Guild Wars 2

I thinks it’s nice for reapers to give you an option for range pressure. If you run something like d/wh staff you’re never gonna hit anything against competent players.

Which weapons are you using? I find axe/wh and staff pretty good as soldier reaper vs them. You can apply good range pressure and deal with their condis nicely.

Which weapons are you using? I find axe/wh and staff pretty good as soldier reaper vs them. You can apply good range pressure and deal with their condis nicely.

The worst thing about the action cam is that you can’t do a short distance heartseeker. It’s nice for staff and everything else though.

I love fighting condi d/d thieves on my necro, I let them use all their venoms on me and then I give it right back to them.

Thanks for the write up Caed, I’ve been running mostly your build and it’s alot of fun and I feel thieves are in a pretty solid place. We don’t need any buffs and will be very good whenever anet decides to nerf some of the outliers in other classes. Just a few questions.

How do you like to open? I usually do something like Precast weakening charge>steal>debilitating arc>dust strike>into a bunch of vaults. That’s usually my ideal opener, not sure if it’s the best.

Speaking of weakening charge, when do you use this skill? I really only use this skill for my opener and I’m not really sure when else I need it. It feels kinda strange to use since it locks you into the animation.

Not a question but I’ve noticed that healing seed you get from rangers is REALLY good with this build. Not only is the condi cleanse invaluable but with bound and vault you can do a ton of burst healing giving you a nice edge against rangers in a 1v1.

I’m really happy with how my ele’s new look turned out! It’s mysterious yet sexy. Like some kind of blue-skinned deity.

Being invulnerable while overloading would be pretty broken.

This is why anet doesn’t take forum suggestions seriously.

I love cele staff but haven’t tried it out much in hots. Anyone have any good experience with it? Metabattle says its still pretty good but I don’t know how up to date that is. Also, is there any good way to incorporate tempest into a cele staff build?

I’m wondering about this too for just general HoT content. I’m having fun with my full zerker DD but alot of the big mobs can one shot me and I have to be really careful. Meanwhile my reaper with full zerker can solo champ mobs lol.

I’m loving the new action camera but I’ve noticed I can’t do the trick with heartseeker where you look down and shorten the distance. Does anyone know if it’s possible with action camera?

I use to not have too many problems with steal but lately iv’e noticed that it bugs out alot. I’m in range of a target and he doesn’t evade but steal just acts like I missed it. Any else getting this or just me.

That would be awesome! I’ll add you when I get on.

Thanks for the help! Yeah so far the only thing I know to get out of is the sword 2. I’ll try to use my dodges better next time I fight them. Whats the cd on distortion? I feel like its up at least twice a fight.

Most of the builds I fight against seem alot tankier than the gs shatter one. Honestly the main problem is that I can’t seem to land any hits. I’m just cced to hell once my stability is down.

Hey guys, I’ve been getting wrecked over and over against chrono as reaper. I can’t seem to land any hits at all. It just seems like its invulnerability after invulnerability and just getting dazed over and over again. How do I beat you guys in a 1v1? Thanks for any help!

I was really excited to play some spvp on my reaper since I acquired the batwing sword but I felt like the standard power necro is a lot better. RS runs out so fast and i get kited for days it feels like. Anyone come up with any good reaper builds that use the GS?

Please, for the love of god don’t click your moves.

FlawlezZ.3178:

acrobatic specialization is crap now
choking gas is very bad
less armor/health (?)
surprise shot less immob (?)
practiced tolerance “nerf”
withdrawn
shadows embrace is kinda bad now, resulting in weakness to anything with immob and condi
engi can run lock on and ruin stealth now
dagger training is crap no

anything i forgot?

They removed ricochet off high screws over p/p (it wasn’t that good to begin with but now it just sucks).

babazhook.6805:

I actually threw togther a different type of build on two of my thieves. One using d/d and P/p in a trappers Condi set , just to stay away from PD. The PP takes a little more skill to time those interrupts but is deadly. Swicthing to D/D can load on bleeds quickly.

Trappers respite is an absolute blast, while on a 18 second cooldown using witdraw as a heal that dropping into stealth really takes the pressure off and when you sneak attack and reappear they tend to run at you through that trap.

Improv works great here because with withdraw/traps/and basi venom chances are real good one gets recharged and that makes a huge difference. Double steal on a mesmer works great albeit you do not get that resistance boon.

I also went PP power set just because unload was so fun. I acturally hit harder WAY harder in my unload. I switched back and forth between practiced tolerance and the 10 percent trait for PP and the PP hit harder with the latter. That said I played s/d with the alternate set and PT worked way better there.

PP will NOT die . Yeah the bounce missed as is the range but 1v1 it better.

I did try the acro line with a few variants of weapons and justy could not find anything that worked all that well. Vigor really got nerfed so overall dodges went down> I am not discoutning it just yet, just need to tinker.

That all said I am much more fragile then I was as the peopel I fight got their own tweaks. I have only tangled with a few other professions in WvW. I am going to spend some time owrking on all my other professions as well so I can better determine what I will come up against.

Overall I am liking the changes. I am staying away from the meta builds for now as I never was much one for playing those.

Big fan of P/P, can you share your build?

I’m playing d/p with marauder and it seems pretty strong. The damage is just unreal for every class though. It’s just one shot heaven right now. 5k clusterbombs is just lol.

Wow thanks for the detailed post! Definitely helps a lot. Its annoying that against most classes as a thief you have to play it perfectly or you’re kittened. I can’t count how many times I’ve been ahead in a fight and then one slip up and they take me from 100 to 0 in an instant. I suppose it makes the class very exciting to play though.

I know most people think that thieves will lose to a lot of classes 1v1 but i thought I would ask for advice anyways. I just want general advice on how to improve matchups in case I run into any class 1v1.

Mesmer – I know that we are the traditional counter to them but I find that they can kill you just as fast as you kill them if you’re not careful.
Warriors – What’s the best way to fight them? They seem to have huge amounts of hp that negates a lot of my burst and one swing of their sword takes almost all my hp.
Engi – Similar story to warriors. Huge damage against me and I can’t burst him enough.
Guardian – I’ll be honest, Guardians are the only class I’ve never played at all so it’s probably just not knowing their moves but I lose vs dps guardian more than any other class.
Thief – This one may seem strange but let’s say the thief gets the jump on you with basilisk venom and everything. What’s my best course of action? Should I shadowstep away or should I try to blind him and fight him? Should I infiltrators signet?

So how do I survive if I don’t rely on stealth? I can’t exactly tank like a warrior and I cant sustain like a cele. If someone so much as looks at me I’m going to die.

Hmm condition thief does sound interesting. Would some kind of d/d death blossom build be viable?

It was a while since I leveled up but I used a d/d condition build with the talent that healed on imitative used and just rounded up mobs and spammed death blossom. It was pretty effective.

Thanks for all the tips guys! I’m already doing a lot better in unranked. Ranked is still pretty rough. Now I iust gotta find a guild to play with.

Sadrien.3470:

If it was dagger dagger you can just stand in blinking fields abuse blinding field!… and then abuse your Sb to kite people unreasonably well.

Heh, my strategy against most melee at this point is to just sit in blinding field.

Hmm gotcha. The first ranked I played had another thief on the opposing team who basically carried his team (he was D/D I want to say?) and he would destroy me every time I tried to fight him. I’m just getting the impression that I’m doing something wrong.

Yup I’ve been reading the thread.

Hey guys, I’m returning after a long time away from the game. I played when the game came out and leveled my thief to 80 but then quit for a while. I started again yesterday and just jumped into the mists to try out some unranked and ranked and well it went pretty terribly. I understand that ranked can be frustrating and that thieves are better off in a party but it feels pretty bad that I get demolished by every class. I feel like paper and I don’t feel like I even hit that hard. I even lose to other thieves =/ I’m playing D/P

d/d deathblossom spam made leveling really easy, you can aoe farm and sustain like crazy

Alright I already blew my badges of honor on pvt shoulders and gloves >.< but going a mix of zerker and pvt makes sense

Thanks for the suggestions! I do run basilisk (for the lyssa runes) and sb but so far zerker hasn’t been working out for me too well. Maybe I need more practice or its just not for me

Would it be advisable to switch to all pvt gear instead if i’m looking to just solo roam?

Hey guys i’ve been playing a bit of wvw on my thief. I keep getting owned by every other thief I fight, the problem seems to be I backstab them and they survive and stealth and then instanty kill me. I’m wearing full exotic zerkers with lyssa runes and zerker trinkets so I’m wondering whats going on here

bump bumpity bump

Heys guys I just started doing WvW on my thief since I heard they are good roamers but I’ve been getting owned by everything I fight. I’m playing s/d with lyssa runes and I’m just getting dominated by engineers and necros. Even if i cleanse the condi’s once they just spam them again. It’s unbelievable how fast they can kill me. Any tips on dealing with them and also any overrall tips for a new thief in wvw?

Ah right, server doesn’t matter since I can transfer and I’m central time

Bumpity bump bump!

Hey thanks for the response! Do you guys do a lot of one thing or is it just anything?

Whats up guys! I played this game alot when it came out and got a thief to 80, after that I didn’t play much more since my friends weren’t really enjoying it so I moved on to other stuff. Now I’m back and friendless :C. So I’m looking for a guild that is social/active that does WvW roaming (I’ve actually never done this before and the only experience I’ve had with WvW was zergs but I heard small roaming groups were fun) and spvp (I did this mostly before I quit) groups too. I’m an above average player and am willing to learn any class my guild needs me to. Looking forward to responses!

Thanks for the suggestions, I mainly played thief and mesmer before ele. I guess it’s just disheartening to lose to a ranger just pressing one button the whole time =/

Hey guys I’ve been trying to learn how to play ele recently after watching some pretty good eles do work. I’ve having alot of trouble vs multiple classes in pvp atm though. I fought a ranger today and he pretty much just auto attacked me to death while I tried to use all my spells but it didn’t seem to do anything. Any tips on how to improve (or links, I’ve already read daphoenix’s guide)