Guild Wars 2

Race: Human
Sex: Male
Profession: Thief
Armor skin: Aetherblade Medium Jerkin

Description: On the lower back of this skin (right above the belt line) there is a white triangle geometry that pops out when the character is running, jumping, or doing emotes. It is really quite noticeable and the picture doesn’t do it much justice.

Race: Asura
Sex: Female
Armor: Bloodstone Visage

After most recent patch, the Bloodstone Visage glow effect is pretty much not there. It shows up in the Hero panel just fine, but it’s impossible to see on an asura now.

Finally a look I am 100% satisfied with

Hello everybody, I’m new to the engi and I am looking for some good PvE builds for pistols (mainly because I just built HOPE for my thief and I want to still use that skin lol). If you have any good builds, would you be so kind as to share. Thanks much!

I have been seeing a LOT of pistol/pistol thieves running around as of late with a daredevil build. I gave it a shot and built a decent spec and i think people are just excited about burning up a quick 30k+ dmg burst using unload after unload. I used to play P/P before the trait changes and it was at least viable. I feel like now you get a single target burst and then have to wait a month to get some ini to do it again, but that’s it.

I was fighting wyvern matriarch the other day, and a P/P thief ACTUALLY gave me lip for using SB. When he got cornered in a pool of acid before dying, I made sure to wave to him from the other side since I was able to get out of it lol. Though not relevant, I had to share.

In all honesty though, I hope they do come back with a viable build for pistols. We used to have ricochet and opportunist traits, so hopefully they will give some sort of AoE and a better way of managing ini.

Can’t really bring physics into the mix because look at this world where arrows can bounce from mob to mob. I’m sure the blades are made of some sort of metal that is light enough to carry all day and you could have a type of energy field that has air resistance. It’s just a way of using your imagination. it IS in fact a fantasy world lol and in my view of this world, Spinal Blades need to be glider skins

Or what about a Mawdrey glider lol. My girlfriend worked hard on that piece and thinks there should be some purple glowy vines that come out from it to glide from.

Are we ever going to see these? I mean they are the only wing type back piece that you actually have to work for. It would be nice to be able to glide in style with something that we had to make and i’m sure we could all think of a few ways to fill the gap between each blade. maybe an energy field?

Please ANet, reward the hard work (especially for those who got them infused). Anybody else think this would be a great touch?

Hey guys and gals,

I have been playing Thief for a while now and am totally new to the Ele. As I am leveling him, I have been digging the D/D set, but instead of doing a bunch of experimenting and poking around, I thought it would be best to ask all of you experts. What is a solid D/D build, and what attribute priorities should i be focusing on (especially just for pve…little to no pvp)?

Thanks everyone

let’s just face, ricochet was very handy in PvE, but it was not the main issue with the changes to pistols. Even the 10% damage increase was not a super major issue, because the one thing that has always hurt the build, and now hurts it even more, is INI cost to regen ratios. I know this is still about ricochet in here, but what’s the point in ricochet if you burn through all of your INI in just a few seconds? Yes you can steal to gain INI or even use Roll for INI, but in times of heavy single target damage, you will always find yourself sitting there with auto attack while waiting for recharge.

I love ricochet as much as the next, but it wasn’t for damage…it was for survival when using SOM. If you deal enough crit damage and can maintain enough INI, you would be golden in that area. With that said, I would prefer to see better INI recharge options for the set over getting ricochet back.

Was Not sure of where to put this, but there is yet another texture error which has been like that for a little bit now. not a big deal, but this is the only place i could think to put it. It’s the Ooze event at Jeztar Falls

I can see why they ported pistol mastery over to ankle shots, but honestly pulling ricochet and opportunist completely has really jacked up the spec and killed it pretty much completely.

ricochet is important for pistols yes, but it’s still pretty useless without opportunist being given back. pistols simply use too much ini for just ricochet alone to survive.

I’m a pretty big complainer and the reason is not due to the fact that the spec is not OP or the spec is not any different of a play style, but because it is a scam. They gutted what we already had and then bring it back for a specific weapon set that pretty much forces us to buy the expansion right away and only use that weapon to have it. This is not a negativity you should complain about. A lot of us are negative for plenty of valid reasons.

“The point to an Elite Specialization is not to solve the ‘needs’ of a class but rather offer an alternative play style…”

This makes me laugh a little bit because from what we can see so far, it doesn’t give us an alternate play style…just an alternate weapon while killing other weapons, so it really doesn’t give us anything. it’s sad really.

The death of opportunist and ricochet means the death of pistols. I finally got sick of it because i couldn’t keep up with the numbers, consistency, aoe dmg, survivability, and shear fun of the game. They took our pistol mastery and turned it into the crappy inconsistent ankle shots and looks like they gave it to staffs in “staff master.” Pretty much I feel like we are dead in the water and we are going to be forced to play the way they want us to. This is my last post on this thread because I may just be done with thief all together because other weapon sets are just boring. Thanks ANet…here is something you should consider when thinking of new weapon skins…

Actually the most accurate thing we could call the thief elite spec is “The Crutch”…since it seems to be the only thing left to hope for to keep us going as a profession lol

I’m still team Dual-Wield-Shield. Oh the chaos we could bring

Black Frog.9274:

DeceiverX.8361:

Girbilcannon.8259:

Anet is like a hardcore feminist extremist…They accept the P/P, but will do anything in their power to make it less powerful.

I lol’d

lol’d again…

With comments like these, it’s no wonder they avoid this forum. Grow up.

Actually, it’s comments like those that make them laugh and sometimes laughter is what they need. Haven’t you ever watched monsters inc?

funny because i mained a rogue from vanilla through cata (then i quit). No blizzard never made direct changes and it seems like thats what people think i mean. what I mean to clear the air is that on the forums, there was always a blizzard rep to mediate the issues and they would release notes as to what changes where being made before and after making them. There was no silent treatment on the forums and I had no complaints. This silent treatment I am complaining about here is the fact that they butcher something and then leave it completely pathetic while they work on this revenant character in the background instead of addressing what is currently a problem (break something that isn’t broken, then leave it in pieces while they fix something that isn’t even available to the public yet).

but of course they save our profession for last, because revenant is SO important right now lol

Anet is like a hardcore feminist…They accept the P/P, but will do anything in their power to make it less powerful.

Some of us have a few reasons to mope and it’s not because we don’t have a “Can do!” attitude. It’s because they completely butcher “play the way you want” mentality. It’s fine to have little nerfs here and there, but when you step in and render a full weapon set completely obsolete, people tend to get a little outraged. I say we will have a “Can do!” attitude when they give us reasons for such harsh changes.

My name is Girbilcannon and I represent P/P thieves around the globe. Vote for me!

Bringing us back to the front page here…

This issue cannot afford to go forgotten and left behind. We NEED our ricochet and demand justice!

I don’t see many people lay off the orange too much, so I thought i’d be the minority for a little while.

Caesteris.7529:

I thought I was over this until I just noticed what the icon for the Invigorating Precision trait is. The sadness is 100% back.

I agree. Why must they tease?

And about the ankle shots thing, who am I kidding anyways? I don’t even roll ankle shots because I find myself doing more consistent damage rolling Practiced Tolerance. It really is all based off of stat balances though and to each their own I guess, to each their own.

honestly, i’m sick of this melee staff crap. Why am I sick of it? we already have plenty of melee options a it just takes another dump on what our other crappy option has been for years, which is pistols. We need something that compliments what we already have and gives us a stronger range option, which is rifle. Melee staff is stupid and people who stand by it should just go rerole as a pandarian monk

Tabootrinket.2631:

The suggestion that seems to me the simplest while staying reasonable would be to make the 1050 range baseline, then associating the bouncing bullets to the ankle shot trait.

That way we would still have to make a choice on how to deal the damage : ferocity, vulnerability OR aoe.

That actually makes sense. In fact it makes too much sense to the point where it would never happen lol. Mixing in ricochet with ankle shots would certainly give us an edge in PvE survivability, but would probably be too OP in PvP due to the AoE cripples and 10% damage increase to each of those cripple targets.

I guess it could work if the ankle shots effect only applied to the first target, but then it wouldn’t make sense of how the bounce would bounce and bounce again. I don’t know, nobody quote me or correct me because I know i’m thinking way too much into it already without typing lol.

I swear, with as popular as this thread is (in both views and comments), Anet better have somebody reading this and taking it to heart. They brought the hurt to the thief profession in more ways than just this one, and completely botched the P/P build. In most cases, that would be fine, but going more than a month without a fix or any sort of hint as to what we are getting as an elite spec is pretty ridiculous. I have a feeling it will be awesome, but there are so many people losing hope at this point. It saddens me to say, but at least blizzard responds when something like this happens.

Ghotistyx.6942:

If your entire Guildwars2 experience is ruined by the removal of one trait, you might have larger issues than just the removal of that one trait. You have the entire game available to you and that’s the reason to leave? I certainly won’t miss you.

Your mistake here is that you are not looking at why people are really complaining. It was NOT just a single trait that was removed, but rather 3 traits removed. Ricochet just so happened to be the one that enhanced the effects of every single target effect and made this build actually worth something. Other traits removed are Pistol Mastery and Opportunist. Maybe if you paid more attention to this post earlier on, you might understand that.

This does not just go for you, but for anybody else saying that everybody should stop complaining for its removal. I mean, I would constantly remove the ricochet trait on single target fights or if we had really strong AoE in the group, but that wasn’t always the case. It was a VERY necessary trait (along with the other 2 i mentioned) to make this weapon set the slightest bit tolerable.

Black Frog.9274:

Initiative has always been an issue, with the loss of Initiative generation on crit trait (I forget it’s name), it’s an actual problem to contend with. Ricochet allowed you to generate the initiative off many people so if 1 moves out of range, you’re still doing ok.

Opportunist…that 50% chance on crit to gain initiative was a huge part of this build for us, especially in multitarget situations. Even in single target, this made rotations a lot easier. Now being REQUIRED to steal for initiative every 20 seconds or so is still not enough to keep up when high damage output is needed. The only thing that helps me keep up would be to equip Roll for Initiative, but even that has a 60 second CD and is really only good for when you are hanging heavily below 5 initiative.

Just bumping us to the top of the list again. I did some more poking today and I still rock on single target, but switching to that kitten short bow for AoE is just NOT working. I feel more like i’m tickling the targets than doing any actual damage. Come on anet! Give us an update on what you will be giving us or SOMEthing.

Just keeping this post up there. I swear, even though I find myself playing a little less since the patch, each time playing makes me miss ricochet that much more. Let’s just face it, they are making the thief just as boring as a guardian with a mace and shield (shhhhh).

I am confused at this world where arrows can bounce from target to target, but bullets can’t. I am getting used to NOT playing pistols because of the nerf of ricochet, but honestly, it really makes no sense that they removed it. GIVE IT BACK LOL.

I have no problem switch between bow and pistols for the rest of my life, but the damage output of it during AoE is like HALF of what ricochet does. It really does hurt us, and I would really prefer to see it back.

and in response to aBabyInMoonBoots.9635:
of COURSE I’m talking pve because I don’t have a competitive attitude like you lol. I never said hardly ever as in “I NEVER use steal.” I say it as a last resort to low initiative. I know my rotations well enough to where I never run low on initiative no matter what, so don’t dis what you don’t know. Same thing with weapon swap, I know how to weapon swap, it’s just that it wasn’t necessary no matter what dungeon or fractal you are in if you know how to run it. I have played with a few thieves that could say the same.

Honestly I would continue going on with why everything else you said that was unnecessary, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t make a difference because it’s not important, because we ALL have our own play style and that is the point of this game? Your elitist attitude in this matter has no logic since we are all just giving our input on the fact that ricochet is gone. bashing others about their feelings in the matter is pointless and you are just taking up a lot of space on this post. Thank you for your input and no hard feelings.

I agree still…bring back ricochet because it just made things simpler.

1.) The removal of Ricochet is killing a lot of us who use pistols in our builds. It wasn’t broken and having access to it when needed during heavy elite mob situations not only sped up the attack process, but it helped us heal up when needed. We need our ricochet in order to keep up on some fights. Even switching to the short bow doesn’t help at all and produces slow attacks with below par numbers. There really is no way around ricochet.

2.) Pistol mastery for the 10% damage buff is pretty much the only thing that helped pistol builds stay up with the numbers. Without this, even the Unload ability puts out numbers that are just barely skimming by.

Over all, pistol builds got hurt more than anything in the last patch. This needs to be addressed ASAP (there are a lot of angry players).

i agree with the points of it being a singular build that doesn’t vary from person to person and that is why I’m saying I definitely want ricochet back because what if there are those of you that DO like to use something different than short bow as secondary. I personally like to go D/D as secondary, but when this change hit, there really is no other way around that kitten short bow =/

So I never write on here, but based on a little bit of practice and poking around, I kind of see what they were doing with the build (not that I like it because I LOVED ricochet, damage bonuses, and extra range). For the most part, it feels like they are just trying to get us to move around more. As a long time p/p thief, I recall NEVER weapon swapping, or at least not that much. With an increased initiative bonus, we also hardly had to steal and only use it as a last resort. For the most part, ricochet pretty much made it so we could survive in a crowd of mobs by simply standing still and unloading, giving us high damage on everything and healing ourselves out the wazoo. Frankly, I think that it made us all a little bit lazy.

If you take at look at some of the traits now, there is a much higher single target output, and even if not at good range, that’s why we have to weapon swap with the bow. This gives us low cost AoE and decent range. When it comes back to our single target, notice that they buffed the hell out of our steal. We get a nice decreased CD and it buffs not only us, but surrounding allies for a good 10 seconds with might, fury, and swiftness. If you ask me, that makes us a pretty valuable asset to the group now.

All in all, for those of you giving up because of the nerf….dont. You will only become a more skilled player and your groups will be more accepting of your contribution. P/P thief for life. (i still hope they bring back ricochet though)