Are you speccing Chrono before you have most of it unlocked? Why not just go domination instead for more traits?
You make the killshot warrior look like a lot of fun!
I’ve been doing a lot of pve with my zerk warrior lately. I think I’ll dust off my rifle and give this a whirl.
Fail
15char
Makes sense. Thanks for the info!
Super annoying bug makes me hate water. You have full stacks of bloodlust or corruption and when submerged, they disappear.
After trying the cheap alternatives I went perplexity and not going back. If you don’t main the mesmer after a while you can salvage the runes and sell. Exotic rabid gear is cheap.
That being said I used Nightmare runes for a while. Easy to get with some dungeon runs.
(edited by Kabuki.9103)
Achilles, I may go back to Chaotic Dampening. With full buffs including corruption stacks and cheap condi food, I’m sitting at ~2350 condition damage. Gaining protection would probably contribute a lot to survivability 1 vs many. Also, I overwrote my rune of the nightmare with the perplexity runes I was thinking of using on my thief.
I’m coming from the mirror opposite. I’ve re-embraced the mesmer after the june patch shelfing my thief main. Started off as a condition WvW roamer, tried power with GS, then went back to condition.
I have the same build except for ineptitude over malicious sorcery and the pledge over compounding power. I will also swap out arcane thievery for mimic for the following chain:
mimic→the prestige→decoy→decoy→mass invis→ (the prestige or decoy as available) for up to 50s of continuous stealth!
I’m using nightmare runes but will probably move to perplexity also. Good call there.
The power interrupt lockdown build with GS is probably better for insta-burst when running in small groups but I personally run solo roaming most of the time and find the PU condition a better fit. Gotta have a lot of disengage when poking at zerg stragglers and constantly outnumbered.
but this is just 30 minutes of showing hilariously awful play by everyone involved.
If the video showed hilarity of any flavor, then I’d say mission accomplished.
The victims were obviously casual players and their ineptitude along with ridiculous statements like “he had 6-7 illusions going” was comical… comical and sad. Although I agree with the general group frowning on listening in on their TS, having their comments over the action is what gave the video the personal touch making it more engaging than the run of the mill action montage… engaging and entertaining.
OP, what was the 1-2-3 punch you keep mentioning? Your main burst skill rotation?
Was it the following?
1) Confusing images (scepter channeled 3)
2) Illusionary Counter (scepter block)
3) Cry of Frustration (F2)
Fun times! Nice use of terrain. What’s your build? I’ve been using condi pu build for a while and was thinking of trying power interrupt with gs but I lost interest after watching your vid.
Great summary Alphathewhite!
Rune of Nightmare is pretty good for condition WvW
Grenades and Edge of Mist Karma trains!
I get this too but was wondering recently if it only happens when I have Teamspeak 3 running.
1) check stickies
2) check google
3) check youtube
4) post what you find here for those too lazy to do 1-3
For noob I recommend D/P and 0/30/30/10/0 with Descent Shadows for the borderlands. Jump off a cliff to escape and stealth. SB for off hand and swap in S/P off hand, signet of malice, and dagger storm to quickly solo camps. Blinding powder, Shadow Refuge, and Shadowstep as utilities.
You’ll be using a lot of black powder → heartseeker with Infusion of Shadow trait for stealth on demand.
After you’re experienced you can switch to 30/30/0/0/10 with signets of power trait, utility full of signets, and basilisk venom. With full zerk gear you can take down most people instantly with your burst. It’s the play style I prefer personally but you have to be extremely good not to be downed by a gust of wind.
I tried Shadow Trap + 3 signets (using might on signet trait) for the 25 stacks of might, plus 25 stacks bloodlust and compared backstabs on dolyaks. I was able to improve from 5.8k backstabs up to a max of 10.5k backstab without changing anything else.
Don’t see myself dropping my blinding powder, refuge, and shadowstep for all signets and a trap though for my usual WvW roaming but it was fun experimenting.
PVT= Power Vitality Toughness
It’s called invaders at the WvW armor vendor and otherwise referred to as soldiers.
Myzaky: Haha I’m glad I almost changed your mind :P But yeah, I like weapons that are at first deemed not useful and making them viable. Mace was great, it was fun being one of the few warrior running it back in the day. But it seems like people caught on to rifle pretty early.
Kabuki: I assume by last stand you mean Balance stance? You bring up a valid point, this build’s weakness is a heavy condition user, melendru + lemongrass only goes so far. However, problem with cleansing ire is the f1 has to hit to work. It’s great for axes, hammers, longbows, swords and maces, but kill shot is hard to land and gs f1 is uh… yeah. Most of the time I rather keep full bar of adrenaline for adrenal health.
Thanks for the response!
Having fun with a full set of knight’s/zerk jewelry/melandru runes and most importantly, 32c pop gun skin! A lot more in your face than the S/S/LB condition build I was trying out.
You make warrior look fun! I’m gonna try this out.
What do you think about Cleansing Ire instead of Last Stand for condition removal?
You can skip all initiative regeneration traits now actually for those kind of builds the change is pretty awesome.
Are you saying you don’t need Infusion of Shadow for DD builds now if you chain CnD? If initiative regen is that big, then I’d love to swap in condition cleanse.
It’s sort of a big change. Look at it this way, without the regen trait it used to take 8 seconds to recharge, now it takes 6 (not including other regen traits). The new opportunist promotes slower gameplay, so chaining benefits you (if your opponent can’t figure out what you’re doing). Right now I run both blind on stealth and condition remove in stealth, but then again I did before this patch so its been a pretty neutral change. I actually like letting stealth drop naturally a couple of times in longer fights and auto attacking then bursting when they hit half. Lulling opponents into a false sense of security works well for me lately.
Sounds good! I’ve been eyeballing Shadow’s Embrace for a while.
Your play style sounds similar to mine. Going to check it out.
You can skip all initiative regeneration traits now actually for those kind of builds the change is pretty awesome.
Are you saying you don’t need Infusion of Shadow for DD builds now if you chain CnD? If initiative regen is that big, then I’d love to swap in condition cleanse.
If you try to equip an account bound ascended ring that for some reason you are not allowed to equip (like it is not unique), it still becomes soulbound to that character although you’ve never equipped it. This of course makes the ring not useable to other chars although you’ve never actually equipped it.
This morning I had some time to do a fractal since I enjoyed them so much the day before but I can’t remember if I finished L22 before or after the daily reset and whether I already received the daily chest. Is there a way to check this in game or do you just have to focus all your dungeon play around this arbitrary time and keep your own records?
To revive an old thread, a similar thing just happened to me.
After coming back from a break from gw2, I had forgotten about not being able to wear the same ascended ring. That you need one with offense slot and one with a defensive one for example.
I bought a 2nd accessory (earring) for a char that is exactly the same as the first. When I tried to equip it, obviously it didn’t let me and I realize I wasted a lot of resources. The obvious save is to use it on my alt.
The problem is, when I logged in my alt to use the earring, it says that it is soulbound to another char! My first character was never able to actually equip the earring but the act of trying to do so made it soulbound to him. Now that has to be unintentional therefore a bug!
Dunno why I’m dying about half the time. Getting hit by his kill shot even while spamming pistol whip. There’s a d/p thief I’m rotating with that seems to be killing him very fast using heartseeker for last 1/4 health.
I IS in to him and should have enough initiative to pull off 3 pistol whips but occasionally he’ll sneak in a kill shot here and I’m done. Also occasionally I’ll run out of initiative and then I’m done for.
I hate getting ganked by overpowered thieves when I’m half watching tv and in WvW too. But don’t worry help is on the way. Next patch, thieves will not be able to damage targets that aren’t moving. Can’t wait.
I think it depends on what weapon set you use and how much you stealth.
Shadow Rejuvenation = big heals per tick while stealthed.
Shadow Protector = 10s of regen that you keep even if you immediately leave stealth
If you run D/P I think SR is a must. 3 heartseekers in black powder is a ton of hp while you move in position for your next attack. And of course refuge is a full heal.
Anything with D offhand, SP is huge if you CnD a lot. CnD + (backstab, sneak attack or tactical strike) means simultaneous burst and healing.
I’ve tried numerous builds sacrificing shadow arts for trickery or acrobatics and I always end up going back to 30 pts in shadow arts.
From prior testing for my chain daze s/d build with superior sigil of paralyzation, daze would be increased significantly in wvw but limited to 2 secs in sPvP.
Keep in mind this was tested with sword and not daze on steal. Also this was quite a few patches ago.
1) d/d
2) d/p
3) s/d
4) sb
choose 2 of the above and go 0/30/30/10/0
+thrill of the crime and side strikes I guess
So what traits? Bountiful theft, sleight of hand, signet use, hidden killer, mug? and what else?
Looks good.
A lot of people, including myself, is interested in S/D builds, especially ones featuring quick pockets and acrobatics so I welcome this video. Thanks for op for posting it.
However, after trying it out, I found the build doesn’t suit my style. I love the shadow arts line too much. I’m currently running s/d + d/p. Love stealthing and chaining blind/daze with regen in stealth with crit backstabs/heartseekers doing tons of dmg.
I remember gathering 5+ mobs and with signet of malice up, cluster bomb kiting to level. Make sure you find mobs that have been alive a while to get xp bonuses.
Also WvW zergs gets you tons of xp. Just follow along, cluster bomb, and cap those towers, keeps, supply camps.
Some DE’s give a ton of xp.
Don’t forget the speed run dungeons.
Keep in mind off hand pistol #5, black powder, also fires a shot that blinds the target so even if you’re not standing in the area of effect, you can be blinded.
Yeah the only way to really know if you’re stealthed is to check to see if you have the stealth buff up.
Also, lately, I’ve occasionally been transparent but “blocky”.
It seems that spamming FS+LS+Slice does such lousy damage. How in the hell do you kill anything?
And is all that evasion requiring perfect timing worth giving up all the great attacks you get from attacking out of stealth? Seems with shadow arts you can chain daze, blind, and crit backstabs/heartseekers.
I might just suck at it but evasion based S/D seems kinda meh. Or is the occasional boon you steal really that strong?
You can practice but running up to ambients and hitting CnD before you reach them. It will give you an idea of how much delay you need to account for.
That said, missing a CnD can be fatal. With the trait to give you 2 initiative on stealth, CnD is cheap when you’re on, but a miss can leave you depleted of initiative and a sitting duck.
Hey Kabuki, make sure to check out Jumper’s Stream and some of his recorded videos. He has tutorials on using this build that are very helpful. I will link one that shows you evasion frames as it was a tremendous help to me.
Yeah I had already watched that and it is helpful. I keep that in mind with my current S/D + SB build for sPvP. However, using his build, I’m forgetting to add the weapon swaps although it gives initiative and endurance.
I could use some examples of skill rotations including the weapons swaps.
Back Fighting is actually really good. When downed, you can kick someone’s kitten and rally. It’s a big damage increase.
Tried this build in PvP after practicing a while in the Mists and I just got owned. Huge play style change without my shadow arts traits like blind on stealth and heal on stealth.
I think I wasn’t dodging enough coupled with frequent weapon swaps. Going to shelve this for now and go back to S/D + SB for PvP and S/D + D/P for WvW.
Thanks for contributing this build and guide though Jumper.
Some of the best WvW thieves use Sword/Dagger even now.
So this is only good against bunker builds? Viable in WvW?
You don’t need D/P. You just have to learn to land CnD. It takes a lot of practice. If you miss with it, even once, it’s terrible since you’re out 6 init. Practice hitting everything with it as you run along and have blinding powder up in case you’re out of init.
Just double click shadow step to remove 3 conditions.
wait do you have the sigil of fire equipped by any chance?
ive noticed a little bug or something where if the aoe hits another enemy, the fire reveals you
This might explain the problem. Solution? Anet should make sure stealth is applied after all CnD weapon and sigil damage.
First rule in thief club is: i before e except after c
I personally run the same build and armor for WvW to PvE. Just swap out weapons, utils, and elites to fit the situation.
As a new thief, you should spend a lot of time in the mists hitting dummies and sparring against the different profession npcs, the whole time swapping out different weapons, runes, sigils, and builds/traits. Only then will you figure out what your play style is and the right build for it.
Yea, just ran into a thief going stealth through reveal timer, cleansing 9 conditions and gaining full health (from 10% left) from 1 C/D, and stealthing from S/D Cloak & Dagger with NOTHING anywhere near him. Oh, and some how hitting for 8-10k through 2k toughness and 1.2k healing build?!
What the hell?! New exploit I didn’t get the memo on? Oh, and he is 1 shoting Dolyaks, as well as full toughness/healing Guardians.
Come on… why don’t I get filled in on fun exploits like this?!
That’s why they say eyewitness evidence is the most unreliable.
In reality, it was probably someone harvesting sugar pumpkins in dark garb.