I added some valkyrie pieces and 20 acro (with pain response) for extra survivability.
Works well in dungeons, but I feel like I could spec even more offensively for WvW.
Don’t bother fighting them 1v1 unless they’re attacking your supply camp or something.
Short answer: No, usually not.
Don’t fight 1v1’s if you’re built for group fights.
If budget is any issue at all, go with ruby orbs. Keep the rune of divinity you already have, or salvage it with a black lion kit and sell it on TP.
Divinity has the highest total stats, but they’re spread out. They’re good if you want a little extra defence while still keeping your damage output really high.
Scholar is only good if you’re full HP most of the time.
Ruby orbs are fine, really. They have lower all around stats than divinity, but higher offence. And the best part is, they’re almost free.
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Oh, you’re using it in sPvP?
I think it’s better suited in WvW, where there’s bigger groups to troll and more space to run.
Great vid indeed. I still think world vs world vs moose was slightly funnier.
You could try something weird with venom sharing or something, but dps is usually the way to go for a thief.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckmMc9coFLlooFLloax0GacosqMcV8kin7kiH
should be a nice starting point that can be used in both PvE and PvP. you could try knights gear with ruby orbs for armor/accessories. your health will still be fairly low, but you will be far more durable than with MF gear. use orrian truffle soup for might on dodge and increased endurance recovery to might stack on dodge since you will be able to so much while in melee, and pistol whip will supply evasion while it is swinging away. you will actualy be able to survive in melee provided you keep dodging and pistol whiping while in melee range then getting out when your initiative runs dry. when you get used to the play-style and change it to fit you better you can switch to more offense oriented gear if you want, even full berzerker.
Also using 10/30/0/20/10 and liking it a lot.
My armor is a mix of berserker and valkyrie.
I usually run Shortbow with D/D.
Just a few thoughts regarding your trait choices:
Mug is best for wvw, I replace it by sundering strikes in pve (but you can keep mug, it’s not a big deal).
Crit IX only works for the number 3 skill (pistol whip /deathblossom /unload /flanking strike etc.) Unless you’re pistol whip spamming most of the time, swap it with critical haste, side strikes or furious retaliation.
Vigorous recovery is only gonna be worth it for the might stacks you get on dodging. You get plenty of dodges from shortbow 3 if you run out of endurance. When you’re not using orrian truffle soup, swap it out with pain response, assassin’s reward or quick recovery.
All in all a very solid build, if it’s played the way you play it, the traits all synergise well. Just adding those remarks to help OP figure it out, not saying you’re doing anything wrong.
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I’d say D/D.
Sword is sustained semi-aoe damage, you already have a shortbow to do that.
Maybe the control skills are nice for duels, but you can kill a lot players with D/D without having to use any CC.
Looks like you know what you’re doing. Good to see people still asking constructive questions about HOW to counter us instead of just whining.
Do you have any long medium-long cripple skills available? If you could apply those during the fight, heartseeker will be useless to get away.
Everyone has a limited list of players that they can see, because the server is only sending data to from that list to the client. Maybe stealth is removing players from that list, if so, the solution could be to keep stealthed players in that list.
For thieves, it makes sense, since you can still survive in dungeons when specced fully glass canon. I’m not saying it makes sense on all classes, but if you’re able to survive, why would you want to gimp your damage output?
I specced a little bit into vitality. I’m at 16k Hp with base toughness. I crit for 4k aoe with clusterbomb (5k when guardians/warriors are giving me might) I can crit 6k+ repeatedly on bosses under 25%hp. I have almost unlimited dodges and can stealth when I get aggro’d. I can stealth teammates to revive them.
When I’m fit, I’ll die less than the rest of the party (I frequently don’t need to repair anything after finishing lvl 10 daily fotm). When I’m tired, I’ll die more (still not as much as my fellow rangers/eles/engis), because reaction speed is essential for staying alive as a thief glass canon.
The only downside is I’m not drawing damage to myself and therefore letting letting my teammates take extra damage.
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I’m curious as to why you would choose d/p, especially since, if your point is to harrass and survive you probably would prefer some distance ?
Or maybe your main weapon is actually the shortbow ?
Probably for blackpowder+heartseeker. It can stack like 10 seconds of stealth. It’s more reliable than C&D because you don’t need to get close. I don’t think his goal is killing anyone at all.
Link works if you copy paste it.
Looks like a funny build. I doubt it’ll kill much, but distracting 20 zerglings for minutes is worth more to your server than a couple of random kills.
I’d switch concealed defeat for 30 shadow arts with shadow rejuvenation or patience.
If you want to go total troll, you can use shadow refuge at max range while stealthed, then turn around and shadowstep in the other direction. They’ll be swinging their auto attacks at the air while you’re miles away. May require blinding powder to work best.
It’s the end of the world
versus world
versus world
Epic battle. Break out the popcorn.
Looking down from a safe position while the other 2 servers are slaughtering each other is one of the greatest delights in WvW. I’m so jelly.
-Harpy (make sure they yell “DIE GROUNDLING” on regular basis)
-Tamed Charr
-Landshark
As I said in another thread:
I’m not a ranger, and my only experience with rangers is ganking them in WvW, but I’m gonna say it anyway.
You guys need an ability to stow pets and get stat bonuses while your pet is stowed.
I’m not a ranger, and my only experience with rangers is ganking them in WvW, but I’m gonna say it anyway.
You guys need an ability to stow pets and get stat bonuses while your pet is stowed.
HS is a stupid skill,that was made to this long time ago.
HS mobility is great.It’s damage isn’t. In my opinion it should be changed as following:
100%-25%—> the damage of the present 100%-50% range
25%-0%—>no change.
Also any quickness skills removed from the game,PW damage restored,Dancing Dagger partialy restored,C&D damage restored,Mug damage nerfed instead and voila…
That’s some constructive thinking.
For Dancing Dagger I propose to buff the 1st hit back to pre-nerf damage, the first bounce to 50% of that, the 2nd bounce to 25% and let the last one only cripples without dealing damage.
Mug could be changed to be a knockdown that deals 0 damage.
Reducing the cost to 3 initiative would also help in making it a viable choice to use over heartseeker, but that’s probably asking too much.
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it doesn’t matter if they have a have second window. secondly, why can’t they change stealth just for wvwvw? they manage some skills for wvwvw/pvp vs pve.
No actually they didn’t, the game is split into PvE+WvW and PvP, as far as balance is concerned WvW falls into the PvE category, not the PvP category. Secondly, the devs said they aren’t going to balance class interactions in WvW unless there is a bug/exploit involved.
If the small window of opportunity to hit the thief were extended by 1-2 seconds (via fixing the culling bug) then it won’t help you much if you can’t take advantage of the current window.
What I’d like to know is; what makes you think thieves would be any easier to fight against if culling were fixed? Sure you could target them for an extra 1-2 seconds, but I highly doubt that 1-2 seconds will make THAT much of a difference as the damage of a thief won’t change, so they will kill you in the same time frame.
It would make a big difference. In those 3 seconds he’s revealed, you can land a CC and pretty much kill him (if he doesn’t have a stunbreaker) or make him run (if he does have a stunbreaker). It will also be easier to time your dodges.
If we could replace blossom with another attack that wasn’t condition, we would have other options to use. Same can be said for dancing dagger. I would not mind being able to have a different attack skill that I could change depending upon the build. Would love to have another bleed attack for a D/D condition build set.
Dancing dagger isn’t a very good DPS option and I only use it when my target is trying to run.
Cloak and dagger is for, well, modifying skill 1.
That leaves us with heart seeker and auto attack.
What do people expect?
This. I’d love deathblossom and dancing dagger to be useful.
If someone is at 40% and you’re revealed, you only have 3 options, heartseeker twice, auto-attack chain and then heartseeker, or auto attack chain C&D and backstab (which any opponent with fingers would dodge).
But yea, heartseeker is over the top as it is now. Maybe it should get a cooldown, so you can still finish off players that are below 25%, but you’d have to time it right.
wait wait wait
Engineer kills stuff? I’d say this is a major victory considering
Engineers are being played???
Nice video, quality looks good to me, but then again, I haven’t seen it like it’s supposed to be rendered. Very good use of music/rythm.
Looks like you’re using the set to its fullest potential.
Then don’t do it. Problem solved.
Then the problem is that I don’t have ascended gear. I am not optimally geared.
Are your exotics not good enough for the content you’re playing? Are you already using optimal nourishments with optimal potions/sharpening stones?
On a side not, yea, being able to buy them with badges or something would be nice, but I don’t really care. Stats make a miniscule difference anyway. It’s more about reaction time and how you play.
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Then don’t do it. Problem solved.
Rangers seem kinda meh to me, because they have to rely on their stupid pets.
Killing weak mobs solo will be very easy, because your pet will tank the damage, but any class can kill weak mobs. On harder encounters (like dungeons), your pet will be near useless.
(oh, and they’re junk in wvw, but that could be buffed in the future)
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I’d like to know as well. I love using D/D with Backstab crits and Cloak & Dagger, but I just need something more effective for multiple mobs.
Shortbow.
No, different kinds of procs will have independent cooldowns. As long as you’re not using 2 proc sigils, you should be fine.
Lol, grind.
Getting a lvl 80 with full exotics isn’t hard at all.
It’s good that we have some things to keep us occupied once we’re done with that, or not if you just want to run around in those “weak” exotic items. There’s not a single grind that we’re forced into.
Having those 2 ascended rings and a backpiece makes almost no difference.
This post is about PvP or PvE?
I really can’t see how a Death Blossom spam is a threat to anyone in PvP.
It’s about 2 months old.
That’s what it’s about.
We -generally- have very low defensive stats, but with a lot of escape/evade mechanisms.
Always bring a ranged weapon with you, S/P will work nice on trash mobs, but there’s plenty of stuff where it’s way easier to kite.
Thanks Raine, i agree with you. Thats why my necro and ele and rather beefy, and both do very well in dungeons.
But just thinking of try something different this time, living on the edge lolol.
If full zerk gear doesnt work out im most probably going P/V/T gear and zerk trinkets. Or P/V/P gear and P/P/T trinkets
If you need more survivability, I think you’re better off using ranged instead of using tank stats on armor.
It doesn’t matter how good the class actually is, two things that always kitten people off are high burst classes and stealth classes. Thank god we don’t have lots of CC because that’s the third thing sure to kitten off other players.
We need annoying sound effects every time we hit someone in pvp/wvw.
It’d synergise well with the annoyingess we already have.
Melee can be nice in some situations (killing mobs that have reflection, heartseeker spam on low HP bosses, sword/pistol blind+auto attack on trash), but you’ll want to just stay back and spam clusterbomb in most situations.
I don’t think we have any reason to complain.
What an asinine comment.
We don’t have any reason TO NOT complain.
S/D is sub par
D/P is sub par
P/P is subparThe only way to play the thief in competitive environment is D/D or P/D loltrops/venom share and S/P or D/D glass cannon.
Basically, 3/7 of our weapon sets are totally worthless, and overall we have something like 2-3 viable builds , with only 3 viable playstyles.
We have inherent design flaws in traits ( too much scaling on 1st-2nd tier traits making our viable builds too strong, and any other build too weak, bad traits everywhere), skills ( shadow shot, flanking strike, vital strike being slower than it should, body shot etc etc ), utilities ( traps and some signets) and EVEN THE DESIGN PHYLOSOPHY ( “thieves are masters of burst”, making basically any other set meant for direct damage unviable in high end PvP, because it would not “benefit” thief design).
We have one of the most bland “mechanic” in game ( Steal), untraited, while by simply putting 10 traits into Deadly arts you obtain one of the most OP thing ever seen in MMO history ( istant 900 range gap closer, can be used mid-cast, 4-5 k istant damage against 2-2.3 k armor).
Should i go on ?
If you like to be pigeon holed into 2 ways to play your profession, and are happy with it, maybe you should start to think that there are other players who’d like to have a more versatile profession, capable to do something more than simply “lol instagibbing” and “lulz caltropz evrywer”.
OK then, we have a lot of useless stuff. But those that use the pigeon-hole builds are more than viable. I personally don’t mind it, doesn’t make much difference to me whether my character is swinging a sword or a dagger.
I simply meant to disagree with OP’s description of how we’re all weak. (and to be fair, I want a dancing dagger buff)
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Thanks for watching Jefzor, usually on big fights like that i use my bow as getting in the middle of them is usually not an option but for some reason i pretty much got a free card the whole fight, so decided to make 100% sure at least some one was down for people to rally off and drop some good dagger storms to force their heals. Hope this helps.
DragyBaby.
Oh, I guess that makes sense, I didn’t take rallying into consideration. And yea, if your enemy doesn’t focus on you, you might as well jump in there. You probably take even less aoe damage when you’re in the enemy zerg.
I don’t think we have any reason to complain.
Hah funny because I been kitting on path 2 CoF solo whit my thief up to 80% sometimes
I’d like to see this. Would be educational because I’ve never been able to last more than 10 seconds even with acro heavy build and using evade attacks like shortbow 3. They always land some burn inbetween attacks and it only seems to take a couple.
I’m not getting anywhere near the 0-80% results this guy describes. But I tend to turn off autotarget/promote target (so you can use disabling shot in any direction you want), change some traits (vigor on heal), slot evade as heal, roll for init as extra dodge. I hope this helps.
Nice teamwork. I noticed you seem to prefer single target burst over clusterbomb spam, even in big fights. Why is that?
The only problem I have with it is the rally mechanics. 1 mob/person dying shouldn’t raise an army of undead.
Basically, you will be utilizing Body Shot sometimes,
Lol. The right time to use body shot in pvp is never.
I wonder how a moa with 30/30/30/30/30 performs.
Who needs traits and utilities when you have 30k hp 70% crit and 3.5k attack
There is a demographic at play here and that is that rogue type classes attract more Nostromo and Naga users per capita than anything else… reason is to get them right you have to twitch.
Healing classes are for chicks or lads who want to meet/be chicks and tanky types are almost always blokes with goatees.
My tongue may be in my cheek… but there is fire in the smoke. The thief class has chewed a few 50% damage reduction nerfs already and still the tears flow. They will flow after the next round. If it ever gets nerfed hard enough to move this crowd onto mesmers the river of tears will simply drown the lands. My ranger (which is a well-geared level 80 WvW / PvP toon) treats GC thieves as food and walks away from condition thieves (stalemate). And in high level PvP I simply do not see any. PvP is the best test of balance and power.
This game unfortunately pits the best of the FPS twitch community against the non RvR / PvP / WvW community and of course there will be shock and horror at the inhumanity of it all.
The “rogue” type classes always generate the most hate. I’m 99% certain that if the thief were to get nerfed to the point where each hit could deal no more then 100 damage, we would still see posts like “Nerf thieves, they are impossible to kill because they never leave stealth” (no point right, since we could only kill people near death at that point anyway). Stealth = OP in most games, at least in the minds of the players not playing a stealth class.
I think most people posting here though have no clue how the thief in this game actually works. Some of these suggestions are a little ridiculous. Lets take the revealed lasts 2 seconds longer (seems to be a favorite). This wouldn’t change BS builds as much (since according to these forums the BS thief kills everyone in under 2 seconds), but it would destroy the other stealth reliant builds (P/D and S/D). 2 seconds = 40% less stealth attacks (assuming you are stealthing on CD). So before suggesting things, please think of how it will affect other thief builds.
I wouldn’t mind if the stealth aspect of P/D was toned down a notch, as long as they’re compensated with a buff in damage output.
3. Rangers are underwhelming in wvw.
Only vs range Warriors and Mesmer (but who isn’t)
All other ranged attacks can easily be avoided while spaming shortbow autoattack and meeles have to charge into tons of traps and can be kited/dodged.
Maybe I just haven’t met any pro rangers yet, but as a thief, rangers are the easiest class to kill.
Yup, you can start whenever you want, as long as you don’t mind dying. Best to stick to the zerg when you’re low level.