I’d like you people to criticize my take on it. I’ve had a lot of fun and was murdering people in 1v3-4 scenarios quite easily.
I tried your build in WvW today and I come to the conclusion, that in 1vs1 situations 60206 is superior to your 60602 build – especially when you fight other skilled thieves, no matter what build they play! The traited steal is too strong to be compensated by the sustain from going deep into Shadow Arts.
Of course 60206 is kind of superior to my 60602 in 1v1 situations – after all, 60206 is PVP meta for a reason(I play it myself in PVP).
However, when things start to get rough I believe 60602 works better in a 1 versus many scenario. Since I play for SFR it’s very hard for me to find a solo roamer on the opposing server, and even when I do, most of the time they’re pretty bad. So I’ve adapted to deal with the groups.
If you want to trace the logic, traited steal dazes and steals boons from 1 target. However, Shadow Arts empower YOU rather than hindering the enemy by giving you might/stealth duration/regeneration. So it’s only natural going deeper in Shadow Arts is overall better if you’re constantly engaging in outnumbered scenarios.
Then again, this dispute will die because be it 60206 or 60602, they’ll both be 60606.
At least it’s awesome you’ll no longer “have” to get stats like healing power, toughness and condition damage on your traits.
SB 2 > Swap > Backstab > Steal(Mug)
More than enough to surprise oneshot squishies. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_Dagger/Pistol – some basics
Edit:
what he did in the video was using cluster bomb, then stealing just as cluster bomb finishes, and then using cluster bomb again to detonate all 3 fragments on his location(which is now the same as his enemy’s).
It’s also not quite a oneshot combo, mug+cluster bomb damage is in fact a little less than simple backstab damage -.- (though, what helps is that both air and fire sigils are very likely to trigger and add more damage since the cluster bomb hits 3 times)
I think this is actually great.
For example thieves in PVP generally all take 6 in trickery.
That gives them 300 condition damage.
Majority of the thieves actually play D/P or, rarer, S/D, both of which are power-based.
That’s 300 stats down the drain, which will be rebalanced into much more useful vitality, power,precision,ferocity on the amulet.
That’s my take on it anyways. So this change is actually amazing.
I’d like you people to criticize my take on it. I’ve had a lot of fun and was murdering people in 1v3-4 scenarios quite easily.
Most importantly, I’m very fond of Vampirism Runes. Not only they allow me to escape nearly every single encounter that turned out badly(90% of the time mist procs together with Last Refuge allowing for a nearly surefire escape), they also increase the initial burst by 1k as well as the combat sustain. I used to run with pack before, and you know, no regrets. I’m not even afraid of surprise moas anymore.
IA will definitely be better.
Although the distance is probably going to be the same (450×2/900), IA has a shorter animation than 2xHS so you get to run normally as well, making the distance greater.
Even right now IA is better in all combat situations and in a great deal of normal mobility situations(HS sucks in combat and IA can actually allow you to cut the cliffs), only being a teensy bit behind on flat surface.
I’ve just looked at this gear atrocity and can only say a couple things.
If you got a combination of Condition Damage, Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitality and Ferocity(6 stats), then why don’t you just use some Celestial pieces to get more overall stats without sacrificing anything?
In either case looks like a very weak build to me…
I’ll just chime in and say that saying that signet of restoration heals less than others is bullkitten; here’s why.
First of all, it’s triggered by attunement swap and your utility skills, meaning that you actually get many more than by simply spamming lightning whip on cooldown(due to instant-cast spells).
Also, it has much higher healing power scaling, being 0.1 on every single cast. Compare that to 0.75 every ~20 seconds on Ether, and you’ll see why it is such a popular choice.
Then again Ether might be picked over it due to condition removal.
I used to play warrior for a good 1,000 hours before swapping to an ele. Never regretted.
You get a much richer playstyle and ele is indeed better(at least right now) when you do everything properly – although doing things properly on ele is much harder than on a warrior.
If you want the D/D Roamer build instead, it’s here. You might not want to take your ele into WvW just yet, but it’s useful to have a look at where the D/D is currently shining brightest.
I’m really sensitive on a subject of D/D roamer ele I suppose, and I can’t help but frown at metabattle.
First of all, Cleansing Wave trait which will remove a condition when attuning to water.
While roaming it would be better to run a cantrip trait which will give you vigor/regeneration when using a cantrip.
Extra vigor will be useful although you already have a decent uptime through Arcane trait, but getting regeneration will also remove a condition due to water GM trait, making it a far superior choice for roaming(Even if you do group roaming. Yes, cantrip trait will only remove condis from you and not the people around you. But the AOE condi removal has 240 radius. Too small to reliably help allies).
Sigils and Runes are well covered, I can agree with everything written. I wonder why Energy isn’t a staple, but the guide mentions it’s probably the best choice if you’re good so… yeah. Traveler might be an option to consider too, Hoelbrak is mostly meh when you have a lot of active condi removal.
Also, the gear choice is mildly suspicious. A mix of Celestial and Knight’s?
Celestial is wonderful, maybe wonderful enough to go full Celestial. But if you want to complement it, I would look at Cleric first, then at Zealot. That’s because precision isn’t very powerful of a stat when power mildly equals precision, you better focus on POWER>Toughness>Healing power>Condition Damage(in this order) if you want to complement celestial(you have enough precision from cele, a ton of vitality from wvw bonus/traits, and critical damage is $&%* in general)
Food recommendation is really @?# #$&%*! . My two suggestions for cele d/d would be: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Seaweed_Salad https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Cactus_Fruit_Salad
We’re looking at very bad@ss Salads here. One gives you 10% direct damage boost(Ele is always on the move, not to mention 10% is definitely better than 100 power+70 precision which is one of the choices on metabattle) and allows you to make builds without perma swiftness uptime(can be huge), the other gives 40% condi duration and leech on crits. Far superior choices, but also far pricier I suppose.
I guess that’s about all I disagree on. So… yeah.
This is extremely relevant… But, he’s not at the level of Dark Overlords yet:
Unfortunately, the math he provides only does work with 2 variables given a constant critical damage… Which means that he is just showing a ratio of Power to Precision given Certain Ferocity, not optimizing all 3 variables in tandem with each other…
And he also draws a very incorrect conclusion of power being more important than precision at all times when you have less than 35% bonus critical damage.
I can just slap three numbers: 1000 precision, 10000 power and 1.8 critical damage(which is only 30% bonus critical damage). At this point, getting 100 points of precision will be better than 100 points of power(In fact, it’ll be still better when you have 2900 power to 1000 precision, which is a little bit realistic already)
I just swing my sword.
Then i swing my sword again. And again.
Then i win.
Have you never, ever lost to some Dark Overlords in WvW who came, killed you and were gone like a scary nightmare? Well, it can be that they just know the secret of this formula… and that gives them the power…
I was always interested in finding the optimal combination of Power+Precision+Ferocity for a given amount of stats. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find something of significant relevance or interest on the web, and I myself am not able to calculate something like that.
GW2 formula for Damage, where X = Power, Y = Precision, Z = Ferocity, A = Various damage multipliers active at the time(Such as having +10% damage and +5% damage bonuses would mean that A is 1.1 × 1.05…)(Restrictions: X > 916, Y > 916, Z > 0) X × (1 – (Y – 842) / 2100) + X × (Y – 842) / 2100 × (1.5 + Z / 1500) × A × Weapon Damage × Skill Coefficient ÷ Target’s Armor
Only the XYZ part is relevant for the sake of stat optimization, since the rest cannot be affected.
(This looks unnecessarily complicated, but can actually be applied for GW2 buildcrafting. Basically, I’m asking the question of how to “spread” my stat points over power/precision/ferocity. For example, let’s say I have 5,000 stat points and want to get an optimal combination of damage. How should I “put” my points?)
Title says it all. As we know, the new “Desert Borderlands” map serves as a replacement for the old WvW map.
I hate to see past content gone to waste. Couldn’t borderlands co-exist? Rotational basis? Available at the same time at all times? Something.
I’m super hyped for HoT, but I can already feel that it’s wrong to just delete a tremendous amount of work already done.
Basically, if you find yourself dying more often than you feel comfortable, adding in some Celestial pieces will prove beneficial to you(Gives the most bang for your buck, a WvW staple too if you decide to play it). However, “true hardcore” PvE players are obviously going to use full berserker for maximum damage.
Keep in mind that although Celestial won’t be optimal in PvE, you’ll be able to get away or even get rewarded for wearing it(by not dying at all in major encounters). If you’re exploring the world, it is relatively easy to do in any kind of gear. If you’re fighting world bosses, it honestly doesn’t matter – as your damage output is only a small fraction of a big crowd, regardless of your gear. As for dungeons, if you’re in a casual group nobody will care.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMqc24wwBf0AdAB5zqvRBlzbnB-TVCEABDqEET1d0S5XO7PQpKB9pnAgTEwDPAgGOgABAQAuZbGs5NzQH6QH6QHa38mD9mD9mlC4utWA-w
Well, this is my vision of absolute killing machine for roaming. I’m having great success with a similar assembly(I still need WvW infusions for a “complete” WvW set).
Since eles are able to utilize all stats(Arguably, with just burning and minor bleeds, condition damage somewhat lags behind), Celestial is clearly the superior choice.
You might complement it with some Cleric pieces, since with just Celestial you’ll have more than enough precision/ferocity/vitality/condition damage.
Although the power level looks low compared to your traditional stuff, in reality it’s just a perfect amount when your bloodlust and guard leech are stacked, and you have some might from your fire field in combat.
So basically what you are saying is, that you think ascended is to expensive and you don’t want to get it and your solution is to nerf to exo value so you don’t want to build it anymore?
So basically what I’m saying then is, that ascended armor is currently way to cheap, everyone, even the worst only 5 min./day playing casual can get it in less than a month. You even could just buy it with some real $…
I agree that ascended armors should get more extras, for example these things you mentioned and to increase value they should get soulbound again (so you cant charswap it), but hell there is not even one reason to nerf it in it’s stats or value.
Edit: But I really hope more extra things on weapons and armors and higher stats will only introduced with legendary armor/trinkets. So ascended would then be the fast middle goal to get, until everyone would buy the legendary highend stuff.
I didn’t say that.
However, I did say:
By the way, I’m quite fond of Ascended myself and have full Ascended+Legendary characters.
You’re right, Ascended armor isn’t particularly hard to acquire if you play every day. I didn’t argue with that.
I’ve also said that higher stats are bad. Magic find and other stats which do not influence combat are cool. Everyone, buy legendary highend stuff? Not everyone has 3,000+ hours. I know for myself that I do, you probably do as well, but that’s no excuse to allow us to rekt newbies in exotics in WvW. The reason why we should be stronger is solely our skill and knowledge, not the power of stats that we got through a lot of playtime.
Why buff exotics in the first place?
The smarter and way better way would be to buff ascended stats way more so it gets a necessary gear tier and increase the material cost a little bit. With that way all problems are solved.
That’s vertical gear progression. If you want that you can go and play WoW where you can half-health people in PvP with one attack because you have maxed out gear and they only have starter PVP gear. If they don’t even have start PVP gear(Which you can only get by playing PVP.)? One-shotting time, lol.
I truly believe GW2 is about breaking the vertical progression. After all, we were promised “vanity” progression and horizontal progression, and I’m quite fond of these things. PvP and WvW should be ruled with personal skill, not with higher stats. Apart from Ascended, it’s pretty much horizontal progression around. That’s very cool, but perhaps it could be even cooler.
I wonder if that captured your attention? I’m not very good at making interesting headlines. Now, please brace for a wall of text about Ascended. By the way, I’m quite fond of Ascended myself and have full Ascended+Legendary characters as well as some full Exotic characters, so I think I have some insight on the matter.
Without further ado, my suggestions:
Bumping Exotic to Ascended level stat-wise. I would feel cheated right now to wake up one day and realise my character is weaker because ascended got nerfed. If exotics got buffed? I wouldn’t be. Maybe I’m weird about it, but that’s a much more “polite” way if you want to bring exotics and ascended together. But that alone would still mean Ascended is a nonsense, useless tier of gear. So how can it be differentiated from Exotic in a not stat-based way?
Well, why not add some vanity on Ascended instead?
The possibilities to explore would be:
Not paying stones for transmutations.
Magic find bonus.
Gold find bonus.
Cheaper or free waypoints.
Better dungeon rewards.
Being able to equip on lower level alts as a scaling armor(Think Heirlooms in WoW)
Changing stats just like legendary weapons do.
Still having Agony reduction, duh. That’s already in the game.
Bonus Movement Speed for PvE(If that’s considered acceptable)
Still having extra stats in PvE(Is that acceptable? I think the majority of people only don’t like the disparity in WvW, after all everyone in PvE works together…)
In fact all of that would be way too much for mere Ascended armor, even if it had same stats as Exotic one. But of course, it’s all just mere possibilities. Let’s say Ascended Armor will have Extra Magic find and Gold find. However, if you went through the trouble of combining different Ascended Armor in one, you could enhance the bonuses while allowing you to swap stats(Combine Zerk with Cleric = can swap from Zerk to Cleric and enhanced gold/mf bonuses). Eventually, combining enough Ascended Armor in one, you could make a very cool Legendary Armor – not necessarily with its own skin, but with a great deal of bonuses from the list above and perhaps a cool smoky aura around it.
I think you’re past the wall of text now. What do you think about it? Which suggestions are epic, good, bad, terrible? Maybe you have some wisdom to share yourself? Please comment.
Hello.
Putting 5/8 classes being vigor boon kitten and energy sigils aside,
a dodge is 1s inuvlnerable every 10s.
Stabilty like every boon will be minimum 1 second duration.
So 1+1=2 means you cant setup your burst on a Reve 20% of time
GG Anet, oh and NO we dont want more immobilize stacking and
YES hooray since all necros will rellol anyway
So what’s wrong with stability on dodge?
Thieves get dodge on dodge(15 energy for 50, dodge every 3.5 seconds under vigor which they also have) and are somewhat invulnerable 70-80% of the time in S/D spec.
Never
it was never stated that we are going to see something preposterous such as this about Greatsword Thieves and Staff Engineers.
A new weapon per class would sound acceptable.
Torch thief, Hammer engineer, axe guardian, something like that.
I think the problem is with your internet.
Otherwise provide me a meaningful explanation why I do not have these problems(I’m playing PVP, so I suffer TERRIBLY when lag comes along) and you have them(In dungeons, where one might not even get seriously affected by them)
Incinerator.
Why?
You can use it in many builds.
S/P build isn’t really good, and every single other build will include incinerator.
After you get it, you can think about getting bolt if you really like S/D.
And yes – S/D is a META build for PVP, S/P is a META build for some dungeons(so is D/D), and S/D can also be used in WvW if you want so(but D/P / condi builds are more.. impactful.)
Appearance is something else, but there are many nice swords to pair incinerator with. Take Fractal Sword or Fused Sword for instance. But if you want to pair Bolt with something, it’ll look sad unless you pair it with incinerator because Bolt is one of the biggest swords there is and daggers tend to be small.
There are different kinds of golems as well as enemy NPCs to try at the PvP lobby.
That includes dummies(golems; Indestructible, heavy, medium, light, Class NPCs, Svanir/Utahein, Lord/His Guards)
The choice is not between berserker and assassin; Berserker is better by far. With your build you’ll already have close to 100% without the need to invest into assassin gear – you might want to get a few pieces here and there to cap yourself at 100% but investing into full assassin will put you over the obvious limit.
But for WvW – as an option – you might also interest yourself into Valkyrie’s gear. While you won’t get a lot of critical chance, Hidden Killer will make your backstabs surefire in any case if you forego Executioner.
Keep your mind open for other options… There’s always The Dodger S/D and the Dark Side of Conditions.
why do you have 1 point in shadow arts? are you the only player in the game that thinks that “last refuge” is a good trait?
Where is the condition removal? Why healing power with no healing traits
This build looks good at taking camps but not actually fighting other players
Krait/Perplexity/Aristocracy is better than Nightmare you’re not a necromancer
Last Refuge is a good trait for people who know when they are below 25%.
Krait/Perplexity are decent, but condition duration has a cap and there’s no going further than 100%. and 4 second fear is a great answer for shenanigans.
Aristocracy = super trash rune
traits are a bit “borked” but condition removal appears magically out of pain response and shadowstep(blinding powder is situational, and pain response is actually a staple, hard to catch somehow appeared there.. magically.)
Here’s the build I scrapped up, and I’m playing a much worse version of it right now(whatever is available at the moment – I’m only taking my first steps in the condition realm) http://tinyurl.com/Can-ditions http://preview.tinyurl.com/Can-ditions
Not to brag, But I’ve already managed to solo a 250/250 camp in one go without going anywhere below 50% HP – 10-15 lvl 82 guards running around and painfully dying in conditions.
And later I’ve noticed a downed warrior inbetween the numerous caltrops. Apparently he tried to stop me :C
Healing Power may seem redundant(I’m still thinking on the choice of accessories), but then again Signet of Malice procs a lot of times… Really a lot of times. Caltrops.
Stat numbers are really confusing because it doesn’t count in wvw bonuses/sigil bonus.
20K HP/1.7-1.8k condition damage is more realistic(+250 sigil, +100 wvw, +x might, +250 vitality and +x% HP wvw bonuses)
Plenty of players still have this stuff in their inventory, so there is no demand for any of these items atm. People who hoarded it in order to sell with a profit might be panicking about now and selling their stuff, further dumping their prices.
One would suspect the items should go on the rise long-term, you suggest that not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of it?(If I understood you correctly)
Yes. Usually, also most of the supply in game is in peoples inventories/banks, not on the tp. Regular players usually hold on to some of their supplies in hopes of prices rising after the event is over. Thats usually not the case because even though generated supply doesnt come in as regularly as during the event, demand also goes down alot as most people still have enough personal supplies to last for them.
New demand is usually generated by new players that didnt have the chance to collect those ressources themselves. Cocnerning the items you have listed:
Candy Corn still drops from the home node and ToT Bags, which can still be farmed via maize balm. But there are some good sinks for it, so i expect its price to rise eventually.
The 3 nourishments also still drop from ToT Bags but over time their value should rise closer to crafting value. Might take a bit of time though, because right now, i dont see much content where these are viable because the mf buff only applies for 20s after rezzing. IT was kinda viable to use in the lab but not right now in silverwastes where MF as a stat is pretty useless due to a lack of direct drops.
From the Halloween patch, i think, the only tradeable items that arent farmable anymore in game are the recipes for maize balm, pumkin oil and sharpening skulls and the refined versions of skulls/nougat/fangs.
Though I agree(At least i feel they’re right) with your ideas, you’ve made 2 mistakes i feel I should correct:
30% Magic Find is a permanent bonus. It is not reliant on resurrecting people – only the stat bonuses are.
Moreover, Silverwastes chests are indeed affected by the magic find – though not significantly, since you’re guaranteed to get 1 champion bag out of them in any case.
There’s no way to get any candy corn anymore, so it should be increasing little by little in my opinion.
Not entirely true. Not to say that Candy Corn nodes available to players would cover all of the anticipated usage, but it can add to supply at any time.
Don’t forget that you can also get the recipe for Vial of Maize Balm, as well as the vials themselves, which also produce a ton of candy corn and other halloween items. MY guess it will follow watchwork sprockets, it’ll bottom out for a bit, then climb back up, and level out.
I’ve blundered with the candy corn nodes, but honestly they seem like a drop in the ocean :P
And vials of maize balm? Did you even check the recipe?
At the very best it’ll give you 9 ToT bags for 100(!!!) candy corn!
Though I guess it’s possible to co-operate with other players about it…
Plenty of players still have this stuff in their inventory, so there is no demand for any of these items atm. People who hoarded it in order to sell with a profit might be panicking about now and selling their stuff, further dumping their prices.
One would suspect the items should go on the rise long-term, you suggest that not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of it?(If I understood you correctly)
I used to play with someone who play 2 accounts to do cof speed runs. He was actually able to do it quite good.
I’m not sure how he send signals to 2 different screen though.
Anet’s have a policy of 1 signal 1 output. So you can’t press the w key and have both of your accounts move at the same time. You have to control them separately. For example press w to move 1 character forward and use the mouse to move your other character at the same time.
Controlling 2 character at the same time is very difficult to do due to Anet’s policy.
That’s the point of having 2 mice at once with 19+ buttons on each :-)
Yeah , if you want to be super-serious about pointholding , you should probably just modify the meta SD build for tankiness …
The thiefs best defense will always be not getting hit in the first place (that includes condis) , so if you want to be stealthless that means maximum evade spam …
To be totally honest , I cant imagine a thief build that could hold a point against any engineer throwing his crates – you can only evade so much …
And if you are not viable in that sense , you might as well just build for fun and survivability I would say .
Actually a condi bunker caltrops thief is a direct counter to an engineer who decides to drop a supply crate.
Your caltrops will leech off his turrets through the signet of malice significantly.
Caltrops work with the signet of malice.
Dodger pointholder with the caltrops, sigils of energy, proper points in trickery&acro, and settler’s amulet(Celestial is just fine as well)… It works really great when you have to be confined in a small point. And as for weapons, well Evade uptime complements nicely, so I guess shortbow + D/D. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8Mp5pFOx0J0PNBNB59V+SZ0MAzuzjEFA-TpgTQAg9HslBAA
Try to build something based on that, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the results.
I’m thinking of challenging myself with some double PC-setup gaming. I’m ambidexterous, that is I can write using either left or right hand – same goes for using mice.
getting 2x http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga (can you suggest something similar to it? the more buttons the better for my case!), 1 for each hand(They even have both left- and right-handed versions, how nice!)
Of course, I’m also considering purchasing a 2nd copy of guild wars 2 to play at the same time. I’m already thinking about the crazy stuff I could do as a 2manteam(and cringing, since I won’t be able to apply legendaries and fancy stuff I already have to a 2nd account), though the difficulty of mastering such a setup is considerable!
So, because I’m not bothered with looking through the terms of service, can you tell me whether it’s completely alright(or not) to do something like that?
I’ve also been considering footmice… I think it would be a lot of fun to engage in gaming using both your hands and feet fully!
And then die to the next thief who looks at you funny.
If you roam and get caught by a thief while NOT wearing berserker, you don’t stand a chance. If he’s competent.
If you wear berserker, you might at least have a shot to insta-down him.
Who writes this comment?
If your server ticks 0 it means you don’t even have camps.
If you don’t even have camps, you don’t even have roamers?
Assuming that you have no roamers, you have no one.
Assuming you have no one, who writes this comment?
:D
I would like to see those :-)
Why yes, why not? We have omni PvE infusions, why not wvw.
[min/max] question. Please don’t respond if you feel hate to ascended, gear grind(where), whatever.
So my warrior has about 2500 attack and doesn’t do much damage to veteran guards or even mobs wandering around the field, which is weird because my gs skill 200b doesn’t even go over 10000. Is this because I need to have stack more attack or is it just that all the npcs in wvw have extra armor and toughness?
Clearly you need to stack more attack!
My 200b goes over 20,000 when I’m pimped and ready. It oneshots(100shots?) those freakin’ lvl 80 guards.
Zerker, infusions, and all the other stuff is to be expected.
What I think is balanced:
Norn – Warrior, Ranger
Charr – Thief, Warrior, Guardian(Warleader, Dying for your warband…Think about it), Engineer
Sylvari – Necromancer, Thief, Elementalist, Ranger
Human – Guardian, Thief, Mesmer(The rest are also fine… humans… meh…)
Asura – Engineer, Mesmer
I main an Asura Thief by the way.
So you suggest fighting underwater without having the actual sigil? Or even worse, the other way around?
The current solution is the most fitting one and works perfectly.
Farm hard and sell your stock before the prices drop too far. Cash is king!
Bonetti’s Rapier down from 12g to 5g, for example. If you have lots of gold saved up, its appreciating in value right now.
I’m glad to see there is a farm to switch between with Orr, to avoid diminishing returns penalties.
There are no diminishing returns on chest farm.
Not to mention that rewards bleak whatever Orr farming has given you before.
I’ve managed to farm ~400 obsidian shards in 2 days which I’ve needed for my legendary, I would say in about 6-7 hours of “chesting”. Would I really be able to get 800+k karma in any other way in a similar time span?
Hundreds of skillpoints/gold also came attached with it.
