Guild Wars 2

Hey there. My post/s will only concern Thief PVE issues.

Firstly, venom sharing (with leeching venoms) has potential to be a very good PVE support choice, the recent buff to leeching venoms is much apperciated. However i feel that the range of Venomous Aura is far too short for it to be viable in the vast majority of PVE situations. If everyone in your group is not recieving the venoms, then the spec is basically pointless. Also, I feel like the spec needs abit of a damage buff to be viable in PVE, perhaps you could add a trait in Deadly Arts which makes you damage a target whenever a venom is applied to it, this should ofcourse spread to party members whom you have venoms shared with, it should also scale with power or something. Some of the durations on the Venoms could also use a buff. I also find Basilisk Venom to be a very poor excuse for an elite skill, its only really useful in TPVP matches on venomsharing Thieves, for PVE its useless and needs to be reworked. The fact that Basilisk Venom is also our only underwater elite skill needs to be changed also.

Secondly, dual pistols could use a PVE damage buff, or perhaps some kindof buff to Ricochet in the Trickery traitline so the bullets bounce much more often. The recent change to the Body Shot cast timer was nice, but in PVE at the moment P/P is only really usable on ranged single target fights, which does not apply to many situations.

Thirdly, I feel that the 15% nerf to Pistol Whip was unjustified in PVE terms. As far as I can tell, its damage was only nerfed due to burst issues in pvp when stacked with Quickness/Haste against glass cannon players who do not take stunbreaks and do not learn to dodge perhaps the most predictable skill ingame (Pistol Whip). The damage should be refunded in PVE because at the moment you can do almost as much DPS autoattacking with the S/P combo. Pistol Whip is a dual skill that should out DPS autoattack by a decent margin. Black Powder on the pistol offhand is a great dungeon tool and should not be nerfed in any way.

Fourthly, I feel that Traps are very lacklustre at the moment. I have used each Trap maybe five times in PVE and overall I find that the Traps are not worth the utility slots.

Next, I think that Thief should be given an elite skill that when equipped provides a passive magic find and money drop boost to all party members, this obviously would not stack if other Thieves were in the party using the same elite skill because that would be overpowered. After all, arent Thieves supposed to be the ones that get the job done then bring back the loot?

Next, I would say that the Sword/Dagger combo is very poor for PVE, I only use it on the Mesmer boss in TA to remove her buffs.

I am glad you only implemented the Backstab nerfs in PVP, if they had been implemented in PVE also it would have destroyed crit daggers. However, I do not see why Dancing Dagger had its damage nerfed in both PVE and PVP, it was only an issue in PVP. The damage should be refunded in PVE.

I also feel that Sword should be available for use in the Offhand slot giving us another few weapon combos. Dual swords would be nice if designed well.

Bump this thread.

In response to the concerns of Red Falcon and others, i dont think that giving some kindof passive elite skill would somehow negate all of our combat capabilities. As you said, we can bring alot to a group, tbh a well played Thief in a dungeon is great.

I dont think having a passive elite loot+money booster would somehow force Thieves into running different specs, we would still be DPS team supporters.

I agree they should make traps better but this thread is about a Treasure Hunter thing ;p

Id say make your priority traits first 5 points in alchemy, then 5 in firearms, then 5 in inventoions, then boost alchemy up to 10.

That should give you alot more survivability. Id say for solo leveling use pistol/shield. Use Flamethrower, Grenade Kit and 1 more skill of your choice for the first 30 levels or so.

Yeah dont use it against bosses, but in dungeons its effective against all trash packs tbh.

Perhaps it could be implemented as an Elite Skill, like an elite skill that when you have it you grant all party members a passive increased money drop and MF on items.

I played alot of FFXI also, i think a Treasure Hunter trait or passive boost or something would be great. After all, isnt a Thief supposed to steal money/items? :P

I find my Thief to be very useful in PVE, however i would love this trait because it would make the class actually feel more like a Thief, more like someone who could focus, get the job done and bring back the loot :P

If you had it as a trait i think a reasonable place to put it would be 20 points in Trickery. Though tbh it would be better if it was some kindof passive boon that had a permanent buff icon or something.

So my suggestion is very simple.

Put a Barbershop in every single main city so we can edit our hairstyles

I say this because I would like to wear my Tier 3 Cultural armor but i really cant bring myself to because the hairstyle i chose horrendously cuts through the shoulders, and no, i dont want to hide the shoulders :P

Hey there,

I play a female Asura and have recently bought the Tier 3 Asuran Cultural Medium Armor helmet. When the helmet is equipped my character becomes bald.

Is this working as intended? If not, then its a bug you guys should fix

Inquest medium set from COE looks nice on Asura, but tbh the best looking medium armor on Asura has got to be the Tier 3 Cultural.

I would throw some pictures at you if my Thief was Asura… Tbh, there isnt much in the way of really nice looking stuff. It does depend on your taste, my favourate is probably the Karma Orr medium set, kinda makes you look like a Bandit.

That being said, Asura gets an amazing looking Tier 3 Cultural set, the Helmet is great.

Hmm…. i basically see the vast majority of this discussion about evasion time and dps on pistol whip etc to be totally irrelevant. In my posts above iv already demonstrated the 15% should be refunded :P

For Leveling id say go for Shortbow and Sword/Pistol. Use Thieves Guild + Ambush trap and two utilities of your choice. Its the most effective way to level tbh. As for build. Work towards 30 Critical Strikes, 20 Acrobatics and 20 Trickery.

Ahh, im not taking into account the base damage multiplier on mine. Just reading off the what the stat box tells me :P.

So PVE Thieves, i want to see more of you out there with this kinda build :P.

Mm we do have similar builds. I enjoy having so much initiative regen, on trash packs in dungeons we can basically just stack and nuke while i keep up permanent blind with Black Powder. Makes the knights in TA or the CoF path 2 defend Magg room very easy. Its basically like… Thief tanking + good dps.

How do you get 175% critical damage?

BabelFish.7234:

What variant do you use?

I edited my previous post

I use a slight variation of this build and gear.

This general S/P + Shortbow build is probs the best Thief PVE Build tbh, there are one or two variants of it also. Id recommend to PVE Thieves stop going glass cannon full dps where you bring very little to a group ;p

I go 0/30/0/20/20

30 CS – Furious Retaliation, Signet Use, Executioner
20 Acro – Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery
20 Trick – Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft.

I use power/toughness/vitality for my six armor slots and then i use power/prec/crit damage on my weapons/back/jewelry. I choose Furious Retaliation over Signets of Power because the fury lasts longer and stacks better with my crit damage, i find Signets of Power to be abit weak for pve tbh, the might only lasts 5 seconds (or abit more with boon duration) and it only pops when you have used your signets, which you only use occasionally, you do not pop your signets for the might buff, you keep them active for the passive bonuses until you need their actives.

My overall stats unbuffed are:

2931 attack, 45% Crit Chance, 15k HP (though i usually operate at 16k HP due to WVW bonus), 76 Critical Damage.

As utilities i mainly use Signet of Malice, Signet of Agility, Infiltraitors Signet and then one of your choice depending on situation (Shadow Refuge or Caltrops can be very good choices). As Sigils on my Sword and Shortbow i use Superior Sigil of Fire. Runes for armor there are two good choices depending on which way you want to go, either Superior Rune of Rage for 20% longer fury and increased critical damage or Superior Rune of Mercy (which im currently using) for increased toughness, revive speed +10%, reduced damage while reviving and reviving allies with 20% more hp.

I dont think Haste is a valuable PVE Choice, it depletes all your endurance + only has a very very short duration.

I dont know how the use above gets 3200 attack power and 175% crit damage, though i suspect with food buffs

sorrow.2364:

Pragmatist, you should learn some concision when posting your thoughts.
Honestly, that wall of text let people lose the will to discuss.

Anyway, the fact that a skill gives you pretty long evade, stun and high damage as it was is out of any form of balance. If you add that this skill is on a thief bar, so it can be used more than one time in a row, makes the balancing way more difficult.

The autoattack has lower dps than Pistol Whip, of course. Just test it out.
Also if Pistol Whip had lower dps compared than autoattack, that mean absolutely nothing. Bunch of autoattacks in this game have higher dps than other skills in the same bar, but that other skills have some utility built in that compensate the lower dps.

There is always alot to discuss with these issues. And once again in PVE there was no balancing issue. The issue was with Quickness + PW in PVP. Everything i have said so far basically still stands.

Arenanet you should really mark this post and read everything, then give us the 15% back on PW in pve :P

Tulisin.6945:

Pragmatist.1349:

S/P damage (even before the nerf) was mediocre compared with our highest damage output of D/D, and was only just a little bit higher than our overall best PVE weapon (Shortbow).

This is not entirely true. Against 1 target current auto attack is about on par with dagger auto for DPS, superior to LDB depending how powerful your bleeds are, and better/worse than Heartseeker depending on enemy HP. Against 2-3 targets, sword auto completely blows away dagger DPS for everything but death blossom. Daggers get backstab to burst, but the actual DPS on BS is relatively low due to positioning and the rate at which one can enter stealth. Since pre-nerf PW was even better than auto attack, it quite handily out-DPS’d most dagger skills in most situation.

As for sword v. shortbow, sword is superior right now in a DPS sense for most situations with 1-3 targets, but shortbow pulls ahead at 4-5 targets due to cluster bomb’s ability to hit 5. Shortbow is, of course, more malleable and has better utility. So, again, pre-nerf PW stacked up pretty well against shortbow DPS-wise.

Please don’t perpetuate the misconception that sword damage is low, the auto attack stacks up quite well, it is just boring that there’s no longer a burst option thanks to continual nerfs (first PW, and now DD and C&D nerfs).

All that said, my favored boost to PW would be giving the initial pistol shot a 3 second~ burn, injecting some condition synergy into S/P, giving us access to a condition we didn’t previously have, and allowing a PW that is mostly dodged to still cause some harm.

I did not say the damage was low :P i said the damage was Mediocre. As conditions spec D/D is higher dps on multiple targets than S/P and Shortbow, s/p on a single target is lower than D/D which is our max single target. Yeah sword is better aoe as you said on 3 targets, but more than that its SB.

I dont think you disagreed with anything i said tbh, all i said still stands. The 15% should come back.

I wanted to put this in my above message but the message length was too long
EDIT FOR ABOVE MESSAGE:

Also, i find your comparison with HB abit laughable when talking about PVE tbh. I almost laugh at warriors who go Greatsword in PVE because its dps is mediocre when compared with their highest dps combos of dual axes or axe/mace combo which also both bring more support in terms of debuffs. Warrior does not have an evasion on HB because they are compensated with higher armor and one of the highest healthpools ingame. S/P damage (even before the nerf) was mediocre compared with our highest damage output of D/D, and was only just a little bit higher than our overall best PVE weapon (Shortbow).

sorrow.2364:

Pragmatist.1349:

Laughable, just because a skill is worth using it does not deserve a buff? If something is worth using but abit substandard and was nerfed for highly questionable reasons then buffing it is completely justified. And no, it wont become better than Black Powder in most situations at all seeing as though Black Powder serves basically a completely different purpose, namely, Blind debuff damage mitigation for your entire party as opposed to a damage evasion that only works for yourself.

Arenanet wouldnt have nerfed PW for pvp only seeing as though they only started doing that this previous patch after finally listening to the Thief community about seperating pve from pvp like they did in GW1. Until this previous patch Arenanet tried to create a balance without seperating the pve/pvp spheres, that attempt failed, so they finally listened and resorted to seperating pve from pvp so that some class balance can finally be achieved.

Beforehand PW did not somehow outperform other pve builds in terms of effectiveness. Quite a few other builds were highly effective, if not just as effective. But obviously each build serves a different purpose and achieves that in its own way.

A skill which is underpowered isn’t worth using because you have better alternative to that skill. A skill which is worth using means that it has its place on your bar and you are able to use that skill effectively, so it doesn’t need a buff because it is enough powerful.

Black Powder isn’t exactly for your party considering its radius, it is most likely a defensive skill from melee enemies only for youself.

The S/P build is a more defensive oriented weapon set, the damage PW had was extremely high considering its benefits. So yes, overall the damage nerf was fair, because it highlights the fact that PW isn’t meant to deal massive damage but it is meant to be a skill which sacrifice raw numbers in order to have better defensive capability in return.
Before the nerf, PW had the same dps of Hundred Blades. You would agree with me that it was quite unbalanced considering that Hundred Blades doesn’t have all the benefits PW has.

Just because a skill is worth using does not mean that it is absolutely optimal, also, PW is not only a weapon skill its a Dual Skill which is one of the main features of the Thief class. A dual skill such as PW should have higher dps than S/P autoattack given that you are rooted (thus can be easily evaded if a mob moves from your range) and that it has an initiative cost. Also, PW is a weapon skill that is on your bar regardless of what you choose for your utilities. My comments that the nerf should have been for pvp only still stands.

Black Powder isnt exactly for your party? I just loled. It locks down aoe and ranged. And also gives melee players an easier time in melee range. Its perhaps the Thief’s greatest pve support. Try going TA and doing the final pull of 3 knights and Leurant with a thief, you can basically all stack on the same position and spam Black Powder, absolutely zero of their damage gets through. If that does not support the party then i dont know what does. Thats just one example, there are hundreds if not thousands more examples.

PW didnt deal massive damage before the patch. Its damage was just fine, and again it doesnt matter if it had the same dps as hundred blades, seeing as though Greatsword is mediocre dps for pve, just as sword/pistol is. (btw both HB and PW skills are very easily evaded in pvp), and again the issue with pistol whip was not its damage, it was when it was stacked with Quickness, its Quickness that is broken, not PW. Arenanet themselves have stated that Thief needs more damage for PVE, Pistol Whip should be refunded its damage, thats a start. Also Thief is a different class than Warrior, in PVE/PVP a warrior has higher Armor and one of the highest healthpools (whereas Thief has lower armor and one of the lowest healthpools), thus warrior can take more hits, whereas Thief’s main strength in Arenanets own words is the ability to avoid damage.

Who ever said that its a skill where you sacrifice raw numbers in favour of defensive capability? The S/P combo combines both dps and survivability, it has decent levels of both. The Dual Skill of this combo should have higher dps than autoattacking and higher survivability than when autoattacking, simple as.

Its not like im asking for some huge unjustified buff, im asking for Pistol Whip to be refunded its damage in PVE, damage that was unjustly taken from it.

Just because Arenanet does something doesnt make it inherently correct, the community can excorcise its right to challenge the decisions of Arenanet.

sorrow.2364:

Pragmatist.1349:

I did not state that pistol whip was not worth using after the patch, infact i stated exactly the opposite :P. i regularly use both pistol whip and black powder, they are both great skills in many different situations. Im not asking for an overbuff at all, im simply stating that the 15% should be refunded back to pistol whip for pve purposes, as that was the figure that was unjustly removed from it. A dual skill like that should not have lower dps than autoattacking. And once again, the pistol whip skill was not nerfed because it was somehow magically OP in PVE, it was nerfed due to haste PVP issues, therefore if arenanet really disliked that they should nerf it in pvp only (or even better rework Haste, which is the real issue here), not in pve where, as Arenanet themselves stated, Thief needs higher constant damage. And im not talking about Necromancer signets or thief venoms or traps etc etc etc. here because this forum is about refunding Pistol Whip its 15% back. Simple as really.

And ontop of that Unload for dual pistols should be refunded its 10% in PVE, seeing as though that was only nerfed because of haste pvp issues.

The point is that as long as the skill is worth using, it doesn’t need to be buffed.
Once PW will get its damage back, probably it will be better than Black Powder in most situations, creating unbalance.

If ArenaNet thought that PW needed to be nerfed only for PvP, they would have nerfed his damage in PvP only, like they did with many other skills. Probably PW needed a nerf in both PvP and PvE, because it outperformed in effectiveness other thief builds.

Laughable, just because a skill is worth using it does not deserve a buff? If something is worth using but abit substandard and was nerfed for highly questionable reasons then buffing it is completely justified. And no, it wont become better than Black Powder in most situations at all seeing as though Black Powder serves basically a completely different purpose, namely, Blind debuff damage mitigation for your entire party as opposed to a damage evasion that only works for yourself.

Arenanet wouldnt have nerfed PW for pvp only seeing as though they only started doing that this previous patch after finally listening to the Thief community about seperating pve from pvp like they did in GW1. Until this previous patch Arenanet tried to create a balance without seperating the pve/pvp spheres, that attempt failed, so they finally listened and resorted to seperating pve from pvp so that some class balance can finally be achieved.

Beforehand PW did not somehow outperform other pve builds in terms of effectiveness. Quite a few other builds were highly effective, if not just as effective. But obviously each build serves a different purpose and achieves that in its own way.

sorrow.2364:

Pragmatist.1349:

I agree that Pistol Whip should be granted the 15% damage back that was taken in a nerf a few patches ago for PVE purposes only, im glad Arenanet has began to seperate pve from pvp.

Pistol Whip and Black Powder are both great, the only real valid point to comment on here is that Pistol Whip was nerfed because when stacked with haste the burst was insane in pvp. In PvE that does not even apply, therefore the nerf is totally unjustified in terms of PvE. (I would even add to this that the 15% nerf was unjustified altogether given that the burst only really worked against noob glass cannons who didnt know how to dodge and didnt take a single stunbreak, in other words, didnt know how to play pvp, pistol whip even WITH haste is perhaps the most predictable ability ingame)

Give us the 15% back in PvE, and if you wanted to be really nice you could slightly increase the size of the Black Powder circle. :>

And yes, Black Powder and Pistol Whip generally apply to different scenarios. Black Powder is very strong for most trash pulls to basically nullify all damage if they can be grouped up. Against bosses however Blind has basically no effect, so time Pistol Whip correctly as your damage evasion and also remember that your auto attack can apply a small window of weakness/fumble which is nice on bosses if timed correctly. If specced correctly, on trash pulls you can basically spam both black powder and pistol whip due to insane initiative regen. Anyways, all that being said, what i said above still stands and the 15% should be added back to pistol whip in pve.

Of course you want a skill to be better as it is now, but Pistol Whip is worth using after the nerf, that means that it was overpowered and now it is fine.
Looks like you are asking to overbuff your profession, not buffing something which is weak or doesn’t have any use.

If you want to figure out what kind of skills need a buff, just take a look into Necromancer signets.

I did not state that pistol whip was not worth using after the patch, infact i stated exactly the opposite :P. i regularly use both pistol whip and black powder, they are both great skills in many different situations. Im not asking for an overbuff at all, im simply stating that the 15% should be refunded back to pistol whip for pve purposes, as that was the figure that was unjustly removed from it. A dual skill like that should not have lower dps than autoattacking. And once again, the pistol whip skill was not nerfed because it was somehow magically OP in PVE, it was nerfed due to haste PVP issues, therefore if arenanet really disliked that they should nerf it in pvp only (or even better rework Haste, which is the real issue here), not in pve where, as Arenanet themselves stated, Thief needs higher constant damage. And im not talking about Necromancer signets or thief venoms or traps etc etc etc. here because this forum is about refunding Pistol Whip its 15% back. Simple as really.

And ontop of that Unload for dual pistols should be refunded its 10% in PVE, seeing as though that was only nerfed because of haste pvp issues.

I agree that Pistol Whip should be granted the 15% damage back that was taken in a nerf a few patches ago for PVE purposes only, im glad Arenanet has began to seperate pve from pvp.

Pistol Whip and Black Powder are both great, the only real valid point to comment on here is that Pistol Whip was nerfed because when stacked with haste the burst was insane in pvp. In PvE that does not even apply, therefore the nerf is totally unjustified in terms of PvE. (I would even add to this that the 15% nerf was unjustified altogether given that the burst only really worked against noob glass cannons who didnt know how to dodge and didnt take a single stunbreak, in other words, didnt know how to play pvp, pistol whip even WITH haste is perhaps the most predictable ability ingame)

Give us the 15% back in PvE, and if you wanted to be really nice you could slightly increase the size of the Black Powder circle. :>

And yes, Black Powder and Pistol Whip generally apply to different scenarios. Black Powder is very strong for most trash pulls to basically nullify all damage if they can be grouped up. Against bosses however Blind has basically no effect, so time Pistol Whip correctly as your damage evasion and also remember that your auto attack can apply a small window of weakness/fumble which is nice on bosses if timed correctly. If specced correctly, on trash pulls you can basically spam both black powder and pistol whip due to insane initiative regen. Anyways, all that being said, what i said above still stands and the 15% should be added back to pistol whip in pve.

This may be controversial here but the following small post is my defense of the current way Retaliation can function.

Traits
30 Valor – Purity, Strength of the Fallen, Altruistic Healing
30 Honor – Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Superior Aria
10 Virtues – Vengeful

Gear – Full power/toughness/vitality. Weapons – Hammer/Greatsword
Utilities – Signet of Resolve, Stand your Ground, Hold the Line, Signet of Judgement.

So, heres how it goes.

Open with 3x Hammer swing basic attack for Protection symbol, use Hammer Mighty Blow for Retaliation, use Stand your ground for more retaliation, do 3x more Hammer swings for another Protection symbol, switch to Greatsword and use leap of faith through the combo field to gain more retaliation, use Symbol of wrath for more retaliation, use Blinding blade for the DoT then use Whirling Wrath. Swap back to Hammer and repeat the entire combo. You could even switch to Greatsword after the first 3x hammer swing/Mighty Blow, and leap seeing as though Retaliation stacks duration.

And thats how Guardian achieves the second highest PbAoE damage currently ingame, second currently only to warrior. Please note that this is intended for PvE.

Thats my small defense of the current way that Guardian can function in PvE with Retaliation up 100% of the time and Protection up about 70% of the time. Nerfing Retaliation would be a huge mistake and would basically destroy this Guardian build which is perhaps the most useful PvE build currently available for the class.

Note: For many situations in PvE you can swap out a utility of your choice for Wall of Reflection, which is an extremely powerful spell in many PvE situations

Now, thats all fine and dandy but you may now intervene and state that a major issue with Retaliation comes in when we talk about PvE/PvP balancing. Firstly, i think GW2 should separat PvE from PvP like they did in GW1, that way you can balance classes in PvP without damaging them in PvE or vice versa. In tournament PvP Guardian Bunker builds have been proving extremely powerful due to large amounts of retaliation + protection, however, i think this is only the case because optimal arena class + combinations have not yet manifested. There is no need to tamper with Retaliation and hurt PvE just because people have not figured out Tournament pvp tactics and what class build can be used to counterclass another. For example, if a 5 man Tournament team had a Thief built for boon removal and player harassment, it could be used to counter around 60% – 70% of the damage output of a bunker Retaliation Guardian by using Sword/Dagger and 20 Trickery (+ a Mesmer with Null Field ripping boons would be insane) while the other players in his team get to work on the other enemies. Simply put, destroying an amazing PvE build just because people in Tourneys cannot figure out tactics and counterclassing is not the way to go.

At this point you may be thinking what about WvW? Bunker Guardians are very powerful in WvW. My response would be again people should learn tactics and counterclasses, and here I would also add that WvW is inherently chaotic, unstructured and in many ways inherently unbalanced because people run around in different gear and enter at different levels with not all utilities unlocked, the server with the highest population almost always wins, people form huge zergs where class balancing has very little meaning whatsoever etc. WvW cannot be used in any way to try and figure out class balancing. As for Spvp, my same comments for Tourneys still stand.

If Retaliation still proves too much of an issue for you arenanet you should simply buff boon removal amongst some of the other classes. Guardian is one of the strongest, if not the strongest PvE dungeon class at the moment, you should not be looking to damage its most amazing PvE tank retaliation builds. You should be looking to add improvements to some of the other classes which need it.

Almost, except what sigils and runes do you use on armor/weps?

BabelFish.7234:

Pragmatist.1349:

BabelFish.7234:

Dungeons and PvE are doable and even easy for a thief that’s properly built.
I use a S/P+SB thief with power/tough/vit as my stat focus. I out dps most people (my attack is over 3200, when I complete my gear it’ll be over 3400). the problem is most thieves try to go the stealth/glass cannon route which isn’t how you play PvE, that will get you killed in the later level areas such as Orr and dungeons.

What traits do you run and what jewelry? Please state which ones you take in your trait tree btw

Emerald Ori insert name of the Berserker

0/30/0/20/20

signets of power, signet use, executioner
power of inertia, the one that regens initiative
thrill of the crime, trickster

With what utilities, and what sigils on weapons and runes on armor? Dont just give me half the story i want to know the full shabang

BabelFish.7234:

Dungeons and PvE are doable and even easy for a thief that’s properly built.
I use a S/P+SB thief with power/tough/vit as my stat focus. I out dps most people (my attack is over 3200, when I complete my gear it’ll be over 3400). the problem is most thieves try to go the stealth/glass cannon route which isn’t how you play PvE, that will get you killed in the later level areas such as Orr and dungeons.

What traits do you run and what jewelry? Please state which ones you take in your trait tree btw

Hmm, i would be happy with a small retaliation nerf for increased damage with Hammer and increased range+damage with scepter and staff. Though for me, they should leave retal as it is. Retal is basically the core of guardian class mechanic ;p. Or they should just separate pve/pvp and leave retal as it is for Pve and change it in pvp.

If arenanet mess up Retaliation i think i will drop my Guardian reroll and go Spirits Ranger.

Tbh i dont see a problem with having 100% retal uptime, you still have to put some effort in to maintain the buff, its not like you can just smash your head on your keyboard and magically get 100% retaliation. Plus, Guardian doesnt get traits that other classes get like Thief gets 20% increased Damage when the Target is under 50%, Warrior gets 10% increased damage with weapons etc etc. Guardian needs heavy retaliation to function as a class. And TBH i dont see a problem with having counter-classes, for example, a retal tanky guardian will counterclass a damage Thief. Counterclassing is what makes an arena system good, brings alot of tactics to the game.

I thought that arenanet already adressed Retaliation btw, didnt they nerf a few retaliation based things a few patches ago? If they leave it as it is, Retal will still function fine.

Its a shame that retaliation will get hit, its what really makes Guardian a great pve class, and its only getting nerfed for pvp issues. Arenanet should separate pve from pvp.

I would also state that if you are a Guardian who knows how to play pvp you will literally eat Thieves alive with permanent protection + retaliation and mass survivability. Makes you an insane bunker.

You shouldnt just expect a nerf next patch, arenanet have stated backstab is getting nerfed. Yeah pvp and pve are different beasts. Im not sure how Guardian can function in PvP but i know in PvE its one of the better designed classes, arenanet should separate PvP from PvE like in GW1 because otherwise they will never be able to achieve any kindof class balance in either sphere.

Anyone can press 2-3 buttons indeed, but the optimal build is not only backstab one shot build, its also permanent stealth. Its difficult to maintain and tbh its low reward. Its like a Pom Pyro mage from WoW vanilla who could 1 shot someone every 3minutes and otherwise was useless. When your cooldowns are popped, if you cannot restealth you are dead. The Backstab build is an inferior Spvp build choice for Thief also. When i stated that Thief had one optimal build i was talking in terms of PvE, you basically have two or three variants of the same optimal build. This may change next patch if arenanet does something with Venomsharing and if our Constant damage is buffed.

I would also state that Thief is a poorly designed class because of its inherent design. Basically, you are encouraged to spam one or two skills which give the highest damage output due to having no cooldowns on weapon skills and the initiative system. Which means that we can achieve very high burst, which means that our constant damage has to be nerfed low. Which makes us a bad pve choice. Most of our weapon combos are absolutely useless also, Dual Pistols also needs a buff but probs wont because of pvp/pve balancing issues. I would also say when you stack all this with Haste, our quickness ability, our burst becomes OP which then lead to nerfs which destroy the class such as the 10% Unload damage nerf on Dual pistols or the 15% Damage nerf on Pistol Whip with S/P. These nerfs basically made those weapon combos, for the most part, obsolete. Thief is currently a semi-broken class, its not a good choice.

Its interesting because my main is a thief with around 700 hours played, and if nothing good comes next patch im rerolling Guardian haha :P. I posted this on another forum but it stands here aswell.

“This may be controversial here but the following small post is my defense of Retaliation.

Traits
30 Valor – Purity, Strength of the Fallen, Altruistic Healing
30 Honor – Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Superior Aria
10 Virtues – Vengeful

Gear – Full power/toughness/vitality. Weapons – Hammer/Greatsword
Utilities – Signet of Resolve, Stand your Ground, Hold the Line, Signet of Judgement.

So, heres how it goes.

Open with 3x Hammer swing basic attack for Protection symbol, use Hammer Mighty Blow for Retaliation, use Stand your ground for more retaliation, do 3x more Hammer swings for another Protection symbol, switch to Greatsword and use leap of faith through the combo field to gain more retaliation, use Symbol of wrath for more retaliation, use Blinding blade for the DoT then use Whirling Wrath. Swap back to Hammer and repeat the entire combo.

And thats how Guardian achieves the second highest PbAoE damage currently ingame, second currently only to warrior. Please note that this is intended for PvE.

Thats my small defense of the current way that Guardian can function in PvE with Retaliation up 100% of the time and Protection up about 70% of the time. Removing Retaliation from the game would be a huge mistake and would basically destroy this Guardian build which is perhaps the most useful PvE build currently available for the class.

Note: For many situations in PvE you can swap out a utility of your choice for Wall of Reflection, which is an extremely powerful spell in many PvE situations.”

Guardian is a very good class, Thief for pve currently has basically no build variety and you bring very little to a group. The original poster mentioned Thief, im not sure why he chose Thief to reroll as, but if its this whole 1shot backstab build hes going to be disappointed at firstly how difficult it is to pull off, secondly the cooldown on the build, and thirdly the fact its getting nerfed next patch. Thief is currently one of the poorer designed classes, Guardian is one of the better designed classes. You should stay Guardian.

This may be controversial here but the following small post is my defense of Retaliation.

Traits
30 Valor – Purity, Strength of the Fallen, Altruistic Healing
30 Honor – Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Superior Aria
10 Virtues – Vengeful

Gear – Full power/toughness/vitality. Weapons – Hammer/Greatsword
Utilities – Signet of Resolve, Stand your Ground, Hold the Line, Signet of Judgement.

So, heres how it goes.

Open with 3x Hammer swing basic attack for Protection symbol, use Hammer Mighty Blow for Retaliation, use Stand your ground for more retaliation, do 3x more Hammer swings for another Protection symbol, switch to Greatsword and use leap of faith through the combo field to gain more retaliation, use Symbol of wrath for more retaliation, use Blinding blade for the DoT then use Whirling Wrath. Swap back to Hammer and repeat the entire combo.

And thats how Guardian achieves the second highest PbAoE damage currently ingame, second currently only to warrior. Please note that this is intended for PvE.

Thats my small defense of the current way that Guardian can function in PvE with Retaliation up 100% of the time and Protection up about 70% of the time. Removing Retaliation from the game would be a huge mistake and would basically destroy this Guardian build which is perhaps the most useful PvE build currently available for the class.

Note: For many situations in PvE you can swap out a utility of your choice for Wall of Reflection, which is an extremely powerful spell in many PvE situations.

Hey all,

So im going to start running Arah explore with some friends, in what trait spec and armor/weapons + utilities etc does Thief bring the most to an Arah Explorable run?

At the moment im running the very standard yet very effective 25 Deadly Arts/30 Critical Strikes/15 Acrobatics with full power/prec/crit damage gear. As utilities im using mainly hide in shadows, signet of agility, roll for initiative and shadow refuge, i switch between Daggerstorm and Thieves guild alot depending on the situation.

Any help much appreciated

Hey all,

I was talking to a Ranger earlier today who stated that he can maintain permanent fury and top damage, is this true? If so, how is it done?

Hey all,

The Order of Whispers weapons requisitioner sells the Whisper’s Secret Pistol and Rifle. The cosmetics of these guns are very nice, both have Silencers attached, yes, thats right, silencers. However, the Silencers are purely cosmetic, they do not change the actual sound of the gun, which i think is kinda stupid. Im running around with silenced pistols that make a noise like some archaic vintage single shot black powder gun.

My suggestion is to make these guns, and these guns only, change the sound of your abilities to a more silenced shot.

I would prefer Dermotoxic Venom, and allowing the damage to scale with power and crit damage. That would be more useful as a group trait i think, seeing as though the bleeds you would apply a) have a max stack of 25 and in a group with a conditions player 20+ stacks are almost always up making hermotoxic venom useless in condition groups which have the most to benefit from applying bleeds on hit because of their higher condition damage, and b) most players would benefit alot more from doing venom proc damage with their crit / semi-crit build.

However, i can see some balancing issues with this in terms of pvp, in pvp you can venomshare with your pets, there are currently extremely good venomshare builds using thieves guild, the thief spawn trap and some runes that summon pets on hit. Arenanet would have to be careful when trying to implement Dermotoxic Venoms, but yeah, the range increase of venomshare is a must tbh.

I think Hermotoxic/Dermotoxic Venom as traits + venom sharing range increase would be very nice :P get to work arenanet.

Im only really talking PvE here, and high end. In Arah for instance for venom sharing to function it needs a larger range, the 33% healing debuff is nice for Arah i agree. I find that Basilisk venom is near worthless against the vast majority of Arah Bosses, it needs significant changes to be worth the elite utility slot.

Unless the Poison debuff itself has a standard damage (calculated from condition damage 0) in which case your right and the base damage could not be increased without changing the poison debuff, not just the Spider Venom ability.

EDIT : Ah i found the formula by which poison damage is formulated.

4 + Level + (0.1 * Condition Damage) per second.

So yeah, the damage of Spider Venom could not be increased without tinkering with the formula which would cause some serious balancing issues accross all classes able to inflict poison. I know that Poison damage is supposed to be the second highest damage per tick condition ingame, after Burning, yet it still appears to be quite low damage.

What i mean by increase the damage of Spider Venom, i mean increase the base damage on the tooltip. I added abit more to my previous post by “Edit” btw

I think this would be a nice addition and would make Venomshare more viable in pve, however i think that the range of Venomshare should be tripled because atm its in the “Near” category, asin, if you are not stood next to your teammates, they wont get the buff, and if every party member is not getting the venom, the build is pointless.

I would also say that the damage of spider venom has to be increased and that Basilisk Venom has to be reworked as it does not effect the vast majority of bosses, and the 1.5second unstackable duration is pretty pathetic for an elite skill, i understand that increasing the duration of Basilisk venom (or any of the other venoms) would bring in balancing issues with pvp.

I think that the pve/pvp balancing issues can and should be solved by separating pve from pvp like GW1 did.

Melee as thief currently is subpar, you are better off sticking with the standard power crit damage builds, thats where we have most to offer. To melee succesfully you need to bring toughness and vitality into your armor, where you loose alot of damage, Blind is also useless on most bosses as its only 10% effective. Melee thief in Arah is totally pointless also.

I have similar feelings Rampard, iv had a full power/prec/toughness exotic set and a full exotic healing set (Cleric+ Knight), both of which i salvaged due to their being pointless. I have full zerker, rampager, valkyrie, and carrion exotics (including jewelry), i have poured hours and hours into testing out various specs, from stealth/blind support to venom support, three different condition specs, two crit specs, one focused on pure damage the other with abit of stealth support. And more even, but honestly most of those specs are broken, for now dungeon pve thieves are better off going for the standard power crit damage builds, thats where we have the most to offer.

Hey guys and arenanet,

I have been testing out Venom Sharing recently for dungeon pve and i have found that it needs a few buffs without which it wont function properly. I have found that it feels like im being carried through dungeons as venom sharing.

Id say firstly increase the range of Venom Sharing because atm you have to be stood practically next to everyone for you to apply your venoms to them, and if you are not applying your venoms to everyone in the group its basically pointless. Secondly, Spider Venom needs to have its damage buffed, Skale venom needs to have the duration of the vulnerabilitys slightly increased, Basilisk Venom needs basically a complete rework to become viable, a 1.5second unstackable stun duration that doesnt even work on the vast majority of bosses is pointless. Devourer venom is okay but seems like something of a novelty for pve, Ice Drake Venom is good but the duration of the Chill needs to be increased. If Venoms are not buffed then there is essentially no reason to go for a venom sharing build, because atm, they are a waste of a utility slot. Your best bet as a thief in Dungeon PVE atm seems to be to go for a standard power/prec/crit dmg build/gear. Because venom support is broken, stealth/blind support is a much better support option but i feel like that could use some work aswell seeing as though blind is only 10% effective on most bosses and the amount of damage you nerf from yourself can be quite large.

My advice is stick to the standard damage for now thieves in PVE, because its the best option for now. I especially hope that arenanet fixes venoms in the future.

Dacromir, have you tried out venom sharings viability in Arah Expl?

i tend not to use caltrops because i like my 3 venoms in venom sharing