Guild Wars 2

So as a mesmer main being hardcountered by thief I’d like to know what is the class that hardcounter thief the same way that thief hardcounter mesmer ?

Thanks

Only mesmers should be allowed to complain about thieves, being hardcountered that way shouldn’t be allowed in any game.

Illusion generation and new patch = Illusionary Reversion: Increased required illusions shattered to 3.

Thank you for answer, that makes it a bit clearer now.

Hey all I’m a returning player trying to update my thief for end game fractals and other pve contents and while I found many up to date builds about current pve meta thief ,I’m unsure about infusions, I’ve read many different things so here I am , asking advices from active end game thief players.

I saw that I should get a mix of precision and power infusions but some guide says to get 2 precision infusions to reach cap then all power, some other guide says to get 6 precison infusions then all power so I’m confused.

Could anyone confirm what the right mix of precision/power infusions is for an optimised thief gear ?

Thanks all

So, that’s from a shatter mesmer point of view , in pvp , and with no team, only solo queue, and I’m not talking about bad thieves, I’m talking about the ones that actually knows what they’re doing.

So what to do when a thief is on you and none of your teammates actually help you get rid of the thief ?

Are we cursed to run/survive and blow all our cooldown until the thief finally kill us when we’re out of cooldown ?

Are we supposed to fight back and hope for the thief to be a bad one ?

Are we supposed to hope our team will wake up and babysitt us each time a thief start chasing us ?

Are we supposed to change our build and run a lame pu/condition build to manage the thieves by ourself ?

The reason I come back on the forum to ask other mesmer the way they manage it , is that I’m a bit tired to get owned by thieves, as good as I think I am there’s nothing I can do vs a good thief if not expect him to do a mistake , and hope that I have some cooldown up to take that opportunity and kill him.

While I know how easy it is for them to kill a shatter mesmer, it’s like a 1 sided fight ,
(a bit offtopic but, in the current meta, is there any other build vs build that is that hard countered in the game ?) which I end up losing because I’m out of cooldown and thieves keeps on evading/stealthing, and pressuring me.

When playing with a premade team aren’t thieves supposed to be killed time for us to kite them while blowing our CDs ?

So are we really only food for thieves , or does that turn into another scenario with a premade team ?

And in solo queue what do you shatter mesmers do when good thieves chase you and no one helps you ?

Thanks

Thank you very much for answers, I’ll try to get it from EOTM then as other wvw maps are more about defending than killing mobs everytime I try to farm the spoon there.

Hi all, I’m farming it for some time now and I’m not getting it, so I’m wondering

Is it possible to farm it in the edge of the mists ?
And if that’s the case, does it drops from every mobs in the zone, or only specific ones ?

Thanks

Tyvm for both answers, after reading what you wrote it seems like my main issue is that I fail to adapt to the rythm of that fight.

I’m so used to fight squishy targets that I’m a bit lost when fighting an elem on a sustained fight , main reason is that I don’t know much about that class and that I have hard time finding the perfect timing to burst them without having them negating my bursts by that perma regen & mobilty.

Now I’ll try to apply your explanations in game and see how it works when the burst is set at the right time

Btw those elem that gives me trouble are the x/x/x/6/6 ones

Thanks again for tips.

PS : Isn’t sigil of doom easy to cleanse for those type of elem ?

I’m talking about celestial D/D elem.

So how to deal with their OP regen ?

Everything I try seems to fail,

- If I succefully land my all my shatter combo and they’re low hp, their mobility allow them to run away from me and regen, while mesmer mobility leave me running slowly behind them not even reaching GS1 range.

- If my F1 shatter fail to a random dodge then I have to wait 12 seconds to see any real damage to their hp, during those 12seconds I feel useless, more focusing on dodging their damage because I have nothing left that can really scratch them.

- Sometimes they eat my F1 F2 shatter combo and just regen during those 12seconds while I cant put enough pressure to finish the kill, and when cooldown is back they’re close to full hp again, and it’s like a never ending cycle, but during that time I’m slowly dying to their damage as I don’t have that much sustain to handle the rythm of such fight.

Even fighting our hardcounter thieves seems easier to handle than those d/d elem to me.

So while I don’t feel like a noob mesmer I must say that I can’t think of any possible way to beat them atm, so any tips would be welcome.

Thanks

Sometimes they change the description of a skill saying “the skill was not bugged, the description was just wrong”, and now they change the skill saying “the description was good but the skill was bugged”, truth is anet can do whatever they want and we are forced to deal with it.

To me the skill was working as intended, nothing ever stated that the clone had to be alive for it to works, switching position with the clone or what was left of the clone always felt normal and I never felt like abusing a bug.

Nothing buggy in switching place with a dead clone (as long as said clone and switch are linked to the same skill), its like switching place with a cadaver, it has no use and can’t attack once dead, but nothing stop us from switching place with it ,I don’t see what’s buggy with that.

What is buggy is clicking a skill and seeing it fail for no reason.

Lishtenbird.2814:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhTN9RscAuY

Now that’s buggy

So count me in the disappointed ones too.

Hey thank you very much for answer, yes its a wvw build.

I’ll drop the assassin signet for infiltrator signet then , about mobility I already have traveler rune and I’d like to boost my damage with runes of strength so I guess I have no choice but to use the movespeed signet

D/D sounds easyer to manage when it comes to signet/runes so there’s something I’d like to know , isn’t D/D survivability a bit of a problem in wvw ?

While most of the time we fight vs outnumbered , D/P gives a good way to use stealth whenever it’s needed but with D/D once you used steal how do you manage to always land a CnD when people are outnumbering you and all rdy to dodge as soon as you appear ?

Hey everyone , so thief is not my main but I’m about to craft my ascended gear, I’m only familiar with the D/P playstyle atm, so here’s what I’m aiming for :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp0pNOxzJ8PNhPBtdAedD4OER4DdNDA-TVSBABWq+DN7P8wpAwMlgRcEAuS5He6bW4ABAwDAIAACwNbz28mBO6RP6RP6Rbn78o78o7sUARMMC-w

I got a few questions to really tweak it before crafting all the gears :

1) Are D/P damage close to what D/D can do ? or is there really a big gap in term of damage when we compare both builds ?
2) Do I lose a lot of pressure damage using valk armor instead of zerk armor ?
3) As D/P consume a lot of initiative and I’m not using infiltrator signet , is initiative managing going to be a problem with that build ?
4) Any tips about food/signet to optimize my damage are welcome as I’m not really sure about what to use here.

Thanks

Thanks for answers, I’ll save my gold and go for ascended then

Hi all , It has probably been asked already but I can’t find it so ,
I plan to craft a legendary weapon but I don’t mind the skin and I don’t plan to change stats on that weapon.

So my question is , does legendary have higher stats than an ascended weapon ? I saw on tp that base attack is the same but I have no way to check the stats, lets say both weapon are zerker weapon, does the legendary will have higher stat than ascended ?

Thanks and sorry for bad english.

Oh ok thanks , another question about mind wrack, do anyone know if superior sigil of force affect mind wrack ?

Those damage modifier mechanic are a bit confusing.

So I’m wondering if that trait only affect my direct damage , like GS #1 #2…etc , or if it also works effect mind wrack and phantasms damage ?

Thanks

Trait link : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Compounding_Power

Nice video joe though I have a question, how come your build show 15k HP and you have around 19-20k hp in game ?

Where does the extra 5k hp comes from ?

Thanks

Hey osicat, out of curiosity, the on demand burst from that build is based on fire from heal + poison ?

thanks for the link , it seems like what I’m looking for, as the video is from february , are the damage still the same post patch ?

Hey , so I’m a full zerk/valk shatter mesmer and I’m decided to try a PU build, from what I read it’s like blackwater is the condition PU build reference, but I don’t really like condition gameplay on mesmer, so I’ll probably go for a power/crit PU if it ever exist ?

So anyone could redirect me or tell me what a power PU build is like ? I’m so used to my zerk/valk that I’m not sure about what gear should be used on a PU power , should I use knight/cavalier or something like that ? Or should I keep my glass canon gear and only use PU traits ?

I also have a few questions about power PU :

- Are PU power damage good enough compare to shatter spec or condi PU spec ?
- Do PU power builds only do damage with phantasm or are we still using shatter as burst tool ?

Thanks

Hey thanks for all answers, sounds like changing my weapon set from D/P to D/D would be a good first step to benefit the 10% from first strikes.

The runes and mightstacking sounds like a good step too to raise my BS dmg too , I’ll farm some gold to try that setup.

@Maugetarr, thanks that build seems to reach some high number but is it really possible to roam without shadow arts ? Asking that because I’m still unfamiliar with the class but I feel like those traits saved my life more than once and dropping those traits is like being a free kill for most of the tanky/semi-tanky people I’ll face

Hey everyone I’m actually learning the thief class and I’m playing this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp0pVOx7J8PNxOBtdtDwE4+EXoEdtDA-TVCBABCu/wKaBg4RAcmSQsU+BwJAIFdNMckA0R9HSBExYA-w

So my problem is that in WvW I never hit for more than 4k with my backstab, I wouldn’t mind if that was the average backstab dmg but I keep seeing 6k to 9k backstab from other thief.

I’m talking about post patch, on videos I often see 6k+ and when I play my mesmer I also often get hit for 6K+

So is there something I’m missing on the build/gear ? or maybe something I do wrong that could improve my backstab damage ?

Thanks

Thanks and does full zerk also work in lvl 40+ fractals ?

Hey so I’m wondering, is it possible to run full zerker warrior with the 30/25/0/0/15 in PUG and unoptimized group ? or will I have survivavility issue ?

I’m asking that because I’m about to craft my ascended armor and I’m not sure if full zerker is a viable choice for someone who doesn’t play in optimized group.

Here’s the build I was actually aiming for , I balanced some offense for a bit of survivability

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAR3ZjMdU7ZlH+dQHaAw8YIgK6yAKm0HmD-zkCBYfCyEBBmKAK7kIjNHFqqpIasabYKTAqYLq2dAgUARsMC-w

TLDR : should I stick to my build for pug/unoptimized group or should I switch to full zerker anyway ?

thanks

I play a full zerk shatter mesmer and I was expecting the crit dmg nerf to really hit that build, but I have to gladly admit that full zerk shatter is still viable, while we can feel that our damage has been reduced , I can also feel that other people damage went down.

This lead to a slow paced fight feeling but well gotta adapt to what the game has become.

I dueled many people in wvw since patch and it’s still a good build, damage are still good and the build mechanic didn’t changed so it’s ok for me.

What worry me the most is the fact that with the dps loss we’re no more able to kill people before they flee or to kill slow ones at the bus tail fast enough before being spotted.
Due to our low chasing mobility we NEED to kill them before they flee ,but now that part is kinda gone, and we have to rely on other people wanting to fight till the end even more than before, or else we’re juste some guys running after people that get out of range in no time.

I won my duels because everyone is willing to fight to try their class after patch but I wasn’t able to kill fast enough the ones that wanted to flee , they were able to disengage before reaching the critical 10%-15%hp (glassy ones included).

ps : all that is from solo roaming perspective.

Hey, so I play a shatter mesmer with traveler runes and I’m a bit frustrated by my mobility in WvW , almost every class I fight are able to escape/run away from me when things goes wrong for them.

So I have no way to catch a running warrior , thief , elementalist, ranger
Some guardians are also almost impossible to catch
Necro and engineer seems to be the ones that share the same lack of mobility than me.

So I end up being the guy that need other people to “want to fight” for the fight to happens, I feel I’m not able to chase people that wants to flee.

So my question is simple, is there somethings I missed ? What could I do to improve my mobility ? are travelers runes the limit for mesmer when it comes to mobility ?

Thanks

So what trick should be used to always be sure to win vs a PU mesmer as a shatter mesmer ?

They are more tanky, they spend more time in stealth, they deal decent dmg and in such a fight their mistakes are more forgiving, so any idea would be welcome, thanks.

On the same topic, while I’m not familiar with PVE I understood that full zerk is a viable choice for dungeons though I’m wondering, is full berserker enough to survive in fractals ? or does it decrease survivability to the point you just chain death and have hard time surviving in pug ?

If that’s the case what are the minimum defensive stats require to do well in fractals ?

Thanks

Perma 1-2sec delay in Spvp and WvW , this need a fix asap it’s killing all the fun.

Not even talking about the 1min+ delay in big WvW fight where skills doesn’t even launch.

Hey so here’s my problem , I’m lvl 80 and I want to delete that my character to create a new one (same class/different race) but I want to use my current gear on the new one.

Is there any way I could do that ?

Thanks

Thanks for all the answers,

Tbh I don’t really like the idea of being tanky and do medium damage , I’m really having fun when killing people fast , even if that mean being extremely squishy so I switched to full zerk and I’m now focusing on isolated target and people stepping out of the zerg and when I get the opportunity backlines, the squishiest ennemies dies most of the time from GS 1243 F1.

After reading all the answers I understood that , damage wise, we’re not at a good spot in zerg fights, so I decided to act as a roamer in zerg fights finishing wounded ones and quickly killing squishies while using some utilities mentioned in the replys to help my team, while I still feel limited in those fight I must say that I don’t feel useless anymore

thanks again

Hey thanks for all the answers, I created an elem and a necro and will try them for like a week in spvp to see how I like the gameplay of each class before leveling one.

Atm I must say that I prefer necro gameplay but elem meteor are pretty impressive when people are fighting to cap points, it’s like you can down the whole team with that single skill damage if damages remain that high in wvw I guess it could really hurt a zerg if aimed properly.

Thanks and is there a noticeable difference between necro and elem damage ? or are they both doing equivalent aoe damage ?

So here’s my problem, while I do fine at roaming and killing isolated target I’m doing close to no damage in zerg vs zerg (20+ people on each side).

I’m playing a shatter build but clones dies too fast to be effective, tried phantasm build and same problem, so in the end I can’t really see how a mesmer is supposed to do decent/noticeable damage in such fights.

So how do you other mesmers manage to do decent damage in zerg vs zerg ? and which build would be the best to fit that role ?

Thanks

Hey everyone , I’m actually playing a mesmer and while roaming, killing isolated target is ok I do close to no damage in zerg vs zerg (my clones dies before shatter) , and I feel a bit useless , I know I could run a support build but I really want to play a class with “kill enemies” as main objective.

So I’d like to play a class that can deal a lot of damage in zerg vs zerg but I’m not familiar with anything else but mesmer atm, so what class would you advice to fit that role ?

Thanks

I know there’s already many topic about it but is there any arenanet answer that confirm that they are aware of those recent lags ?

Spvp and WvW is actually unplayabled with 1 to 3sec delay on skills, while PVE is not lagging at all.
This only started some days ago and since then it’s getting worse.

Same here, perma lag issue , having like 1sec delay on spvp and mcm it’s kinda killing the fun atm.

I can confirm there’s a lot of lag in Spvp these last 3 days, while it was perfect before.

Hey thank you for answer , also about crit , is 40-45% enough ? or should I aim for 50-55% ?

Hey , still new to the thief but I’m loving the class so I’m going to lvl it for WvW but as I’m not familiar with wvw gearing I’m here to ask to the experienced thiefs

So I plan to use d/p , and I want to roam (I don’t enjoy zerg)

First of all here are 2 builds I found on the forums/internet that seems to fit what I’m looking for, which one would be more viable for roaming ?

1st :
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAoaVlsMpypdOx7J0PNRspon7k7hTNaT7UEVrC-zkyAYLBRKCERBgIAm+IyYTgQVtioxqrxUuDpW7CFA4AgnHe4hHe4CBobLA-w

2nd :
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAoaVlsMp0plPx7J0PNhs9YnqQii7hTlUNVXhoC-z0CBYLREfBgsAiwAgKAM5BK9hIjtMsIas6aYKXDRV7COAwBAPP8wDP8wFCQwYA-w

And when it comes to gear should I go full berserk ? a mix of zerk and something else ?
Is there a popular gear mix/set that everyone use ?
Or should I simply use same gears as one of those builds I linked ?

Thanks

thank you very much for all answers, after reading everything I found some very useful infos in linked topics , like the “Blackpowder => heartseeker + Steal => backstab” made it easier to engage fights on unaware targets , I was initialy thinking that steal would destealth me but with the right timing it’s an awesome engage

Watched some d/p thief gameplay and also understood that playing too offensively could lead to death even when target seems low hp.
Also asked some tips in game to some thiefs that beated me hard

after 10+ hours of playing thief I now start to understand the mechanic and I must say that I’m loving the class, I’m still bad but it’s fun to feel like every target can kill you if you make a mistake while on the other side you can feel so OP when you can keep pressure on a target and interupt all the important skills

Hey everyone, I just rolled a thief and I’m actually using this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAoaVlsMp0pdOx7J8PNhs9onqQey7BZNWmlWBaC-TsAg0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1MKYZx0CA

Is that build still viable ? or is it lacking something to be better ?

I went D/P because I keep reading that it’s the best all around kit and it sounds better to get used to these weapons in case I lvl the class for WvW , tried S/P but I didn’t liked it much , and D/D is probably a build I’ll try when I’ll be more familiar with the class because it seems a bit harder to manage atm.

Now my question is, do you always go for a backstab when you use blackpowder + heartseeker ? because the stealth doesnt last that long and I find it pretty hard to always land a backstab during those 2 seconds, and if I heartseeker more than 1 time to stack stealth to 6sec+ I end up with low initiative which make the fight worst once I’m out of stealth.

So atm I find myself auto attacking and using 3 to blind/charge people more than I use my stealth abilities (which sounds bad for a build that is supposed to abuse stealth ), it’s like I never find the right time to land a backstab after my stealth combo (I always end up not being on the back of my target) , so any tip about that is welcome.

Also does anyone know good videos of spvp D/P thieves ? so I can watch and learn from people who master the class.

Thanks

Hey thanks for answers, I will then keep on farming in frostgorge and invest in higher tier salvage kit

Hey everyone, just leveled my first character to 80 and started to buy my gear but I didn’t had enough gold to finish my shopping

So I tried to look on the internet what were the best ways to farm gold and everything seems outdated, so could anyone tell me what are the most popular methods people are using to farm gold ? (solo methods if possible as I have no guild/contact to farm group content with)

The most up to date way to farm gold I found seems to be boss farm in frostgorge sound , but after an hour there I wasn’t close to the 6gold/hour I was supposed to get, everything I dropped was selling for like 1 to 2 silver and I dropped an exotic that sold for like 30s , am I missing something with that method ?

So any advice to solo farm gold is welcome

Thanks

Hey thanks for answers, as adviced I’ll stick to a roaming build, after watching some zerg videos it seems a bit boring , roaming seems to be more fun/playable.

+ if confusion and conditions doesn’t crit it kinda lose it’s interest compare to what I was expecting.

Hey I’m going to hit 80 soon and will buy my gear for WvW , thought I’m not sure about which build I’ll use , from what I understood the only build able to adapt in “every” situations is a condition/confusion on clones death.

By every situation I mean roaming and zerg, because any other spec that require clones/phantasm to stay alive seems to be countered by zerg aoes, while on clone death is still working as intended in those situations.

So I have 2 questions about that :

- Do conditions/confusion can crit ?
- And do power also affect confusion ? or is it stricly boosted by +conditions gear ?

Thanks

Hey thanks for the answers, sounds like celestial is not something to aim for on a first character

That leads me to a last question , if getting the bazaar ambassador reward is not actually possible and labyrinthine cliffs are not accessible then where are we supposed to find quartz crystals ?

Everything I find on internet seems to say that quartz crystals are only obtainable by those 2 methods.

Thanks

Hey , I’m not familiar with PVE but I recently heard that completing bazaar ambassador achievement was giving a daily quartz crystal, but I have 2 questions :

- Is it still possible to do that achievement or is it an event ?
- If it’s still possible , how to do it since it seems to be in lion arch ? and actually we can’t access this zone.

Thanks

Thanks foofad , like Indigo said , its very well written and even a non english speaker like me understood it all

I must say I’m more interested in guardian, tried a meditation build too in spvp and I love the skillset (finally feels like playing a class where every skills need to be used), but it’s true that mobility is so bad that it often becomes a problem (some people simply escape you and you have no option but to watch them run) , not even talking about when I needed to escape myself , all the people running after me catched me in no time.

After all you described it’s like warrior is more viable in many situations , more cc, more mobility and no tradeoff because dmg and survivability are the same while it’s tempting I think I’ll stick to guard , as people keep talking about an incoming warrior nerf I guess it’s a safer bet atm, I’ll probably try one in Spvp to understand their mechanic thought

Thanks again for all the replys