Guild Wars 2

My WvW condi build is pretty much a shortbow build, P/D only really comes out if I can guarantee a kill and it’s 1v1. If you build for immobs, poison and interrupts it’s pretty nice.

It’s always been that way; all instant cast abilities are usable while stunned, dazed or while dodging. The rifle turret toolbelt skill on engi and lightning flash on ele are other examples of instant cast abilities that work without being stunbreaks.

I wouldn’t have a massive problem with it, but I play low/no stealth DD builds with either sword or P/D and I have very little interest in deadeye. It would completely neuter backstab builds however as they rely on getting the first hit, and deadeye would be dead in the water.

Honestly though, there’s bigger issues in wvw to consider than stealth.

The traited needle trap is significantly easier to use due to the fact you can mask setting the trap by weapon swapping to cancel the heal animation and lay the trap instantly. My favourite way to use that is with steal; With confusion on steal, poison traits and geomancy sigil it’s a spike in and of itself and if you time it right the geomancy sigil will proc panic strike, meaning the enemy gets hit with the trap as soon as the arm time finishes. Even if it misses the odds are the enemy isn’t aware the trap is there.

Other than that, the traps are mostly useful if you’ve plenty of space and you set them for pursuers to run into – for this reason they’re much more useful in WvW where the spaces are big and the enemies are stupid. That said, since the poison trait buffs it’s better to run impairing daggers and agility signet over traps imo.

To make regular traps more viable in combat they either need the arm time removing or, preferably, the trap area made a circle not a line. Either of these changes would make traps way more usable again.

Could just take the smoke wall utility if reflects are likely to be an issue.

I’ve not been able to play recently due to Internet issues, but if initiative is the issue, what’s to stop you taking acro over Trickery for the steal recharge and ini on evade, and taking roll for initiative with the shiny lower cd with improv from DA? Surely that would be more flexible initiative wise than the bonuses from Trickery?

If that’s not enough then it’s the utility of Trickery that’s necessary (or the extra condi sources for condi builds). In which case, I’d say it’s more an argument for critical strikes and Shadow Arts being either poorly implemented or simply not fitting the current meta than anything else.

Tbh, it always was going to be worse than core D/P in real terms if they didn’t overpower it to stupid levels, because it would require DA for damage, deadeye for rifle and is intended to have massive synergy with SA, so Trickery is left out totally. Gonna be difficult to balance since thief has been balanced around Trickery for years.

Platanos.8107:

The wiki states a 1.25s evasion frame. From my experience, it’s basically the start of the sword swinging animation, and ends on the last hit.

^ this. Bear in mind the windup for the stun, and the turn before the sword flurry are not evades. So there’s a window you can be interrupted in before the evades, against other thieves that’s a big deal. Other than that it’s pretty nice if you can time it well.

CreedOfGod.9764:

Turk.5460:

Or tie unblockable Flanking Strikes to something in Acro, as Condi DD wouldn’t really benefit from unblockable CnD, and Power DD generally doesn’t take Acro.

This would work, and while I agree unblockable cnd doesn’t benefit condi d/d, it would benefit more p/d builds.

Honestly with the recent DA poison changes, I’d say P/D doesn’t need cloak and dagger nearly as much as it used to since bleed is more of a cover condi these days.

Power D/D is the only set I’d say needs something changing with now, and as others have said adding unblockable CnD through a trait would be a good solution. That said, deadeye might do something interesting for the spec too, since it’s stealth themed.

The evade is in the flurry, not the stun or windup. If you get used to it it’s a reliable evade, but it’s not as good as say staff or D/D 3 as the evade takes longer to start.

And tbh any thief spec that isn’t D/P has a disadvantage against a well played D/P thief. Good things to do if you play S/P are to focus on jukes and interrupts, save pistol whip for when the D/P tries to stealth (land steal + pistol whip at the end of a heartseeker or just over a black powder and it’s often game over) and then use sword 2 to move back out of range to stealth yourself, and pressure with bound combined with shadowsteps as that’s free evade frames while attacking. Don’t auto unless you build for quickness, as you’ll just get interrupted to death.

Amawyn.1925:

exactly what I was thinking, deadeye is better for d/p and d/d since the elite skill is more useful for both setup. Steal>C&D>backstab>elite#1>backstab>Elite#2>backstab 1111111 dead in 2 sec before anyone got time to react.

Except that the sneak attack cooldown, on top of backstab having close to a second cast time counting aftercasts, will mean anyone with reaction time faster than roadkill will react before the second stab. The elite looks more like a defence against herald and scrapper reveals than anything else, meaning shadow refuge etc might be a thing again.

I expect that SA/trick/DE (any set) or even SA/acro/DE (with rifle) will be a thing for a while tho. Frankly the whole spec looks trolly.

Something I think a lot of people forget is the idea of reaction time. If I hit a burst on an enemy power thief that’s on half health on my power build, he’s dead. Instantly. On my condi builds, however, a comparable instant spike with similar damage numbers will take a few seconds to kill that same enemy, and if he hasn’t wasted cooldowns he has shadowstep and signet of agility that in combination with dash can entirely negate the damage, forcing me to spike as many as three times to down the same enemy my power build would have done instantly.

Now, assuming I’m on my trailblazer build this is fine as I can take a burst and heal while he kites to cleanse. My carrion build, however, is going to get destroyed by that power thief before I get to the second or third condi cleanse as I take the same damage from his attacks as a zerker thief but my damage is spread out over time and has more counters, putting less pressure on him.

This is what confuses me when people say that zerker needs more stats to do the same damage; that ‘extra’ toughness and vit are not a luxury on top, they are often required to win since the condi build does not apply damage instantly like the power build does. The cases where you have a viper or carrion build overperforming is usually not due to the strength of condi, but the level of sustain that makes toughness unnecessary which allows the build to take power as well.

Lastly, there are relatively few condi skills that are inherently broken by themselves (choking gas with 1s ICD and reaper’s bleed on chill trait are the two obvious ones imo), but rather are broken either because of AoE or because of the active sustain of the build itself. So, fix this and the sustain of certain classes and the problem resolves itself.

Tldr; Condi is susceptible to the same types of active mitigation as power (block, heal, evade), and is additionally countered by good levels of cleanse and resistance in addition to it being a dot playstyle, in exchange for bypassing toughness. If you want to balance it you need to look at certain individual skills that are overperforming and sustain across the board, not condi damage or equipment combos themselves.

They just need to balance between PvE and WvW. The deathly chill buff applying to WvW and the thief endurance nerfs NOT applying to WvW are just head scratchingly strange balance choices.

It’ll give me a reason to take my predator out of the bank. Beyond that, I’m not sold so far, and I’m frankly more interested in rev’s new spec.

apharma.3741:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

snip

The first two ideas seem ok but the third I don’t agree with and here’s my reasoning. If a mechanic is considered balanced then bringing it to other classes shouldn’t be an issue, however if said mechanic is way too strong then bringing it to other classes causes, well, the many complaints we’ve had about stealth since HoT. The hilarious thing is many thieves have been complaining about engineers and druids popping in and out of stealth despite it working the same mechanically where they get revealed for attacking.

Generally I’m alright with trapper runes as the stealth duration and superspeed is very low and you can force reveal by triggering the trap a lot of the time.

The issue with stealth on other classes is that thief is balanced around it by not having invuln, stab, or passive defenses on the most part. I’m fine with having steal on other classes, but druid is a fine example of a class that plainly doesn’t need it. My argument is more that if a mechanic is something that’s balanced around, you shouldn’t be able to add it in later with runes (same logic for why vampirism runes got changed).

Personally I don’t have a problem with stealth. On my power thief, I play to either outstealth them after a burst, stand in the smoke field to prevent stacking or interrupting the cast outright, and if I can’t I probably misplayed somewhere. On my condi thief, I sit on a needle trap and wait for him to engage, and condi bomb when he does. There’s only so many times a thief can reset, and if you bait out shadowstep in particular there are many builds that can then outpace that thief.

I can’t speak for other classes as I pretty much only play thief, so take it all with salt.

It’s a valid tactic, and a necessary one in a lot of cases. That said, ranger, engi/scrapper, herald and DH all have very solid reveal skills with minimal cast time etc, two of those are class counters to thief in particular.

The way I’d change things is this:

*limit the number of stealth stacks to 2 or 3 stacks, slightly increase stealth duration to compensate.

*give a mobility penalty when in stealth, countered by specific traits that restore normal movement in stealth specific trait lines.

*remove trapper runes, and anything else that gives stealth based on utility type or any criteria that isn’t part of the class in question. As each class gets more elite specs and utility types, runes like this either end up problematic balance wise or nerfed to the floor for preservation of same.

Mesmer and thief are meant to have high stealth uptime to compensate for the lack of other defenses (on chrono it’s questionable, as it is for daredevil). You will have to deal with that to an extent. Classes that have other defenses, invuln, stab plus high mobility etc shouldn’t have it.

But that all said, there are counters to stealth as I mentioned earlier. If you want to demolish a shed and you bring a spoon instead of a hammer, the problem is that you brought the wrong tools, not that the shed is too tough.

caveman.5840:

I wish we had a trait that applied a venom after using a healing skill .. similar to trappers respite

I like the idea of trappers respite but it stinks unless u use scorpion wire to pull people through it … and scorpion wire just misses all the time so that idea is just nothing more than a gimmick

Trappers respite used to be a lot better before the arm time was introduced, it’s hard to use effectively as an aggressive option now. It’s good when kiting if you keep an eye to see what triggers it, steal back then choking gas spam. It’s also useful against thieves, lay the trap by healing then immediately weapon swapping as the thief stealth up then stand on it as you wait for him to reangage.

I get your point though, it would be nice to use our pull and traps in the same way DH does but it’s so unreliable in comparison. And a venom on heal would be fine with me, provided it wasn’t in DA, Trickery or DD, as those lines are already overloaded.

caveman.5840:

I wish we had a trait that applied a venom after using a healing skill .. similar to trappers respite

I like the idea of trappers respite but it stinks unless u use scorpion wire to pull people through it … and scorpion wire just misses all the time so that idea is just nothing more than a gimmick

Trappers respite used to be a lot better before the arm time was introduced, it’s hard to use effectively as an aggressive option now. It’s good when kiting if you keep an eye to see what triggers it, steal back then choking gas spam. It’s also useful against thieves, lay the trap by healing then immediately weapon swapping as the thief stealth then wait for him to reangage.

I get your point though, it would be nice to use our pull and traps in the same way DH does but it’s so unreliable in comparison. And a venom on heal would be fine with me, provided it wasn’t in DA, Trickery or DD, as those lines are already overloaded.

I’m on Piken, I’m not gonna be online much for a while due to work (24h shifts FTW) but if you see me online definitely pm me. I’m not gonna say I’m amazing (there’s def people that wipe the floor with me) but I’m better than the average.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Yep, looks good on paper, CS deals with the loss of crit damage from marauder nicely and the food plus revealed training makes up for the power. I’d probably put draining over bloodlust on D/P as it adds a lot of sustain plus the 1k damage per interrupt, and on the whole you’re more likely to use headshot on D/P than P/P esp with the ini issues already mentioned.

The biggest problem with dropping trickery (or deviating from the meta at all, actually) is other thieves. You’re not going to have the interrupt on steal so your spike with D/P is less than the meta’s (unless you preload basi), and a smart D/P thief will just headshot you as you try to unload, not to mention the mobility difference from not taking shortbow. So you’re going to have to think about how you approach those fights, as a meta D/P thief will likely have more options.

You’re also missing bountiful theft, which is a godsend if you’re going for interrupt damage as it’s instant cast and strips stab. This depends on playstyle tho, if you use headshot rarely and go for bigger spikes you may not miss it so you’re gonna have to weigh that up yourself.

Tbh tho, if it works go for it

Thanks for the input. There are some things I will miss from TR (daze on steal for a well times pulm impact…esp if a thief gets the jump on me its easy to interrupt them to make them back off for a sec)

This is what I run now (still not meta but its been working way better than the meta build for me)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAqa4an8lClOhNOBGOB8PhFaCbuC+BLhaBgJUEwLL8FKDA-T1BEQBA4JAQgTCg/U/5N6HYy+DOU53GVCSKAKXGB-w

I never take staff or sb. Can’t stand vault spammers as they are easy af (kite the 4 vaults to waste their ini then have fun with them) and I never cared for sb (the heal helps with my mobility as it gives more endurance) so mobility isn’t an issue. At the most, I can push 4.1k power in the middle of a fight, start a fight with a bit over 3300 plus additional percentage modifiers.

Its not meta and thats one reason I love it. I find this build makes me less mobile than the meta, so I was looking into something a bit more different while still being able to burst down faster/better than meta while being able to survive most DD’s bursts (its surprising how many DD’s I see that cannot burst down other DD’s who are not running Bandits defense)

TL;DR Thanks for your input

Not a problem ^^ Honestly non-meta is fun, I still enjoy taking S/P with meta traits or D/P bound max damage traits and seeing how far I can get. Staff for me is useful for zerging if there’s not enough space to move around the enemy (wall fights etc) but is less potent 1v1 because of the issue you mentioned. I just accept that when playing these specs I have a disadvantage vs other meta thieves since that’s the optimal +1 build, so it very much depends what I’m running into while roaming. Honestly most things have been dropping to condi recently so I’ve been running that when solo roaming.

And tbh, I don’t run into that many really good DD’s these days. There’s one or two on each server I regularly get matched against that I have to look out for, but the majority seem new and easily baited. So you not needing the extra stunbreak doesn’t surprise me much.

Yep, looks good on paper, CS deals with the loss of crit damage from marauder nicely and the food plus revealed training makes up for the power. I’d probably put draining over bloodlust on D/P as it adds a lot of sustain plus the 1k damage per interrupt, and on the whole you’re more likely to use headshot on D/P than P/P esp with the ini issues already mentioned.

The biggest problem with dropping trickery (or deviating from the meta at all, actually) is other thieves. You’re not going to have the interrupt on steal so your spike with D/P is less than the meta’s (unless you preload basi), and a smart D/P thief will just headshot you as you try to unload, not to mention the mobility difference from not taking shortbow. So you’re going to have to think about how you approach those fights, as a meta D/P thief will likely have more options.

You’re also missing bountiful theft, which is a godsend if you’re going for interrupt damage as it’s instant cast and strips stab. This depends on playstyle tho, if you use headshot rarely and go for bigger spikes you may not miss it so you’re gonna have to weigh that up yourself.

Tbh tho, if it works go for it

Stay in groups and be aware of your teammate’s mobility compared to your own. Condi thief is pretty ineffective vs a large enough group as the cleanses (and resistance if they’re large enough) overlap too much. Most of my kills are got when I kite out and the faster members of the group chase me, meaning I can spike them down before their friends can catch up.

Straegen.2938:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

You might not know this (judging from the wording of your post, apologies if I’m wrong) but panic strike makes every source of immob apply 2 stacks of poison. It’s absurdly strong with P/D 2, impairing daggers and the needle trap on heal.

True but that isn’t the point we are talking about. The discussion point is if D/D would take Panic Strike over Leaching Venoms. My point is even without access to an easy immob from a weapon attack, Panic Strike is still a strong choice since it has a strong built in Immob every 20s that applies upwards of 2 stacks of poison on its own.

With a Pistol mainhand, it is as noted even more reliable.

Ah, I missed the part about D/D. My bad. I’m still thinking about it from a WvW perspective, which is why I went straight to P/D thinking as it’s a much more reliable set there.

Straegen.2938:

babazhook.6805:

Not really an issue because Panic Strike is a solid trait and having to choose between it and Leaching Venoms isn’t easy.

The 2.5s Auto Immob and 2 stacks of Poison every 20s when target is below 50% is strong. The leaching part of Leaching Venoms is pretty weak. The extra stacks every minute is strong but not a clear winner in my book.

You might not know this (judging from the wording of your post, apologies if I’m wrong) but panic strike makes every source of immob apply 2 stacks of poison. It’s absurdly strong with P/D 2, impairing daggers and the needle trap on heal.

Just for example, an impairing daggers through a poison field will apply 8 stacks of poison when traited with potent poison and panic strike, steal applies 3 more stacks, and needle trap will apply 5 stacks for 16 stacks and a good duration immobilise. Combined with torment on interrupt, absorption and draining sigils and choking gas it’s much stronger than venoms for the number of utility slots used, and has no cooldown issues as you still have P/D and close to full ini after use.

The venom trait is one of the only reasons I’d consider taking shadow arts in the first place, so I can see why they’d leave it where it is.

That said, I don’t use either trait myself, so I don’t have a massive issue with them being swapped. I’d just be surprised if they did it since to me that would force using da/trick/DD for more builds than already do.

ArthurDent.9538:

Azukas.1426:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Once a player becomes good enough with FA ele the thief is actually countered due to ranged burst, passives, & cantrips. The problem is the player playing ele has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so most of you thieves are safe.

Once a player becomes good enough with thief the ele is actually countered due to stealth bursts, insane mobility, easy interupt procs, and huge evade uptime. The problem is the player playing thief has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so really good eles are safe from average/mediocre thieves. Let’s be honest here, top thieves just laugh when there is a non bunker ele on the enemy team they can farm all match.

All of this is based on the assumption you see the thief coming. If you don’t and you’re on low health, there’s not much any class can do besides get lucky with dodges. That’s the nature of +1 classes in general really.

Absorption is really good on S/P, but rage is great for S/D too. Sword auto really benefits from quickness more than the others I find.

KrHome.1920:

P/D condi (trailblazer/viper) is pretty strong. Had the opportunity to fight two of these thieves who roamed on piken square the last few nights.

Got destroyed on my power reaper (trailblazer + mobility = just stupid), but destroyed them on my staff+SB thief (SB3 kiting works pretty well against them).

Nevertheless people around me died like flies to their condi pressure. So I think P/D counters a lot of builds in WvW.

There’s a good chance I was one of those thieves, been roaming with it every night on Piken since Monday. A good condi necro or thief are problems, but most other things are destroyed by the daze lock once you work through resistance and stab cooldowns. It’s a very solid build for solo roaming atm.

Crinn.7864:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Potato.2567:

Oh noooooo the most ridiculously overpowered class in the game lost an ability that makes rezzing impossible! THE HORROR!!!

lel

It was possible, you just needed stab. That said, it’s silly strong and I fully expected it to get changed somehow.

Well you needed a crazy amount of it. The daze ICD is not shared between instances of choking gas. So if you put three of them on a down, anyone trying to rezz would have their stability ripped at 3 stacks a second.

Also thief does have a stability rip in the form of steal.

Does it take three a second with three fields? I was under the impression it only dazed once a second no matter how many fields, as breakbars don’t go down faster with multiple fields. Might be wrong about that tho, and you’re definitely right about bountiful theft. I just know some have managed to res through the fields in WvW with stab.

I just expected it to get nerfed, as casting choking gas on a downed, impairing daggers on someone trying to res and steal on the downed basically stopped all attempt at ressing or using downed skills, which was excessive.

Potato.2567:

Oh noooooo the most ridiculously overpowered class in the game lost an ability that makes rezzing impossible! THE HORROR!!!

lel

It was possible, you just needed stab. That said, it’s silly strong and I fully expected it to get changed somehow.

saerni.2584:

You can also run what I do for additional condition cleanse.

Can’t say I’ve had many problems with condis on my build tbh, the combination of escapist’s absolution, signet of agility and shadowstep seems to be enough.

That, and most good condi necros seem to have left the game or something recently, it’s been a good while since I’ve had a condi spike transferred back to me. Might be a combination of things that though, since I’ve started engaging with shadowstep, spiking with poison and immobilise, laying choking gas to interrupt the heal then porting back out of their range to avoid the transfer.

My problem with this is that I mostly hunt other players (thief and all) and flip camps, so I’d basically get nothing despite being very active in WvW. How is that fair?

If there’s a reward, people will take the method of getting it that requires the least effort. Always will. Just get on with the game and stop worrying about them.

Nikkinella.8254:

Rednik.3809:

Nikkinella.8254:

Simple solution, participation drops to zero if you’re idle for more than 5 minutes or instantly drops to zero if you have determined buff on you. If you afk in spawn now, no loot. If you die and have to respawn, good, you deserve to be punished for being bad and dying in the first place, don’t die.

Commander: Port [Spawn Waypoint]
Zerg: Nope.
Commander: …

Yeah, that could be a problem. Perhaps then just make it so idling in spawn would drop you to zero after a few minutes and put a debuff on you where you cant gain participation at all for like half an hour. That would stop the people that just like to kill a guard then afk, and wouldnt punish anyone that had to port back for whatever reason.

This is more reasonable. I mean, if you lost all participation on death that’s basically the end of small scale and fights in general.

All in all I think the current system is fine. People are always going to game the system, best to just leave them be and get on with the game imo.

Edit: that said, the level of salt you’d get for pin sniping would be amazing if you lost all participation on porting to spawn lol ????

I used to run a viper/carrion mix, and swapped to trailblazer for the exact reasons above. This is what I’m running atm:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZUQNAqYVn8lCFOhlOBemC0zhFYCbOEWCbhefhF1IS7PFAKAA-TFiHQBx7IAEgTAQFVCCgHAg8OEg6PiTfgAV+Jh9HCAgAY8iX8iX8inZOzZOzZmQAKWDA-w

Duration is important for me as what I’m aiming to do is overload someone’s cleanses through multiple sources. I have 100% extra duration on poison and 90% on bleed, so any condis left on the enemy after they’ve cleansed will tick for a good long while.

My standard engage is to precast impairing daggers and steal in so all three daggers hit, then heal and immediately weapon swap. This puts your heal on a 4s cooldown from self cancelling the skill, and places the on heal needle trap under the enemy which means it will land just before the immob from impairing daggers wears off. This will one shot most things if left to tick, and leaves you free to apply additional condis via choking gas or P/D.

I have absorption sigil mostly to test for zergs and so I have some boon rip (no bountiful theft), but generally geomancy works really well as well. Draining is more valuable for the sustain if you have to make a choice.

Have fun!

The interrupts seem to come at the same pace for me no matter whether it’s one field or three. Also, you have to consider that if you place three fields at once, the cast time for each will be around a second, so presumably the dazes would go off simultaniously in that case.

A better way to test it would be to have something with insane stab stacks, spam the fields on it and watch how fast the stab is stripped.

Unlikely. Full trailblazer puts me on 18k, dire would be about 20k ish, so cele is probably around 16k health.

Edit: kitten , nevermind, I just read the post above me lol

It’s at the commander’s discretion whether he includes rangers and thieves or not. I don’t bother joining squad for blue tags, and actively avoid it most of the time, but I’ll sit in ts so I know what they’re doing and how I can help (hitting objectives, following and reporting the position of the enemy blob, and ganking as many backliners as possible).

Play to your strengths: fighting fair isn’t a thief’s strong point, so don’t do it.

I like the idea. Makes perfect sense.

To others talking about pip gain, it only takes a couple of camps flipped to start getting pips, and I got to the platinum chest last night (Thursday night) and I’ve only been playing since Tuesday this week and only solo roaming at that. The system heavily rewards people who play off peak, which I do mostly.

Take acro over DA and take the auto evade trait (first tier first slot) and hard to catch. With that and bandit’s defense, bound and pistol offhand, if you die it really is your fault.

Entenkommando.5208:

Would love to see this…but on the other hand I’m glancing at this little link I’ve still got bookmarked :/
http://imgur.com/a/mhYp4

Well, the arena in os was introduced as a gvg site after this incident, so I don’t think we have to worry about violating anyone’s game mode lol.

+1 for the idea though, I’d love to see this happen.

This is what I’m running atm:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVn8lCFOhlOBGmCkmiFYCbuDeCXhephzQbQLBEAyAA-TlCEQB/7BAAgDBwAOCAJSVFms/o0oJKz2iSQ3pPwfqVAwTAQAAEgb2mt5NDcezbezbezzNv5Nv5NvZhAEsFA-w

Pretty similar to others really, I play as close to full zerk as possible taking some marauder gear for health and making up the power drop with WvW infusions. I get 3k power with food and bloodlust which is amazing when stacking damage modifiers, and I take furious oils if I need that extra bit of health.

In general I’d only go valk if I were planning on running daredevil runes, as 80% crit chance with fury and signet is more than enough imo. I play S/P quite a bit and that requires high critical chance, so bear that in mind.

Depends on what you play. I like that extra 90 power for my silly glassy build, means I don’t have to go full zerk (only mostly zerk instead) to get 3k power so I still have 16-17k health as well. Might not be as worth it for a frontline class though, so you’d have to see.

To be honest though, what else are you going to do with laurels etc? After a certain point you just end up with stacks of them, might as well do something with them.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

People tend to get what they give in this game. If I’m fighting people who are respectful of duels etc, I’ll do the same, and I won’t attack low levels unless they attack me. If a server constantly interrupts duels and siege stomps, I’ll hunt individuals and bleed them out repeatedly for the next few hours. Like someone else said, be the change you wish to see.

Question, by low level, are you referring to low ranked players? I saw someone in a low ranked (Druid), however he had the Champion Hunter title, therefore he should know how to use his druid. Typically I dont like to fight/farm low levels (dont need them leaving WvW forever amirite?) but they will typically attack first (as the should, best way to learn is to go head first…until you learn sometimes its better not to,lol)

Either or tbh. If I can plainly see they know their class (like if they’re attacking three other people solo because they can) then they’re fair game, but I normally wait for them to show they clearly want to fight me before engaging. You can normally tell by their guild tag (GANK tags are a giveaway), when they change direction to chase you, precast buffs or basilisk venom etc.

The problem is the animation cancel. You used to be able to use daggerstorm then immediately dodge, then fight for the next 8-10 seconds with stability. With old lyssa runes on top (all boons for 5s on elite) and the fact thief didn’t need power runes for damage at the time, it was a little silly.

Making the skill give pulsing stab removed that functionality as the duration of each stack is short, and it’s probably the reason it got passed over here again.

Cynz.9437:

These nerfs aren’t a big deal since they are PvP only and I personally do not care about PvP.

Aaand you lost me there. Change topic to wvw/pve analysis. While IP change was probably bound to happen in one way or another simple because of QQ and trolls, the spear change was completely unnecessary and added another extra instant spell that you have to dodge by all means -> yay more random dodges!

I haven’t duelled my DH friend since the patch, but I imagine the reveal is going to be way more of an issue for dash thieves than bound thieves. Judge and spear when he sees black powder go down is going to be brutal once DH players adapt to the timing.

People tend to get what they give in this game. If I’m fighting people who are respectful of duels etc, I’ll do the same, and I won’t attack low levels unless they attack me. If a server constantly interrupts duels and siege stomps, I’ll hunt individuals and bleed them out repeatedly for the next few hours. Like someone else said, be the change you wish to see.

So, tether skills now reveal stealthed enemies. As a thief main I need to be pretty aware of this stuff, so my question: does glyph of unity now reveal when used to tether to enemies? Anyone tested this yet?

Necro shroud 4 does it (just tested), I imagine DH F1 and guardian greatsword pull do it as well. Just trying to build up a list haha xD

Alchemyst answered it pretty well. Land bounds and 3 for high evades and good damage, 4 to blind and proc sigils, and avoid spamming vault. Pay attention to his skills and use your evades to DPS around them.

If you’re a condi reaper, put geomancy and hydromancy on your weapons and hit shroud as soon as he engages. Very difficult to avoid, you’ll have 6-9 stacks of bleeding on him just from that, and you’ll have broken basilisk venom with foot in the grave. I used to do the same thing on condi engi vs thieves: geomancy and intelligence with incendiary powder and plex runes. Swap on their engage, heal and pull for the finish.

Watch your life force and health, spam staff 2 where you’re stood to force him to waste dodges. Place staff 3 and 5 on the shadowstep return point if he uses it for distance.

Avoid spamming scepter auto. Thieves specced for interrupt damage will tear you a new one if you do, and you don’t need many condis to put serious pressure on once agility signet and shadowstep are on cooldown. If you land a blind, that’s when you can use elite shout etc to avoid being interrupt bait.

That, and always have full life force if possible. If I can waste it or chew through it with attacks too easily, that’s when necro becomes an easy kill. I probably can’t one shot you so if you force me to trade blows when I engage I will almost certainly come off worse.

Yes please. /15 chars.