Guild Wars 2

The only build I find while roaming in WvW is S/D Shortbow 2 0 0 6 6 thieves. Super strong, only weakness that I know of is conditions.

Here is a link to the build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_Sword/Dagger

I took a break from GW2 shortly after the September Feature Patch which was when many people believed that it was the death of S/D. I come back after two months and it seems that there are even more S/D thieves that there was before! Was this caused by the D/P nerf? Also fighting a S/D thief seems to be even more difficult than it was pre nerf, but that could just be me being rusty.

Like I said before, I haven’t played P/D in a while. But the build that I used to use was full dire with traits of 0 0 6 4 4. The combination of dire gear and the SA trait line creates strong survivability. The acro trait line gives 3 dodges, might, and access to vigor. The trickery trait line can give either caltrops and bountiful theft or you can swap one of them out for thrill of crime. The toughness from the dire gear, the condi clear and regen from SA, and the evades from acro give plenty of survivability to be able to take on more than 1 opponent.

I might break out my dire thief just to see if anything has changed since last time.

P/D
>Pros
Easy to learn and play
Very forgiving
Tanky
Can easily take on more than 1 enemy
>Cons
Considered “Cheese”
Imo boring to play
No gap closers

D/P
>Pros
Easier backstab set than D/D
Stealth not reliant on combat
Strong against melee builds ( I think this still hold true after nerf)
Easier access to stealth than offhand dagger
High utility
>Cons
High initiative cost
Considered “cheese”
Lower burst than D/D
Stealth combo can be overridden by other fields

D/D
>Pros
High burst
Low cost for stealth
Isn’t considered cheese
>Cons
Countered by blinds and dodges
#3 dodge is hard to use
Stealth reliant on combat
Up in their face build.

Some of these pros and cons are opinion based so people may not agree with some of them. I have only played D/D for the last year so if someone who mains P/D or D/P could give input it would be appreciated.

I hit around 5-10k backstabs depending on which class I hit and what builds I face. The mug CnD BS combo does around 9-13k I think. I haven’t been on this week so I can’t remember any numbers very accurately. The build is very busty due to the high crit chance.

D/D is still viable. I run 2 6 0 0 6 with zerk armor, valk weapons, and a combination of valk zerk and caviler trinkets. Solo roaming with this build needs getting used to but it’s really rewarding to play and it’s also great in team comp.
Conditions builds are hard to beat but winnable.

Cynz.9437:

it is normal

if you stole something on the ground and go underwater you can’t use that item and steal is locked untill you go back on the ground and drop stolen item

is it annyoing? yes
will it ever get fixed/solved? mostlikely not

given that you actually get “locked” icon i assume it is actually intended

The problem was when I went underwater it didn’t even show the lock icon. Where the steal icon should have been there was nothing there. I’ll finally be able to get back on today, I’ll see if this is still happening to me.

Noticed that too, I have no idea what is going on. Could be if you stole an item on land you can’t use it underwater.

Drop BV for DS and laugh as the rangers kill themselves. DS increased my survivability by a ton, I don’t think I’m ever going back to BV.

alchemyst.2165:

Acro D/D

0/6/2/6/0 with zerk/cav armor and strength runes is actually pretty good. I’ve been tinkering around with traits and such, and I think it will be my new main setup.

Just something for you to try…I don’t want to lose another fellow thief to the condi meta q.q

I used to use this but I started to miss the burst that I had before so I swapped to D/D trickery 2 6 0 0 6 which I really like. It doesn’t have as much survivability but it is really fun to roam with and great in group fights. The fights just feel much more rewarding imo when not using cheese.

Imo the smoke bomb downed skill is great because it gives thieves two ways to avoid being stomped. It buys us more time so we have a great chance of a mob or enemy player dieing which causes us to rally, or it prevents a stomp and allows an ally to continue rezzing us. The smoke bomb buys you more than just a second, it takes about 3 seconds for a stomp to be completed so if the smoke bomb is activated at 2 seconds it keeps you alive for those 3 seconds plus another 3 seconds for the stomp to be done again. Although this does nothing if your enemy is smart and just DPS’s you to death.

My comment is purely WvW focused because the majority of my game time is in WvW and I rarely get down in PvE and when I do I rally soon after.

Thank you for responding so fast This clears up my issues, but is there any way to confirm that you got credit for killing a player? Even if I don’t get any rewards I would like to know if an enemy combat logs or falls off a cliff and dies.

Still having steal issues but also shadowstep and infiltrators signet have been rubber banding for me. :/ Also since when was daggerstorm interrupted by steal???

Glad someone updated a thief build for new players. Only question is does thief even get new players anymore?

After the recent patch I have only been getting credit for less than half my kills in WvW.
I’ll either deal a ton of damage such as 10k to an enemy and get 0 credit for the kill and then on the other hand I dish out 1k damage to an enemy and get credit. Has this been happening to anyone else in WvW?

KeyLimPi.9031:

Thief is fine. People will scream end of the world over anything. We have a few issues we have to deal with currently (Bugged steal, reveal skills, light dmg nerfs) but still more than viable. I actually came back to thief after the patch because I found S/D so mindlessly easy.

If you enjoy fast gameplay then you’re still fine with thief. Don’t let the people screaming about the apocalypse drive you away from it.

Agreed, D/D is still fine and now I use D/D trickery and burst down everything. Trickery is defiantly the strongest thief traitline now.

caveman.5840:

ya i would take cloaked in shadow !
over assassins equilibrium …..

idk what the thinking behind assassins equilibrium was …

Many thieves have been begging for survivability traits outside of stealth forever. So Anet put together a crappy trait to get us to shut up.

Cam Ron.4170:

Azawrath.7304:

Everyone would rather have 2 necros or 2 warriors or 2 engis or 2 of anything expect for 2 thieves in Spvp.

as a thief/necro player I always hope for guards engis on my team. and I agree thiefs may be my least faorite to see in 2’s, but I love 1 good thief on the team

IMO it just shows you how effective the thief is. You only need 1 good thief and that’s it, after that the effectiveness of the thief starts to drop.

Everyone would rather have 2 necros or 2 warriors or 2 engis or 2 of anything expect for 2 thieves in Spvp.

I have always understood the thief situation as, thieves in a good player’s hand are medium to strong but that same player in any other class is very strong.

I cannot back up this statement as I have only played thief with the exception of level up other toons to 80 and leaving them on the shelf.

I haven’t seen a large decrease in thieves, but what I did find was a large decrease in good solo roaming thieves and a large increase in thief roaming groups where there would be 3-5 thieves all running different builds and just focus down 1 guy and /laugh.

I would be fine with Anet just cleaning up the animation and maybe making the evade slightly longer. I try to use DB as an evade but I don’t know when the evade window is and the skill just seems so clunky.

I don’t think so. Earlier today I was facing a D/P thief while I was running D/D trickery and as he heartseekered through the smoke field towards me I stole to try to interrupt. Now instead of my thief just teleporting into the thief and dazing him, it teleported past him into the middle of the smoke field where the thief first began the heartseeker.

EDIT: Also how can my steal miss if I teleported to them? Shouldn’t it instantly apply the daze so they stop moving? I would understand them walking away after I steal if they were just walking and not using a skill, but because they are using a movement skill that can be interrupted my steal should apply a daze that stops them from moving.

I have done this before the patch and it worked fine, after this patch steal and other teleports have been all out of wack.

It’s so stupid, Anet probably just wants us to buy more bank accesses from the gem store :/

Another way that the teleports are broken is that if you try to port to someone who is using a movement skill such as heartseeker or the warrior GS skills, it ports you to their starting position and not their current position in the channel.

Besides the steal glitch that still is not completely fixed, shadowstep and infiltrators signet are also experiencing problems. Sometimes when I shadowstep up to an enemy that is on a hill or a slightly higher elevation I teleport to them and then teleport back to my original position. Anyone else having issues with this rubber banding teleporting? I don’t think it is lag because my game runs smoothly besides teleporting.

Zero Day.2594:

Azawrath.7304:

The devs are pretty Hard To Catch… Ha see what I did there… :P

So, they got displaced into the enemy forces and killed?
That would explain why they haven’t commented.

Ya, Hard to Catch is so bad, they got displaced and can’t find their way back to the forums.

I know that all professions want a personal dev to work with on nerfs and buffs but I think thief needs it the most. If thief players could share their insight on thief buff/nerfs with a dev then there would be less QQ from other professions which would help fix the state of the game as a whole.

This is a known bug, steal was messed up before this recent patch and it was then “fixed” in the bad which made it worse and unusable. I believe they did a hot fix to make steal work again and it does work… about half the time, it still needs to be fixed.

The devs are pretty Hard To Catch… Ha see what I did there… :P

But I agree, having a dev communicating with us and work with us would awesome.

I actually have been running a D/D SB acro build in wvw for a while and it works pretty well. I usually run 0 6 3 5 0 but lately I have been trying out 0 6 2 6 0. Both work very well and it’s actually a strong build, you may not be able to have the burst from a 2 6 6 0 0 build but I find the survivability just from dodges makes it worth it. It defiantly is a harder build to play than SA but it makes for better fights. I still can almost always win 1v1s and usually 1v2s and everyone once in a while a 1v3 1v4 1v5 but they have to be pretty bad.

I’d like to see a video, I would record my game play but currently on a crappy Macbook GG.

Rise in trapper stealth rangers?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what these skills were. Thanks for the info!

Don’t feel bad. I had to look it up also. :P

As did I lol, I thought for a second that deadly strike was one of the dagger chain skills and I got really excited… :/

Superior Rune of Evasion:
+25 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, you gain 3 seconds of swiftness.
+50 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, you gain 3 seconds of fury.
+100 Ferocity
When executing a dodge roll, deal a crippling strike to nearby enemies.

Anyone for some S/D 2 0 0 6 6 ??? I might run this on my D/D acro set. I did a quick test and I could dodge 8 times in just under 30 seconds if I dodged every time my endurance was up and if I used vigor from the acro trait line paired with Withdraw.

So with 30% boon duration the swiftness and fury last 3.9 seconds and if you dodge 8 times in 30 seconds you get 31.2 seconds of both of these, not counting the trait for swiftness on dodge. You aren’t going to be using your dodge or heal skill the second it comes up but I would guess around 70%+ fury and swiftness upkeep just by dodging and healing during a fight. Seems pretty awesome to me

Because thieves have so much access to stealth underwater… GG anet GG…

Sir Vincent III.1286:

mango.9267:

"
P/D as a weapon set contributes almost nothing to team-play, so you can forget about it there.

But but — what about venom share? Today’s update makes sure that everyone gets condition damage based on my stats.

I can see you rolling your eyes….lol

Mine are :/

I was playing around with the idea of a life steal venom share build. Could be interesting depending on what the changes are to thief. Maybe Anet will throw a couple more buffs in

I don’t play P/d because I hate the play style but I don’t think the build would work out. If you are going for a condition build, dire is superior. Thief doesn’t have any crit condition traits like mesmer or engi so having crit chance seems useless imo. Using dire gives you higher condition damage and higher survivability compared to rampagers.
Rampagers may be useful if you were making a hybrid but going condition build it’s just better to go dire.

A suggestion could be that stealing would decrease one of your utility skills that is on CD by 10 seconds and an additional 10 seconds per additional utility skill you have on CD. So if all of your utilities are on CD and you steal one of the will be recharged while only have 1 utility on CD will not fully recharge it. It could allow thieves to use steal in more creative ways.

stof.9341:

MakubeC.3026:

• Shadow Return’s 10s cooldown limits the hit-and-run capabilities of the skill. If my enemy gets me at the 11th second, I lose both: my escaping way and my condition cleaning.

You forgot something : Can you actually do something in 10s only? I mean, lot’s of players go around with very tanky builds. 10s is seriously short to kill them.

Which is why I think increasing the shadow return would benefit both play styles. Even if the player is running full glass cannon and you manage to down them, having other players AoE & CC the downed player is going to make the stomp incredibly hard to get and will cut your shadow return close.

Another suggestion would be to put condition removal on both the shadowstep and the shadow return, this would be very strong but it would give thieves a solution for clearing burst conditions. Maybe 2 and 2?
EDIT: For condi burst I would say 3 on step and 3 when you step back, it might be pretty strong…

Using a class or a build or a trait in a different way is how new metas are created, it’s what keeps games alive. It adds for new builds and new combinations. Not using a skill properly like shadowstep is how the game evolves.

First off I don’t think Mak was ignoring you, maybe he/she just wanted to post an idea that came to his/her mind? But I’ll let them talk for themselves.

Secondly, just in a recent post on venoms you tried to shut down a thread by throwing out the OP’s idea. Please try to be constructive on a discussion board.
And with being constructive I’ll get back to the OP’s topic…

I never said that I wanted to destroy someone play style, I was just saying to match mine I would happy if they changed shadowstep. Also buffs and nerfs destroy people’s play styles all the time even if the buff or nerf is for the better. Maybe shadowstep could use a change.

I just think that using shadowstep the way I and many other players use it, unlocks it’s full potential and is way more helpful as a utility skill if use this way than as a offensive utility skill.

“The fact we only got 10s to use the return is kinda disastrous too for using it in an assaulting way. If you miss the window, you threw out both a potent stun break skill but your main condition removal utility.”
Agreed.
If the 10s shadow return was increased to 15 seconds or even 20 seconds if would help out players who use it in either way, whether that be offensive or defensive. It would allow a thief to inflict more damage before having to return, and it would allow a thief to port away and draw the enemy away from the port so they can port back and clear conditions without getting another face full.

Shadowstep has always been funky. I also do not recall shadowstep working on steps even though I think it should. Sometimes I stop right at the bottom of the steps and other times I get halfway up. Same thing with bridges, sometimes nothing happens and other times I actually step a decent distance across the bridge. Also I recently found out that when a wall in wvw is broken you can actually shadowstep from one side of the wall, across the broken half, to the other side which I find is very useful in arming siege and such on a stranded wall.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MakubeC.3026:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MakubeC.3026:

In my humble opinion, I think shadowstep should be more of a retreat thing. Mainly because for that sole purpose we a great deal of skills, in fact, the only sets missing an assault hability is P/P and D/D, none of which are serious for PvP in this stage of the game.

• Steal (Global)
• Infiltrator’s Arrow (SB)
• Infiltrator’s Strike (S/D)
• Shadow Shot(D/P)

So, the fact that can use Shadowstep to BACK AWAY from pressure, not to get into it, (unless you are D/D) should make the cleanse at the beggining a more logical approach. Its clear we don’t need another assaulting skill, we need a disagange skill ala Shadow Strike(P/D).
But maybe my 2k hours as thief are wrong.

I don’t know about you, but if you want to have a disengage perhaps bring RFI, Withdraw, use stealth or just dodge away — those are designed for defensive purposes.

Would do, unfortunately, none of those will cleanse my torment or confusion. Unless I sit for several seconds (on which my conditions are over anyways). Although, dodging does sound like a plausible suggestion. Maybe they should implement that for all other professions as well. Conditions? ROLL AWAY.

Your example of disengage skill was Shadow Strike, which does not remove conditions like torment and confusion, so MEH to your post. Try to make sense next time.

If you want a disengage and a condition cleanse, maybe you should start getting used to using sword.

And this is why no one else is posting in this thread… Sir Vincent please try to be respectful… maybe? I for one like to be disproved or shown a better idea when posting in a discussion board because it is in fact a discussion board. Most people here don’t mind being proven wrong or having their ideas throw out if it makes progress. But you see one mistake in a post or you see something you don’t agree with and you completely throw their idea out the window and you talk to them in a condescending tone (At least I think it is, hard to hear it when these are just words.) Nothing is wrong with you disagreeing on a post as long as it is handled in a constructive way in which everyone benefits from it as a learning experience. I for one believe you bring up some excellent points on certain topics but your dirt bag aura makes me disagree with you just for the sake of how you seem to treat people.

Now I could just be completely making this up and it could be all in my head …

Now back to the post…

I think this shows that the thief needs more traits and utility skills to handle conditions.

I for one do not use shadowstep for it’s original purpose because I use steal, infiltrators signet, heartseeker, and SB#5 to close a gap rather than shadowstep.

Imo shadowstep is too valuable as a defensive utility slot to be used for a gap close. With the stunbreaker and the 1200 step, I would rather save it on my bar for when I get perma stunned by a warrior or a thief tries a backstab combo on me. Or for when I need to get a stomp off. So to match my play style I would say having the condition clear on the first step would be more beneficial for me.

Now I have used shadowstep as a way to poke in and deal some damage and step out but it was more to have fun and be a troll than to actually achieve a kill. I think that the time frame to step back on shadowstep is too short and should be increased. At the current moment it is 10 seconds which is compared to the swords 15 seconds. I think shadow return should be increased to 15 seconds to match the sword. If it was increased then I think more players would use shadowstep as it’s “original purpose”

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MakubeC.3026:

From another thread:

stof.9341:

Shadow Step has 60s cooldown and is not only one of our stunbreaks but one of our major escape spell. And if you use the condition removal part of it, it isn’t an escape spell anymore.

3 conditions every 60s is hardly worth mentioning.

Confusion isn’t much of a problem because we are kind of good at waiting up that it passes by disengaging a little I suppose.

Warriors can remove 3 conditions every 8s provided they can get the adrenaline and their was supposed to be the class that has difficulties dealing with conditions!

That comment is misleading.

Warrior’s trait allows the Warrior to remove those conditions — not utility skills.

In comparison, you should look at Shadow’s Embrace — which is removing 2 conditions every stealth. You can also stealth back-to-back if you know how to do it to remove even more conditions.

As for OP, Shadowstep is working as intended — you’re just misusing it.

In order to remove the conditions you would have to be in stealth for the full duration to get 2 conditions removed. So 3 or 4 seconds in stealth to remove 2 conditions. But I am a little fuzzy on how Shadow’s Embrace works, the wiki says the first condition is removed on stealth so I guess 2 conditions would just be removed.

So if the thief played stealth heavy it would be about 5 conditions cleared in 8 seconds compared to warriors 3 conditions every 8 seconds. Now we need to take into perspective that the thief is not going to be doing anything to help the fight in those 8 seconds while the warrior will still be able to dis out damage and support. So 3 conditions every 8 seconds and being able to contribute to the fight after being bursted or 5 conditions in that 8 seconds but doing nothing to help your teammates.

Also if the thief has 3 points in SA the stealth lasts 4 seconds instead of 3 seconds. Now what I do not know is does that extra second in stealth carry on to the next stealth so only need to wait 2 more seconds for the conditions to clear. If not then it’s only 4 conditions every 8 seconds compared to the warrior’s 3 conditions every 8 seconds. I’d rather have the warriors condi clear if this is the case.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Intent #1: The intent to Shadowstep is for the Thief to shadowstep in, deal damage, then shadow return and any conditions received during the shadowstep will be removed.

Intent #2: Another intent to Shadowstep is for the Thief to shadowstep out, heal, then shadow return in and remove conditions to continue the pressure.

The way you want it to function will ruin the first intention since it will remove conditions that does not exists.

While I agree that intent #1 is one of the main roles of shadowstep, it would be nice for shadowstep to have a more defensive role which would include conditions cleared on the first step but that would ruin #1 intent.
I don’t understand your 2 second intent because it seems so similar to one of the OP’s reasons why it should be swapped. You are saying that your shadowstep out and heal and step back but if you have confusion or poison on your then you are going to be damaged before you even heal and your heal might be -33%. Also when you shadowstep to “pressure” you are just going to get a face full of conditions again and not have your heal up or your stunbreaker or condi clear.

Narkodx.1472:

It is because Backstab has a cast time !

I used to see this all the time and was wondering wtf is going on…

If you wait until the last second that you are still in stealth the cast time will register you being out of stealth when the BS lands.. it is quite strange beacuse you still get the reveal debuff.. thus it has to be a bug

Either way I stopped using that trait because I usually maximize my time in stealth and wait till the last second to BS which caused this trait to bug out a lot..

That makes a lot of sense! I think the reason it gives the revealed buff is because it is a stealth move so the game thinks that I have to be in stealth to use the move so it just reveals me. But that’s a bug that would be nice to get fixed but not top priority compared to some other traits.

It could be weakness but I didn’t see it on my bar and I didn’t get the “Glancing” text or whatever it says when you have weakness on. I think it happens when you have less than 1 second of stealth left and you attack, its doesn’t count as an attack from stealth but you still get revealed. But it’s just a guess.

Lately when I go in for a backstab I hit my target but I do not crit but I get the revealed buff. With Hidden Killer there is a 100% chance to get a crit with an attack from stealth so why is it not working? Anyone getting this problem?

Ok thanks I was wondering that because I recently learned that war banners can be nullified with poison and someone in my guild mentioned that you have to poison the down so the banner doesn’t work. So to cancel out the rezzing power of the war banner I should poison the warrior.

I feel like eekzie’s and Carpboy’s posts contradict each other. Eeek is saying that poison affects incoming heals of the poisoned person but not outgoing heals while Carp is saying poison lowers the outgoing heals on a person.

I feel like poison should affect all healing done by the infected person, which would include outgoing and incoming heals. Basically if you poison a person, other people’s heals are less effective and if that person tries to heal people it is also less effective. Tomorrow I’m going to get into Spvp with some guildies and see how poison affects heals.

Does anyone know how poison really works? I understand that there is a -33% healing effectiveness on it but I wanted to get the details.

If I heal someone and they are poisoned do they get the full effect or only 77% of the heal? Or is it that I heal someone and I am poisoned, do they get the full effect or only 77%? Or is it both?

I can’t believe I have been playing this game for almost 2 years and I still don’t fully understand all the conditions. :P

Got really bored today so I thought I would try to come up with utility skills and traits to replace traps. Not completely done yet, just a draft, but I wanted to know if you guys thought it could be on the right track. I was going to call them Feats but I’ll change it for a better name.

Utility Skills:

Skill #1 Skillful Timing
You have mastered the art of flexibility and acrobatics.

Version #1
When active every successful dodge for the next 10 seconds remove a condition. Only 1 condition per second per successful dodge. 60 CD

Version #2
When activated grants 5 charges, a charge is used with every successful dodge and removes a condition. Does not use a charge if there are no conditions to cleanse. Duration of charges 40 seconds, 60 CD.

I don’t know which one would be better to use. Up for suggestions and changes to this skill, I don’t know if increasing the duration for #1 would be OP considering the amount of dodges a thief can get with Felice Grace and vigor.

Skill #2 Stalker
You have master the art of stalking your target.

When activated target, enemy gains debuff “Cannot Hide”. “Cannot Hide” gives target enemy revealed for 5 seconds and inflict 10 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds. CD 45 seconds.

I thought this would be a good support skill in group fights so a group could burst down an enemy faster. Kinda like Warriors “On My Mark!” but with a 15 second longer CD because of revealed.

Skill #3 Fear The Unknown
You have mastered the art of psychological manipulation.

Cloak yourself in darkness (Can still be seen) and strike fear into your enemies in a 600 radius. Fear duration 1.5 seconds. CD 30 seconds.

I thought the thief could use a little CC love… :P

Skill #4
I’ll think of one soon…

Elite Dagger Storm
You have mastered the art of balance
.
The elite skill would just be to add Dagger Storm to this category so it can be affected by traits.

Traits:
I was thinking these two traits would be in the acrobatics traitline.

Trait #1 Benefits of Mastering – Master Trait
Reduce all Feat CDs by 20%

Trait #2 All Knowing – Grandmaster Trait
Skillful Timing – Removes an additional condition every other dodge.
Stalker – Also inflicts cripple for 7 seconds.
Fear The Unknown – Also inflicts two stacks of torment for 5 seconds.
Dagger Storm – Now a stun breaker OR grants 4 seconds of stability after channel.

Let me know what you guys think. I could be blinded by my love for the thief class and not see how OP these utilities are. So let me know if anything should be changed or thrown away!