Guild Wars 2

Who cares. They dead. You do you.

WvW will never be as good as EotM. The terrain would have to be completely overhauled. As it is right now it’s boring AF.

The only GvG that matters is NWA v. Everyone.

I believe the answer you’re looking for is “git gud.”

morrolan.9608:

Dawdler.8521:

No. Because why should I? GW2 has shown there is a better way.

Not really, reading between the lines GW2 has been unable to sustain itself and has had to resort to xpacs at a premium price point and putting more and more items on the gem store and even then it is failing.

Shut up and buy more skins, nerd.

Now shut up some more.

With love,
Anet

Cool story, bro.

funghetto.1584:

“anet you are ruining with your hands your creation”

I’m surprised that you’re surprised.

The alpha stuff so far looks kinda lame. Unfortunately.

Whoa whoa wait, is condi thief suddenly good again? What happened?

It doesn’t.

/thread

Subscription games are above Guild Wars 2’s weight class. Anet isn’t accustomed to delivering the level of quality demanded by the subscription market, nor are they capable of consistently producing even passable content on the kind of timetable required to compete there.

Subs would kill the game.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Just know that by interrupting a duel, intentionally or unintentionally, you can upset other players which shouldn’t be something you want to do.

But their tears feed me…

Srsly tho, probably one of my favorite things to do in this game. I love the pristine silence of a freshly purged duel spot

Lol, is this thread for real? Walls are fine, stability exists as a thing in the game, as does reflect and block. If you’re not running any of those when you run up to an edge in WvW you probably need to re-evaluate your build and/or the choices that brought you there.

/thread.

the stolen skill from engi should be an aoe reveal.

Asrat.2645:

What do you think. Is it a possible solution? Would the problems still persist? Would it cause even more problems?

No. If we’re going to lose something get rid of the 3 on sb. Infiltrator’s arrow is love. Infiltrator’s arrow is life.

Urejt.5648:

u are right thief is trash. many reasons but main is that thief class lost its identity. Thief is no longer stealth master, or dps master, or teleport master. its weak. all daredevil does is 7% dmg increase and 1 extra dodge which is nothing compered to scrapper or dh traps. Thief simply does not have iconic moves no more.

Preach.

Amaranthe.3578:

Isnt thief dead and abandoned?
Stop beating the dead horse

Quoted for truth. And salt. Lots of salt.

DGraves.3720:

I find that HoT is annoying. That’s all. It just didn’t bring anything good to the table. Brought overpowered, overbearing bullkitten that makes old builds worthless.

Yeah, and the fact that to be competitive with just about any class in pvp/wvw you have to cough up the xpac money, with some classes having existing trait lines gutted for the functionality to be moved behind the paywall (*cough*thief*cough*).

SO I’ve been playing with scorpion wire a lot. I love the skill, I’ve made vids with it, it’s fun in concept, but in practice it hardly ever works. Even on ‘perfect’ terrain when it should hit, it’s got maybe a 60-80% success rate. Far worse if there’s any kind of lag involved. I’m talking about where it either just bugs out and gives no message, or throws an obstructed error on a clear line of sight. Pre-HoT this was already annoying, but it’s insane seeing guardians now running around with the Spear of Justice -> Hunter’s Verdict combo, which is essentially scorpion wire that also applies conditions AND lets the player time the pull (hunter’s verdict) once the first hit has landed. It also appears to have significantly more force behind the pull, as it can yank players over ledges that scorpion wire could only dream of.

So, what’s the deal? What do you all think? Why doesn’t it work? Will it ever be fixed? Does anyone in the know care to comment on the sad state of the skill, and what, if anything, is going to be done about it? Can you honestly say it’s ‘working as intended’, and if so, what was the balancing decision behind introducing what can only be described as an RNG skill into the game?

DISCUSS!

Doggie.3184:

Mmm, good old Teef shenanigans at it’s finest (with bugs cut from video).

If only the skill always worked and came with voiced audio shouts.

Ugh. I know. I’m not holding my breath for anet to ever fix scorpion wire, I just get to live in the satisfaction that what I do requires significantly more effort than most other builds out there. Quoth a good friend of mine, “you’re the best player with the kittentiest build I know.”

Sir Mad.1092:

You must get a lot of love from your opponents!

That’s one of the funniest troll build I’ve seen. I love it!

Haha, thanks! It all started when I made a classic perplexity thief build years ago now, but didn’t want to use p/p, so I settled on trying scorpion wire for interrupts. Fell in love with it (despite its flaws) and haven’t looked back. Been trying to keep it up to date as the game changes — it’s nowhere close to meta anymore, but it still does the job quite well. Can tackle most meta builds but requires a LOT of effort to do so, haha.

Wargameur.6950:

Nice video ! It seems so easy to do :O

How many attempts do you fail before succeeding one ? It seems you practiced a lot so yo musn’t miss a lot.

I’d say my hit rate nowadays for these kinds of pulls and fears is maybe around 70-80% depending on the day. Including bugs (the kind where you get obstructed with clear LoS or where the skill just lags out and doesn’t give any ‘obstructed’, ‘missed’, or whatever but still goes on cooldown, maybe 50-60%(?). It’s not too hard once you get the hand of it, but it requires a lot of map awareness as scorpion wire seems to have a weaker pull than most other skills and is easily interrupted by uneven ground and such, so you have to get to know the sweet spots on the map.

Cynz.9437:

oh my sides…… old fashioned pull into hole xD

dude you need deadly arts for double fear xD

Puh-lease. Real men only need one.

Lol, but seriously, I’ve been tempted but I just can’t afford to drop any of my other trait lines with this build. It would be so nice tho. I wish they’d move improvisation to trickery or something, that would be baller.

gennyt.3428:

Scumbag activities. I love it!

Thanks!

I shared this in the Thief sub and it was well received, so I thought I’d put it out for general consumption here in WvW . Just some shenanigans dropping people in EotM. Enjoy!

— edit —

Apparently a mod decided to move this thread out of WvW and into thief. Not sure why, given that while I am a thief, the entirety of the video is from WvW, so I would think it has a place there, too. I put it in WvW to give visibility to WvW players that may enjoy it and not just those that frequent the thief forum, but here we are.

So now there’s 2 threads of my same video trending in the thief sub, I guess. Woohoo!

If anyone that has power to do anything about it could put this back where it started (i.e. WvW forum), that’d be great. If not, I what you gotta do. :|

rennlc.7346:

If only the fear we got from necromancers didn’t have a target limit… Thanks for sharing your video. I enjoyed the footage and the music.

Omg that’d be amazing, but anet seems pretty strict about only ground-targetting skills not having target limits. I think they could bend the rules for skull fear considering how situational it is, but meh.

MadVisions.4529:

had a good giggle on the video! good job! liked the music too

Thanks! It’s challenging to find non-copyright that’s good!

Ok, sort of. The skill is as awful as it’s always been — half the time you can be standing right next to a stationary enemy with clear line of sight and still get ‘obstructed’, ‘out of range’, or what have you. But still, I love it and shan’t let it go.

So, here’s a little video I made highlighting successful Scorpion Wire attempts (as well as some Skull Fears) while messing around in EotM. Enjoy!

Here, let me help spell this out for anyone who isn’t totally clear on the answers to these questions.

What is our role?
Based on what Anet seems to be telling us, it is to be relentlessly dumpstered by all other classes and to live our lives as burst finish/venomshare(meh)/stealth rez bots.

I think we can all agree it should be damage.
Lol, not according to Anet. Unless staff maybe. Gotta sell that xpac.

1.) How do we compare to other classes in pure damage numbers?
LOL.

2.) How does our damage scale to our health and armor class in comparison to others?
Meh.

3.) What kind of ranged damage do we have?
Depends. Shortbow is trash, only mostly good for utility and AOEs. Pistol is okish but nowhere near the condi potential of… anything else in the game.

4.) How far can we deal damage from?
Eh.

So in order to do damage you need to get to the target as thieves really only do fairly close damage. So how do we do this? Some questions arise:

1.) Are thieves kings of stealth?
LOLOLOLOL no. Not even close.

a.) Do they enter and exit stealth better than a Mesmer or engineer?
No. Especially not any build requiring CnD.

b.) Does it last much longer?
No.

c.) Does it offer any protection?
Meh. Not like it used to (shadow’s embrace -_-)

2.) Do other classes have obvious stealth marking zones (shadow refuge…aka kill me here)
lol no.

3.) Are cooldowns on stealth skills adequate for all builds (dagger dagger..hint hint).
Not something thats a huge problem for me, but I run with hidden thief, which makes a huge difference.

Then comes surviving:

1.) Is our medium armor really better than light armor?
Not really. Met eles far tankier than I am and i’m still running full dire.

2.) Is the 11 K base health really necessary on top of a bad armor class?
No, but anet apparently hates thieves.

3.) Is the lack of blocks, invulns, useful blinds etc that other classes have all replaced by stealth?
LOL no.

4.) How does our condition removal compare to other classes (elementalist cough cough).
Nerfed to insignificance. Only moderately viable cleanse now is dash + escapist’s absolution. Gotta sell that xpac! $$$$$$$$$$$$$

5.) Stealth is easily countered by special skills and AOE’s…what is the counter for heavy armor and a huge health pool? What is the counter to blocks and invulns etc?
“vulnerability”

….LOL.

But seriously, that’s prob what they’ll say.

“My assertion is that thieves have the 3rd best stealth.
Are actually toward the bottom of outright damage.
They are 2nd to last in survival (first being hunter).
They only have 1 or two viable builds and dagger dagger aint one of them.
They have very poor healing capability.
They have poor condition cleanse.
They shortbow is needlessly kitten vs other classes ranged options…Mostly because of its super short range and mostly useless poison shot.
If you try to build a survival build then you not only are still the easiest class to kill but don’t do ANY damage at all.”

Coming from a dire p/d thief, I can certify this post as 100% accurate. Not quite as screwed as d/d, but p/d is pretty close to it at the bottom of the new world order of HoT.

#eotmforgebuff4life

Because their little minds don’t comprehend our greatness.

Well, given the generally dark mood among thief players at present, it’s important for those of us who still have some hope for the class to kick back and have some laughs. So, this happened lately when messing around in EotM with some friends, and I thought I would share it. Enjoy, or don’t.

As someone who has been playing condi bunker thief since late 2014, I can tell you that it’s a joke now. Idk about doing some kind of power bunker w/ daredevil and evades, but don’t waste time and money investing in a dire build. If you want stealth+condi and want to win ever, you should be going PU condi mesmer or something else high in the meta of whatever game mode you’re interested in.

Especially with the new reveal skills making shadow refuge a relative joke, mesmer can do most anything a thief can do better, faster, stronger, and harder.

Lol, people actually care about this kind of stuff in GW2? I mean, the PvE is okay… I guess… well, it’s probably some of the better PvE you can find without a subscription, but really now. If you’re going to lose your mind over ‘world first’ bragging from a tester guild, you probably need to up your game and start dropping a monthly sub for FFXIV or WoW or something, because this you’ve officially leveled up your hardcore scumbag mastery beyond what this game has to offer you.

Kinda hilarious to see anet throw an entire guild under the bus over something so benign, though. Now if they could just throw some of that gusto into balancing PvP, that’d be great. Yeah.

I’m sure most avid WvWers out there have had something like this happen on occasion, but it’s unusual that I’ve actually been recording to capture the moment.

Thief is a +1 class now, apparently. Our burst DPS role has been largely taken on better by other classes, as has a number if other former thief competencies. If you want toe anything more than a nub killer you will need to run with a pack or reroll.

The only conditions staff gives are blind, weakness, and copious amounts of vulnerability. It’s a power weapon through and through, no condi potential whatsoever.

The daredevil trait line has some small potential as an alternative for condi builds that also run acrobatics, but the first trait option is utterly useless unless you decide to use the new ‘physical’ utility skills.

PopeUrban.2578:

because revnant was the repository for all the good class ideas they wanted to stick on existing classes.

And then the community demanded “we want new classes even if they don’t actually add anything to the game, because only 2 heavy classes is unfair, and we would rather reroll than play existing characters”

So arenanet gave the community what they wanted. We could have had 2 elite specs per class so the system was actually interesting at launch in stead of in six months, but in stead we got a new class that took all of the useful mechanics and mashed them together in to a fundamentally boring and uncustomizable package.

QFT

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Arctarius.2649:

Mesmers are beyond Overpowered right now and getting even more so with the arrival of chronomancer. Not sure what’s to be done about them.. But thief is underpowered so fighting a Mesmer as a thief is just as easy as soloing Triple trouble…. All joking aside .. Anet please fix Mesmer. They need a nerd like all hell.

Mesmer is not overpowered, annoying, yes but not overpowered, most classes are able to kill Mesmers without any problems, Mesmers can nuke down Thieves, pretty hard but that’s mainly due to the Thieves unpowered design currently. Hell when Thieves were viable before June 23rd Mesmer couldn’t kill Thieves unless the Thief was afk.

This is an interesting point. Now that you mention it I can’t figure out if it’s that mesmers are outrageously overpowered in the new system, or if it really is just that thief is the red-headed stepchild.

I don’t think this thread is really going to help, tbh. It’s evident from the ongoing development that Anet regrets adding thief to the game, and it was just a nod to other popular MMOs with rogue classes in an effort to mainstream the franchise. They’re trying their hardest to encourage scope creep on the mesmer skillset to evolve the class into the “can do everything thief can do better class” so that anyone interested in actually enjoying the game needs to move over to that. The upcoming increase in reveal skills (super deadly to thieves, especially those builds built around SR, kinda meh for mesmers that revolve around relatively short-duration stealths and wtfomg clone armies) just serves to underscore this, as well as the rather lackluster dodge-based skills/traits upcoming for thief, which also seem to be moving it father away from the role of an assassin roamer to more of a +1 support monk-like class.

Charlie.1726:

Reaven.3958:

[puts on Royal Guard Outfit and heads to EotM to slaughter some uplevels]

Kill them all! And let the gods sort ’em out!

I can’t express how much I like this post

“To celebrate this special three-year anniversary of Guild Wars 2, we’re giving current players an all-new Royal Guard Outfit. Wear it with pride whenever you want to show that you were there early on, and that you’re someone that new players can go to for help.”

[puts on Royal Guard Outfit and heads to EotM to slaughter some uplevels]

Chips.7968:

Why healing signet? Since you drop traps on heal and traps stealth, tricks are reduced – go withdraw. It’s 14s cooldown, stealths you (trap can be laid every 25s so every 2 withdraws back to back) stun breaks, cleanses immobility and a condi cleanse.

It synergizes so well – and withdraw would have certainly helped you in that fight.

I made full condi build based around traps, the same runes, withdraw etc.

Precast your needle before steal, lays on confusion, all the conditions associated with steal and then needle trap – whilst in stealth. First they know they’re engaged is that they’ve got 4-6 conditions…

You can troll fairly hard (e.g. WvW north camp stack place behind a bench near the supply location) by using withdraw and needle trap (so two traps) onto that location and wait for cooldown off. That way when someone runs into it – they get large condi application, preloaded with might and them vulnerability and you’ve got everything available off cooldown.

However, I went p/d than d/p – but may try it.

Major issues are mobility; did you even have a stun break? Withdraw offers one opportunity when synergizing with the traits for tricks and runes for stealth.

Is it as fun as playing my beloved d/d? No… but d/d is hard these days. Is it as fun as s/d? Definitely a big heck no, but I’ve struggled with s/d and regularly get ruined playing it. I’ve refused to be d/p until now, but the blinds are needed to mitigate damage in fights and I can see why it’s the “viable” meta.

The condi build is… viable. If people are putting 3-5k burns on me which I can’t condi cleanse fast enough – and can reapply it faster than I can cleanse – then why should I feel bad about making use of what Anet has provided us with?

Withdraw is problematic for placement, though, because it places the spike trap where you end your roll, not where you start it. Hide in shadows might compliment this better. Also, withdraw isn’t a stun break, it only clears chill, immobilize, or cripple.

“This video has been removed by the user.”

Looks like the shame was real.

Jana.6831:

Why are you even arguing about another game?
I think GW2 might be pretty unique but it’s headed into a direction I really don’t like. That not because of my favourite class (and spec) having been nerfed into the ground but the recent and upcoming changes will be hard to undo and they will have to undo it – question is why do they implement it in the first place.

I agree with this. I logged in today after having taken a hiatus to cool off after the infamous patch, and found that not only had things not really improved, but based on the forums it sounds like they’re just scheduled to get worse for thief. Not sure if I’m ever going to log in again, but the outlook isn’t positive.

Girbilcannon.8259:

Actually the most accurate thing we could call the thief elite spec is “The Crutch”…since it seems to be the only thing left to hope for to keep us going as a profession lol

This ^

I’ve pretty much lost all faith in this game, and the various reveals being added go to show it’s going nowhere fast. Someone on the dev team must really hate stealth.

Thief is the only class I’ve ever really enjoyed in GW2, looks like it’s time to just give up and move on to other things.

audible eyeroll

EragamerLG.2390:

Hey all!
I’ve been maining Thief, mostly in WvW and some sPvP for 3 years now, with over 3k hours on it. I’ve recently been absent(3 months) and I’ve come back to the new patch, only to find I’m lost, gameplay-wise.
I used to run a balanced/sustain build with SA, 3pts for Feline Grace and CS. But now I feel completely useless.

My HP has dropped from my 17k with Valk armor to around 13-14k. Full zerk goes down to 12k. And considering how everyone feels so bursty, I’m having a hard time countering anything or anyone. The burns(and Guardian symbols), the Mesmers stealth, invul, condi’s and 1 combo burst, rapid fire keeps tracking after stealth.

I’m not looking to complain, just trying to understand what I need to shift in my gameplay. I’m also having a hard time raiding with my guild, I’m usually on focus squad calling out backline targets. As soon as I 5+2+BV+Steal+BS, and go in for the kill, I get so easily focused and downed, I just can’t get out. Even with SS, the dazes/stuns, I end up SSing back to my orginal position, in downed state.

Is it just me not positioning myself correctly, and going for the wrong targets? I feel the lack of FG really hurts me too.. What about condi removal? The time I take to get into stealth and wait 3 secs, is the time for a burn to down me. D/P suddenly feels too slow, especially the 5+2 stealth combo. Also, the Thief’s 0.75 skill delay seems to make it worse.
Hoping no one takes this as just complaining, just looking to understand how everyone manages to counter, kill and live another day, because to be honest I’ve been getting rekt, and before I feel I had win % well over 50.
Also, don’t tell me to re-roll, I’m a Thief at heart, I’ve adapted throughout the last 3 years, I want to do so again, I can’t main any other classes, although I have played them occasionally just to learn their side.

Thanks!

I’m taking a break form the game until things improve. Pop in the forums now and again to see if any progress has been made — glad for people like this that ask the question, but unfortunately based on the responses here it seems everything still kinda sucks.

Good luck to those keeping with it.

Welp, the resounding silence seems to speak for itself. Guess I’ll check back again in a month or so.

Before the infamous patch, my favorite thief build to play in WvW/PvP was p/d bunker, which at the time played quite well. Since the patch it’s been total rubbish. Given that since the patch (and the realization of the fact stated in the previous sentence) I’ve been spending my time elsewhere, I don’t have a lot of insight into any ongoing developments with game balance and am curious if there are any P/D thieves that have stuck around and found success. If so, it would be illuminating to hear what kind of build(s) you are using.

Thanks!

Vieux P.1238:

Reaven.3958:

DHawk.2687:

Vieux P.1238:

MidoriMarch.8067:

Stupid devs obv got no brain.
They didnt give a kitten about d/d….

Idk, i think the devs should focus on balancing thief players instead of trying to balance the thief class. I mean thief players have no skill’s. Except for does who does & can actually kill stuff.

saying thief players have no skill is a direct insult to all thiefs that have spent countless hours trying to master this class.
Yes we HAD superior damage but i came at high risk and took a lot of skill to pull off outnumbered fights,
of course there is the occasional 22222222222222222 thief, but saying thief doesn’t take skill is closed minded and probably coming from someone who doesn’t know how to play thief.

Agreed. The level of stupid in that previous post just about broke my BS meter.

DHawk.2687: 2-2-2-2-…2.. occasionally you say? Roflol.. ok sure.
& Raven, after reading your complaints about the changes & all, i’m not even surprise that it would take much to break your meter.

But like i said before there are thief players that have adapted & overcome. Why the other 99% of the thief players cant do the same?

DHawk.2687:

Vieux P.1238:

MidoriMarch.8067:

Stupid devs obv got no brain.
They didnt give a kitten about d/d….

Idk, i think the devs should focus on balancing thief players instead of trying to balance the thief class. I mean thief players have no skill’s. Except for does who does & can actually kill stuff.

saying thief players have no skill is a direct insult to all thiefs that have spent countless hours trying to master this class.
Yes we HAD superior damage but i came at high risk and took a lot of skill to pull off outnumbered fights,
of course there is the occasional 22222222222222222 thief, but saying thief doesn’t take skill is closed minded and probably coming from someone who doesn’t know how to play thief.

Agreed. The level of stupid in that previous post just about broke my BS meter.