Guild Wars 2

taunt is a condition and not a stun. to get rid of it use something like signet of agility to cleanse the condition.

Just wanted to thank Vavume for sharing his build.
It is a very balanced out, creative and effective build and i dont get why many here argue with its effectiveness.
I probably will never play it myself as im happy with my meta power d/p thief but there is simply nothing to say against this build.
Also it shows that a thief condi build doesnt have to be gimmicky (BP + bound is a bit gimmicky but not as bad as trapper).
My biggest complain would be the missing movement speed and the vulnerabilty to immobs and cripple but as ur build is tanky enough and has sufficient stealth access as well as shadowstep it is fine.
Just like for others it is too slow of a gameplay for me as well as too little of i-slice-ur-neck-open and rip u apart – the gameplay most players try to find when playing a thief.
Keep it up

I play d/p – p/p on a high enough level in WvW to say that p/p is powerful enough like it is. Ofc i’d like to see Riccochet back because it’s a big dmg boost but either the price for that will be that everyone is complaining about how super op thief is and everyone will play braindead p/p OR the price is that somewhere else we get a nerf to compensate.
Lemme tell you, i don’t want either of the consequences.

Edit: I love the idea from ardhikaizecson to have a cone shaped area in front of you to hit with Unload.

overall i didn’t like it a lot. You are relying a lot on impacting disruption and there weren’t exceptional plays imo.
your build link is wrong and incomplete. it’s definately different from what you use in the video.
i guess you are not playing with marauder gear but with a berserker/valkyrie mix because you seem to lack in critical hit chance.

also “2-0… kitten” after you run back to base and win with a pretty much faceroll tactic against an inferior s/d build is pretty disgraceful and inappropriate.

in terms of improvment:
you can definately improve attitude wise and don’t show footage against obvious wvw-1st timers or other obviously bad players.
you could play more tactical and less faceroll. e.g. there is no need to push dmg on a necro in shroud and those random headshots could kill you against skilled enemies.
i assume your gear isnt optimal but i can’t check since your link is faulty.

other than that, you seem to enjoy playing thief which is always good!

cheers.

From a WvW perspective. I run around with d/p, shortbow, obviously. But in some duel-situations p/p can really shine (btw I don’t change my build in any way for p/p, simply switch out shortbow).

Against Dragonhunters, espacially if they rely heavily on traps, it’s super strong.
Against some kinds of Druids, normally d/p is enough, but sometimes they play with a lot of sustain and you simply need something to keep the pressure up, then p/p can be very useful.

Other than that, you can still use p/p for other classes as well, but you have to figure out yourself if it’s what you want. I recommend playing with dash rather than with bound. Use channeled vigor and SoA to pace around.

At the beginning of HoT i played a Staff, p/p build. It has really good synergy if you want to give it a try.

against condi mesmers i run around in stealth and wait for a good ambush and disengage again, also using the stolen item for condi resistance which is really strong.
they normally burn trough a lot of defensive utilities after one bigger burst attack so patience and good use of stolen item is gold.

against warriors i also kite when they have berserker resistance up. i engage with shadowshots and make just a few hits before disengaging again (depending on warriors playstyle) also black powder + warriors stolen item is really strong.

I main standard d/p thief (DA, Tr, Drd) with dash and would consider me as a main wvw roamer where i look for 1v1s.

What I win against consistently due to them being too slow or too predictable to controle the fight:
Warriors
Nekros
*Eles
Revs

Classes that highly depend on player skill:
Mesmers (mostly I win against mesmer but I know that a skilled and tanky enough Mesmer power or condi shouldn’t have problems with thieves)
ranger (good staff/LB ranger is unkillable, still many rangers run squishy builds which are easy to handle)
engineer (a good build makes them unkillable ending in a draw, squishier builds are good to kill)

counter:
Trapper LB DH (only cheesy bound p/p build can kill them reliably)

All in all i feel like i can kill anything, if they are too tanky i am always fast enough to disengage and move on.

Youtubers that come to my mind:
Terissimo – Velvet Miho – Kuroi.

It probably came together with the patch and I didn’t see anyone mentioning it but finally Impact Strike will show the selected Finisher and I think it’s awesome!

Yeah I think Shiyo points out my problem in a better way. There is not much room for skillful plays left because of so many jail free cards and imo too big heals which reset the fight.
It all has to do with the HoT powercreep so maybe those reset mechanics of elite specs should be tuned down.

I am mainly a WvW thief player and I’m doing perfectly fine. this is not a rant or anything.

I have to say that at the moment almost every class heals too much imo. Lifebars don’t really matter that much anymore and are no clear reference to if the person is close to death or not. In combination with the amount of invulns most classes have access to, most fights are either very long or ended in a few seconds.

I would much prefer it being more like that every class has generally more toughness and isn’t as squishy instead of players going to 10% life, then healing back up to 100%.

Imo lifebars shouldn’t ping pong that much, instead invulns and healing should be tuned down so lifebars give a more reasonable impression of how alive the character is.

this is only my impression so feel free to disagree.

Generally the builds look ok but tbh I’d scrap the idea of getting your defense via the rune set. The difference is too marginal imo. I’d recommend going for the wurm runes or better go all out with scholar and take executioner on top of that.

Hey OP, yes D/P DA/TR/DrD is the best imo. I used to play with shadowarts instead of DA because of more stealth, better recovery and condi cleanse but I have to say DA with Improv is more powerful. As rennlc said, if u can you should definately go for marauder stats and reduce valk.
I recommend using Channeled Vigor, Blinding Powder, Shadowstep and signet of Agility and of course Basi Venom because it goes through blocks.
It’s recommended to use shortbow in addition but I prefer p/p secondary even though it requires skill to use it. (not pressing Unload is skillfull, but to know when it’s safe to use it and when not)

Even though the question doesn’t really makes sense, I’ll answer. All thieves would play perma stealth Trapper builds. Probably condi based and annoy everyone in pvp to a massive degree. It would be broken af and probably only fun for a day because of immidiate nerf.

@Rocknull staff p/p works really well. dont wanna explain why in detail here but it definately works. only problem being condi clear some times. Bersi/Marauder armor- DA/TR/DrD + channeled vigor, bandits defense, shadow step, SoA. Elite being BV or IS.

I have to agree with Asrat.
I would love a thief sniper class but the balance issues are way too huge.
When a double dagger thief one-shots you it’s okay because he is close range and easily punishable.
But a long range burst sniper… (and let’s be real, everyone would try to go for full dmg!) thats OP.
and if the auto attack and damage skills are too weak, then the whole kit is bad.
The main problem I think is that it’s all about damage. If they are able to create the class around special and interesting mechanics rather than raw damage as well as they find a nice tradeoff to the high damage possibilities then I think it’s possible and playable.

To summarize the Spinal Blade backpack thread:

The ascended Spinal Blade Wings are perfect for flying/gliding in the way they are designed

They have different color versions already or they could be dyeable

They have joints and they could unfold in a similar way to the legendary PVP ones.

Also they seem to have some kind of booster underneath which could fire up while gliding.

I would leave it up to Anet if it’s dyeable or if the different versions are enough color variations.
In terms of gliding animations they already have joints that could unfold in a similar way the legendary pvp one does.
It would be amazing

@Yalora I would handle it like the pvp wings. Only the final version is for gliding. All the versions before are too small. So i’d say only the ascended version is a glider.
Its just odd that i jump off a cliff with these wings on my back just to open the crappy default glider

Hello there!
I’d love to have my Spinal Blade Backpack as a glider skin.
I think it’s reasonable since they are absolutely made for it.

I know not everyone has them / has access to them but for the ones who actually worked for it, it would be great to fly around with them!

As a reference, these are the wings.

Here is mine. I love it very much! I think it serves the purpose of giving you some ideas! T3 coat is definately one of the best.

As much as I support you, you are comparing one class with too many other classes at once. It doesn’t work like that. If there is one class better in various ways than thief then that’s something we can talk about.

I wanted to run D/P with a build similar to my WvW build but i ended up switching to Power Staff… Staff / Shortbow is really strong in ranked! at least for me.

I also found out that it isn’t faster than swiftness and reported it as a bug. Not sure if they actually read bug-reports.
Edit: I tried to make a build with perma stealth so i am super fast, faster than with perma swftness (Dash). But in the end it wasn’t that fast :/

Me as a staff daredevil also have problems with DHs. The thing is they have so much pressure. Avoiding traps is not enough and their distant longbow damage is so dangerous that i cant kite them either.. Its mostly going all in and win or die

Infact, thats exactly what im doing. I play staff daredevil and WvW most of my time. I clear camps easily, I duel a lot and have the feeling I can win any 1v1 and if I feel being at a disadvantage I just disengage.

A combination of Vault, Dash, SoA, Channeled Vigor, Staff Mastery, Shadowstep gives enough mobility to disengage when I want.

I play Staff since HoT released so it doesn’t feel clumsy at all, on the other hand d/p where you always have to setup stealth and restealth to survive feels clumsy and predictable to me.

Weakening Charge + Steal is THE dmg/burst combo for staff daredevil. Plus you often have a Panic Strike proc with it, which is super strong for landing more attacks or you simply couple it with Basilisk Venom, so much dmg!!!

I just tell you out of experience that it is the most annoying thing when you want to react on time to something in pvp but just cant due to lagg/delay. Since thief is so squishy and fast paced you probably will rage a lot. but at least give it a try. Thief is the coolest profession in the end.

I’m a thief and never ever thought about that it could be difficult to solo a camp. In smaller camps always go for the pistol ladies first and in the bigger ones i go for canbalists (i think they are called that) first and then the pistol ladies and then of course the charrs. burst one and then dodge a bit – repeat.

I also tried it and really wanted it to work but I also got the feeling it wasnt that effective and maybe also shorter than 2s. I’m not really sure if it actually prevents a 100 to 0 attack.

The trick is to take “Bo” or “Reclaimed Staff” as a weapon so you dont get the caster feeling.

Morgan Jones (the walking dead) would also like to have a word.

now they all come back from their mesmers and revenants and pretend being loyal thief mains all along.

I really hope not all those people who complained about thief and switched classes come back now… Wouldnt like matches full of thieves at all.

I go for Marauder armor + Marauder Weapon (if possible) and rest berserk.
Marauder has overall more stats which is nice. I have approx. 15k life and slightly over 50% crit unbuffed so i don’t see any stats wasted, thus it’s better than a combination of valk + berserk.

That’s just a bad argument. D/D is played completely differently than D/P and I would argue that Staff is even stronger.

D/D has very good aspects in it, cheap stealth access, throwing crippling daggers that deal good damage or evade while dealing damage and applying bleed.

It’s simply not viable in this meta as a pvp weapon set.

Ask for a buff for D/D not for a nerf of other half decent weapon sets.

Maybe new acro traitline will offer things that make D/D more viable, let’s hope because let’s face it…. Two daggers look kitten.

@mrjediconsular
I had a look at your pvp build it’s nice that you try to not play the mainstream build but i doubt on its effectivness.
Your damage comes from Daredevil rune crits which isn’t enough crits overall in my opinion as well as you always have to ‘waste’ a dodge to make a significant impact.
I see you wanna be tanky and selfhealing but I guess you don’t make enough pressure in a lifetime with that to set somebody under pressure.
Other classes can be very very tanky but still finish squishy enemies off.

tl;dr: no damage pressure, no possibility to win the fight.

a staff daredevil! Nice job man, congratz. I hope you didn’t exploit the matchmaking too much. Maybe you wanna share your build or give some tips for everyone who gave up on thief spvp

That game is already well established but it’s just so much different to Gw2 that it’s not directly competing. I guess I’ll have a look at it, espacially the KungkittenMaster class might satisfy my Martial Arts desires better than Daredevil.

I don’t think they stack but it’s easily testable in the PvP lobby at a golem. Just pick an amulet which has no precision and try it.

@alchemyst Heartseeker is also a jump and you can steal with it.

The point is that its just not intended to guarantee land Vault with the help of steal or infiltrators signet. (too much damage)

- I recommend using vault when you lock someone up with stun/knockdown/immob or when you know they used their dodges already.

- Other than that give Weakening Charge (#2) + Steal a try, it hits like a truck and is the better burst option.
(fyi using steal with weakening charge stops the animation and makes you hit all consecutive hits + having weakness on the opponent is active damage mitigation)

hope that helped.

Or you just equip vitality gear. I recommend marauder, a bit of valk if you want even more. Marauder has the advantage of overall more stats.

I just finished my Outfit I will probably keep for a long time.
Finally grinded my Bo-Staff.
I think it’s very visible what armor I use.

The usage of WC has a learning curve. its good to use when somebody is slightly moving away from you so you hit all hits on them. its very powerful in combination with steal because steal inerrupts the movement component so you definately hit them all on place. it often results in bringing squishy targets below 50% health which means panic strike kicks in and i can hit a good vault if they dont react with an immob cleanse. i love WC honestly and having weakness on the enemy is bringing a lot of sustain for the daredevil.

as a side note, did somebody check out the animation when you are holding the staff and move slowly? My Human Daredevil lays the staff nicely on his right shoulder.

that would be nice but i think this would make thief from being a class with very little/clunky condi clear to a class with an op condi clear which makes it mandatory for every build. unfortunately i cant think of a good middle way :/

wtf? what kind of comparison is that. we had no evade on vault in the beginning and later they added one… no need for a “full evade”. i dont get why you would complain.

Hey OP, the DH outplayed you. you didnt adapt to his playstyle. You run around with 12,4k life? like seriously, what do u expect?! also you saw how squishy the DH was, just a few hits with bow to kill him. I for example played d/p / p/p before HoT and now i play Staff / p/p. in both cases i would have killed him. DH’s are soo predictable…

You have perma swiftness from drd. You have perma swiftness from acro. So no need for Signet of shadows, not worth the blind. I like the stats you get from marauder and valk! Good balance.
More feedback: rather take trickster in trickery so withdraw is in a shorter cooldown and clears a condi. You remove cripple with your dash so i’d go with another Rune set. Im not sure how you make use of impacting disruption. Steal is your only interrupt.
All in all, i’d go with deadly arts since it gives you way more utility overall than acro but i guess its about preference.

I agree with maugetarr and his advised changes. Overall i have to say that your build is simply not effective. You deal way less DMG, the drd runes arent helping. Yes you have a bigger lifepool but your heals cant heal enough to restore it so in the end its only a minor cushion in the beginning of the fight. You arent a real brawler with it. I would go in the direction of applying constant weakness to reduce incoming DMG while keeping your DMG output high. I wont show the build im using (its obviously staff) but i think its a more viable brawler drd.

I can just talk for myself but I am a dedicated thief player who plays nothing else and only pvp/wvw. I have to completely agree with OP. Everyone can play whatever he/she wants and even though I struggled a lot the first days with daredevil i am now really strong with it, which means I win most fights. (I had to adjust the build and the armor quite a bit). There will always be somebody who just counters you and thats o.k. (good condi players reck me).
But the mobility I get for being squishy is a trade off i want to make, otherwise I’d simply play another class.
I just want to speak up as I see too many complainers and I want to show that there are players just as OP and me who are fine with the class as it is.
In the end I’m happy with other players switching to Rev or Mesmer. The fact that I am so successful in pvp with a class everyone says is unviable makes me feeling like a skilled player and I like that.