Guild Wars 2

So I did the event to get the invisible mushroom spore, because I wanted to get it for my engineer’s weapon, for this you need nuhoch stealth detection to kill a REALLY tanky mushroom that is in the middle of a ton of mordrem including 2 vets. Nevertheless, I completed the event and got the mushroom spore…and it counted toward berserker specialization collection and nothing else?

I did it on my engineer just in case it only counted for one, which I wasn’t too sad that it only counted for one spec, but for it to not count towards the character I did it on? This to me just seems really stupid that I have to do it countless times on different characters hoping for the rng to love me and give it to the right specialization.

p.s. I did it again on my engi and didn’t get the spore from completing it again on the same character so it’s either once per day per character/account or once per character per account.

bladex.9502:

Craig.2403:

In more organized groups a thief will remove defiant so you can get a second deep freeze off so you’ll want to hold on to it until then, and use skill 2 if needed to fill the gap. (note this also depends on the boss, as some bosses will die before the second deep freeze is needed).

Eh?
There’s only very few bosses where its actually needed to do double freeze (Mossman, Svanigandr, Ancient Ooze when there isn’t a mesmer).
Also, you don’t hold on to your icebow, you coordinate when the eles drop their icebow so the second ele drops it when the defiance is removed again after the first freeze.
Holding on to your icebow is a huge DPS waste, and there is no reason to do that in “organized groups”

first ele will drop ice bow before fight starts and immediately deep freeze on boss spawn/as fight starts. Thief immediately removes defiant and either picks up second ice bow or whoever picked up the second ice bow freezes. This is used on pretty much every boss as it takes the thief the duration of the cast of ice bow 4 to remove all 5 defiant stacks. So if you picked up ice bow and a thief is in the party hold onto the ice bow if it takes thief a bit longer to remove last defiant stack so you can get a second freeze off.

1) thief/ele are best to pick up, after that is warrior slightly higher than guardian. The reason being that thief and ele have the most damage multipliers, followed by warrior then guard. (note this is a change from previous patches where it used to be guard over warrior. But since the specialization patch warrior is slightly better than guard).

2) as everyone else has said, unless you are sinister ice bow is ALWAYS a dps gain. If no one else in pug is picking it up go ahead and pick it up.

3) in most pugs/unorganized groups just use 4 → 3 then drop. In more organized groups a thief will remove defiant so you can get a second deep freeze off so you’ll want to hold on to it until then, and use skill 2 if needed to fill the gap. (note this also depends on the boss, as some bosses will die before the second deep freeze is needed).

-available on weekends and any day after 5pm server except Tuesday and Thursday.
-I’m a college student studying computer science. I mainly play WvW where I run in small man havoc groups, but I play PvP a lot as well and typically hover around the top 500 NA team q.
-currently about 400 games on guardian, playing both bunker and dps meditation, but mainly bunker.

lunyboy.8672:

Craig.2403:

lunyboy.8672:

Jeknar.6184:

Yada yada yada…

I have been stomped quite a bit by [BS], so I am empirically aware of their objectives. Gank solo roamers, uplevels, and 2-person teams with 5+ person gank groups and then corpse jump and spam laugh. It’s quite cute, really.

The difference between xPvP and WvW as far as objectives is irrelevant, so we can move past that point. If you TAKE an objective, someone will come to take it back or defend it from you, in wvw or in pvp.

It isn’t about team size either, because without fail, in the match-up threads, the QQ about zerging and the lack of “small teams” and “good fights” chokes out other discussion, leading inevitably to the “whip it out and measure it” portion of the discussion, where each ostensible pvp team brags about how they run with fewer than the others.

These groups move intentionally to lower rank servers with little or no queue times, and then only work on objectives for PPT when that leads to baiting pugs into fights where the better coordination and FotM builds will stomp the opposition.

What is it exactly that these “small teams” want then? It seems like they want their own little playground of pugs, uplevels, and guards to gank (for the buffs), because they can’t play xPvP without their OP food, OP buffs, and OP builds. Otherwise, they would just go into the actual pvp game mode and disregard the capture points there.

Attached – Me fighting [BS]

These small teams want fights with other small teams that are a challenge and have nothing to do with pointless ppt. At the end of the day, winning for us is fighting a fun hard fight and coming out on top. However, some people like you choose to believe that ppt is the end-all-be-all even though it’s not. All ppt is is a representation of numbers and coverage, something that we can easily see with or without it. What people like us want is a good fun fight in PvP (which, if you didn’t know, stands for player vs player, not player vs objective). What people have been saying is true: people avoid fights in order to cap points, xPvP or WvW. Right now ANet does not have the game mode that we want so we make due with the best we can get, which is taking WvW objectives to draw fights. The reason they don’t do this in PvP is because 1. It’s really hard to get on the same team outside of team arena where you can’t play for fights. 2. Even if you do happen to do team arena for fights, you’re only allowed 5 people and there’s a very slim chance the other team is there for the fights as well. 3. There’s less stat variety in PvP meaning you can’t run a mix of 3 stats, only 2, and you can’t balance it as well. This makes it harder to transfer your WvW build over to PvP, and it’s harder to coordinate builds to work together.

So why corpse jump and laugh when you gank singles and zerg smaller teams? That certainly undermines your assertion that “small teams” are there for “good fights” but more like griefing and ganking, which you can’t do as well in xPvP, where the stats, team size, and ability is a bit more equitable, or am I misunderstanding your comment?

Attached – My typical play style.

I personally never corpse jump or laugh unless that person did that to me in the situation you described and I end up killing him in a 1v1 (which usually happens). Honestly, if you see anyone do it, just ignore them. Or, do what I do and sit there cleaning out your inventory while they sit there corpse jumping for like 10 minutes and make a fool out of themselves. Then, you get a laugh out of it more than them.
Also, a fourth reason I forgot about why I personally don’t like xPvP: The map is really small. Everything is a choke point there and you can’t really win by positioning and map awareness, so in my mind there’s less skill involved and whoever wins is the person with a more aoe oriented build.

lunyboy.8672:

Jeknar.6184:

Yada yada yada…

I have been stomped quite a bit by [BS], so I am empirically aware of their objectives. Gank solo roamers, uplevels, and 2-person teams with 5+ person gank groups and then corpse jump and spam laugh. It’s quite cute, really.

The difference between xPvP and WvW as far as objectives is irrelevant, so we can move past that point. If you TAKE an objective, someone will come to take it back or defend it from you, in wvw or in pvp.

It isn’t about team size either, because without fail, in the match-up threads, the QQ about zerging and the lack of “small teams” and “good fights” chokes out other discussion, leading inevitably to the “whip it out and measure it” portion of the discussion, where each ostensible pvp team brags about how they run with fewer than the others.

These groups move intentionally to lower rank servers with little or no queue times, and then only work on objectives for PPT when that leads to baiting pugs into fights where the better coordination and FotM builds will stomp the opposition.

What is it exactly that these “small teams” want then? It seems like they want their own little playground of pugs, uplevels, and guards to gank (for the buffs), because they can’t play xPvP without their OP food, OP buffs, and OP builds. Otherwise, they would just go into the actual pvp game mode and disregard the capture points there.

Attached – Me fighting [BS]

These small teams want fights with other small teams that are a challenge and have nothing to do with pointless ppt. At the end of the day, winning for us is fighting a fun hard fight and coming out on top. However, some people like you choose to believe that ppt is the end-all-be-all even though it’s not. All ppt is is a representation of numbers and coverage, something that we can easily see with or without it. What people like us want is a good fun fight in PvP (which, if you didn’t know, stands for player vs player, not player vs objective). What people have been saying is true: people avoid fights in order to cap points, xPvP or WvW. Right now ANet does not have the game mode that we want so we make due with the best we can get, which is taking WvW objectives to draw fights. The reason they don’t do this in PvP is because 1. It’s really hard to get on the same team outside of team arena where you can’t play for fights. 2. Even if you do happen to do team arena for fights, you’re only allowed 5 people and there’s a very slim chance the other team is there for the fights as well. 3. There’s less stat variety in PvP meaning you can’t run a mix of 3 stats, only 2, and you can’t balance it as well. This makes it harder to transfer your WvW build over to PvP, and it’s harder to coordinate builds to work together.

Justine.6351:

I Covered Wars.4380:

Justine.6351:

I Covered Wars.4380:

Justine.6351:

haha no. When I see [bs] I decide to engage or not based on situation. Ive had some bad encounters in the past and ive learned how to deal with guilds like [bs] and [xoxo]. Why not always engage? Its simple, you don’t play for ppt and I do. I don’t have to fight you and I still win. Don’t fight your enemies where they are hardest for minimal/no gain, fight them where they are softest for maximum gain.

I respect the lvl of skill some of your members have for sure, but I don’t really respect your playstyle. I could explain this further if you care but whatever.

Please do

ok, I guess thinking about it I would use a real world comparison.

We got soldiers who fight for objectives and die for them.

We got murderers who kill when its easy and hide when they are being hunted. They have no objective other then to kill for whatever reasons go through their own minds.

you don’t spike players because its of benefit to your server, you spike them cause it makes you feel warm and gooey on the inside.

I spike players defending and capturing objectives trying to help server win.

Does that invalidate your playstyle in wvw? No. My opinion is that its tasteless is all. To that end I choose when to engage [bs] and when to move on to other objectives that are of more benefit. Its unfortunate when I tell someone don’t chase your members that they do so anyhow and get lured into a disadvantage and spiked merely because someone needed an ego boost.

I guess this may seem weird since its just a game but its how I perceive it.

Interesting opinion.
I’m curious could you explain to me the fun of capturing objectives and ppt? What is it that you do when playing WvW exactly? (you may not do this but I am assuming you follow a zerg with a commander or something like that but I am probably wrong.)

Like besides having your server win due to a point system what is fun about capturing and holding these objectives with siege. I’m being serious and not mean at all, I want to be in your mindset for a minute to see what makes you tick, because I don’t see what is fun about pvdoor or avoiding PvP in a PvP type game mode.

I prefer roaming solo on my BL defending. But with guard lines being so expensive ive zerged quite a lot lately with my b-day boosters. Hoping to max those two lines and build master so I can lay those stealth traps super fast as a tactic against thieves while roaming ;-)

You say pvdoor negatively and wanting pvp more in wvw but whats pvpish about ganking noobs in other peoples borderlands? Besides, if you want hardcore pvp there is spvp. Ive seen guilds defend their spawn points camp and taking out whoever trys to recap and that’s cool, but roaming just to find something to kill? That isn’t pvp and it isn’t a benefit to your wvw server score (don’t say bloodlust is the reason…).
Guess this is my mindset biased coming from me. I wasn’t there in the described massacre by [bs] today but if you were actually defending something that’s cool too. Im talking about the [bs] I see running around not caping stuff, just spiking green arrows in my bl.

sPvP/tPvP is just like WvW just with less people (aka, 8 or 5 respectively) on your team. In sPvP it’s nearly impossible to get with the people you want anyways so what’s the point, so the best you can do is 5. Some guilds (like BS) like to run with more than 5, but less than 20 (TFI is usually 5-15, BS is around that too) so WvW suits them more. Also, sPvP/tPvP is about capture points and to play to win you avoid fights as well. I don’t get what’s fun about running away over and over again just to make points tick. To me, there’s nothing fun about sitting in a keep with a poor old soul just looking for a nice fair fun fight standing outside while you fire a cannon at them. And no matter what you think, there are hundreds of people who play the game with that mindset. In fact, the best guild in the game at open world fights (Red Guard) disbanded because ANet discouraged that type of thinking. Also, GvG derived from people who like that play style.

Granted, there are people like you who think running away and fighting on siege just to make points tick for your server and make you guys win is fun. That type of thinking is fine, as long as you realize it’s not what EVERYONE thinks. Just some food for thought.

FrownyClown.8402:

Here I have complied a list of cheese

1. Swiss
2. Cheddar
3. Condition Mesmer
4. Provolone
5. P/D thief
6. White American
7. Colby Jack
8. Every brand of Warrior
9. D/P Thief
10. Pepper Jack

+1 think I laughed for a full minute on that one lol

bokunocarrie.7215:

Craig.2403:

bokunocarrie.7215:

clint.5681:

Meh WvW is for pvp not jumping. You really cant get mad at people for setting a trap for people just trying to get AP.

Hmmm. Let’s think about this.

They put a jumping puzzle in WvW. They made achievements for all four jumping puzzles in WvW.

Doesn’t matter if WvW is for pvp, you can get mad at people for being kittens in JPs. Not just people though, SF have always been camping out in JPs looking for easy kills.

They also put in an achievement for kills in WvW, and the jumping puzzle is going to be a great place to farm easy kills. The jumping puzzles were put in WvW to let people have fun trying to get off while there were literally live forces at work against you. ANet PURPOSEFULLY allowed pvp in the WvW jumping puzzles to make it more fun. Don’t get mad at people for playing the game the way ANet designed it

Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the bullkitten spewing out of your mouth.

It’s called being considerate. Especially considering there are PvE people in there who aren’t familiar with WvW and look to other people for help. I know there’s an achievements for kills. I’m active in both WvW and PvE and the only time I’ve ever attacked anyone in a WvW JP is when I was attacked first. For the most part, people are nice in WvW JPs. The only server I’ve ever seen attack people in a JP is (whoa, big shocker) SF.

Bottom line – it’s being considerate. And FYI? Jumping puzzles aren’t exactly easy. So to attack people while they’re trying to do it is just you being an kitten. Stop trying to defend your actions.

#1: I’m from ET. Read before you post angrily
#2: If a person parties me and asks politely to go because they just want the achievement I’ll let them go
#3: If I’m attacked I will fight back. If I die more than once I will call friends. If I still die I will wait half an hour and come back. None of these require complaining on the forums, and is much more productive.
#4: Who ever said I was trying to defend my actions? I never camp jumping puzzles. You’d know that if you actually paid attention to anything I said and read my post.
#5: Yes, for the most part people are nice, but that doesn’t change the fact that the jumping puzzles were put in there for the reasons I stated. Some people actually find it fun to try to get past jp campers. Like I said before, which you apparently didn’t read: there’s a reason ANet allowed fighting in the WvW jumping puzzles, and why after a year after a bunch of people like you complaining, there’s still fighting allowed in there.
#6: If you don’t like people camping the jumping puzzles, DON’T DO THEM. You think it’s a requirement to do them? If you don’t like a part of the game just don’t do it.
#7: Just because you’re getting your kills one way, it doesn’t mean everyone else should get them that way too. Some people don’t like zerging, which is the fastest way to get kills. So instead they take easy kills in the jp.
#8: The WvW jumping puzzles aren’t actually that hard. If you really want the achievement and can’t get it by yourself cause of campers, I’ll port you up. But seriously, stop complaining because people are playing the game the way it was designed.

I’ve had good luck with a 20/0/30/20/0 build. Perma vigor with heal on dodge, take valk jewel (Zerk Amulet) in PvP or in WvW take some Clerics jewels. GS/Sw+F. Good sustain through healing while still maintaining good dps

Here’s the build I run:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgiD3GyOEf4ESli45ewUQgw31DIKiaIA-TsAg0CvIqRVjrGTNyas1MsYZxuAA

clint.5681:

If you come to WvW for JP.. Your gonna have a bad time.

Totally agree. However, not all people will agree. Some people (including me occasionally) love the challenge of ascending a challenging jp with people trying to knock me off or prevent my progress, or even kill me. It’s fun in a different way and is part of the game mode, just like open field fights and taking heavily sieged and fortified keeps and towers. It’s all fun and interesting in a different way. The point is that everyone plays the game differently and should be allowed to play it how they want. If you don’t want people killing you while you try to do a jumping puzzle, then by goly don’t do a jumping puzzle in PvP.

bokunocarrie.7215:

clint.5681:

Meh WvW is for pvp not jumping. You really cant get mad at people for setting a trap for people just trying to get AP.

Hmmm. Let’s think about this.

They put a jumping puzzle in WvW. They made achievements for all four jumping puzzles in WvW.

Doesn’t matter if WvW is for pvp, you can get mad at people for being kittens in JPs. Not just people though, SF have always been camping out in JPs looking for easy kills.

They also put in an achievement for kills in WvW, and the jumping puzzle is going to be a great place to farm easy kills. The jumping puzzles were put in WvW to let people have fun trying to get off while there were literally live forces at work against you. ANet PURPOSEFULLY allowed pvp in the WvW jumping puzzles to make it more fun. Don’t get mad at people for playing the game the way ANet designed it

DH, you weren’t supposed to die in that 3v3… We even stripped naked so we wouldn’t take armor damage…

armymelendez.1532:

Greetings from Yaks Bend! Hope you guys have a good week. You guys had a pretty clever tactic going on. Barely show up in EBG, bore our guild into leaving, and then you guys sweep in with your real crew after prime time. You clever sods, you. Well played.

Cheers, GLHF

hmmm, lets see. We had a que in our bl because SF and YB both had que sized zergs in our bl. So that left TFI’s 10 man group to defend EB. Trust me, we felt left out too…

a tip to get it really easily: while Caithe is talking, head over to the door and stand on the little ledge on the door. It’s slightly raised and you don’t get hit by the floor. Wait until your group has gotten to the other 3 platforms, then with for the cost to be clear and hop two steps to the last platform. Makes the last platform easy and gets you the achievement easy. It’s a plus plus.

I absolutely love this new path. I’ve run TA countless times before helping my guildie get his tokens for Kudzu, and we all hated the dungeon. Now, I go in there at least once a day. I absolutely love it. The bosses don’t just have large health pools, they have cool mechanics that make you use strategy and coordination.

I’ve now been through it successfully 5 times (4 of which were pugs), got my mini, have gotten countless “thank you’s” from the people I have led through for their first time, and had the joy of watching people get that hard achievement for the first time.

But the best part of the path is: it’s permanent! I can run it as many times as I want, cause it’s here to stay! Thank you ANet for making great content that’s actually going to stay!

If I had to make one complaint though it would be this: guardians are a near requirement. I’ve made it through once without a guardian, and that run took twice as long as all the others. I don’t know how to make them less needed (and maybe this next balance patch will address that somehow), but it is something I’d love to see.

Also, pistol whip has an evade frame to it, so you might just be kicking in the evade frame, in which case it’s not gs4’s fault. Never had a problem vs hundred blades, though I do take a bit of the attack.

Zelcova.4173:

Craig.2403:

Triple Meditation for the win!!!!
Yea I run a very similar build but with sword/focus instead in s/tPvP.
Some advice: I know you stated you’re gonna stay a clicker but I can’t help but say it really helps to break that habit (and yes, I know how hard of a habit it is to stop, I was a clicker for years in City of Heroes then in gw2 I managed to be converted). My suggestion would be to make an alt and level it up with key binds. You can always click if you really need to but try as hard as you can to not click at all. Just find what’s comfortable for you to use.
In some real advice: take instant cast meditations. I don’t know what you have in its place but it’s huge to make merciful intervention instant cast. It also allows you to start stomp -> merciful intervention -> judges intervention for a near guaranteed stomp, which is nice since you have no stability. Also use f3 for aegis to block warrior hammer or guardian knock back for successful stomps. All in all, nice job though.

This was my first video and everyone in my guild is surprised I turned out to be a clicker xD
I think i’ll try and stop being scrub what keybinds do you recommend? or is this something I’ll have to figure out for myself?

Anything easy for you to reach. I personally use r, z, and x for utilities and c for elite, then shift + 1, 2, 3, and 4 for f1-f4. However, if you have big hands and can reach 6, or if you want to use t or something, that’s great too. Also, you can get rid of e and q and use mouse to look around (which you should do anyways, I just like e and q instead of a and d and don’t like hitting a and d, so I don’t use them. Again, I suggest leveling an alt (preferably a class you’d like to have anyways) and level it using key binds. Also, as personal preference, I switched dodge (v) and 1 as v is easier for me to use with my ranger sword (which ask any ranger and he’ll tell you auto attack is terrible to have on with sword). But basically use whatever feels comfortable to reach. I use very wierd keybinds as well because I have small hands. You can also look up some guides on good keybinds. Also, don’t expect it to feel “natural” at first. It will take a while but eventually you’ll get used to it. Honestly it took me a month to truly convert but my response time is like 10x better. Good luck if you want to go through with it.

Edit: forgot to mention I use “n” for heal. Basically most of my utilities and “emergency keys” are activated with my thumb, because I’m a bassoonist (which is a woodwind instrument with 13 thumb keys) so I have a very well trained and fast thumb. Random fact of the day.

Triple Meditation for the win!!!!
Yea I run a very similar build but with sword/focus instead in s/tPvP.
Some advice: I know you stated you’re gonna stay a clicker but I can’t help but say it really helps to break that habit (and yes, I know how hard of a habit it is to stop, I was a clicker for years in City of Heroes then in gw2 I managed to be converted). My suggestion would be to make an alt and level it up with key binds. You can always click if you really need to but try as hard as you can to not click at all. Just find what’s comfortable for you to use.
In some real advice: take instant cast meditations. I don’t know what you have in its place but it’s huge to make merciful intervention instant cast. It also allows you to start stomp → merciful intervention → judges intervention for a near guaranteed stomp, which is nice since you have no stability. Also use f3 for aegis to block warrior hammer or guardian knock back for successful stomps. All in all, nice job though.

Thanks for the advice guys. I like having sik’ em especially with the buff coming out to it soon (thieves go bye bye). I’ll definitely try out some different pets (leaning towards Krytan Drakehound right now). I also like melandru runes especially vs necros who can just keep reapplying condis but that don’t last that long (you’d be surprised how fast they fall off between the signet, runes, and trait, and dodging removing poison and blind) so that my regen can be effective. But I’ll definitely try some of the trait changes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBhYD7koisg7rwKIWLDItHZS/hJvCzi7xo0Jh4Jr4KrA-TsAgzCmIMSZkzIjRSjsGN+Y9xuAA

It’s a bunker build for PvP and WvW with perma regen, and a water field with 2 leap and 1 blast finisher. What I’m not sure about is pets. I like the bear because it has the extra condi clear and is a pretty good tank, but is there a better option? I also like the wolf for fear giving me time to finish my dps on a low-health target. However, I’d be open to other options if you think there’s a better option. The other thing I’m not sure about is sigils. Energy is great as dodges keep the poison off of you (which is vital considering it’s a regen build), but I’m not sure about the second sigil. I’m just going with force cause I don’t know what else would work but it doesn’t go that well with the build. I’ve had good success in bunkering and managed to hold a point for a couple minutes (I used my heal at least 3 times) against 3 people. Any feedback is appreciated.

Harbinger.8637:

WarLord.8430:

In open field fighting yes, only because you run and dont fight with decent numbers multi times in FC BG, we are even making a video for you so that everyone can see how much running you did even teamspeak commentary.

Yes because your video won’t be biased and you’re not going to cut out the parts that makes you look like a fool.

Like I said before love you ET a lot of good guilds on there, BS and CM come to mind.

As for WarLord, “Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.” Seems like you figured that out.

no TFI? And after that long conversation today!?!? I’m hurt!

Jesse.4631:

ET being skillful “why you running tower” lol <3 ET :/

hey, that’s me in that party. Lol that was fun. Died a bunch of times, but it was fun.
To answer your question: ET doesn’t like siege so the untouchable arrow carts scared them off

Let me explain something to you guys who think that ET is zerging and is winning cause of numbers: PPT is coverage. Though all of us have about the same numbers, ET has better coverage due to better communication. Also, great fights so far this week. Have had some great 5-7v20’s. Even won a couple .

Void.4239:

evilapprentice.6379:

Craig.2403:

style.6173:

Rissou.7213:

I would like to see a thief who can play d/d bleed good, because ive never seen one.

You clearly haven’t played much. Played well this spec is incredible, at least in PvP.

You clearly have not played much vs good players. Played vs good players this spec is terrible, at least in PvP.

I agree. I’m not sure what the infatuation is with this spec in PvP.

You have 1 UND ONLY ONE condition that does any damage – Bleed. It’s so ridiculously easy for any class in the current meta to cleanse 1 condition that it’s laughable. If venoms were in a better place, it might be viable…but they aren’t, so it isn’t.

The last time I fought a D/D DB thief, I tried explaining this to him. When he called me a noob, I stopped fighting, let him go nuts with his DB, cleansed his bleeds (essentially turning 15 initiative into roughly 3k damage), then demolished him without any effort.

If you’re trying to rely on your AA for filler damage, it’s a losing proposition – you’re either running Rabid/Shaman amulet and doing completely awful direct damage, or Carrion amulet and the lack of toughness leaves you taking too much damage during your AA chain(which still isn’t doing good damage, just good in comparison to the base power you’d be running with rabid/shaman) – you’re 100% reliant on 1 kind of kittenty skill to do All of your damage, which is again, rather easily cleansed.

It’s a joke spec – entirely predictable, entirely counter-able, entirely reliant on 1 weaponskill out of 5.

first of i run Dubble D/D 5/0/5/30/30 build. as my main build in Spvp

1) Sure you can cleanse the bleeds , to bad in my rotation you’ll have at least 3 bleeds up 2-3 secs after you cleans it
2) I got poison/ cripple / bleeds that will be “spammed” on the target , that looks like 3 condi’s to me instead of 1.
3) I’m build for high condi damage / i got a very high evade uptime( that spreads bleeds and cripple pools)/ and i got a realy good ini recovery) .
4) I can still dish out good burst damage with elite , and Hs still hits for around 2k to finish folks off. ( for those peski condi cleansing maniacs )
5) Its not meant to be a killer,
- Its a support build that can dish out good damage,
- It has great survivability,
- It can hold multiple targets busy at a point and can bunker on points for a good amount of time ( for a thief that is )

1. In the current meta any condi class can put way more than 3 bleeds in 3 seconds. This is nothing new and still easily laughed at.
2. Oh no! 3 conditions, of which only 2 are damaging… and those two will go really fast in the current condi meta.
3. You have less than 50% evade uptime… that’s not “very high” compared to most evade builds. And, the evade is not the full cast, so it’s very easy for you to get stunned or hit mid-cast and have nothing to do about it. A gc can drop you in the course of 2 db if he’s good enough.
4. What’s “good burst,” and with which elite? I assume dagger storm, as that would be the only “burst” elite, and it isn’t good burst… it applies bleed and cripple, and such low amounts that it does almost nothing. In terms of direct damage… you’re running a condi build, nothing has good direct damage burst on a condi build.
5. It’s not a good survivor either, so pick what you want. Are you a troll build for bad players? Cause that doesn’t work well in any high level play. And support? How on earth do you support? Steal on a 21s cool down that applies a bunch of boons that will get ripped or converted to condis in less than 3s? That doesn’t seem like good support to me.
-not a viable support build and very minimal damage in the current meta
-It has terrible survivability vs any good players, or in a team fight
-less than 50% evade uptime is not nearly long enough to hold people on a point for a while. Even assuming you have high toughness/vitality, you will drop fast cause you’re a thief, and you drop easily due to the easily noticed and countered evade frames, and how easy it is to counter the build just by knowing the evade frames. Against 2 good players who know the evade frames of db I’d give you 10s of life… and that’s high imo. As soon as you db once, you’re stunned and bursted, and db is your main form of damage and defense.

style.6173:

Rissou.7213:

I would like to see a thief who can play d/d bleed good, because ive never seen one.

You clearly haven’t played much. Played well this spec is incredible, at least in PvP.

You clearly have not played much vs good players. Played vs good players this spec is terrible, at least in PvP.

So, as people have evolved from the old “stealth is op” to the new “stealth is op because there is no counter play” I began to have hope. Hope that people would listen to logic now that they had a legitimate reason. But, given the number of times this keeps coming up, I decided to make a thread showing that stealth DOES have counter play, and maybe… just maybe, convincing more people that thieves are, if anything, in need of a buff (yea, I know, it won’t happen, but whatever, worth the try at least). Ok, so here goes.

The main thing people say about stealth showing that it has no counterplay is that “once they are in stealth, there is no way to make the thief revealed but to get hit,” aka, there is no skill or trait that makes stealthed thieves visible. However, people miss a key word in here that is hiding all the counterplay behind stealth: ONCE. WHAAAAT!?!?!?!?!? How does that work? Well, it’s quite simple: thieves have only 1 uninterruptible stealth move: blinding powder, that is an instant cast. However, it is 3 seconds of stealth on a 40 second cooldown… thus it is balanced. There are many other ways to stealth, like smoke field->leap/blast finisher, shadow refuge, hide in shadows, and cloak and dagger. Every one of these skills is interruptible (even shadow refuge, which also has the obvious counterplay to that few people complain about). This is where the word “once” comes in. People always complain about ONCE the thief is in stealth, forgetting all together that they allowed the thief to get into stealth in the first place.
So, before people complain about you not having enough interrupts to keep a thief out of stealth every time he tries to, take in mind that attempting to stealth takes a lot of initiative. Interrupting one stealth may not kill the thief (unless he’s complete glass), but it will give you a huge advantage in the fight and put the thief on the defensive, allowing you to gain your bearings and prepare for a long fight, or, if you’re glass yourself, capitalize on the opportunity and quickly dispatch the thief.
So, what happens when a thief does get into stealth? So maybe he is good and managed to recover before you finished him, and has his stealth up before your interrupt is back up, what happens now? Do you sit there and let him hit you? NO! There are a few things to watch for: first, has he used steal yet? If not, he will most likely position himself behind you then port and backstab. If he has, try to remember if he is using infiltrator’s signet, and if so, pan behind you and watch for the signet (that appears while he’s in stealth I might add) pop up above his head, and dodge as soon as you see it. Finally, if he’s d/p, pay attention to if you get hit by a light attack, as it may be the pistol 3 port that a good thief can use backstab with. All of these things create some counterplay to the thief who is actually in stealth. While this is all small and very detailed (something you might have picked up if you, say, played the thief for a bit… hmm, that sounds familiar) counterplay, coupled with the counterplay to stealth BEFORE stealth happens, I think most people would agree that stealth has plenty of viable counterplay.
Ok, so I wanted to convince you that thieves need a buff…why? Ever notice how many thieves play d/p backstab? Now, I know you think that it’s because it’s op and everyone obviously only wants to play an op build… but that’s not it. d/p is the only perfectly balanced weapon set on the thief, aka, it’s the only one that you need to use every skill on the set to reach your full potential. What thieves need is for every weaponset to have that “completeness,” such that every skill is useful in some way. How to do that is a very long story that is not for this topic, but it is something that does need to be addressed eventually.
tl;dr the counterplay to stealth happens mostly BEFORE the thief goes into stealth, not after. Also, thieves need more “complete” weaponsets to give them more variety in the types of builds that they can use.

High level tournament play (or any sort of high level pap) is about counterplay to the counterplay, aka, being one step ahead of your opponent. d/d deathblossom spam doesn’t allow for that, as the counterplay to d/d db spam can’t be counterplayed due to the locked animation. If that went over your head, think of it as the fact that with d/d death blossom spam you can’t react to the opponent reacting to you. If that went over your head… give up.
Compare this to s/d: s/d has Flanking strike, a 1/2s evade and 1/2s cast, so the only vulnerable time is the aftercast, which is minimal and can be eliminated with a dodge if need be. If you are safe and don’t need to dodge, you can continue with larcenous strike and be vulnerable for 1/2s, allowing counterplay that is counterplayable. In other words, the difference between s/d and d/d is 2 things: damage type (condition vs power) and counterplay (what this entire post has been about). As condition on d/d is only bleed, and the occasional cripple or poison, the bleed is easily cured and dealt with through only moderate condition removal, thus the damage type is not a viable reason to use it, and s/d is better for counterplay, thus s/d is the better weaponset for high level pvp

PopeUrban.2578:

Craig.2403:

The problem with d/d deathblossom is that db has a 3/4s cast time and 1/2s evade frame. Aka, you are vulnerable for 1/4s without any way to dodge the incoming attack. While this is ok vs the average player, against a high level player you can’t do a thing to them, and they can hit you without you being able to do anything.

This is about as untrue a statement as I have heard. It’s like saying hammer warriors are gimpy because you can be poked during the aftercast/precast of the stuns and thus they’re useless builds.

A solid DB thief doesn’t play offensive. It’s not a burst build and it can’t play burst. If you see someone chaining DB on an aware opponent with a cooldown advantage you’re watching a poor DB thief. Lots of these are left over from when the skill was full-evade and you COULD just hit 3 until your init was out.

A decent DB thief uses autos to keep poison up, and plays extremely defensively, using DB and dodgetrops to punish enemy action and control the fight.

You don’t see it in high level play because the build used to have 2 cover conditions on upkeep (poison and weakness) and since the lotus poison nerf it only has one (poison) and because tournament teams are often much more support oriented. The thief has little passive support to offer his team, and is often passed over in favor of someone who can hand out boons without working extra to do so. Additionally, it’s an extremely high skillcap build to play efficiently, requiring extreme amounts of situational awareness and reflexive timing to utilize properly. People don’t like to play hard builds in PvP for the most part because they simply experience lower win rates on average compared to something that takes less effort.

Believe what you want, but the truth is db builds are more pve oriented to play to maximum effectiveness. Any good player will have no trouble staying out of dodgetrops/caltrops, and can easily avoid db and retaliate during the non-evade frame cast time. and it’s not anything like hammer warriors, because hammer warriors can evade out of the cast to dodge, while a db locks you into the animation until the end of the cast, in which it leaves you vulnerable to a short burst. It is very similar to s/d, just that s/d has higher damage and boon steals, allowing you to take down bunkers, which is the point of an evade oriented build. Db, however, has only condis to take down the bunkers, which is terrible in this condi heavy meta.

The problem with d/d deathblossom is that db has a 3/4s cast time and 1/2s evade frame. Aka, you are vulnerable for 1/4s without any way to dodge the incoming attack. While this is ok vs the average player, against a high level player you can’t do a thing to them, and they can hit you without you being able to do anything. That’s why in high level tournament play the build is nonexistent. Not to mention the current condi spam meta that forces everyone to bring at least 1, if not many, condi removals. The final problem is the lack of buffer conditions on the set. Aka, a class with constant single condi removal will be nigh invincible (like d/x backstab builds with condi clear in stealth).

Excalibur.9748:

I hope sigils are interchangeable, because I use different sigils for PvE and PvP, it’s gonna drive me nuts to reapply a different sigil everytime I want to switch modes besides the fact that that’s not even viable since sigils are too expensive to keep switching.

Yea, I have 2 swords, 3 daggers, 3 pistols, and a shortbow, all for different sigils… gonna take me months to replace them

Scribbles.3974:

hello fellow kin, in spite of recent topics being created harrying or class, well, the class that i seem to have my natural tallent with, im asking a question of builds, i recently just wanted to get into sword play a lot more, with the release of bonetti’s rapier, such a beautiful sword XD, anyways im mainly p/d sb so this is quite the oposite in my department, learning is rough, but its fun learning, when my internet isnt lagging and i can IS instead of waiting 5 years to port back to my location >_> anyways the build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAoa8YlUmSOHcy9E95ExmCfKUuHO1oNtTBW1KA-jkzAYrQj7CExBmCBREAoCgJvhImAzajoIasqFM1pSt+MQujI7PGyKA-w

im not sure on traits, and the gear choices i was thinking about “benchmarks” instead of going full glassy, or full on bunkery, i wanted to meet certain benchmarks via a mix of gear/ weapons, id mainly be doing this for pve/wvw, spvp is…..bleh to say the least for me XD feedback, suggestions are welcome.

This is basically the build I run, but I run a slight variant on traits (same allocations, just take different ones). For critical strikes, I take precision→vitality instead of might on signet. For acrobatics, I take blinding powder on falling damage instead of movement speed in stealth. With d/p and s/d, you have plenty of movement skills and teleports, and swiftness on dodge roll, so you have plenty of movement speed, and you can use terrain to your advantage (watch yishis’s videos to see how he uses the trait as a free stealth). Also, the heal on ititiative use is very small, and you’re better off taking the 2 initiative every 10 seconds imo. Gear is pretty good, as you want to be around 50% crit chance without the signet, as most of the time the signet will be on cooldown. I personally use full zerkers, with valk weapons, as without hidden killer your dps will be much lower, but it is much more risk reward tradeoff.

The most common dungeon build is 25/30/0/0/15 (the last 15 can really be put anywhere, but is usually put in trickery for the extra initiative).

http://intothemists.com/guides/256-thief_cof_p1_speed_run_legit

This is a guide for cof p1 speed run on thief, which isn’t as popular now that it’s been nerfed in terms of rewards, but it outlines why you take each trait and when to use each weapon set (specifically geared towards cof, but if you read in between the lines, you’ll notice the patern of trash mobs = sword, shortbow = might stacks, and d/d = bosses). One thing of note is you’ll have to learn how to dodge well. If you don’t think you can learn to dodge well enough you can trait a bit more defensively by going 0/30/30/10/0, which has the same basic things just relies on stealth a bit more for healing, and does a bit less damage, but is way more survivable.

Not sure if you can consider this support, but, when I run with the zerg on my thief I run signet of malice with shortbow main and dagger/pistol swap. Have dagger storm equipped, along with signet of agility, shadow step, and shadow refuge. Signet of agility gives you enough dodges to stay alive while your initiative is low, and signet of malice allows you to get off an entire dagger storm in the opponents zerg. Gear is zerkers or valks, but you want about 50% crit chance without signet (signet will almost never be active except for the start of the fight). Your “support” is just incredibly high aoe damage through cluster bomb and dagger storm, and once those are done you have the ability to get out and pick off the squishies or anyone with low health with dagger/pistol. I currently run 0/20/30/20/0. And don’t worry about squishiness. The buffed signet of malice is enough to keep you alive even in the middle of the zerg.

The problem with most thief support builds is that we have very few support skills with long buffs but long cool downs. Other classes have shorter buffs on shorter cool downs. Because of the aoe cap of 5, you can really only have 5 people buffed at a time, which isn’t great when you’re running with 30 people. Imo it’s better to just run damage, because we have the luxury of being able to run zerkers and still survive in the middle of the zerg with signet of malice and cluster bomb spam and dagger storm.

The final thing of note is you are literally spamming 2… no skill or high thinking involved. Honestly if you only want to zerg I wouldn’t suggest a thief

IoJ, is it really necessary to build a superior ac and two ballistas (one of which was superior) to defend a camp with 6 guys from 4 people?

Heartbeat.1894:

As I said, credibility is lost if you are defending a class you are playing. Of course you don’t want to be nerfed, duh.

But, but, I play every class…

This is coming a bit late but… Super proud of ET for what we did tonight. We got up to 400 ppt and took Stonemist, IoJ’s Hills, and almost all of DR BL. Huge fun, and great fights. Thanks to IoM and AKD for the organization and hard work you guys put out to make such a fun night. IoJ, I hope you guys have seen how much we have improved since we last faced each other, and have much greater respect for us as a server (and I seriously hope any remnants of thoughts about us having a bad morale are gone). Keep up the good work ET, proud of all of you.

Averaelas.1876:

You should. Every cap every ppt point, it all matters. The caliber of your roamers, your commanders, server morale. It all matters.

ET will forever wallow in the lowest ranks because you guys don’t have it together.

And while you’re attacking me, I have a few friends on ET who has concerned moving to other servers like Gom, IoJ, HoD. They see the same things we’ve pointed out here.

And just liek the last time I was against ET (as a GoM commander) you guys are going to turtle after tonight. There wont be an ET force in WvW. Your morale is already so kittenty that the few fairweathers you have will peel away.

If you REALLY care about WvW, then dump ET and go to a real server. You might personally be worth a kitten but you’re casting pearls before swine.

You IoJ really need to stop telling ET how our server morale is doing. I don’t think a server with low morale that is losing people due to low morale and is doing terribly due to low morale would be moving up into tier 7 when a few weeks ago they were last place. And few fair weathers? Everyone on ET that does wvw is as far from a fairweather as you can imagine. Ask SF how we are doing compared to when we were stuck with them in t8. Ask HoD how much we have improved. They’ll all tell you that we never give up, fight til the end, and fight hard even when against all odds. Oh, and while you’re at it, ask DR how we did last week after the weekend. Cause if I remember correctly we came back and beat them at the end of the week. Sure there won’t be as many people on during the day, or at night, because unlike you, we don’t have coverage at all times. If there’s one thing ET DOES have it’s morale. So shut up about how ET is on the dregs and our server is going downhill, cause you got nothing to back it up, and all the evidence points against you. And don’t take one small guild’s view of WvW as the entire server’s view. BS is just like PAXA: here for the fights and nothing else. We know that and respect that, and it doesn’t hurt us at all. I’m tired of all the “ET, your morale is terrible, you need to do this and this and this or else you’ll end up in last place.” Newsflash: we were just in last place, and we’re moving up, and don’t plan on stopping. We’ve had no guilds leave the server in months, and no one that’s even (afaik) considering it. We’re not competing with you guys cause you have superior coverage, and huge oceanic coverage (of which ET has little to none of). But during prime time, you can see that ET is competing with IoJ for being first in ppt. So say thanks to your oceanic guys, cause they’re the ones winning the matchup for you guys. Now, let’s cut the bs (not the guild) and actually enjoy the fights and the matchup.

GavinGoodrich.1382:

The forum warrioring is strong with this matchup.

The reason there’s so much “lol IoJ players suck” on the forums right now is ‘cause right now, that’s all the servers that are losing have to fall back on. Said servers have smack talked their way into the position they’re in, losing guilds to both their attitudes and their playstyle that doesn’t cater to a rebuilding population as a whole.

We got put in the same position, but our server’s culture centered around the pug, and siege, and infrastructure, upgrades, siege, defense, etc etc, versus “l33t pvp roaming ownsauce open field combat” that doesn’t help rebuild a server as a whole.

We’ve recovered, we have a nice infrastructure that brings lots of new blood into the fold quickly (for you to happily own and make videos about, enjoy) while we can rebuild and grow. We’ve had another 3 commanders get new tags all publicly funded by the server’s donations in the last week. Plus the new guilds that have transferred. Meatspeak is busier than ever. Smaller guilds are taking on bigger objectives on reset nights and doing fine. ALL our commanders get server funded superior siege without having to pay for it. All that results in a higher morale and a higher PPT while you guys are struggling to even maintain the guilds you even have.

We were dissapointed when we ended up matched with you. I’m gonna be mostly PVE’ing all week until we get an opponent worth fighting. Enjoy losing guilds left and right while you beat your chest over “l33t pvp” ‘cause I could care less. We’ve put a lot of effort into rebuilding and we’re happy with the community we have, and where we’re going.

So that’s the reason ET is moving up to tier 7 from last place… got it. Thank you for the clarification of how we treat our guilds, and how many guild’s we’re loosing right now. Thanks so much for enlightening us.
Let me let you in on a little secret: ET especially (and a bit DR too) pride themselves on their small group roaming, because there was a time when we could only muster 10 people on EB during prime time… which to you is a small group. We learned to deal with being outnumbered and now, when we are fighting servers that never faced the population disadvantage to the extent we have, and thus are much more “zergy,” we tend to feel a bit superior because you lack good solo and small group roamers that we pride ourselves on. The reason you guys are winning is cause you have more people on during NA off-hours than ET and DR combined during prime time. So don’t take ppt into account, take the fights you actually have with us into account, and respect the fact that even though you outnumber us greatly, we still fight back. I have great respect for DR based on the way they can have fun and enjoy their time, but so far all I’ve seen from IoJ is, “Wow, ET and DR suck cause we are destroying them in ppt.” We don’t judge an enemy based on how much they are winning by, we judge them based on how well they fight on even grounds… and so far we haven’t seen much good on IoJ based on our form of judgement.

sooooooo, about those much brighter and wonderful colors…….

Already told him but props to Ckrael from Bags. Best guardian I’ve ever fought. When I wasn’t lagging like crazy we had a great fight, lasted a good couple minutes til he got a lucky and well timed immob then burst. Hopefully get some more good fights, and looking forward to seeing more Bags out there (he was the first guy from Bags I’ve seen through the many match ups with DR. No idea how that happened), hopefully you’ll impress me just as much.

Art.9820:

I once spent 10 min in a fight against D/P with my D/D then I got bored and left lol

I do enjoy reading when people complain about 2 spam when D/P is just a spam rotation like a D/D ele lol but all I have to say if is that…. if you keep running away and spamming snares then I will for sure spam 2 on you…. at least until steal or shadow step cd is over lol….

D/P is not a rotation if you play it well. The 4 skill is one of the best interrupts in the game and if you don’t use it you’re not being the best you can be. The 3 skill is another blind and also a gap closer. You can also precast backstab into a 3 to get the same effect as precasting it to steal. The difference between D/D and D/P is that D/D is a bit less initiative heavy, allowing you to trait more offensively, and does a bit more damage with cloak and dagger, whereas D/P is a much more defensive weaponset relying on blinds to mitigate damage, and keeping up close to the same damage output as well, but at the cost of a lot more initiative and usually some offensive traits. Honestly, I like D/D a lot more except for the 3 and 4 skills.

Just did Harathi again without disconnecting and it got me the achievement.
It seems for me disconnecting was the problem, even though I got back to the original map through a party.

The only one that did not update for me was Harathi Hinterlands. I disconnected about half way through but got back in through a party member. Got end credit but didn’t count towards achievement. At 10/13 but should be 11/13.

Grezko.7950:

overflow works for me with the exception of blazerige. For me it seems blazeridge is teh problem. Can any dev help us here?
so far i’ve done 3 invasions

Harathi on overflow – from wave 1 – took part in killing Scarlet – Counted
Blazeridge on overflow – from wave 1 – took part in killing Scarlet – NOT Counted
Dredgehound on server map – from wave 1 – took part in killing Scarlet – Counted

In all of those i got reward for completion on event.

Can plz more ppl post their info so hopefully devs can fix this, its very time consuming bug and needs to be addressed asap

It’s especially time consuming since they only spawn once per hour… an if you happen to get unlucky (like I did last night), you’ll end up waiting upwards of 3 or more hours to get any sort of achievement.
Anyways, mine counted for blazeridge, fireheart, frostgorge, sparkfly, dredgehaunt, timberline, and now iron marches, but it didn’t count for Harathi. I d/c’d on Harathi, but got back into the original map (I started on original map) through a party.

I don’t have auto attack equipped (for ranger the sword aa messes up dodges all the time, and you auto attack from stealth if you use a skill after you have stealthed, like a teleport, so I found it’s better for me to keep aa off), so I have 1 as v. Steal is then shift + v, and when I play mesmer, shatters are shift + v, 2, 3, or 4, but those aren’t really weird or different My stun break for all my characters is always r, and my main utility is z. My secondary utility (aka, the one that is much more situational), is on x. Elite is c. Heal is n. Mouse 3 as auto run.

neon.4863:

Ayrilana.1396:

My question for those that did not receive credit for a particular run is when did they enter the zone (invasion progress) and how much did they contribute. I’m starting to think that you can’t just afk and get credit. I’m not accusing people of doing this. There just could be a participation threshold you must reach to receive credit for the achievement.

I entered the event when it started on the main server, went through the whole thing, and didn’t get credit (this was in Frostgorge Sound). A party member did get credit. The only thing of note was that I disconnected about 5 minutes in, but managed to get back into the main server.

I waypoint around in every invasion and that’s never hindered progress. The only time I did not receive credit, I had disconnected mid-fight. Otherwise everything was the same as the other times.

There is another thread on the bugs forum that has led people to believe that it is disconnecting that makes you not get credit. Figured I’d post this here and see how many people who didn’t get credit disconnected

I have done 7 different maps, but the only one that did not count was the one I D/C’d on. Possibly on to something here. I really don’t want to go afk the whole time just to get the achievement though. Please do something about this

Same here, was going to get my tonic because Harathi Hinterlands was my 7th map (Blazeridge Steppes, DredgeHaunt Cliffs, Sparkfly Fen, Fireheart Rise, Frostgorge Sound, Timberline Falls, and now Harathi). I was in Harathi overflow before so not sure if that matters.
Edit: I got to the zone and participated in all three waves, including the molten alliance and aetherblades, and got credit for killing scarlet. No reason it shouldn’t have counted

I’d say it has to remove revealed, stealth you, and cancel your current attack (therefore automatically stealthing you and preventing revealed).