Guild Wars 2

Sword/Dagger set:
#1. Flanking strike – This is skill is too unreliable. Sometimes it works, other times it just sends you to your right side far away from the target regardless the target is moving or static. This issue exists for so long and seems to be not addressed by developers. If it were too hard to fix the positioning issue, one solution is making it teleport the user to the target’s back.
#2. Dancing dagger – The nerf is over top yet the cost is still too high. Solutions are reduce the cost to 2-3 initiatives to make it fit with new reduced damage, or make 2 different damage sets – pre-nerfed version for pve and post-nerfed version for pvp.
Pistol/Pistol set:
#1. The attack speed is way too slow. Short bow’s auto attack can hit up to 3 targets, deal pretty much the same damage, and has way faster speed.
#2. Body shot is just useless. Its effect duration is too short and unimpressive to waste 3 initiatives for it.
#3. Head shot is too costly for solely 1/4 second stun.
#4. This set has no skill to help you get away of trouble when you get attacked by several enemies. Black Powder makes you stuck at one place for 4 seconds. If you get out, you will be dead. When 4 second is off, you will still be dead due to those mobs surround you.
Utilities:
#1. Traps: Only able to set up 1 trap at a time, long cool down (30 seconds), and very short effect duration (except Ambush) make traps near to useless.
#2. Venom: Again, long cool down, short effect duration and without venom aura trait make it unfavorable to use.
Elites:
#1. Basilisk Venom is totally useless in underwater combat (only 1.5 second breakable stun and 45 seconds cool down just kill it) yet it is the only elite skill that thieves are able to use underwater.

I am using S/D (mainly), P/P and Shortbow (event/travel), 25/30/10/5/0.

Gears: Knight armor set (for Toughness), Valkyries Jewel set (for Vitality) and Berserker packback + weapons.

S/D skills using:

1. Sword auto: frontal AoE, decent dmg, moderate speed.
2. Inflitration Strike: 900 range port in, 1200 range port out. It is kind of annoying at beginning, but when you get used to it, it is amazing. It breaks stun, removes 1 condition, 1200 effective range port out is so good to get out of nasty situations. In short, it has everything you need to get away from danger.
3. Flanking Strike: 1st strike is an AoE. It has good dmg, but kind of unreliable due to the positioning problem. Hope Anet fixing this.
4. Dancing Dagger: Even it got 50% dmg nerf, it is still pretty good skill for crowd control and wearning down multiple targets.
5. Cloak n Dagger: Another good skill. You can either use it as an offensive skill, cloak then blind/stun or as a defensive skill, cloak and run away. With the trait which make stealth skill recover 2 initiatives, you can spam this every 3 seconds. Woot!

Healing Skill: I am using Signet of Malice for general situations, and Hide in Shadow in dungeons or PvP.

Key Utilities:
#Shadow Refuge: AoE Stealth. It is just too good to ignore. Must have skill before leaving home.
#Signet of Shadow: 25% speed all the time. If you dont use this, what else?
#The last slot: is whatever fit your style. For me, I use Signet of Agility for extra precisions.

I would like that too.
Currently, you can visit gw2spidy.com/item/ to get ingame links for most ingame gears. Copy, and paste it in chatting window to get the preview of the gear. You better whisper to yourself when do this to avoid bothering people around. For exmaple, /whisper ChaoticKyubi.1067

Yep, it randomly recharges one skills type, either trick or deception or venom skills. Sounds fun in paper, stupid in reality.
If it were 5-10% to proc, but recharged everything, then it would be awesome.

It is fun to pick up lowbies and clothies except Necro with Unload, other than that, this set has nothing standout.
-Skill #1 – low damage + very very slow speed.
-Skill #2 – stupid activation time + low+short duration of vulnerability (no reason to waste initiatives on this skill, unless you get bored).
-Skill#4 – a costly short stun (occasionally useful to interrupt stuffs).
-Skill#5 – extremely expensive + you have to stand inside the circle to avoid attacks from enemies appear to step in the circle + useless against range enemies.

So are you trying to say that “permanent stealth” (due to the freaking graphic engine which does not render post-stealth characters) thieves are not a problem for you? Then why did you post this anyway?

Connection error(s) detected. Retrying….

For pt #3, I am using Sword/dagger. It is a beast for AoE (Auto-attack + Dancing Dagger). The only problem of this set is the skill #3, aka Flanking Strike. It is kind of buggy that half of the time, it sends you to far right of your current position instead of the target’s back even if the target is not moving, and if the target is moving…well, you will miss the target, obviously.

I am using S/D, full knight set, and valkyrie jewels, berserker weapons.

I find S/D is way more effective than S/P if you want to kill multiple mobs at the same time. For me, Dancing Dagger is better than Pistol whip.

First, it does decent dmg against up to 4 targets. It works best on 2 targets though because it bounces twice on each target (the best case happens with x2 3+k crit + 1.5k from lightning strike on each target at the same time).

Secondly, It does not root you like piston whip plus it also slows targets.

Thirdly, It hits all mobs nearby the main target which means you only need to face the main target.

Finally, It costs only 4 initiatives.

Further more, if you screw up within the melee range, you can CnD and run away. With 10 pt in Toughness trait, CnD only costs 4 ini so that you can actually spam it every few seconds (to wait for stealth debuff to wear off and initiatives regen).

Why knight armors and valkyrie jewels? Toughness + vit helps you not die every pull in dungeons. Sure, glass cannon spec kills mobs in open-world pve faster but running dungeons is a different story. Mobs inside dungeons have huge hp pool and they hit insanely hard. Remember dead corpses does no damage.

This must be the golem in story mode…He is such a pain to kill.

It is a known issue that there is a delay of rendering the unstealth characters in PvP. It also happens a lot in WvW when big zergs coming, you can tab target them, but cannot see them for a while.

Currently, P/P users has only 2 skills worth to use, Unload and Black Powder. Honestly, I only use Unload in both PvE and PvP. After 2 Unloads, my target either run away or dies.

Skill #2 is literally worthless, the effect duration is just too short to waste 4 initiatives on it. I would like the duration is longer and/or gives more vulnerable stacks, at least 10+ stacks. Or, revamp it into an AoE skill, like a short whirlwind with shotting bullets instead of throwing dagger.

Skill #4 is just for interrupt casting or stomping in PvP. In PvE, it is just worthless. Most bosses immune to thief’s daze. Trash mobs are just not worth to use daze on them.

Finally, It would be nice if autoattacks have a little faster speed. It is kind of wierd that you can shot arrows with bows faster than shotting bullets with pistols.

The 5th skill of spear set lets Thieves evade all attacks and do AoE dmg up to 3 targets (updated since Oct 1st) for few seconds.
The 2nd skill of spear set lets Thieves evade 1 attack and move to target’s back and strike once.
The 3rd skill of spear set lets Thieves block 1 frontal attack and strike back 3 times, also gain 2 initiatives.
All of those skills are only applied in melee range.
So on the paper, in 1v1 fight underwater, with right timing and perfect initiatives management, a thief can block/evade all melee attacks.

I do not think so. In PvE, Flanking Strike is working perfectly on even and flat terrain. The skill’s animation makes a perfect circle from the front to the back of the target.

Hill or mountain slopes is another story. On slopes with very small angles and a static mob, Flanking Strike usually makes a bending line and sends me to the far right of my current spot. Good news is the 2nd strike seem to be delayed in these situation so that I can run into the target and land the strike on it. Bad news is sometimes FS sends you too far from the mob and/or the mob starts chasing you in the opposite direction, you probably miss the target.