Guild Wars 2

I was hoping so much for a heal that would heal over time while evading incoming attacks. Preferably that would also let us maintain control over our character so we could still do damage :/ Instead we got the worst kitten ever. Im happy my mesmer almost is as complete as my thief now gearwise.

Female Asuras represent!

Master race etc

I suck and cant link images

http://imgur.com/a/A4vsg

Because retaliation was op in wvw at release. 800+ DMg per hit and instakilled siege. But what was i thinking, someone making race choice important in a mmo. IT was nerfed a few months after release and now i wish i had a race change.

It would be awesome if it worked abit like Pistol Whip. Evade for the entire duration and scale with power. Would allow for d/d to be viable against larger groups of enemies.

Also fits the theme of the thief really well, dodging while dealing damage. Something we need more of and are within the concept because of low hp pool, crappy armor etc.

25/30/0/0/15

15 chars

Zerk scholar obvious +DMg traits

This is one of the most important threads in this forum section. Lets make sure it always stays on the front page so people understand our feelings when they continue the nerbat spree without fixing broken traits or clunky mechanics.

To a-net: I have invested some 2.5k hours into a proffession which doesnt really feel the same as it did pre-release when i rolled it. Thank you for ruining my game experience.

I remember a few patches ago someone did a neat collage of all thief nerfs since release. I would like to find that again, and preferably an updated version with the latest nerfs

An easy band-aid until more thought through change have been tested is to lower the initiative cost of Pistol Whip with 1 for PvE only. This will keep it as a viable skill to spamm in trash AoE pulls, where currently thief is unwanted because of its percieved low survivability (which cannot be augmented by other traits, since damage suffers too much compared to other classes)

Your breakdown is highly subjective and does not take account for all different parts of the game or builds. If you are looking for non-biased commentary on the Thief proposed changes. Dont read this one

Dee Jay.2460:

To me it sounds like most builds are going to end up with MORE Initiative than before, meaning they can completely ignore any additional Initiative regeneration.

I mean buffing passive Initiative generation to 1/Sek. is a MASSIVE buff with unforeseeable consequences, even with nerfs to the trait-regeneration.

As far as I see it, Dagger/Dagger for example won’t even need Infusion of Shadows any more to sustain itself and neither will Pistol/Dagger. Only Dagger/Pistol might end up with a nerf to perma-stealthing.

And while I like the changes overall, I’m not sure if they’re really doing much to improve Venoms or many of the other under-appreciated Thief traits.

The Deadly Arts tree in general could do with a major overhaul, as could many of the passive damage increases. I think that would do more for Thieves than simply altering already popular traits.

Name 1 build considered meta where this change will make the thief have better init regen than before. Just 1

Straegen.2938:

Walker.3056:

Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.

This is a HUGE nerf, the change from 30-50% proc is just useless when they add a CD increased from 1s to 5s means at least 5 less init regen while fighting, This is a BIG nerf on PvP and PvE

Unless my math is off above it is a minor change. More like 1-2 init regen of the life of a fight.

This didn’t proc every attack but every .3 crits. Going to a .5 crit chance over 5s really won’t change much since we are time gated on attacks and number of crits. The change has a better chance of kicking back early on in a fight when it may be most useful. The old one was still better but not to some huge degree… unless I shifted a decimal somewhere.

Do the math spamming pistol whip. 9 attacks with 100% critchance over 4 secs and calculate if nerf or not That was alot of thieves bread and butter for PvE trash pulls.

Thief changes coming from standard PvE
25/30/0/0/15
S/P on trash
D/D on bosses

Pre-changes init/10s ~ 15-20 depending on opportunist proccs

Post-changes init/10s ~ 12-15 MAX which is a 20-25% nerf

Shadow return = need to be insta since thiefs have 10.5k hp and warrs have 18khp in same gear. Unless we can dodge and deal damage at the same time this HUGE disparity will ruin PvE. Post changes init gain levels, ruins dodging while dealing damage since you cant pistol whip spamm anymore.

This can be countered with upping powerscaling/evade duration on D/D #3 as it will then also give a decent AoE option for powerbuilds, doing damage while evading as an alternative to pistol whip with a lower init cost.

Critical Haste is useless since it didnt recieve 2x duration when all other haste skills got it.

Assassins reward self healing, is useless since you are oneshotted in any decent pve-content. So its either dodge or die, and you just nerfed dodging by alot by vigor nerf.

Flanking strikes changes = flat 5% damage nerf, since you need bountiful for decent group support in pve if going higher in trickery.

Focus on: Fix Improvisation = doesnt work at all. Fix offensive options in Shadow Arts line low tiers. Fix venom share traits in Deadly Arts line so its consistent.

Final: Stop balancing the game based on PvP. Do as you did with GW1 and split all skills.

Any info on this issue? Anet rolling out fixes for warriors and engineers less than a week after breaking them. While this been unnoticed for 6 months now. Makes me feel like a less worthy consumer…

Improvisation trait does not work with “steal-bundles” . There is no 10% damage increase.

Ever since i went with lyssa i can never again see myself change. Running glassbuild with basilisk venom = all boons for 10 secs everytime you enter a fight.

Stability so noone can stunn/knock you around while you burst.

Fury so you dont have to gimp yourself with 10 pts in trickery.

Retaliation + aegis + Protection at the same time, for those scrubs who think ure squish and want to hit you back

Running a mightstacking 15/30/0/25/0 build with Berserker everything except armor which is Valkyrie

Utility for w3 is: Assasins Signet/Signet of agility/shadows (moar burst on high hp or more surv against bunkers or speed if im just trolling around), Shadowstep (for getting the crap out and cleaning conditions), Shadow Refuge (since its mandatory)

I mainly 1v1/1v2/1v3. If i go with the zerg i just equip shortbow + smokescreen and blast on fields and pew pew from range.

The problem is when you endup fighting anything with decent condition removal, esp with that cond build that can apply 2-3 conds at a time tops. With only one being a dmg cond.

Most people are focusing on single weaponsets or skills that are their favorites, im gonna be more vague but speak in a broader perspective regarding roles.

First it would be interesting to see the thief with a good condition dmg build, were all damaging conditions are used. An idea for this would be changing the trickery line to add 5x confusion with long duration on steal from top tier traits. Allow one offhand, preferably dagger, have a similar stealthing skill like the mesmer one from a offhand torch applying burning (could be used by adding a napalm venom to enlight offhand). Together with a pistol mainhand this would be a really cool condition based damage build.

It would also be nice to have a pure supportrole for the thief either through adding better synergy at current weaponsets or making it possible through traits to swap weapons faster (could be while sacrificing damage). This would be to make better use of the different combofields, the idea to blast on demand while on the move with my group through a smokefield i put up at a chosen location rather than my feet would go a long way. (sneaky stealth ganking squad). Ideas on supportskills would again be to utilize traps/venoms which are currently overlaping.

Bunker build, like all other melee proffs it would be nice if the thief could bunker up. By bunkering up i dont specifically mean to stand still and eat dmg. You could bunker by being mobile but at a limited area, maintaining good control of your character. Ideas to this would be taking advantage of already exsisting mechanics of smoke field, but to combine this with utility skills or high traitlines in acrobat to give necissary stuff like stability, aegis and maybe even short duration and long cd retaliation.

English not primary language etc.

A shortbow build might benefit from more power and crit though since its more upfront dmg and less over time.

I seem to do fine though, another thing is that conditions are not lowered by toughness, so eventually when more ppl are toughing up to counter all the burst builds you will still do decent dmg.

Bleeds tick for ~115-120 and poison for ~280. Change venom for poison if you arent worried about being kited.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYAQNAqYVlUmaNHdy9E95EhPDyOW9D0s7BXtq8B;TsAgyCuoiyElIKbUuokRt+YMycBA

There, sorry about the other link. My full carrion pistol/dagger build focusing on defensive “bumbibear” playstyle.

It all comes down on what build you want to play and what your main focus is.

I have up til now tested carrion/rampager/berseker sets, and various mixes of those.

The main issue for thiefs is to have decent vitality and damage, that only comes from the carrion set. But! it also forces you into dagger/dagger or pistol/dagger (which im currently running)

Ask yourself what is your main goal with the game. Do you want to run with the zerg, guild group wvw, solo wvw, pve. There is currently no viable option that lets you excel at all different aspects of the game.

Ask yourself what weaponset you want to use, try the different ones and learn how they all use different skills to synergize (skip pistol/pistol cus it just sucks)

The most popular builds atm are aimed for small scale spvp or wvw. Both lack survivability and trade that for huge burst (glasscannon). If you want that go berserker, maybe mix in a few parts of vit/power/tough so you endup with more than 12k hp

Viable speccs for that is the sword+pistol or dagger+dagger, tactics are either shadowstep´+pistol whip or cnd+backstab. You will most likely never use dagger #3 as your bleeds are crap.

If you want to be tanky there are 2 routes either dagger+dagger and using solely the bleed aoe as your stabs and such will be crap full carrion set will net you ~20k hp.

Pistol+ dagger works also, better for singletarget dmg and makes you really tanky. My build with ~25k hp will be linked in the end. main focus is to use steal+cnd at the same time and then try to restealth as much as possible to get lots of #1 pistol from stealth attacks stacking up a more damaging bleed than what you get from death blossom. No, burst but room for lots of defensive traits which will help you in bigger fights.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYAQRAqa4YlUmiNHey5E9JFxmCeCU/DfVrAN7ZcVtC;TwAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1s4YQxmiJGA

current build, using carrion gems instead of runes for armor though.