly if it’s done against a golem in the mists or what have you.
Average DPS across all games is a function of the average skill level of your opponents, how easily they can dodge bursts, how much damage they deal back to you, terrain, allied buffs, stats, builds (and the best DPS builds may not always be the most practical ones), cast times/animations, how much evading you do, how often weakness is applied to you, the effect of cripple/chill on you, etc, etc, etc for days.

EDIT: also, given the fact that Warriors still remain an incredibly viable and easy-to-play profession in sPvP, and the amount of damage I’ve seen Warrior/Ele comps do in dungeons, I’m pretty doubtful that Warrior ranks fourth, and I think Mesmer definitely goes above Guardian and maybe even Engineer, depending on your build (again the best DPS builds are not necessarily the most practical).

At least we don’t have the lowest base stats in the game (we’re in second though, if you consider the importance/degree of armor and health differences, the only two base stat differences that exist between professions). That honor goes to the elementalist.

Sagat.3285:

Arganthium.5638:

In order for P/P to be viable, it would need 1) good access to condi removal 2) a stronger defensive mechanic than Black Powder (though, if P/P became good enough, Black Powder’s blind pulse might have to be nerfed), and 3) more mobility.

1)Pain Response(change the name) now removes 1 condition on dogde 8 sec CD gain 3 sec regen if a condition is removed 2) BP pulses every second again, blind duration has been reduced to 1 sec, the shot physical projectile finisher and blind effect has been removed and now only goes to the ground 3) Unload now as evasive frame upon activation 3/4 sec 4) Fleet of Foot(change the name) increase sword damage by 5%.

1. Changing PR is only likely to help S/D thieves running the trait, especially considering that it doesn’t remove a lot of conditions. Plus for a second-tier trait that would be pretty overpowered

2. Okay but that’s only going to help if you have a good defensive mechanic…

3. … And I mean, that’s an okay defensive mechanic, and that’s the kind of thing that P/P would be looking for because I think adjusting traits around P/P is only likely to help other builds become too strong. That being said, whether or not this would be an adequate defensive mechanic is difficult to say. Essentially P/P would have to function as a ranged S/D, which would be kinda weird but an interesting idea I suppose.

4. Obviously not a buff to P/P but I can see why you added it to your post given 1.

In order for P/P to be viable, it would need 1) good access to condi removal 2) a stronger defensive mechanic than Black Powder (though, if P/P became good enough, Black Powder’s blind pulse might have to be nerfed), and 3) more mobility.

Ianne.7496:

Arganthium.5638:

S/D doesn’t suck at all. If you’re having bad results on it with gear like that it’s because you’re a terrible player.

I didnt say I suck with that gears (even tho I do sometimes xD) neither I said S/D sucks

I just said my gear setup may have lower overall stats than other builds around and S/D may have suffered the last patch,but I dont care and I still have fun with it,dont get mad

I wasn’t addressing you. I’m talking about the person who posted this video.

S/D doesn’t suck at all. If you’re having bad results on it with gear like that it’s because you’re a terrible player.

Mrbig.8019:

Booms.2594:

And nerfig s/d thieves one of the few classes that could outplay them helped so much with balance

S/D was totally out of control, nerfing it was a good thing.

Point is celestial shouldn’t even exist.

S/D was out of control but I felt they mishandled nerfing it, a nerf to PoInertia and/or a nerf to Larcenous Strike’s damage coefficient would have handled the situation better IMO.

Geiir.7603:

NEED HELP WITH PVP AND FRACTAL PART OF THE GUIDE!

I am not a good thief in Fractals. I have done a few and I am at about lvl 20 in Fractals. Therefore I am going to need help from more seasoned fractal thieves to help me create this part of the guide. Send me a PM or respond to this thread if you want to help.

I am far from a top tier thief in sPvP. Therefore I am in need of help from other experienced PvP thieves that can help me form this part of the guide. I want it to contain everything from meta builds, basic rotations, target priority and more. If you have anything to contribute, please give me a heads up!

I don’t think a lot of people would consider me an sPvP expert but nonetheless if you want me to write or otherwise help you out with any of the sPvP portions I’d be glad to assist.

I’m happy that nobody is playing S/D thief any more because that means now I can hop back onto my thief from my mesmer and continue playing something nobody else seems to be playing

Mesmer, Engineer turret, and Ranger buffs were all horrible.

P/P will never be a good weapon set. It’s not that the attacks are bad or anything (and if the problems that affect it were fixed it would be far and away a strong set), but it suffers from three massive problems that are unlikely to be fixed for the duration of this game:

1. It doesn’t really have a good defensive mechanic (Black Powder is at best gimmicky, and compared to D/X / P/D’s stealth and S/X’s mobility and evasion, it’s incredibly weak)

2. Going off of 1, it has absolutely zero mobility. This is especially damaging for a build that does not have stealth; you can more or less get away with less mobility as a stealth thief but you simply cannot with any non-stealth thief. P/P’s mobility is honestly even worse than P/D or D/X’s.

3. In my opinion, the disadvantage that really kills the build once and for all is its lack of condition cleansing. Glassy stealth builds don’t have much in terms of condition cleansing, but that’s because they are glassy, and in truth glassy melee builds will by design always be better than glassy ranged builds. Otherwise, stealth builds and S/X builds alike have at least a minor source of reliable condition cleansing, whereas P/P’s is at best spotty and difficult to time well and at worst completely nonexistent. Conditions are extremely damaging to thieves, and so that lack of condi cleansing just crushes this build’s hopes of being good any time soon.

Steb.2571:

You guys misunderstand, it’s dead in the sense that everyone and their mom can play it with braindead skill level. It’s not dead in the practical sense, it can still be run, but it’s more in line with what it should be. You should have to hit a flip skill to actually flip it. If anything, it allows you to trolololol evade spam your kitten in the opposite direction if your under fire. People are just mad that braindead spec’s get nerfed.

Signet of agility is overpowered when paired with acrobatics, and it makes it impossible to accurately count dodges. It allows for very little counter-play because pretty much any and all predictability is gone, and you just have to play entirely reactionary. That’s dumb, and this just aids in killing that. Agility needs to follow suit, I would rather it turn into either a heavier condi clear, or a disable of some kind to allow for cleaner setup and burst landing.

Acrobatics alone is fine, but when you combine feline, with vigor, with signet, it gets a bit kittened. DD needs a buff, PP needs a buff, Celestial and Engi’s / eles / necro / warrior need a nerf, etc,etc,etc. There’s too much sustain at the moment, and it makes thieves less valuable by contrast, but having kittened kitten on thief doesn’t help solve the problem, it just adds to the joke that is Spvp balance right now.

S/D is Viable, it’s just not broken…..It just feels weak because of how insanely overpowered many meta build / classes are right now, and gives a really skewed perception.

[last part highlighted for emphasis]

Though I think, as braindead as S/D is (which, to be fair, is partially because two of the five skills on the weapon set are absolutely horrible and useless for 98% of situations), it still requires a marginal amount of more thought than turret engis/scepter mesmers and, from what I’ve been hearing lately, power rangers.

Y’all need to chill, S/D is still perfectly playable (and now you guys have a better excuse to run Hastened Replenishment with S/D! Which is something I’ve advocated for a while but nobody ever really seems to talk about it). I don’t know that ANet necessarily made the right changes to S/D, but it’s obviously not as overpowered as it was before.

What you should be more concerned about are AI builds such as turret engi and the now fantastic Scepter mesmer.

Ergolicious.1507:

It’s hilarious how wrong are such a large amount of Thiefs (even the OP’s top 50 whatever..). This build is actually stronger than before because you can now, literally, pema evade while still doing a lot of damage with your auto attack (I never counted on lacernous strike to do the dps for me before, flanking strike as here to close the gap/evade a big skill from your opponent… autoattack hits harder and procs more sigil).

This build has become even more cancerous and is even harder to deal with…. yet so many thiefs are complaining, christ…

In the end, a lot of Thiefs are leaving their char because of this patch because they don’t understand the change and that won’t bother anyone, on the contrary

Yes, increasing the initiative cost of FS to four on an animation which can be effectively read and countered and making it far more difficult to use LS- which does twice the damage of FS and boonsteals- made S/D even more overpowered than before.

Esplen.3940:

I don’t like Karl, either.

Bring me John Smith and have him give economy lectures.

You don’t.

tora.3205:

Hello, I’d like to update my old build to Yess Man’s condijumping build.
I’ve changed few things with last patches like traits and sigils.

Here’s the new link with the guide:

http://intothemists.com/guides/4499-yess_mans_condijumping_build

Why do you run 1/5 SA instead of 2/10 DA?

I actually tried this build/trait spread out a month or two ago and it’s not as bad as it looks, though personally I still prefer 2 0 0 6 6.

I don’t think the condi food is really necessary (I understand why you’re taking it but it’s not really helpful when you already have pretty good condi duration). Also I’d take Sundering Strikes or Combined Training over Improvisation and consider Vigorous Recovery over PoI (though then you’d want to take different runes). Also change out the Valk gear for Zerker or Soldier’s pieces and if you run into initiative problems you can also look at Hastened Replenishment which is a completely viable and underrated alternative to Sleight of Hand.

I use my 2 0 0 6 6 S/D for all three game modes when I’m on my thief. It doesn’t do massive damage unless you run full zerker (though it’s still not as high as, say, a 5 6 0 0 3 D/P) but it’s entirely sustainable which is kinda the point. Most of the time zerker stats are what gives builds their damage anyways so. Anyways, this build is good against large groups of enemies and is incredibly mobile while dealing decent damage and evading/absorbing/regenerating through most damage, which are basically the four things you want to have in a build anyways.

Brunzig.1074:

Arganthium.5638:

Alex.9268:

Are these forums dead or what? last updated 2 months ago, with 1 year old builds inside..

Two comments:

1. I haven’t been visiting the forums… Like, at all, these past few months. So there’s that.

2. Thief builds have literally come to a standstill, to the point where I’d say that my 10 0 0 30 30 S/D build would probably be considered “new” even though it’s over a year old because nobody plays it. There are really not any “new” builds to the extent of my knowledge, and certainly not any that deserve special mention. I think it’s extremely unfortunate for the thief community, but we’ve been in this state for a while now.

Arganthium.5638 I love your S/D build but how can I run this in WvW?

Would this be ok?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpypFOx7J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdHl+eEA-TlyEgAm7Pgr8L4MAM8AASVrQTfAg5PClgrqqwcIAAA-w

Yeah you can run that in WvW. You might want to lay off the Soldier’s gear a little bit though- that’s what I would do anyways. But if you enjoy the play style with Soldier’s gear, or are relatively new to the game, or are worried that you might be facing large groups of people and want to take part in the charge of an attack, then the use of Soldier’s gear is completely acceptable. It’s still acceptable otherwise but you might find the play style a bit bland if it’s not to your tastes.

Obtena.7952:

If you are getting enough endurance to stack that much might just from PoI, I would say that it’s the endurance gain that’s the problem. Feline Grace seems a more likely target here. The cause of all this sustained might gain is the dodging. Nerfing PoI isn’t addressing that cause.

The build is at just the right level or maybe very slightly OP in comparison to other professions’ builds without PoI (which I think I’ve addressed before), but with it is clearly overpowered. I mean, just look at the trait itself: 15s might for just a single dodge should intuitively seem ridiculous. That’s a long duration of might for using a very simple mechanic that you should be using anyways, PLUS it’s an Adept trait.

frans.8092:

evilapprentice.6379:

vincecontix.1264:

Nope no change needed war, ele, engi even guard can quite easily have constant 20+ stacks of might. Thief might stacking abilities are inferior compared to many other classes.

What do those classes have to invest to get and maintain those stacks?

And what does Thief have to invest to get those OP 8-10 might stacks? 10-12 traitpoints, 3 traits and the most expensive runeset available?

What about the process used to obtain them? Is it as easy as 2 points in a traitline

Except that for 2 points in acrobatics that you do not get 8-10 might stacks, you get 1 16.5 second stack of might every 10 seconds, or about 1.65 stack of might on average. Wow, that sure is incredibly overpowereddoes require getting nerfed.

Blanket, blind comparisons with no thought given to them hold little value.

Calculating the result of 12 trait points, 3 traits and a runeset and then attributing the result to two trait points certain does not hold any value at all.

As I mentioned earlier, the build is already extremely strong without PoI. Believe it or not, you’re not investing 10-12 trait points just to get some might. That’s pretty linear thinking, and when I did my theory crafting and writing on the build, I basically stated that one-dimensional thinking like that was completely against some of the core elements of the build

We’re talking about Sizer’s build here not just the trait itself, because you always have to consider traits/abilities in the context of other skills/abilities that a class or build has.

(See above comment) Plus 15 seconds base duration for might just for a single Adept trait is ridiculous anyways.

Dadnir.5038:

what other classes have to invest :

Warrior : 4 point in arm -> Forcefull greatsword : grant might on crit and reduce GS cd by 20%. With this you easily stack 12 stack of might while hitting a single target (no Cool down, no drawback. It’s THE must have trait for dungeon war)

Necromancer : 2 point in spite -> Reaper’s might : lifeblast grant might for 15 s (due to cast time you will stack maybe 10 stack with this)

Engi, ele and ranger : have good acces to firefield and blast. no investment.
Plus :

Engi : Alchemy 6 point : HGH (I don’t need to explain this, right?)

Ele : firemagic 6 point : pyromancer’s puissance (you easily stack 10 mights)

Ranger : 2 point in beastmastery -> companion might allow you to stack 6 might while just swaping pet.

… etc.

And i’m not even listing all the way to gain might.

So I don’t think PoI is overpowered. I think it’s pretty well balanced.

In general:

1. None of those classes/builds have nearly as much longevity to their might as 2 0 0 6 6 S/D does, excluding HGH, but S/D, unlike HGH, has a massive amount of boonsteal that can be used to counter builds trying to work against S/D’s boons, whereas HGH does not, and so can be countered. Plus, the entire HGH strategy revolves around might stacking, whereas for thief S/D already has an extremely powerful strategy revolving around dodges that becomes significantly more powerful when PoI is put into play.

2. As mentioned at the end of the last part, 2 0 0 6 6 is already powerful and becomes significantly more powerful when PoI comes into play, whereas other builds often require their entire strategy to revolve around that might stacking (i.e. Pyro eles, HGH engis).

Now onto specific builds:

Warrior’s Forceful Greatsword: unless an opponent stands in place and allows you to use 100b, I would be doubtful of this trait ever having any significant strength against other players.

Necro’s Reaper’s Might: I honestly have no respect for power necro builds (sorry to those players that play them), and I think they’re extremely easy to work against for reasons I can explain in another post. Either way, this trait still doesn’t give you lots of and long-lasting might.

Fire field blasting: fire-field blasting doesn’t often give players more than 3 to 6 stacks of might, which is probably less than what PoI thieves get. Plus, this point is kind of irrelevant because frequently thieves are able to blast other people’s fire fields for much more might with CB

HGH- (responded to earlier)

Pyro Eles- this is another build I really don’t respect tbh, partially because for the same reasons that S/D can fight against HGH but also because the build is extremely one-dimensional in just about every way possible

evilapprentice.6379:

I agree with Arg that POI is extremely strong in the listed setup. You can effortlessly carry 8-10 stacks of might without even having to try, much more if you run Battle and actually try to stack might.

But the use of the term “nerf” is going to turn people off – instead of just saying POI is too good, lets make it kittentier, let’s shift it a bit – instead of 1 stack of might for 15s, POI should probably be 2-3 stacks of might for 3-6 seconds. This allows POI to continue doing what it was intended to do without allowing specific builds to carry 10+ stacks indefinitely and with little effort.

Ugh, I don’t know about 2-3 stacks of might, especially when we take into account burst builds. Still though, reducing the duration significantly is obviously on the right track.

vincecontix.1264:

evilapprentice.6379:

I agree with Arg that POI is extremely strong in the listed setup. You can effortlessly carry 8-10 stacks of might without even having to try, much more if you run Battle and actually try to stack might.

But the use of the term “nerf” is going to turn people off – instead of just saying POI is too good, lets make it kittentier, let’s shift it a bit – instead of 1 stack of might for 15s, POI should probably be 2-3 stacks of might for 3-6 seconds. This allows POI to continue doing what it was intended to do without allowing specific builds to carry 10+ stacks indefinitely and with little effort.

Nope no change needed war, ele, engi even guard can quite easily have constant 20+ stacks of might. Thief might stacking abilities are inferior compared to many other classes.

Lmao. I’ve seen classes like that have lots of might before, but never for that long. Either way, again, that wouldn’t make PoI non-OP necessarily. As I’ve said, 2 0 0 6 6 is already a strong build without PoI, plus it makes the play style extremely easy since dodging buffs damage so much.

Paulo.8459:

The 2/0/0/6/6 build with strength rune has 2 sources of vigor, feline grace, boon duration and might duration… so basically everything PoI can profit from.

Now imagine somebody playing 2/6/0/6/0 with rune of the pack (just an example). Is PoI really too strong with this setup?

Nerfing a trait because of a very specific build will make the trait absolutely worthless for other builds.

Yes. Either way we should be looking at the trait’s most optimal usage. Otherwise, we could argue that Warriors should be allowed to have their 400 HPS HealSig again because for a naked warrior with no toughness or additional vitality Healing Signet is not very powerful.

frans.8092:

Arganthium.5638:

randomfightfan.4091:

You think an average of 3-4 might stacks is op? Have you not seen “insert any other class in the game”. I’m just surprised you aren’t talking about might on signet use trait…

Lol

If you can only stack 3 or 4 might stacks on average in the period of about 30 seconds when you take into account boon stealing and TotC, you’re just really bad. I can stack more might on my 2 0 0 6 6 without PoI.

You opened about Power of Inertia being OP, so we look at the might granted by Power of Inertia, we’re not interested in other sources. You are adding all sources of might together and then you say look how OP PoI is. That doesn’t make sense.

Max endurance regen is 10% per second, so with Feline Grace 1 dodge per 3,5 second. With 3 Acro the PoI might lasts about 17,3 seconds, and you could keep about 4-5 might stack going on PoI. With 6 Acro your PoI might stack last 20 seconds, 1 stack every 3,5 seconds accumulates into 5-6 stacks of might.

For this you did have to invest heavily into two trait lines to get the Vigor uptime, boon duration and the traits.

PS: You can get more might by swapping weapons with Sigil of Battle then with PoI.

I’m sorry, I was taking into account might from all sources because that’s how I interpreted RFF’s post (and maybe I did so incorrectly). That being said, I think that it’s incredibly easy to get 3-4 might stacks from PoI, and probably many more.

The entire second part of your post is almost completely pointless, because as I said in my original post 2 0 0 6 6 is a fairly strong build without PoI. It’s not like you’re just investing all-in just to get some might; vigor/dodging are both extremely powerful defensive tools already, for instance. Plus, you get tons of other great traits along the way, such as Fluid Strikes, Thrill of the Crime, Preparedness, Lead Attacks, and some others depending on how you play- i.e. Pain Response and Sleight of Hand for Sizer, and Assassin’s Reward and Hastened Replenishment for me. I’ve already written about these things in about a thousand other places before to show why the build is pretty strong without PoI. Also, your calculations don’t talk about how, with Runes of Strength, might can last more than 26 seconds.

Whether or not another mechanic is stronger than PoI has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not PoI is overpowered. Even so, you also have to consider the fact that Battle Sigil has a significant drawback (forced weapon swap, another subject that I’ve discussed in relation to the build and, particularly, Jumper’s build, for well over a year on) and I’m not even sure that it would give you more might than PoI anyways, unless you were hardly ever dodging.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i dun play thief but this is fine, balance and working as intended.

also, might is a boon which can be easily removed.

1. Most other classes in the game don’t have very good boon removal outside of maybe a couple of skills here and there

2. Boon buffering

3. x x x x 6 S/D Thieves are really good at boonstealing

randomfightfan.4091:

You think an average of 3-4 might stacks is op? Have you not seen “insert any other class in the game”. I’m just surprised you aren’t talking about might on signet use trait…

Lol

If you can only stack 3 or 4 might stacks on average in the period of about 30 seconds when you take into account boon stealing and TotC, you’re just really bad. I can stack more might on my 2 0 0 6 6 without PoI.

Honestly, this one is a no-brainer, but since I know people are going to whine if I don’t present some sort of argument:

I have run 2 0 0 6 6 (10 0 0 30 30) Sword/Dagger thief basically since the first week Larcenous Strike was added after Flanking Strike, and continue to run it today (the build I use isn’t much different from Sizer’s variant, but I don’t run PoI). As a result, I feel like I have at least some degree of credibility in saying that the build works fine without Power of Inertia; it’s strong but I wouldn’t call it OP.

However, with PoI, that’s a completely different story.

Honestly, X/X/X/30/30 S/D thieves have so many “natural” evades (evades that burn endurance) through Feline Grace, Vigorous Recovery and Bountiful Theft that the fact that you’re able to get might for 15 seconds at base per dodge is absolutely absurd. When you’re getting stacks of might for nearly half a minute from a single dodge, then that’s stepping way out of bounds. 10 stacks of might computes to more than a 16% damage boost in direct damage alone which lasts a period of almost half a minute and doesn’t require a lot of conditions to fulfill outside of dodging frequently, which you should be doing anyways (and this damage buff is to a build that’s pretty good already). Combined with Fluid Strikes, this is an extremely large buff to your overall damage, especially just for being an adept trait, and as a result this single Adept trait contributes to a very easy-to-play thief play style which is becoming increasingly frequent in today’s meta.

So. Please nerf PoI. Thanks.

Darko.5873:

Arganthium.5638:

Not only is this an unconvincing attempt to make us believe that you actually play thief, but if you’re talking about evasion (and I can’t imagine any other mechanic that would cause you to hate S/D so much)- that’s a mechanic that every profession has, friend.

Except for Necromancer, Engineer and Guardian.
TIL – two thirds of something is all of it.

Sorry, I guess I forgot that Necro, Engi, and Guard don’t have evasion bars.

BlackBeard.2873:

Thief, in-general, is broken b/c it has so many broken mechanics that break the very tenets of gw2 combat:
[nonsense]

What are the “tenets of GW2 combat”? For instance, thief’s only real insta-cast skill that I can pull off the top of my head is Steal, and even that isn’t necessarily unpredictable. Plus, most classes/every class has an “insta-cast” skill of some sort.

Also, I’m highly disturbed by how you treat the usage of mobility in combat as if it doesn’t require skill. On the contrary, since mobility is an indirect method of defense/offense, it requires far more skill to play with that simply mashing your buttons.

Mrbig.8019:

S/P was never Op in the first place, it was coutnerable and needed quite decent skill to be used effectively.

LOL I didn’t realize that having a long evade combined with a stun while attacking for a couple of seconds on a single skill required skill to use effectively.

The problem is about thieves since they have the most broken mechanics in game: paired with sigils buffs they can just pack them in one package and faceroll.

Signed

Thief main.

Not only is this an unconvincing attempt to make us believe that you actually play thief, but if you’re talking about evasion (and I can’t imagine any other mechanic that would cause you to hate S/D so much)- that’s a mechanic that every profession has, friend.

shimmerless.4560:

Arganthium.5638:

shimmerless.4560:

It’s more than possible, actually Air/Fire is the gold standard in Europe at the moment.

I’m not sure that conditions are that much of an issue either, there’s a solid boost in health from Acrobatics as well as Pain Response (simultaneous CC or fear-locking notwithstanding).

Well, I’ve been away from the game for a bit, so I wouldn’t have known that tbh.

Pain Response (like all “X effect when you hit Y% health” traits) is somewhat overrated due to its one-trick pony-like effect. It’s not going to be good enough to counter conditions for long. Plus, PR doesn’t clear three of the condis that can entirely wreck its playstyle- weakness, chill, and cripple.

If you are playing sword I am going to assume you are taking Withdraw (movement clear) and not HiS :-P

Yeah, but Withdraw still doesn’t clear weakness. Either way, though, a couple of seconds of cripple or chill (and chill is usually pretty short anyways) can be enough to screw over a good sword thief.

shimmerless.4560:

It’s more than possible, actually Air/Fire is the gold standard in Europe at the moment.

I’m not sure that conditions are that much of an issue either, there’s a solid boost in health from Acrobatics as well as Pain Response (simultaneous CC or fear-locking notwithstanding).

Well, I’ve been away from the game for a bit, so I wouldn’t have known that tbh.

Pain Response (like all “X effect when you hit Y% health” traits) is somewhat overrated due to its one-trick pony-like effect. It’s not going to be good enough to counter conditions for long. Plus, PR doesn’t clear three of the condis that can entirely wreck its playstyle- weakness, chill, and cripple.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Right, 500dps+ from air/fire is a top-end scenario. It’s not completely unlikely, though.

Air/fire combo may not even be the best for thieves, but this topic is about free damage of all kinds. Free direct damage is currently slightly higher than free condition damage, although if you count stuff like doom/geomancy as basically free damage then it’s close.

I’d like to see all kinds of free damage toned down. In return, energy sigils could be changed to grant vigor instead of instant endurance refills, so that dodge spamming wouldn’t be so effective.

The April 15th patch was good, but it had one large drawback: power creep. Every build in the entire game got significantly stronger. As a result, gameplay deteriorated. For example, spamming dodges is easier and more effective because it’s easy to equip energy and another good sigil with no cooldown interference. Glass cannons are now easier to play because even if they dodge your burst, you get more damage for free with fire/air! Whee! Everything is free—damage, dodging, might!

That’s why we need to guard against power creep.

Well, 0 DPS is also a low-end possibility from fire and air sigils.

Well, when you take into account some of the secondary effects of conditions, and the fact that conditions often come together/close together and are ultimately very difficult to avoid (as opposed to bursts, which are generally easier protect yourself against), and that you have to counter conditions in small groups (since lots of condi clears don’t clear all of your conditions, and even when they are all cleansed, you have to be prepared to face another wave of condis), the amounts of damage might not be so relevant.

I’m not sure why fire/air sigils are considered “free damage”. Actually, I’m not sure what “free damage” is supposed to mean in the first place to be honest.

I might be wrong (but I’m pretty sure I’m not), but even pre-patch I don’t think that energy sigils conflicted with air/fire sigils because energy is an on-swap sigil and air/fire are on-crit sigils.

infantrydivEU.9670:

The build which Sizer ran in ToL: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx7J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfko0XA-TZBFwACeAAl2fYxRAoaZAAnCAA

Again, even by your calculations, the proc damage from these random sigils still equals or exceeds random procs like Incendiary Powder. With luck it also has a chance to have almost twice as much damage.

The argument I’m making is that these Sigils are fundamentally the same as random Condition procs, and that if you want to talk about Incendiary Powder being bad design, you should be talking about these power based RNG damage sources as well.

In other words, I don’t care about what you perceive the state of the Thief to be in PvP, or whether or not there are is a substantial number of people running Air/Fire. I’m talking about what should be considered as smart combat design, and random damage procs aren’t part of that.

Well, the first thing you should know about “luck” is that it can just as easily go against you. But anyways, this is two sigils we’re talking about, versus a single trait in a trait line that you’d probably want to go into in the first place (the power and condi duration in Explosives are both extremely useful- power scales better with direct damage than any other stat, at least at low levels, which we’ll presumably be talking on if we’re talking about a condi build which doesn’t require great investment into direct damage stats).

That’s going to make the two fundamentally different in the first place, depending on how you value traits versus sigils. Personally, I think the ability to be able to invest into powerful stats (no pun intended) while getting pretty great traits at the same time gives Incendiary Powder a slight edge in terms of convenience over the two sigils. Some other classes, such as thief, guardian, and ranger, don’t get these benefits, and for others (such as mesmer, and possibly elementalist and nowadays necro) the ability to invest in the strong first trait line only provides strong traits to certain types of builds.

Also, an engineer can use sigils (even sigil of air and sigil of fire, since an engi that invests into Incendiary Powder is going to want to have lots of precision and will naturally have at least a little bit of power) on top of Incendiary Powder, whereas many other builds don’t get that natural extra damage from their traits. There are obviously exceptions, but they’re just exceptions and not the rule.

As for “random damage procs” not being able to be considered “smart combat design”, remember that virtually all direct damage in the game is randomized; when damage is being dealt, a random number is generated based on the weapon coefficient range listed on your weapon. Furthermore, we could average the amount of damage done by fire and air sigils across all fights, and simply add that average damage to the average damage done by direct damage and conditions per second across all fights and as a result sigils are nothing more than a small addition to your DPS. So I’m not really sure why random damage procs shouldn’t be considered smart design, since all they really are are additions to the average amount of direct damage dealt by a player (as far as the air and fire sigils go, anyways), unless you’re saying that the entire direct damage system is flawed in the first place.

infantrydivEU.9670:

Are people on this thread purposely acting dumb?

Sigil of air x3 + Sigil of fire x2 = 5k+ damage over 10 seconds. These sigils are doing more damage than even Incendiary powder.

Lol chill dude, I didn’t see the part about 10 seconds.

First of all, I’d like you to tell me the last time you saw a thief running sigil of air and sigil of fire. I’ve only ever seen thieves running one or the other (including since the update to sigils/runes), not both at the same time.

Secondly (and more importantly), the probability of hitting sigil of air three times and sigil of fire twice in a given 10s period is extremely low (and technically impossible in the case of SoFire anyways) on a 20066 thief such as this one. Even assuming you had permanent fury and could get in 2 hits per second on average (which is highly unlikely), it would still take you ~1.587 additional seconds on average to activate your sigils, meaning you’d get in an average of 2.18 Lightning Strikes and 1.52 Flame Blasts per 10 seconds- and this, again, is highly optimistic, when you considered that we assumed that we would be making a total of 2 hits per second on average and had permanent fury. Plus, I’m not even sure that the meta 20066 thief runs Sigil of Agility anyways- I just put that in for the additional precision.

And anyways, in the end, anybody who runs enough power/precision and the two sigils to get 5k damage/10 seconds (assuming that’s even possible) is going to be pretty glassy anyways, and will probably go down quickly. Ironically enough, conditions are a massive weakness to S/D, as well.

infantrydivEU.9670:

I find it funny how people complained so bitterly about Dhuumfire and Sun Spirit RNG procs and now we have Sigils of Air and Fire proccing for 5k+ damage every 10 seconds but since it’s power damage people think it is fine.

Why can Thief get away with running 20066 right now? Dodge all day and wait for your RNG Air/Fire procs to make up for your bad DPS.

This is just as poor of design as Dhuumfire or Incendiary Powder, yet people have deluded themselves into thinking that (for some unknown reason) power is more ‘virtuous’ than conditions

So you’re telling me that there are players with over 3600 power in sPvP? Because that’s how much it takes to hit for 5k on sigil of air alone (even more power for Sigil of Fire). Even with 25 stacks of might, this is impossible.

As for your statement about 20066, that’s simply untrue. People have always been able to get away with 20066 (I played it for well over a year before Sizer played it in ToL). If anything, the strength of Power of Inertia combined with Runes of Strength is what is making 20066 so popular right now. It has nothing to do with sigil of fire or air whatsoever. Also, since Critical Strikes is much weaker now, thieves have been turning to builds like 20066 which don’t take advantage of the Critical Strikes trait line.

As for “dodging all day”, I’d like to see you fight an S/D thief on an S/D thief. Fights like that tend to be much, much shorter than you’d expect (as long as both thieves are running Zerker amulet, which virtually every one is anyways. Even on Soldier’s, though, the fights can be extremely short).

You can use a soldier’s set for anything, and you can use it on any non-burst build (so either defensive stealth builds or sword builds). Soldier’s is a much more stat spread to use (particularly for PvE and large-scale battles in WvW), but it’s not going to be as active and razor-edged as Zerker.

Just about any S/D spec (probably with 6 in Trix) would work. I know that 2 0 0 6 6 works fine in WvW (I always use it when I play WvW/EotM).

Tree.3916:

So did Leonardo DaVinci invent the helicopter?

http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/leonardo-da-vinci-helicopter.jpg

or did Louis Breguet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Breguet

or did Igor Sikorsky?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_R-4

All three could lay some claim to being the “inventor the helicopter.” There is a lesson in here, but I doubt the OP will understand it.

And it’s called the helicopter, not “Da Vinci’s flying machine” or “Breguet’s flier” or whatever. Yet, on the other hand, the GW2 community calls the 20066 build “Sizer’s build”, not just “20066 S/D thief” (which I would be perfectly fine with) or whatever.

There’s a significant difference between your example and what I’m saying in this post.