Guild Wars 2

A Signet Thief can be helpful in a team, but they’re really only there for DPS. In this case, there are better options for your party, but they still aren’t the worst build available. They only have one support ability.

Honestly, the only bad build for thief in PvE is a D/D burst build. Single target DPS with no utility is terrible in dungeons. Other classes can dish out as much DPS but do it in AoE while still having far better support options.

Sword is definitely the best melee PvE option, and it’s a shame you see so little of it. S/D can CC bosses, keep permanent weakness, and stay alive well. S/P can keep permanent weakness, near permanent blind, and has great AoE as well as great CC options. S/P can also stay alive fairly well if built for it. Health on Crit Sigil/Food, Signet of Malice and Leeching Venoms with Pistol Whip

Thief is best used in dungeons for mobility for traps (not all, though), permanent AoE Weakness, blind spam, stealth revives and raw damage.

muscarine.5136:

You don’t know what initiative does do you
It’s sad because otherwise you make good points

You can trait yourself around having enough initiative regen that initiative isn’t even a problem. I use a P/P build in sPvP with 0/30/0/25/15 and I never have an issue with initiative. That’s also counting the fact that I use Unload a ton.

You have to actually build toward initiative or yes, it’s an issue if you spam abilities. That’s why the option is there. You’re able to spam abilities, and they have to balance around this. Expecting Unload to be as strong as every other class’s abilities is just ridiculous. Because it doesn’t have a CD, they have to balance around the fact that it’s also insane with Haste.

He’d look like an Engineer with a rifle…

Raven.4690:

could anyone be so kind to link vids or the build? In my own quest to build an all rounded understanding of each profession, I’m keen to learn. thanks!

He’s one of the more popular youtube uploaders for thieves. It’s basically just spam stealth as much as possible while applying bleeds.

He was using a P/D condition/stealth build. It’s becoming increasingly popular, mainly due to a few people uploading videos onto youtube of it. It’s a great build, and very annoying to have to fight against in 1v1 scenarios. It feels a little more powerful than it should because of the culling issue, though.

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t using Dual Pistol Unload either. He was seemingly using D/D and P/D. The Pistol Stealth attack can be confused for Unload because of how fast it fires, but P/P doesn’t have a reliable stealth ability. He’d have to switch between P/P and D/D while in stealth to use the P/P ability, and weapon swapping has a longer CD than this. This leads me to believe he was using P/D.

I honestly don’t understand how you guys think these are balanced ideas.

Vital Shot as is is fine. It could have its current fire rate bug fixed, but this really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not the center of any build; it’s just a filler in between Unloads or Stealth attacks. Increasing its fire rate AND damage would just make it extremely overpowered in power builds. I don’t see how you didn’t see this.

Body Shot needs reworked. It doesn’t need to be superbuffed into 8-10 stacks of Vulnerability for 15-20 seconds (I laughed at this).

Unload already does good damage. It hits just about as hard as Volley does, but it doesn’t have a cooldown. Pistol Whip also has less DPS than the sword auto attack. All this is telling me is that the sword auto attack is really strong. Trying to say everything is weak just because it’s better is stupid.

Headshot isn’t supposed to deal damage. It is already an extremely awesome ability. It can completey shut people down, stop them from healing, interrupt a long ability (like, for example, Churning Earth or Hundred Blades), etc. I’d like to see it get a damage increase when interrupting, just because I think that would be a cool mechanic. It’s not even close to necessary, though.

Black Powder is already awesome. It completely shuts down 5 out of 8 of the downed states. Initiative cost is high because it’s a 4 second long dark field.

One thing everyone seems to be unable to realize is that these skills don’t have cooldowns. A lot of the abilities are balanced around this fact. Unload, for example, can’t be the super high damage ability everyone wants it to be, simply because you can spam it. Just another day of forum balancing team, I guess.

Well, you can just run whatever builds you want. If you’re looking for purely a support build, you can use a venom build. Pistol/Dagger is generally used as one, since you can easily apply venom stacks with the auto attack.

We kinda need to know what type of build you’re looking for so we can more accurately suggest one, though.

Einlanzer.1627:

Wiredgunslinger.5480:

And any decent P/P isn’t using Vital Shot as anything more then filler in wvw anyways.

If anything I’d remove the bleed off Vital Shot and make it a burn so your not relying on it stacking (Call it powder burn or some crap ;p).

Or they could just fix the animation issue causing it to fire at almost half the speed it’s supposed and consequently tunneling the viability of Pistols only to builds that min/max for Unload spamming.

Because P/D condition builds aren’t good or anything. Nope, totally not viable at all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAqaVlUmCPHdy9E95Ex2DgqTe6fgs9MuqVB;TsAg0CnoQygkAJLSOkkIt+YExkCA

Been using this build for a while now, even before the patch. I like it a lot in sPvP. I was thinking about getting Mug, but couldn’t find anything worth sacrificing 10 points for. I also can’t see a reason to put more points in Shadow Arts. P/P as a whole is very lacking in stealth, and it doesn’t rely on it at all. I’ve been thinking about using Roll for Initiative instead of Shadowstep, but I can’t pull myself to actually take Shadowstep off my bar. I use it for way more than just running away or as a break stun.

I find it a lot of fun in sPvP, and I absolutely love offhand pistol. I’d use Dagger/Pistol if Shadow Shot didn’t root you.

I don’t think I’d like this build in WvW or PvE, though. Pistol is definitely not OP, either. Pistol Mastery was a nice buff, but not enough to make the damage all that good. Ricochet is still terrible, too.

P/D has always been great as a condition build. The latest patch has done nothing to change this or buff it. No one is going to use Ricochet, and no P/D build is going to use Pistol Mastery.

I’ve been using a P/P build in sPvP and loving it, though. I don’t even think it needs buffed, to be honest. The extra 5% damage on Pistol Mastery is nice, but it’s definitely not near enough to think it’s all of the sudden OP.

I hear it has a decent internal CD. I’m not entirely sure, since I don’t use it.

Also, if you are in stealth and use another stealth skill (i.e. you enter stealth by using Cloak and Dagger and then use Hide in Shadows while stealthed), Hidden Killer will no longer activate on your next attack.

A post of mine taken from another thread:

Every class has a way to stomp without interruption, save from stomping a Thief (although teleports work), Elementalist, or Mesmer.
Let’s just go through the list, shall we?
Elementalist: Can stomp in Mist Form or with Stability, completely invulnerable in Mist Form
Guardian: Can stomp with Stability, immune to CC, still takes damage
Mesmer: Can stomp with both Distortion and stealth, completely invulnerable with Distortion, can still be interrupted while in stealth
Thief: Can stomp in stealth
Ranger: Can stomp with Stability, although I wouldn’t recommend it, as it requires an elite
Warrior: Can stomp with Stability or Invulnerability
Necromancer: Can stomp with Stability
Engineer: Can get Stability or Stealth from Toss Elixir S, unsure if they can stomp with Elixir S itself

So, in actuality, stealth is the weakest form of stomping. Invulnerability is obviously the best, with Stability in second. Immune to CC is better than just not being visible. Nerf all classes, buff all downed states. Downed states aren’t OP enough yet.

Thief and Elementalist aren’t the only classes that can stomp without interruption. In fact, every class has the tools available to them. Just because you don’t utilize them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

There’s not really a full tank build thief, since it’s honestly outclassed by any other class’s full tank build. S/D is pretty good when built for both damage and survivability. For example, you can use Knight’s and Valkyrie armor/accessories, for a mix of both Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality and Crit damage. This could give you enough damage to still be threatening, while enough evades and defense to let you survive.

As for traits, this build is somewhat reliant on stealth due to the stealth attack and Cloak and Dagger. For this reason, I’d build 10/30/30/0/0 or a variation of it. Mug is really good for damage. You could also change the traits to something more like 10/30/0/30/0 if you want to use a S/P build. You definitely want Mug if you’re using S/P, though; it is way too good with Pistol Whip to ignore.

In PvE with my glass cannon thief, I usually get around 8k Backstabs in high level dungeons. It’s more of a persistent Backstab build rather than focused on one large hit, though. It’s the usual 25/30/0/0/15 build, though.

Although, I will say that, aside from the open world exploration, D/D is pretty awful in PvE. I’ve never felt as useful in PvE when using D/D as I do when using S/D or S/P. I just contribute more to the party than damage. Hell, even D/P would contribute more utility. Unless you’re built for condition damage, it just seems that you really shouldn’t be using D/D in dungeons or events (especially not events with a lot of monsters).

Spiders Spiders Spiders.8043:

Oh naivety…

You can claim he’s naive if you wish, but he’s correct. No other class is as squishy as the thief without some form of damage mitigation. Guardian? Constant heals, can have permanent protection, wears heavy armor, etc. Elementalist? Best mobility in the game, has 1200 range options, has a ton of AoE, has abilities that grant invulnerability, has protection boons, constant heals, etc.

Seriously, I could go on about the advantages these classes have that thief just lacks. Stealth and shadow steps are the ONLY two abilities thief has for escaping. 25% Movement Speed signet is extremely overrated and is only useful for convenience when exploring or roaming WvW. If you’re using Signet of Shadows in a sPvP build, you’re either lazy or simply using a bad build.

If they’re going to nerf stealth, they actually need to compensate somewhere else for the thief. Right now, stealth is our largest option we have for escaping, and every thief, no matter how they’re built, have an over-reliance on stealth for escaping and dealing damage. If they simply nerf the thief without a compensation (like what they did last patch, especially to D/D and S/D builds), they’re moving closer and closer to just removing the class from the game. I really wish they’d just rework the class into what the assassin was like in GW1. We’d get a lot less complaints, and we’d more than likely be more useful in the process.

This thread is mainly just Rangers, aka the class with the most issues, complaining about thieves. These same rangers are the ones using SB and LB builds (which are terrible in any 1v1 situation).

In other words: “Scissors are fine, nerf paper.” – Rock

Order of Whispers has a hood as well.

rchu.8945:

same can be said of D/D thief players

Except shutting down a thief is a ton easier. They carry around, at most, one break stun, have 2k armor, and rely on stealth as an escape. If you can survive or dodge their burst, they’re very easy to shut down and kill. D/D Eles, on the other hand, have AoE Damage, a ton of heals and condition removal, three break stuns, and more escape abilities than a D/D thief. Killing thieves that try to burst me is one of my favorite things to do. Having to fight a D/D Ele is the most annoying thing in the game. They take like 3 minutes to kill, and they will almost always get away if you can’t kill them fast enough. As for a thief, it’s a lot easier to keep them shut down since they rarely build for raw defense.

The two aren’t comparable. One is a tanky DPS with a ton of heals, condition removals and break stuns. The other is a glass cannon thief with one break stun and an over-reliance on stealth as an escape mechanism. Hit a thief with CC and he either has to run away or die.

Bunzy.8674:

This is how you kill a D/D ele. You run pure glass cannon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Zw8vNJVvg

There’s no way a D/D Ele built properly (Power/Tough/Vit) is going to get hit anywhere near 12k by Backstab.

The debuff Haste gives makes your endurance unable to regenerate, by any means.

No one’s talking about WvW. Bloodlust is used in sPvP, not WvW. Aside from Bloodlust, Accuracy, Force, Fire, or Air are pretty good. I personally don’t like Strength for burst builds, since it really doesn’t make any sense (especially not on GC thief builds, which is based on a three hit combo). I prefer Air over Fire on D/D builds, since your damage is purely single target anyway.

This would mean they’d have to change every class’s teleport skill. Right now, D/D elementalist builds basically require Lightning Flash in order to hit with Churning Earth. If you took the ability away from a thief to do this, then not only would certain builds lose a ton of burst (not just the D/D backstab build), but it would also mean they’d have to do it to the other classes’ teleport skills as well.

Thieves are fine. We’ve been hit by a few nerfs, but they haven’t really hurt the overall viability of a thief, rather just the viability of certain skills. Dancing Dagger, for example, is just about entirely useless to use after the nerf.

If you like the class, continue to play it. Arenanet won’t nerf the class into uselessness entirely. They’re better than that at balancing.

Warlord.9074:

As far as your build is concerned I would do deep cuts instead of the rendering strikes to take advantage of the 10% damage to bleeding foes just to make sure they have bleeding on them…. GS already does a vulnerability on a basic attack.. Id probably get rid of the heightened focus again and do signet mastery. Why have a 9% chance to crit when you can have fury up almost all the time with the signet of rage as well as might and and swiftness.

No point to use Arcing Strike and lose not only 12% damage, but 9% crit chance instead just for 9 seconds of Fury (11% more crit chance for 9 seconds over a constant 9% + 12% increased damage). It also hurts your burst to have to use a weak and slow ability, as well. Signet of Rage gives more than enough Fury, and that build in WvW alone will give me 64% crit chance with full adrenaline. I literally never use the GS burst skill. Only burst skills I ever really use are Rifle and Axe, only because Eviscerate is a blast to use, and Kill Shot just does hilarious damage.

Nothing personal against your build. If it works for you, more power to you. I just feel like I’d rather focus on one thing than try to focus on being good in every situation. I love the Immobilize on cripple trait, though; I usually use it in sPvP whenever I play my warrior there. I’ve just found that I have enough damage and control in WvW through my normal abilities and Bull’s Charge to basically down anyone before the immobilize becomes necessary.

Also, the reason I use Rendering Strikes is to stack vulnerability with GS and its multi-hit abilities and auto attack. My bleeds already don’t do much damage, so the only benefit I’d get from the 50% longer bleeds trait would be from the 25 point minor trait, and I pretty much always have a bleed stack on the enemy anyway.

Tulisin, you must be insane. Einlanzer is best pals with the developers. He knows everything they intended to do. He doesn’t need to provide proof (that I’ve asked for multiple times in other threads and been ignored each time). He simply needs to state something, and you have to believe him because he knows exactly what was intended for this game.

I don’t think anyone’s complaining that a thief is spawn camping them.

Warlord.9074:

Your build is glass cannon though. I would do 10/20/10/10/20 just my opinion.

Glass Cannon is fine in WvW. In WvW, gear determines your stats far more than your traits, and just tossing that many trait points into everything will just make you a jack of all trades, master of none. Better to focus on one thing and actually be good at it than to focus on everything and be terrible. Grabbing that many minor traits just seems like a waste of time.

As for the OP: I personally don’t like that build, since 25 points in Discipline is really only worth it for the crit damage rather than the actual traits.

The linking is messing up, so this is my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJARUjgOxutQ2QMxBAzjiAiozDqYqJVh2A
I use GS and Axe/Shield usually, while changing to Rifle if I really need a ranged option. However, with all the distance closers on that build, I rarely see the need to grab it. I also choose Mending over the Adrenaline heal simply because it gives some much needed condition removal that you otherwise completely lack.

Since you’re using Greatsword and Rifle, you’re generally not going to be swapping that often while in combat to benefit greatly from the extra points in Discipline over more damage. For Great Justice isn’t as good in WvW as some of the CC options from Physical utility skills that you can get, imo. I also change between Balanced Stance and Frenzy, depending on what I’m doing at the time. For example, I really don’t like using Frenzy in zerg fights. It’s basically asking to die from all the AoE being tossed around.

Same.4687:

That’s cute but no, I run a condition build. The engi one is a pain in the kitten because of the fact that either your opponent must stand still in the junk or you must stand still in the junk and shoot/hit your opponent from it. And I don’t know how you play PvP/WvW but my opponents nor myself ever stand perfectly still or have proper time to position. The latter is often a problem because I almost always run solo and am almost always outnumbered.

The guardian one is a big pile of crap because of the fact that I am a condition thief. It doesn’t add anything useful to my repetoire at all. Unless I am outnumbered and get someone downed and someone is actually trying to res and I have the thing… Which you know happens, almost never because I favor the useful steals.

Ranger one is ok’ish because of the regen I get out of it from being a P/D cond thief. However like the Engi one, it requires me to be near it while shooting and more often than not I cannot stand or just move around in that tiny circle for it to be useful. Also my build gives me plenty of healing via Shadows Rejuv and Signet of Malice.

I’m perfectly aware of what they all do but without a doubt the top 2 are the worst for a thief and the ranger one is situational.

EDIT: Btw the Guardian thing is a daze, not a stun. It interrupts and doesn’t allow you to use skills. You can still move around.

Funny, a great steal ability for condition builds and you can find a way to use it well. Just because you aren’t standing still doesn’t mean you can’t find a use for a combo field.

The guardian one is, once again, CC that you wouldn’t have normally. If you can’t see how this is good, there is no hope for you. A free interrupt that you don’t have normally, a CC to use to ensure a kill, etc. It’s easily one of the best steals.

Ranger one is only situational because you won’t always need health. However, in WvW, a free AOE heal with no CD via Cluster Bomb is awesome. It can change a battle in your favor by keeping your team at higher health.

And yes, I remembered that it was a daze after but didn’t feel like editing it in. It’s still a 4 second daze that can easily decide a battle. I’m really baffled as to how you think this is bad, honestly.

Thief isn’t any bit ahead of other classes in terms of burst. Most of the classes in this game can burst just as fast as thief. The only difference is they don’t have stealth, because they have other ways to mitigate damage, higher base stats, etc. Hell, other classes can burst just as hard as a thief can, but they can do it at range and in AoE.

Wolfield.9812:

Against two warriors use the stolen item on top of them. With caltrops, they both will drop. 1 down, one dead.

If you’re using a condition build, Whirling Axe is an enormous waste of time. It takes way too long for way too little of a reward in the time frame.

You’re better off just attacking the reviver and getting him low enough to either go down by the time he gets the downed player up or to stop reviving altogether. This ignores the problem, though: reviving downed players is way too fast.

amiable.4823:

/shrug Stick your head in the sand, I’ve played MMO’s since EQ 1, thieves are going to get the nerf bat. It just can’t stand in the current state of play… Whether it is a hard hit or a soft one depends on how realistic the community is.

Excuse me, Mr. MMO Professional. Thieves were already nerfed. A lot, actually. Thief burst isn’t any higher than other classes’ burst.

Same.4687:

Whoever said that all the steals are useful most likely doesn’t steal from Guardians/Engineers…

On topic, I only really use 3 stolen items very often. Which is the thing you steal from Ele’s to Chill D/D Ele’s and make them go “WTF IS WRONG WITH MY COOLDOWNS”. Necro’s fear. And ofcourse the Thief stealth thingy.

Warrior one has become a deathwish after they took the evade/invulnerable off it.
Mesmer one is quite nice but I hardly ever hold on to it.
Ranger one is meh because I already have quite some nice healing.
Engineer one is just crap
Guardian one is beyond crap, it’s what crap would crap if crap could crap.

They shouldn’t change anything major on classes untill they fixed the rest of the big kitten issues this game has.

Engineer’s steal is great for condition builds. It applies a random condition and creates an ethereal field, effectively giving condition thieves not only ways to get other conditions, but a consistent way to get confusion.

Guardian’s steal is a two second stun.

How are either of those bad, in any way?

Oh, and Ranger steal + Cluster Bomb = spammable AoE heal.

I just think you don’t know when to use the steal abilities and so you think they’re bad. Just because something isn’t good on your omg1337d33pz build doesn’t mean it’s bad as a whole.

sceptus.9415:

- 1) ANY profession, immune to stopping a stomp (finishing off a downed player) should have that changed – especially stealth while stomping.

- 2) Stealth should have a diminishing cooldown after used once.

- 3) Culling should be properly fixed in relation to the thief class

1) This is pretty funny. Every class has a way to stomp without interruption, save from stomping a Thief (although teleports work), Elementalist, or Mesmer.

Let’s just go through the list, shall we?

Elementalist: Can stomp in Mist Form or with Stability, completely invulnerable in Mist Form
Guardian: Can stomp with Stability, immune to CC, still takes damage
Mesmer: Can stomp with both Distortion and stealth, completely invulnerable with Distortion, can still be interrupted while in stealth
Thief: Can stomp in stealth
Ranger: Can stomp with Stability, although I wouldn’t recommend it, as it requires an elite
Warrior: Can stomp with Stability or Invulnerability
Necromancer: Can stomp with Stability
Engineer: Can get Stability or Stealth from Toss Elixir S, unsure if they can stomp with Elixir S itself

So, in actuality, stealth is the weakest form of stomping. Invulnerability is obviously the best, with Stability in second. Immune to CC is better than just not being visible. Nerf all classes, buff all downed states. Downed states aren’t OP enough yet.

2) It already does. Revealed keeps thieves from going back into stealth for three seconds.

3) Completely irrelevant to the thief class. This is the game as a whole. All classes that can stealth or all abilities that teleport you quickly can abuse the culling glitch. Stealth is not a thief-only mechanic.

Heartseeker is only dangerous whenever you have <25% health. Before then, thief has a lot better damage options. The fact that people keep acting like Heartseeker can do 6k damage (not even a lot) at any given time, no matter what without any prerequisites is asinine. If you’re dying to Heartseeker spam, you are bad. That’s it.

As for people who think Toughness needs to be better, you have no idea the state of the game right now, do you? Bunker builds dominating tPvP. We should totally buff them. You should join the balance team.

Thief has neither the highest DPS nor the best mobility, by the way.

Being able to talk between servers would be terrible. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t want to have a bunch of 15 year olds attempting to troll in WvW. We get that enough in team chat.

ashleydoll.8563:

Also, about Shadow Refuge, one class can not really do enough AoE damage to bother a Thief who is in it, as you recall, Shadow Refuge will also heal the Thief, which negates the damage one or two people are doing to them. Not entirely, but it weakens it by a lot. Couple it with the fact once they’re in SR for 8 seconds, they can leave it and gain the remaining 4 seconds of stealth outside of the circle.

I have used AoE knockback abilities on SR and it rarely, if ever, knocks the Thief out of the circle, it usually misses entirely. There is also the fact a lot of AoEs do not have as large of a radius as SR has, meaning a Thief can walk out of your AoE and simply stay in SR unharmed.

I know Thieves do not have ultra long term stealth, but I’ve played my Thief enough to see the class is entirely based around crutches, my Thief is level 80 with moderate gear and I still have the easiest time in the world in WvW. In S/T PvP anyone can roll one, look up a build and practice for 5 minutes and top scoreboards. The class has too much going for it.

This is hilarious. You obviously have never used Shadow Refuge if you truly think Shadow Refuge can outheal AoE. It heals like 400 health per second and lasts 4 seconds. There is literally no way that this is “more damage than one player can deal.”

Also, anyone who knows how to play sPvP/tPvP can roll any class and get top score board. It’s really not hard to get top score in sPvP. All you have to do is flip positions and/or participate in large team fights. A thief running around killing people 1v1 isn’t going to get them top unless they’re playing with and against bad players.

Shrack.8013:

Thieves are one of the best aoe classes in the game. Spammable cluster Bomb, Daggerstorm, Whirling Axe.

I lol’d. I really hope you don’t believe this. Cluster Bomb at point blank range is good AOE, but even then, it’s still slow. Whirling Axe is unreliable and can’t be considered a legitimate reason for thief AoE. Dagger Storm is our elite on a 90s CD, and the daggers thrown out are random.

Thief is terrible at AoE. Elementalist has more AoE on regular abilities than thief can get out of anything. Hell, a warrior using Hundred Blades vs. a zerg is more dangerous than a thief using Cluster Bomb by far.

I’m baffled as to how people still think Dagger Storm is OP. Immobilize + melee = a dead thief. They get stability, but immobilize is a condition. The Daggers are thrown out at random, so getting into melee won’t endanger you anymore than being back with your zerg will. A thief using Dagger Storm vs. a zerg is basically asking to get killed unless the entire enemy zerg is full of bads.

Wiredgunslinger.5480:

Put a cool down of 10-12 seconds on C&D and bam…no more perma stealthers.

Except for, you know, the Heartseeker + Black Powder combo that can keep a thief in stealth endlessly.

I don’t understand why this thread is still on-going. Channeled abilities already continue to make contact with the thief whether or not they go into stealth. Stealth does not interrupt channeled abilities in progress.

urdriel.8496:

buff to cluster bomb?? is a joke?? you can hit people for 5k easily + spam the skill, and you really want a buff?? ……

They just nerfed it. Only people you’re hitting 5k+ easily is on glass cannons with 0 toughness or low levels in WvW.

Shortbow is easily the most well-balanced, most useful thief weapon. The damage output isn’t extreme, but it gives thief some much needed AoE damage and utility. Also, Disabling Shot is amazing. A free evade with a low initiative cost and a cripple?

I agree that, after the recent nerf, Cluster Bomb needs an increase in its projectile speed, though. It’s kind of ridiculous how they think that they can just keep nerfing thief without giving us anything in return and expect the class to remain balanced.

The burst combo with D/D is Cloak and Dagger precast → Steal → Backstab → Heartseeker.

However, this isn’t a game you can simply use the same combo on at all times. You have to adapt to what the current situation requires. For this reason, I suggest not getting in your mind a specific combo. Just know that they’re there and use it whenever the opportunity arises. Don’t attempt to use it no matter what.

A thief played well can do fine in dungeons. Also, it’s not hard to find parties. Not many people are willing to kick someone out simply because of what class they are. They just want to finish the dungeon.

However, if I had to choose, I wouldn’t choose a thief for my party. Most of the players are just bad, and I end up reviving them more often than not. Their DPS isn’t even the best (glass cannon warriors have high DPS, thieves have higher burst), and they die easier than a lot of classes. Not much utility other than permanent weakness, blinds, and stealth revives.

Whenever I play my thief in dungeons, I do fine. I rarely die, and I’ve actually had people tell me that they’re not used to seeing thieves that can stay alive in PvE. I think this is where the real problem lies, rather than core issues.

Zgroza Czarnych.6190:

Stealth also doesn’t interrupt skills in progress. This is the complaint by thieves. For example, if you stealth while a Longbow Ranger is using Rapid Fire, every single arrow will hit you while in stealth. I don’t think you even know what you’re talking about with this part.

buahahahaa Rapid Fire is interrupt when you go stealth. Stop talking liers. If RF always hit then I know where you are but RF is rupt and dont lie.

I don’t even think you play this game that often. This is, once again, one of the biggest complaints about stealth by thieves. If you’re using a channeling ability, stealth does not interrupt it. Hopefully the bold will help you understand.

PeterThomas.7243:

So I was in WvW most of the night and noticed a lot of thieves using the perma-stealth pistol build (I think it’s called the Wild Bill build?) . I saw no less than three thieves who were able to do the following solo:

a) take supply camps
b) wipe groups of 3-4 competent players while losing less than 50% health
c) engage a group of 6 determined players for 20 minutes without dying

So, while fighting these thieves over and over, I realized precisely what makes stealth so overpowered:

Its ability to interrupt your current skills in progress.

I lost count of the number of times that I targeted a thief, cast Dark Pact to try to immobilize them, but before the skill could even finish casting, poof, he’s gone, and my skill suddenly stops in mid-cast and my skill timer resets. If I had at least been able to successfully cast my spell, I could’ve still laid some AOE down on his last location, landed some successful hits with my dagger, or at least done something to inflict some damage, but no.

So how about this? Add a rule that allows skills-in-progress to connect against a player even if they enter stealth before your skill is finished casting. After that, you lose target as usual. I think that would at least give regular players a fighting chance against these builds, because right now any skill that does not have an instantaneous casting time is useless due to the fact that these thieves typically only unstealth for a single second or less.

In short, I do not believe that nerfing the Thief’s skills (duration, recharge time, etc) is necessarily the way to fix the stealth abuse issue. It seems to me that the stealth mechanic itself that needs to be looked at and reworked.

-PT

a) My warrior can solo camps by itself. Thieves require far more to be able to do it.
b) They weren’t competent, then. Thieves are easy to kill, especially if they’re glass cannon builds. Use some sort of CC and focus one at a time. A group of three people could easily be communicating and targetting, whereas the other group may have not been as coordinated.
c) Once again, a L2P issue. Thieves are extremely squishy and die fast. All it would take is AoE to take three people out against 6.

Stealth also doesn’t interrupt skills in progress. This is the complaint by thieves. For example, if you stealth while a Longbow Ranger is using Rapid Fire, every single arrow will hit you while in stealth. I don’t think you even know what you’re talking about with this part.

Nemo.6295:

Krathalos.3461:

Yeah, no. Thief doesn’t need a 1200 range weapon. It would be insanely broken due to stealth. There’s a reason Arenanet did this.

Cluster Bomb alone gives us better AoE 1200 range in WvW than what other classes have. We don’t need an auto attack, and other skills, at 1200 range as well.

“Yeah, no” really? Do you talk like that for real?

Stealth is not godmode like in WoW. And from my experience in WvW we do need it, plus the experience of people who say it’s even more needed in PVE.

So yeah, we need a proper max range weapon with apropriate abilities, not half arsed shortcuts and other lazy solutions, as I said in my first post, stealth is no excuse.

And cluster bomb is a mediocre ability in open WvW. Funny how it’s considered the best we have right now.

Rule #1 to prove your point: try to make fun of the person you’re arguing with.

So yeah, we don’t need a max range weapon (hint: 1200 isn’t “max range”).

Yes, you said in your first post that stealth is no excuse. That doesn’t make it true. You didn’t even TRY to defend your position on this; you simply stated it then walked away and expected everyone to believe you undoubtedly. Sell me on it, or at the very least explain your reasoning, and maybe I’ll be able to agree with you.

Stealth WOULD be overpowered at 1200 range. This is very obvious. Unless you’re a thief, it’s already difficult to kill a thief at 900 range with a shortbow without CC abuse (only because of how easy it is to run away on thief). Even then, Shadowstep makes it more difficult. The only way a 1200 range weapon on thief would make sense is if they made it an extremely immobile weapon set, and that would completely go against the thief concept as a whole.

The fact that you consider Cluster Bomb bad in open world WvW is more proof that you’re bad. It’s easy to hit with. Stop trying to use it at max range and you won’t have trouble with it.

By the way, when I said Cluster Bomb was good in WvW, I didn’t mean in open world. Although it is good there, Cluster Bomb really shines when attacking or defending a tower, keep or castle. It is one of the best options in the game for doing this, and it is also one of the best options for destroying enemy siege.

I think it’s pretty obvious that Einlanzer has never played warrior. The fact that he thinks most of its damage comes from condition damage, when it is so obviously a burst ranged weapon, is proof enough that he has no idea what he’s talking about.

Pistol/Pistol will never be viable as a condition set up because it will have to compete with Pistol/Dagger, which, unless they super buff Vital Shot to the point where the stealth attack becomes useless, will always outclass it in this regard.

Apparently, he also knows what developers intended.

If they’re going to buff P/P, I’d like to see it become more of a burst range weapon. Pistol/Dagger is our range condition set up, with Short bow benefiting from both (with Power the better choice for it). Making Pistol/Pistol a condition set up would just make either P/D or P/P useless.

psychlon.3682:

hmmm, has anyone tried the gear with condition damage accessories and p/d?

If you’re using P/D, Carrion is better. You won’t be taking that much damage, since you’ll be spamming stealth so much.

Yeah, no. Thief doesn’t need a 1200 range weapon. It would be insanely broken due to stealth. There’s a reason Arenanet did this.

Cluster Bomb alone gives us better AoE 1200 range in WvW than what other classes have. We don’t need an auto attack, and other skills, at 1200 range as well.

Steal is quite possibly one of the best abilities in the game in PvP.

It doesn’t interrupt whatever you’re doing, so it can be used as an extra damage output whenever you have Mug traited. Sure, it doesn’t work well aside from melee builds (except P/D, it’s still good there), but it has so many different ways you can use it.

In PvE, there’s a lot of thief abilities that are underwhelming. Steal, however, is two abilities in one, so I definitely wouldn’t say it’s that bad off in PvE.

Josh P.1296:

LOL, dopey kitten. This isn’t unbalanced or overpowered. Portal does absolutely nothing for a mesmer’s personal play. As you have stated one of its uses is to transport zergs, both teams have access to this. For this to be effective you actually need other real people playing and taking the portal.

Use your brain before posting a dopey comment like that.

You’re pretty bad if you think Portal can’t be used in “personal play.” You can place a portal entrance, then go into a fight. If things start to get hectic, you just place the exit and portal out. A get out of jail free card on a 90 second CD.

Another situation: you’re using a ranged weapon, and fighting a melee character. You place two portals, and teleport between them to effectively kite your opponent with ease.

Seriously, portal has so many different areas where it’s good. It’s not only great in WvW.

juno.1840:

Make stealth fail if the thief is blind. Also steal as well if it isn’t already effected by blind.

Attunement switching should fail and go on c/d when blind.

Utility belt skills should fail and go on c/d when blind.

Death shroud should fail on go on c/d when blind — maybe lose all life force as well, but maybe not.

Adrenaline skill should fail and all adrenaline lost when blind.

Pet should “un-summon” when ranger becomes blind and summon go on c/d.

Virtues should become disabled when guardian is blind. Using any virtue should fail when blind and go on c/d.

/sarcasm off

Those are clearly bad ideas — all of them. So why have something similarly preposterous for Mesmer?

Stealth isn’t a thief-only mechanic. Steal already is affected by blind.

Attunement switching isn’t an attack. It’s equivalent to weapon swapping. Unaffected by blind on all classes.

If it’s an attack utility belt skill, it is affected by blind. Ram, for example, would fail and go on CD if blinded.

Death Shroud is a self-buff. No class’s self-buff is affected by blind. Distortion (your f4) would be similar to this, and it’s unaffected if you’re blind.

Adrenaline skills already do fail and go on CD when blind. They do not, however, lose their adrenaline, as they do not make contact with the enemy.

Ranger is UP enough. You could remove all phantasms from Mesmer and Mesmer would still be better than Ranger.

For virtues, see Death Shroud explanation.

Even if you were being sarcastic, Phantasms aren’t the only core ability. Your ability to summon illusions as a whole, as well kittenter skills, are Mesmer’s class mechanic. You can still summon illusions through utilities or dodge while blind. Now, if you were unable to use shatters or summon illusions by any means, these examples would be relevant.

Tulisin.6945:

Krathalos.3461:

Tulisin.6945:

Condition damage is no better than power-based damage at sustained damage, conversely running burst conditions is entirely viable, depending on the timeframe for your burst. The two damage types simply don’t conform that way in GW2.

No, it’s not, but Condition Damage ONLY has sustained damage. There is no such thing as burst condition damage. It takes time for your conditions to tick, and you’re not going to be doing anything near what a burst build can do in the same time. Depending on how many stacks of bleed you can dish out, your condition damage can deal more sustained DPS than burst builds.

Burst is not equivalent to instant, burst refers to damage over a predefined short timeframe, usually with the stipulation that the level of damage cannot be sustained beyond that timeframe. Pumping condition damage-heavy bleed stacks without focusing on duration and burning through initiative results in a condition damage burst timeframe of <10 seconds. You sacrifice potential sustainability to pack more damage into a short timeframe, thus, burst.

When did I say it was equivalent to instant?

Yes, burst refers to a large amount of damage in a short time frame. I’m well aware of that. This is, once again, why Condition Damage cannot be considered “burst.” They require time to both apply and then deal their damage. You cannot burst with condition damage. You may be able to say there’s “burst condition builds” as opposed to “sustained condition builds” only because you blow all your conditions at once, but saying condition builds can burst is completely different.

This is merely arguing semantics of names, however. A “burst condition damage” build can only be called this because they apply a large amount of stacks of bleed, poison, etc. in as short a time frame as possible, but then have to wait for CDs before they can reapply the conditions. These builds also all have one inherent flaw: condition removal.

You will never be able to actually burst with a condition build.