Showing Posts For Lemmming.1749:
Unless all they fixed was making it so Steal doesn’t turn on auto-attack. In which case sure I guess they fixed that bug, but we’re still looking at a completely separate issue that needs to be addressed.
It /tends/ to occur more often when having the pistol autoattack on, but will still occur regardless.
Well correct me if I’m wrong, but steal isnt’ supposed to STOP your autoattack if you’ve already activated it correct? It simply won’t START autoattack automatically.
So if you’re having trouble with stealing while your autoattack is already activated, I think that’s intended and you need to just hit esc to stop autoattack before stealing.
Yeah but it still occurs regardless. Personal opinions aside on whether or not it’s stupid to have to choose between stealthing after a steal and using autoattack (hint: it’s stupid), the bug still isn’t fixed.
Stealth breaks still happen all the time, without giving the burst-shot stealth attack, but still providing a nice 4 second period where I can’t re-stealth.
Also I played around with it some more, and it seems the animation is at fault. There’s only a really tiny gap between pistol #1 attacks that are considered not attacking – if you manage to steal in that gap, you’re fine. Otherwise, either 1) the pistol #1 attack finishes its shot after the steal/stealth jump and ruins your stealth, or 2) the pistol #1 attack has already begun before the animation has started, and the entire sequence runs to completion and still ruins your stealth.
For me, this occurs with P/P. I don’t get a five-burst shot, just a normal attack which breaks my stealth. I feel like the problem is when steal is activated mid-animation, but that’s just a really rough guess.
But I don’t use mug (All SA and Crit Strikes with a bit of trickery).
It /tends/ to occur more often when having the pistol autoattack on, but will still occur regardless.
Not using mug
Definitely still a bug
Good try
But that won’t fly
According to the latest update:
- Steal skill: No longer initiates autoattacks.
Yeah no that still isn’t fixed.
This starts creating huge problems when using the “Hidden Thief” trait; you can’t rely on it to actually stealth you. And in my case, I’m relying on that stealth for initiative and health regen, too.
I’ll grant that I seem to auto-break stealth LESS than before, but not much. Turning off my auto-attack isn’t even a guaranteed fix; sometimes I just happen to go in for the steal, and come out fully revealed. Oh yeah, I may not get more than 0.001 seconds of stealth, but I still do get the full Revealed debuff. So that’s cool.
Posted this in the Thief forums too.
According to the latest update:
- Steal skill: No longer initiates autoattacks.
Yeah no that still isn’t fixed.
This starts creating huge problems when using the “Hidden Thief” trait; you can’t rely on it to actually stealth you. And in my case, I’m relying on that stealth for initiative and health regen, too.
I’ll grant that I seem to auto-break stealth LESS than before, but not much. Turning off my auto-attack isn’t even a guaranteed fix; sometimes I just happen to go in for the steal, and come out fully revealed. Oh yeah, I may not get more than 0.001 seconds of stealth, but I still do get the full Revealed debuff. So that’s cool.
Posting this in the bugs forum too.
Decided to try out some PvP training, just so I could figure out what I wanted out of my build. Not having damage was really bugging me, and even though I really wanted to use a combination of stealth and acrobatics to keep myself alive, I knew I had to choose one (so I’d have room for damage).
Nah I’m just messing with you
I’m using stealth, speed, and damage. I can have it all.
Currently my skills and traits are looking like: (work in progress, but it’s usable – I can get any of the trainers down to dead and wind up with 3/4 my own health still remaining, sans the guardian)
Heal: Hide in Shadows
F1: Haste (I’m super wary of it, since I didn’t want a glass cannon, but it works I’ll tell you how) // 4s quickness + 4s no endurance regen
F2: Shadow Refuge // AoE stealth
F3: Signet of Shadows // +25% movespeed passive, AoE blind when activated
F4: Thieves Guild // summon 2 thieves
Traits:
0 / 10 / 20 / 20 / 20 (weird right?)
Critical Strikes
Minor:
— Keen Observer // Critical-hit chance +5% when health over 90% (not entirely useful, unless I pop Haste immediately upon engaging)
Major:
— Side Strike // +7% critical chance from behind or side (This is pretty useful, since the sword autoattack encourages strafing)
Shadow Arts
Minor:
— Last Refuge // Blinding Powder at 25% health (stealth + AoE blind) (Great way to survive, plus more stealth is more good as you’ll see later with the +50% speed I get when stealthed)
— Meld with Shadows // +1 second stealth duration (Again, more stealth for more long = more good)
Major:
— Cloaked in Shadow // Going stealth blinds nearby foes (if I’m going to be stealthing a lot, might as well make it useful and keep myself alive longer)
— Hidden Thief // Stealing grants 2 seconds of stealth (did I mention more stealth options = more better?)
Acrobatics
Minor:
— Expeditious Dodger // Gain 2 seconds of swiftness on Evade (there’s a reason I took the movespeed signet, and it’s because this swiftness plus that means you can literally outrun attacks)
— Feline Grace // Dodging returns some of the endurance used (essentially gives three dodges instead of two, per bar. Always awesome especially when I’m stressing mobility AND getting swiftness with each dodge)
Major:
— Vigorous Recovery // Gain vigor upon healing (This is what makes Haste usable. I pretty much refuse to use Haste unless I have my heal skill ready – the vigor gives me back endurance fairly quickly)
— Fleet Shadow // Move 50% faster while in stealth (This is just the most beautiful synergy between acrobatics/mobility and stealth. I think I have something in my eye hang on)
Trickery
Minor:
— Kleptomaniac // Stealing gives you +2 initiative (useful enough, allows me to keep using my shadowstep strike as much as possible)
— Preparedness // Increases max initiative by 3 (see above)
Major:
— Long Reach // Increases the range on stealing from 900 to 1200 (This is awesome because all that mobility and shadowstepping sometimes means that I’m outside the 900 range, aka screwed if I’m relying on a successful steal + stealth)
— Trickster // Tricks recharge 20% faster (Haste counts as a trick, and since it’s no longer a glass cannon-y death sentence, I like being able to use it more)
Okay that’s basically the build
Fighting usually involves shadowstepping in with #2, blasting haste and the autoattack on their side (conveniently #2 has a short immobilize), and then shadowstepping back if things get rough. I always try to keep a shadowportal (read: retreat) open, so sometimes I use steal to close distance too. Oftentimes, I try to keep them in a state of daze or blindness, minimizing the damage I take. I’m using runes of the pack right now, which give me some much needed precision and power, while also boosting my swiftness. This, combined with the berzerker amulet, means almost no vitality or toughness. Instead I have to rely on acrobatics and stealth to see me through. It’s surprisingly do-able, as long as you plan ahead and don’t get caught in a burst attack with your pants down.
That’s about it for now
Nothing seems impossible, just a bit more challenging than usual.
Alright so now that those are answered (I did laugh at the idea of off-hand light though), here’s the update:
It’s actually not that hard.
It’s a ton of fun.
Right now, at level 8, I’m having no problems; took the level 10 human personal quest at level 7 without incident. Didn’t have anything fancy on the gear front either – something that surprised me. I honestly figured I’d spend most of the game making sure I was over-levelled and over-equipped.
The reality is that not having the other weapon skill just means that you don’t spam initiative-wasting attacks. The thief’s #2 sword attack (shadowstep + 1 second immobilize) doesn’t do appreciably more damage than the auto-attack, so I’ve been using it purely for mobility. My initiative bar has essentially become a secondary endurance bar – and I’m that much harder to kill because of it. Without having another initiative-sink, I can actually afford to double-tap #2 occasionally – either 1) jumping in, and then right out (if I don’t have a shadow return available), which scores me a quick hit and looks awesome; or 2) jumping out to dodge an attack, and then jumping right back in – usually the two shadowstep animations get me out just before the attack lands, and in just after it ends.
This strategy means I have to think ahead and really work on placement, kiting, mobility and the like – which is where the fun comes in. Every fight is interesting.
Current Pros:
- I’m really hard to kill.
- It’s a ton of fun and incredibly engaging.
Current Cons:
- Killing goes much slower
That’s a pretty big con currently; I can outlast just fine in PvE, but I’m worried about WvW. Originally I’d thought of going for precision – now I’m leaning more towards condition damage. I figure if I’m hard to kill, then conditions make more sense – the longer the battle stretches on, the more of an advantage I have.
Other Stuff:
There’s also small bonuses I hadn’t thought of – I get a cripple and weakness on my final attack. I right now have 3 separate blinds – one from blinding powder, and 2 from the ‘backstab’ during stealth (one stealth given by blinding powder, the other by Hide in Shadows).
Alright I’ll just go through these best I can;
Lemming, I applaud your insanity, but keep in mind the no-offhand skills for thieves exist only so that thieves have a third skill to use in the tutorial like everyone else. Developers have stated they never intended them to be used in an actual build.
That said, if you can put together a build that kills people… well you’re officially killing people with one hand tied behind your back. That’s impressive, and would make some hilarious video.
Oh yeah, definitely read that. And I agree. The sword’s stab skill is useless except for showing off the fact that ‘hey look he really is using only one sword and nothing else’.
Videos will definitely be forthcoming once I, y’know, level.
Sword light #3 actually does some decent damage when in berserker gear and you can spam it quite fast. I’ve used it for fun in WvW and it can be quite hilarious.
Sword Autoattack: 269 – 437.
Stab: 336.It doesn’t really do that much.
Yeah gotta say, stab isn’t great. It hits slow, and doesn’t do a ton of damage. And it eats up initiative that could be better spent else where.
However, it IS great for showing off! So I still use it some.
To me the worst part of this would be the loss of stats. Unless of course you were planning on running a cheesy black powder build to level.
I guess it is something different but it really doesnt strike me as ‘hard mode’
You maybe suprised how good the sword is in wvw and pve. Half the time I forget I have a dagger in my offhand the sword cleave is just to much fun. Also it is easy mob mowing.
Of course if you are used to spamming cnd mug bs it may prove to be something total different.
Good luck and happy dodging.
Well just for the record, I’m leveling with only-sword too. I’m not using a second weapon set either, though I might eventually just make it another sword light. But yes, I am being pleasantly surprised by the sword in PvE. It hits fast, and it hits hard, even with just the autoattack.
So I did a quick look-around, and it seems like no one has the guts and/or patience to get a no-offhand thief past like
level 6
Which means its obviously time for that to happen.
Gonna be starting one later tonight, I’ll post on here periodically in case anyone is interested.
A few points of note:
- Yeah I know I’m going to lose roughly 40% of my weapon skills and like 15% of my stats. It’ll be GW2 hard mode, no biggie.
- I’ve got a main as a thief (completely different build – dual daggers, conditions, and acrobatics), but hey at least I’m familiar with the class.
- I’m pretty sure this is going to be a stealth-heavy build. I’ll need some way to survive for longer periods of time. Plus, some of the stealth traits improve mobility.
- Speaking of mobility, it’s likely that every single initiative cost will be shadowstep(or return) and only shadowstep(or return). So that’ll be… interesting.
- I’m vaguely certain I can make this character hard to kill. Extremely so, even. Plenty of dodging, stealthing, and distance management.
- I’m much less certain if I’ll be able to balance that with actually doing appreciable damage.
- sPvP is probably out for me, unless I just use superb mobility to contribute.
- WvW could get really interesting. I kinda forsee myself being able to solo-roam and take out individuals. The trick will be intelligent fighting – quickly identifying what class and what build of that class I’m fighting, as well as how to think 10 steps ahead in terms of distance.
Yeah that’s all I’ve got for now, I’ll post more later.
EDIT
Right so since i didn’t plan ahead and reserve myself some space in this thread, here’s the permalink to the current build post
(edited by Lemmming.1749)
I’m running into this constantly – it makes parts of Ascalonian Catacombs unplayable (protecting the Priory researcher from the Gravelings is REALLY hard when the gravelings only attack him and are invincible to all your attacks), as well as a ton of underwater play (I’m pretty sure every single underwater skill challenge I’ve tried in the past couple days has gone invulnerable on me).
Note, this is all at melee range with a thief. I thought it might be some of my dodge skills, but invulnerability seems to happen regardless, albeit slightly less frequently if I avoid dodging. Which kinda negates the point of playing a thief in the first place…