Guild Wars 2

I was using this skill today in WvW on guardians and it worked as intended. The projectile is unblockable so you still get shadow stepped to the target then the follow up attack does get blocked. No bug with it that I know of

Also skills that have cast times can be affected by immobilise if you haven’t dropped target. For example sometimes my black powder won’t trigger if I have a target selected that is behind me. Have to either spam to keybind to get it to cast or drop target. This shouldn’t affect instant skills like most of the shadow steps though so probably not what is causing trouble for you

You can also use steal to get out of the area too, it won’t remove any conditions but it will get you out of the roots. As will shortbow 5

I find shadow’s embrace usually removes the immobilise from binding roots pretty consistently. I do have problems with other types of immobilise though, such as pin down from longbow warriors or the immob from venom share thieves. There not only is the duration super long but I usually get stacked with a buttload of other conditions, which I can only remove one at a time in stealth. So it is a bit random luck which ones get removed. In those situations Shadow step will get you out of the trouble area, and if you really need to get rid of conditions after that shadow return is useful too but as Necrotize said make sure to dodge straight away! Hide in Shadows works really well too as it will remove most of the damage conditions freeing shadows embrace up to remove the immobilise. It really depends on how many other conditions you have on you at the time ^^

Hype.8032:

SA is in no way required in wvw. It is simply a less effective build than the trickery variant. If you think you need more condi clear beyond HiS and shadow step then I recommend you try altering your play style. Spend a few weeks in spvp and actually learn your class

Duelling in the OS is the best way to learn a class not running around in spvp capping points. And if you played WvW on a regular basis you would understand how quickly certain classes can load and re-load you with conditions. HiS and Shadow Step are good for removing many conditions at once, but if you keep getting random burning, bleeding and weakness stacks (which most condition classes can apply every few seconds) then you really need some way to remove those that isn’t cooldown dependent. Also bear in mind with Shadow’s Embrace Blinding Powder will instantly remove conditions like immobilise and fear making it an insanely effective recovery/escape tool.

StephenD.3782:

Can you give me a good example of a full SA build for D/P?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp7plPx0J8PNRPBtdsDwD4eCjIEddDA-T1SBABZpk4MlgP8AAoU9nIOCAXpEqLlL4pPYhDBwR7PAwJAIAACwv5b+23AO6RP6RP6RboDdoD9o3sMALjB-w

I have noticed that if I use the Shadow Step utility on my thief, and then enter water while Infiltrator’s Return is still active (within 10 seconds of using Shadow Step) Infiltrator’s Return is automatically triggered and I am ported back out of the water. This has caused serious issues for me in WvW while running from multiple enemies into the water only to be teleported back into the middle of them. I am not sure if this is working as intended or if it is a bug, but if the latter a fix would be greatly appreciated. This happens to me whether I am in a group or running solo, regardless of the map. It is a general issue with the skill that occurs every time.

In WvW at least 2 in SA is essential if you want a well rounded build on D/P. S/D can clear conditions on infiltrator’s return, D/P needs Shadow’s Embrace. Flat out needs it. The condition spam isn’t so bad at the moment while longbow rangers are popular but any decent engi or necro will shred a D/P thief that doesn’t have condition removal in stealth. And for initiative efficiency you need infusion of shadows, so that is 4 in SA. Then you might as well go the full whack and go 6 in SA for the might and health regen in stealth. D/P has such good synergy with SA traits that if you want a build that is viable against any class and build (and in WvW specifically you will encounter them all sooner or later) then you need it. Trickery D/P build is a gimmick, it seriously struggles against certain builds, especially condition heavy ones. SA is just more versatile and viable.

pupi.2465:

Is this build good for duel? Or is the Trickery one better?

This one is certainly lower risk than the trickery one. If you are patient I would say the SA one is better, or at least more versatile. You might struggle against skilled D/D ele’s with this one as they have a lot of protection uptime and healing which the trickery build can counter. But the thing I really dislike about the trickery build is that you have 300 condition damage going completely to waste. If you want to counter tanky boon classes with a trickery build you might as well go full Dire P/D condi with trickery traits.

Try this one. The damage is still good but the extra toughness and vitality really give it some survivability. Never met a player/class/build that I couldn’t kill with this. And if you run Hidden Killer don’t bother with any crit chance higher than 40%, most of the damage comes from BS anyway and the strength of the build is that you can stack stats other than precision without really loosing too much damage overall. And seriously don’t waste your time with infiltrators signet, Blinding Powder is so much better in almost every situation.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp7plPx0J8PNRPBtdsDwD4eCjIEddDA-T1SBABZpk4MlgP8AAoU9nIOCAXpEqLlL4pPYhDBwR7PAwJAIAACwv5b+23AO6RP6RP6RboDdoD9o3sMALjB-w

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

but I don’t think it can keep up with all the Condition ticks and applications, you’ll have to keep disengaging even with SA to ‘out-tank’ good opponents, which is a shame really.

I think against p/d thieves d/p can keep up with the condi removal pretty easily as condi thieves don’t actually get access to that many different conditions. To overload a SA thief with condi’s you really do need to apply a lot of different ones at the same time, as they can only remove them one at a time. But if you are just applying bleeds with the very occasional vulnerability, cripple, poison, confusion and torment it is hard to keep them stacked with lots of condi’s. In other words in the SA thief survives the condi thieves steal based confusion burst then it is super easy to keep the bleeds off while their steal is on cd. Condi engi’s and necro’s are the big threat as they have a lot of uptime on many different conditions, and so they can keep a SA thief overloaded.

This is the standards SA build that I run, it is much lower risk than the trickery builds being linked here but I think it can still be pretty rewarding. The high toughness and vitality help with survivability and means you don’t have to loiter in stealth to regen as often as most people would assume an SA thief would. The damage is still very good too, and you don’t waste 300 stat points on codition damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp7plPx0J8PNRPBtdsDwD4eCjIEddDA-T1SBABZpk4MlgP8AAoU9nIOCAXpEqLlL4pPYhDBwR7PAwJAIAACwv5b+23AO6RP6RP6RboDdoD9o3sMALjB-w

I couldn’t disagree more. The smoke field was only a small part of surviving with D/P and if you rely on it completely you are not playing it very well. It is better to use the projectile part of Black Powder to blind an opponent at an important moment (such as a hammer stun or a CnD). The strength of D/P has always been that you can stealth without needing a melee target to hit, and that is still true. I have duelled every kind of class and every kind of build with it, and it can beat them all. There is no true ‘hard counter’ to D/P, it is the most versatile build thief has which is what makes it viable in my opinion. The other thing about D/P is that it is a hard counter to every other thief build. It has a fundamental advantage with the blinds and not relying on CnD, that the other weapon sets just can’t keep up with. The extreme amount of stealth also means continual condition removal, so D/P is by far the best counter to any condition classes and builds you may encounter

Personally never had any problems killing p/d thieves so not sure what the problem with it is. The only damage conditions they have regular access to are confusion and bleeding. Shadow’s Embrace can easily keep up with removing any conditions a p/d thief can apply to me. I don’t really think p/d thieves fit into the condi meta as they don’t have insane uptime on burning like engi’s and necro’s can get.
As for its survivability it is pretty vulnerable to blinds and evades (if they keep missing that CnD they will eventually drop). They are also vulnerable to conditions, especially if you mix immob/chill/cripple into the mix as they can’t stealth if they have no CD’s left and can’t keep up with targets in melee to CnD off of them.

tl;dr D/P thief will inevitably beat a P/D thief. D/P is still the most viable thief build in WvW

Some really fun roaming in EB this afternoon. Thanks to the [Fire] guys for the few fights we had

To the [QQ] “Who kills me solo gets 10 gold” ranger, I killed you not only solo but when you had a friendly. Pay up!

melan.5164:

Ty TDA guild for coming to ruin good 1v1 fights in FoW bl. Really classy.

Sorry if we interrupted your duel, we usually leave 1v1’s alone but if we were kitten ing around and not paying attention then we may have just killed whatever red tag lay in our path. That being said I honestly don’t remember interfering in any 1v1’s. At any rate you should always go to the windmill for duels, it’s inevitable that someone will interrupt your fight otherwise.

Some small scale roaming action, thanks for the fights guys

oblivious.8074:

Life + The Universe + Everything = 42

But what is the question?

Thanks to [NR] for the GvG tonight. Was good fun poking your squishies

Some very silly super-speed lag this evening! At one point had the 4 moas near bay pecking me to death as if they had been starved for a week then given crack-cocain injections in their eyeballs. It hurt! Also was able to speed res allies and my auto attack was doing crazy fast damage. Anet have definitely broken something! Especially when my shadow refuge gave only 2secs of stealth instead of 10… That was pretty ghey

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

I have no hard feelings towards TDA, but I will hunt your Thieves down for all the ganking you’ve done to me so far this week, even though I know somebody has been trying to stop it!

I wish you the best of luck, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t go the way you want it to

TDA vs EXG GvG. Thanks for the fights guys!

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

any people for arranging fightclub for tomorrow (saturday) behind the mill? would be so good

I’ll pop by the windmill later today, probably around 8pm CET to see if there are any fights going on. Which server are you btw? Just so we can arrange which windmill to meet at :P

Thankyou [Wipe] for the GvG last night, was lots of fun! Here is the video of it from my perspective http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8PiJMsVM_4&feature=youtu.be

Here is my latest video, the first few fights are from a previous MU but the last few are from this one

I’m looking for people to duel with, whisper me if you are interested

Some footage from this match-up

Had some awesome roaming in EB tonight with JDGE and TDA. Much vengeance was had on the Desolation teabaggers and emote spammers from last night XD

Also, thanks to EXG for the GvG! Was very good fun and was nice getting to chat with you guys afterwards

Atoss.1056:

Another week of gankdaring and blobadons with different name it seems. How about we set 1 map/place for ppl who would like some 1v1? Riverside bl at mill?

Sounds good to me, I will check in behind the mill occassionally in the hopes of there being duels going on. Also we have a cross server duelling guild (TDS) so if anyone wants an invite send me a whisper and I will get you in contact with an officer if one is online. It makes it much easier to organise these kinds of thing

Thanks to the three mesmers from [CL] (at least I think that’s the right guild tag) for the fun fight. Wish I’d recorded it as it was easily the best 3v1 i’ve had in a while, though I wouldn’t have been able to finish the tankier two of you without my trusty sidekick Frou showing up at the end!

And @Tsezar, I think the reason you run alone is because you have a bad attitude and no-one wants to play with you. I find it near impossible to run solo without insulting a friend or two in my guild, so maybe you should stop being so anti-social and try getting along with people. Maybe then you won’t end up tanking the floor so often. And if its 1v1’s you’re after as I stated earlier in this thread I’m always up for duels behind the windmill, just send me a /w. Peace

bladie.5084:

Eldanesh.2390:

You should have been in AM borderland today, had some amazing small scale fights against [EXG] from your server. Big shout out to those guys for the awesome fun, nice try bringing in a thief to focus me but S/P is just the wrong weapon set for WvW hence he didn’t do a very good job of it.

Also there are many, many small roaming guilds on Gandara so either you are blind, or haven’t been looking hard enough for small scale fights.

Lol yeah I do have to admit, D/P is pretty (easy mode) hard to counter with since S/P is a pretty slow skill but not everyone wants to play Fotm. It wasn’t that small scale given the fact that we were outnumbered most of the time. If i wasn’t mistaken, and ur the COF thief guy, Didn’t you get CCed like crazy in the early fights until you chose to switch to D/P? I would know, since I did play charr warrior in the beginning.

I was D/P from the beginning, and yeah I got CC’d a lot. kitten mace stuns last a long time :P

Once you switched or whatever it got a lot easier for me personally, the earlier fights were harder. As for being outnumbered, there were only 4 of us, randoms added in on our side in some of the fights and randoms from your side did the same in others. Can’t control the ads but you had a larger guild group than we did.

PsYcHoSeAn.4835:

And I have to say that i’m rather disappointed from this match up so far.
Either you find nothing or you find really, really big groups.
Small scale fights are just not happening this week…

You should have been in AM borderland today, had some amazing small scale fights against [EXG] from your server. Big shout out to those guys for the awesome fun, nice try bringing in a thief to focus me but S/P is just the wrong weapon set for WvW hence he didn’t do a very good job of it.

Also there are many, many small roaming guilds on Gandara so either you are blind, or haven’t been looking hard enough for small scale fights.

I’m up for duels, feel free to PM me in game if you fancy it!

Osicat.4139:

Ty for the feedback Black Cat (a thief Cat !).

This is what we try to dow hen I run thru the tunnel and get a few after me and Idle run long way around. It backfiered a little thu kitten ppl went after him and only 2 after me, but it ended well anyway as it separated the enemy group and let us gank the 3 behind.

/Osicat

Just wanted to mention, the reason they all went for me was because I had triggered a stealth trap and they thought it was their opportunity to kill me. Ofc I had a SB equipped so I simply kited them for 30secs, then stealthed, ran through them and re-joined osi. Things might have gone badly for me if there had been a thief who could keep up with my mobility, but luckily for me there wasn’t!

Osi told me about this thread and that there have been some requests for my build, so here it is.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaPHfS6E/5Ey2jKcnIKuHGlT1UdFwKA-jkyAYrAiwgILBiKAm8KiGbboIasKbMlLq6FWFLEJDwyYA-w

I have also maxed out the defense against guards thingie so I get an extra 250 vitality from that. Makes a huge difference!

Tyvm to [rain] for the GvG and many duels. You guys are awesome, and I hope to run into you again before the servers reset tomorrow

Second instalment in the [lion] hunt

Some of the highlights from our raid night plus the unofficial GvG with DW. Enjoy!

Thanks to the [city] warriors and guardian for the fights in EB tonight, your little melee ball hurts!

To the GOTD ele who’s body I keep dancing on, you shouldn’t start what you can’t finish n00b

JDGE vs DAWN GvG video

Sry about the pixelation at the transition, no idea why its doing that but it only last a few seconds

KrisHQ.4719:

I was very surprised and dissapointed yesterday.
I had heard that JDGE were often roaming looking for small-scale fair fights, so I could not help but be dissapointed when they “Spawn-camped / Tower / Cliff-camped” outnumbering us at least 2:1.

Kudos to a lot of other guilds out there for not chasing solo/duo-roamers endlessly.
If I remember correctly some of the guilds derserving this credit were Hand Of Blood(?) and The Dark Alliance. Might have been a few more.
Also thanks to SOP for the hilarious fights.

Last night happened to be our raid night, any other day of the week and you would only encounter 5 of us at max. As for camping, we were just defending that tower from the only enemies in the entire BL (you guys). Sorry if we disappointed you, but you were the only ones around to fight so ty for not giving up and running away

Ty TUP for the asuraball! Was awesome fun! Hopefully we will be a bit more practiced next time we meet

Iavra.8510:

Oh, hai Idle /wave

I was that mesmer that duelled Osi and you at the start of this week. We never managed to end a duel without getting interrupted, though ^^

Hi! Yeah was a pretty dumb place for duels :P

I’m going away 2moz so won’t be able to meet up behind the windmill before reset, but if we come against each other again would be awesome to finish it XD

compared to some of the millers groups steam-rolling their way around the map 9 people is a small group. And bots have tried to gank me with 3:1 odds on many occasions this week so i am not really sure what your issue is. If we were blobbing in the same way as mya do (they may run all as one guild with no randoms, but 30+ is a blob no matter if they all have the same guild tag) then I would understand but if you hit 9 people with 3 and die it’s your own fault for hitting them or not running sooner

Osicat.4139:

:D Mabye you met our Lion hunter Idle, be nice to him, its his birthday today.

Now all, lets play “Find the Cat”

wink wink YMCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWjWeU7qRvo

/Osicat

Don’t think it was me Osi, not seen any zergs today nor any BNF’s that i can remember. Thanks to the Buka mesmer for the fights in Dzagonur BL earlier. Would be nice to get a 1v1 with you at some point, i’m sure fighting 2-3 of us thieves at once was rather annoying for you :P

Swpok.4973:

As a matter of fact, we consider to move to gandara server to make some alliance with you guys. Back you up with our trebs. Think about that JDGE!.

We might own every single matchup with our alliance! We can even think about building those siegies you put on us, cause now sadly we cant finish them and refresh, so they disappear quite quick.

PS. Last but not least please put more siegies on me since im the one who started the flame and recently i’ve got less than other guildmates.

Cheers. Liert.

If you cry this much about the comments from your fellow FSP guilds, coming to Gandara is literally the worst move you could make. Personally I would be very sad to loose the opportunity to hunt you all, but that wouldn’t stop me from ramming your corpses when the enemy kills you. Plus we can ofc steal supplies from your claimed towers and camps if you come to us, as well as building rams in all the places you want to put up AC’s. The trolling would be quite relentless if we had the chance to see you every day

As for ramming you personally, I have been out lion hunting all week (I even made video of it!) but you were nowhere to be seen until the GvG on Wednesday. You want to get rammed? Stop hiding like a coward, simples

All 10 rounds of our GvG with [PunK]

Swpok.4973:

The point is we wouldnt even have noticed your gvg FSV untill you watch your language and didnt offend AoA on team chat. To that scream on team chat we’ve been runing around, making sure briar is heavily siegied and supplied.

You call as kids, but as far i can remember only kids react so hysteric when someone decide to grab their toys and yesterday night was heave presence of FSV players hysteria on team chat (pity i didnt make any screenshots).

The second case is gvg with JDGE, and we wouldnt have interrupt this if only JDGE did concentrate on gvg not on killing spectators from lion guild.

Anyway, we want to assure you that we gonna interrupt every gvg if either someone decide to offend guild that has done great job for our server’s community or kill our guildies spectators.

Ciao. Liert.

Liert, it was you specifically and personally who started the entire lion hunting thing so your guildmates have you to thank for that. As for the spectators, if that was all you were doing we would have left you be (as believe it or not GvG with Punk was quite a bit more important to us). However your guys interrupted and kept hitting us, so we kitten d you, HARD. You guys suck in the open field more than any other guild I have ever encountered, you enjoy hiding in towers behind siege and are quite possibly the most cowardly (and how should I put this, uber german?) guild in the entire EU. You have not done well for FSP, you bring shame upon it and my mighty flame rams upon yourself!

Some of my favourite moments from this match up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sMPjgHW1hKM