Guild Wars 2

Just out of curiosity, does anyone realize that thieves can be insanely strong in support roles in 20v20 sized fights?

If 95% of thieves play d/p or d/d roaming builds, does that mean there isn’t enough build diversity, or does it simply mean there is a lack of creativity in thief players? I’ve had a lot of fun in WvW as a thief, never playing a common build. That doesn’t make me special, but before you jump to conclusions about build diversity, be a little creative and try a new style.

I switched fro mug to 10 in trickery to get might, fury, and swiftness, plus 3 ini on steal. I’m also trying out the stealth on steal. So now I use steal as a counter punch type move.

I’ll probably switch back to mug and see how it works out in the same situation, as a recovery/counter move. The stealth on steal also doesn’t seem to be as important as, say, condition removal on stealth.

style.6173:

Anyone who says thief is definitely new at WvW. Thieves are only good for ganking out of place noobs.

The reality is that the current meta in WvW is zerg warfare. That means the best classes are those that are good in zerg warfare. Those include: warriors, necros, guards, and eles.

On the flip side, anyone that says a thief is useless in zerg warfare is giving up too easily. No, there’s no one build that will do it all great, but if you want to focus on zerg warfare, you can build to be effective at it. Most people just don’t want to give up their ganking ability in order to be effective in a large group.

There’s also some value in being able to move through the enemy zerg and hassle the people on the outskirts of the fight.

I gotta point out again that the lack of consensus on this thread is a good indicator of balance. Sorry Chicken Littles, but the classes are pretty well balanced.

Mighty Ice Arrow.9268:

To Anet devs.
Hope you are happy, everyone discussing how unbalanced the different professions are.
You are so far away from the guys that have made GW1. I can’t recognize the previous quality anymore.

You do realize that there is very little (if any) consensus in this thread, right? If everyone has a different opinion of what the top 3 classes are then guess what, the game is pretty well balanced.

Let’s not forget that you are supposed to die from time to time in a video game. If someone kills you, instead of complaining about the skill being nerfed, why don’t you just adapt? And maybe stop running into arrow cart fire.

Kronyx.2570:

What I want to know is how this will affect a single thief coming up to the gates to contest it?

The NPC will yell “OP!” and his client will disconnect from the server.

S/D will always be my spec for roaming. I feel like it is least dependent on game mechanics and is all about positioning and timing. Even if it isn’t the most ideal theorycrafted weapon set, it’s way more fun. Just give it time and you’ll learn to love it.

Travlane.5948:

you can. my s/d with backup d/p is the best dueling build a thief can have. that said the only thing that really hurts it is AOE/CC and range spike. thats why i run daggerstorm and not basiliks venom. personally bv only works on non thieves and non mesmers so too risky. i like DS as it gets me alot of back drops. i also use dancing dagger sometimes. running thru with your zerg…keep swining and running try hit everything once. dont need to focus on one person all the time.

I run daggerstorm as well. I’m definitely still working on how to best run in a zerg since everyone’s doing more of that now. Shortbow is great for the blast finisher and then I’ll switch back to S/D and try to hassle the stragglers.

I’ve been playing S/D since October or so (pretty much once I started in WvW) and 10/30/30/0/0 is still a very viable build, even with revealed being 4s.

Pre-patch I could pretty much just roll through any sized group and take down a few people, 2v1 and 3v1 were not much of a challenge, and 1v1 was a joke. That was OP.

Post-patch the same build is just as much fun, but it takes a lot more patience. I can’t just run in and execute a combo and get a kill, I have to take my time and play off my opponent a little more. I find that a lot more fun.

Flanking strike has a nice spot at the end of an auto-attack chain now. The daze will last the auto-attack chain, then an FS will keep you untouched until revealed expires.

Infiltrator’s strike and shadowstep are still the bread and butter though. Any condition heavy opposition is a joke and any melee can be evaded indefinitely. You also become the best run down assassin in the game. Shadowstep → Infiltrator’s Strike → Steal will cover an insane amount of ground almost instantly.

Unfortunately, I don’t get the crazy amounts of kills I used to with this build, but it is a ton of fun to play and that’s what video games are for.

Ascii.9726:

In my opinion as a Tier 1 player, they should make the following tweaks to WXP:

• Scale down all current WXP values for taking camps, towers and keeps.
• Scale up all current WXP values for defending camps, towers and keeps.
• Have the capture and defend reward scale with the level of upgrade on the point (example, a 500 supply keep giving 200 WXP & a 1700 supply keep giving 500 WXP)
• Add WXP rewards for a player who buys an upgrade for a point, and it completes.
• Remove WXP from pure PvE content (Ice Wurm, Harpy, Overgrown Grub and Champion Spirit)
• Have WXP scale with a players gear, aswell as time spent alive.

These are all good ideas. Personally, I think this is what we will end up with in a month or so.

I find it funny, however, that people are simultaneously complaining about the weakness of the WXP rewards and forming large groups to constantly flip keeps for the WXP.

Keep in mind that this was the addition of a new system. It’s hard for them to really know before hand exactly how all of us humans are going to change our behavior based on new systems.

Now that the system is in place, they can tune it to reach a good balance. The problem is everyone on this forum just kittenes and moans about everything, so they have to focus on random stuff instead of tuning existing systems.

Let’s hope the change of leadership indicates a shift to balance now that the engine is in really good shape.

I think the abilities are good, it’s the players that are making them hurt the game. Did everyone forget that the game is not a grind? The abilities aren’t supposed to be good enough to force you to grind them out.

Everyone is rolling around in mega zergs flipping as fast as possible to get WXP, but how is that fun? You’re basically grinding in WvW now, but for what? So you can more effectively grind next week?

I’m anxious for the initial wave to die down so that people get back to playing the game for fun, not to make a little rank bar tick up to another number.

Edit: That being said, I must admit I’m enjoying all the easy leveling for my engy alt.

A year since launch? Is it September 2013 already?

So you’re upset that your enemies are maintaining an effective defense? Don’t ask them to change the game, adapt your tactics.

Is there any reason to think that a team with the lowest score in their matchup this week will actually move to the bottom tier? They said the ratings reset, and all historical data is lost, but that doesn’t mean they won’t manually modify something to keep servers from moving 3,4, or 5 tiers in one week.

In other words, they know that 40,000 points in T3 should not be in the same tier as 40,000 points in T7.

Kimbald.2697:

Arenanet: We delayed the patch AND it has numerous bugs still, and is far less than initially promised
Players: Can we whine now, or should we still act like we didn’t pay for the game?

I sometimes forget how valuable whining is in the bug fixing procedure. It really accomplishes a lot.

Honestly, once a bug is reported, continuing to complain about it is counter-productive. The people working on the game aren’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs, they’re doing their best to fix bugs, and whining about it still being broken won’t get it fixed any faster.

Enjoy the game you have, or don’t play it. (Constructive feedback is not whining)

Jinks.2057:

Tho not running full zerk gear is just admitting you have horrible reflexes

This is true in even numbers fighting, but with some tanky gear mixed in, you can harass a pretty big group of enemies by yourself. Sure, you don’t kill any of the 10 people, but you are keeping 10 people busy.

I still run full bezerker most of the time, but having a defensive set has its uses.

Cornholio.1567:

ye gotta love the cleave damage.. in and out of zergs is fun :P
Btw mind if i ask what build your running on yours S/D
Atm I am 10 30 10 20 0.. works pretty great.. but I still dont think I hit the full potential of this spec.. landing the daze is pretty tuff, thinking of specing the the 50 movement speed while in stealth just for it..

In my experience (been S/D since I got to 80 in October) 10/30/30/0/0 works best. Acrobatics points are nice for a bit more speed, but the health regen in stealth is just game changing. It lets you completely dictate the pace of any given fight.

Also, try running directly at an enemy to land daze. If you are clipping through them, it counts as hitting from behind. If you are still having issues, try 0/30/30/10/0. Mug is great, but the healing in stealth is more important.

Are you seriously not seeing how these are easily done in WvW?

If your normal playstyle doesn’t complete the majority of that, then you aren’t playing WvW like the majority of other players. It’s not about killing other players, it’s about holding territory.

I wish this was stated specifically by a dev so people would notice, but can we once and for all eliminate the idea that stealth (in a smaller skirmish) is a culling issue? It is an asset load issue. When you are 1v1 against a thief and he comes out of stealth, your client knows he is there. You can’t see him for 2 more seconds because you haven’t loaded the model. This is what cause the affinity culling to suck for small groups in December.

With the fallback models, when that thief unstealths, his fallback model will load immediately (essentially). No matter how good your computer was in December, it still took time to load the detailed model. Even if it’s top of the line, you still have to load a model.

Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions, you have not seen the system they are implementing yet. Affinity culling is not the same thing as affinity culling plus fallback models.

Mif.3471:

/hugs my SSD

:P

(Seriously, do yourself a favor and buy one)

I have one, but I installed on my large capacity disk drive. I guess I should stop being lazy and just reinstall on the SSD already.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

I actually like the skill … I use it alot for boonripping or evading when my dodges are up .. kitten me right

I too like it. After a bit of practice, it’s pretty easy to know when/how you can land it. It’s a good situational and position dependent skill.

There’s another thread similar to this one, but in short, yes you can make money from cooking. The feasts are not what you want to make, and the key to profit is volume. You’re selling consumables, so keep in mind that people will always need your products. Armor and weapons are typically only bought once when you hit 80, but food will always be in demand.

Pick a recipe or two and study the behavior of each mat and the finished product for a week or two and you’ll see where profit can be made.

I have made most of my money with cooking. Granted, I only have about 30g ish net worth, but after getting to 400 I turned 2g into 20g in about 2 weeks of light trading. By light trading, I mean about 15 minutes a day spent on the TP and the rest of my play time in WvW.

Like Buttercup said, it’s all about volume and return on your investment. Pick a recipe that has decent margins and pay attention to the price of each mat for a week to get a feel for how you can make it profitable.

The biggest challenge for me is knowing when I need to back off and let the market sort itself out for a week or two to get prices back in my favor.

Thala.2801:

This is…a few steps more complicated than I was expecting. It’s not terrible, but when you have the fantastic “Join in [zone]” interface for getting to a specific overflow, why can’t they use that same interface to let me play with my friends in Yaks Bend? That’s all I ever really wanted out of guesting…

What they have for us now is the foundation. What you described seems like it could be built on top of the foundation without much issue. Does the friends list work across all worlds? I play solo mostly so I haven’t really tested that.

Xavi.6591:

I have a question. If I guest on another server does that mean that for the next 24 hours, I can no longer interact with people on my home server? Am I now stuck on the guested server for 24 hours?

Good question to get confirmation on, but what I got from it was that your home world is always available. I’m assuming that every time you log on, you have to select guesting from the world list, so if you just click log on, it’ll be to your home world.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

While it’s great that it’s coming. There are some IMHO huge limitations with it.

Many of us have friends in different regions around the world, many of us have formed communities and groups of friends from the truely global game that was GW1.

What was the reason for this limitation? If it was ping then let us decide what’s playable or not. We now have an ‘iron curtain’ between what was once world wide communities of players, who loved to meet up and play as and when they felt like it.

The problem there is that your ping affects everyone playing with you. If the server has to wait longer to receive information from your client, the other clients have to wait longer for the server to tell them about your client.

Tanith.5264:

Do we know when, exactly, this will be implemented? For example, if a guild is considering moving to another server as a whole (something my guild has discussed but never really decided on), they’ll need to be settled on their new server before fees become a factor.

If my guildies still want this, I’ll need to give ’em a nudge.

January 28th. Right there in the blog post.

Personally, I can do enough damage in the open field 1v3 that I’m not worried about culling. People seem to forget that culling only affects large battles, not whether or not you see one thief in a big open field.

I also hope that ANet continues making intelligent decisions in regard to any kind of ranking system. They’ve stated that they won’t do K/D ratio so I’m confident they will come up with something that’s fair and doesn’t favor kill happy thieves. I don’t like being called cheap.

brooks.1875:

WantedMan.4076:

Wow so much hate towards Morningstar. I think he is a good commander.
Mag you have a large force then DR or BP that’s why you are dominating. Nuff said

No, while they do have a large force, they still are very smart about controlling supplies, maintaining their keeps, and forcing us off of their keeps — i.e. when we had SM upgraded, they took Mendon’s and forced us to pick between OL or SM. Devona’s had some arguements last week but most of the negativity seems to have subsided, and we learned alot moving up this week. I don’t know about you guys but I’m going to be actively ignoring players that immediately kitten when things get tough. That being said the battles this week have been fantastic, even in the larger zerg battles there’s been alot of portal bombs/backdoors/etc. Its been great and look forward to the next week

Maguuma went through a similar transition a few months ago. When you start meeting competition that you can’t beat easily, people will start to bail or spending more time in PvE/sPVP. What you’ll be left with, however, is a stronger group of people that give their all even when they are losing by a lot. That group will get better and better and as you start gaining ground, more and more pugs will start joining WvW and the core group will have the experience to better utilize those pugs.

Looking forward to a good fight tonight, I’ll be the guildless human female thief sniping yaks and running into groups I have no chance of beating.

WantedMan.4076:

Wow so much hate towards Morningstar. I think he is a good commander.
Mag you have a large force then DR or BP that’s why you are dominating. Nuff said

This is incorrect.

I’ve been running this kind of build for a while and I think it’s going to be the next FOTM build once more people start countering P/D condition builds. With S/D and SB it’s nearly unstoppable (in WvW that is).

This is very similar to my build of choice, but there are some differences. The biggest difference is that I run mostly berserker’s gear, as I’ve found the build has enough survivability with good timing and practice. I routinely dive into enemy groups of 5 or more ahead of my group and have no trouble surviving until backup arrives.

So, the traits. I chose to use the 2 initiative on stealth instead of 2 initiative on signet use since I am stealthing almost every time it’s up and rarely activate signets. I would replace Signet Use with Critical Haste, and probably drop Shadow Protector to pick up Infusion of Shadow, but that’s a tougher decision.

I also run 10 in Deadly Arts to get Mug, but I have considered moving those points to Acrobatics, where you have them. I could see that doing a lot for my survivability.

My build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzkmzc0M0MlvFombTvmaxx9MczaqVcq8khS7kir7kiH707kiG707kNb70V7ofD70m (I’m up in the air on condi removal on stealth vs. regeneration on stealth)

But overall, you described a style of play that I too have found great success with. Any alt I start ultimately fails to be as much fun for me as this style of thief.

EDIT: Now that I’m looking at it, I think I’m gonna try dumping Mug for 10 in Acrobatics. That way I can have stealth speed, might on dodge, or falling dmg trait based on situation. I think that will be worth losing some burst.

Do you all still hate me even though I run sword/dagger and have been a thief since day 1?

S/D has given me great survivability while still using berserker’s stats. The tricky part is you aren’t “tanky” so much as you have the tools to avoid being hit at all.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzkmzc0M0MlvFombTvmaxx9MczaqVcq8khS7kir7kiH707kiG707kNb70V7ofD70m

That is the build I’ve been running for about 3 weeks now and haven’t found a situation where it is weak. It is a little selfish, as it doesn’t really offer any support outside of throwing a heal to allies inside my shadow refuge. I feel that the pressure I put on multiple enemies helps out the group a good bit though.

Krakah.3582:

2 – Should be moot the the vast majority of users are on broadband circuits, very few are playing on dial-up. Hell cell phone data plans are faster than dial-up.

3 – Note this is a personal preference, if I had a mid to low end rig, I’d trade hands down the overwhelming amount of particle effects to have player models drawn, even if it’s just colored Gumby avatars. I would love to see options to lower or selectively disable enemy or friendly particle effects to some super base level or not show some at all.

I just checked the min specs, and it lists “Broadband Internet connection” so they aren’t designing this for dial up speeds. Unfortunately they don’t list what the minimum speed to be considered “broadband” is.

In case you’re interested, the min specs on the website are as follows:

Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 or better
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI Radeon™ X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
25 GB available HDD space
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

This is a great look into actual software development that most developers don’t really let the end user see.

For all of those claiming “I have a good machine, let me use it!” they have an obligation to abide by the minimum specs they sold the game with. Similarly, if they let the high end users turn culling off, then you are essentially paying real money to gain an unfair advantage, which is completely against the entire goal of normalization in this game.

It may seem like a long time, but 3-4 months to fix an issue that requires optimizing the engine to this extent is blazingly fast work. If they manage to pull it off by February, it will be quite an accomplishment.

KnattyDreads.1856:

Scarn.6810:

Well I’m happy that, after reading the whole thread, not one person mentioned a sword/dagger build. I’m glad my secret is still safe and everyone will expect me to do the usual backstab “tricks.”

Are you on the T1 server? I was watching a thief with this build from a distance the other day. I watched him drop 3-4 players from JQ. He also took out a guardian from my guild (who is no slouch) without much trouble at all. I engaged once, (as a D/D Ele) only to see the thief vanish never to be seen again. I am looking forward to eventually fighting the Sword/Dagger & Bow Thief build. I’ll be online tonight looking for you :p

Edit: I now see you reside on Maguuma, I will have to find another S/D Thief to play with…..

Yes I am on Maguuma. D/D Ele is the best counter to my build that I’ve found, so they will probably run from you more often than not.

It’s nothing crazy or OP, it’s just not what people expect to see from a thief. The popularity of the FotM thief builds is pretty much what makes S/D more effective. Plus, I’ll never get tired of doubling back on five people chasing me and watching them aoe where they think I am.

Well I’m happy that, after reading the whole thread, not one person mentioned a sword/dagger build. I’m glad my secret is still safe and everyone will expect me to do the usual backstab “tricks.”

Don’t forget Shadowstep removes 3 conditions on return. But SoS is probably overused a bit by most thieves (myself included). While in close combat, it’s not really useful if you have swiftness on evade and 50% in stealth. Ideally, I would keep it on when I’m running in the open field, then swap it out for something else once a battle starts.

I WvW pretty much exclusively, and have had great success with a S/D 10/30/15/15/0 build. Good damage, really great mobility, good condition removal. It’s a lot of fun and in my experience most opponents don’t really know how to counter the build.

russia.9057:

[ERA] and [SLAY] from EB exploiting the invulnerability bug.

http://i.imgur.com/NKYhP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eMcbJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/intZQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JXFrW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0Jy48.jpg

That’s not a bug, and it’s not exploiting. The team’s spawn has to end somewhere, and they are invulnerable in their spawn. Simply fall back to the camp and kick the crap out of them when they push again.

Great post.

If I could make a suggestion, you could expand on the basic tricks of siege placement and use. For example, an arrow cart does not need line of sight. You can hide a cart behind a wall or inside a building and as long as you can place your cursor on a spot in range, the cart will hit it. Ballistas, on the other hand, need line of sight and will hit objects obstructing their view.

I see a lot of less than optimal siege placement but I don’t blame the players. The only way to figure out how to place siege properly is by trial and error. Knowing the basics means you can apply this trial and error to finding some super sweet secret spots.

Sword #2 and shadowstep are some good hacks. I will now be reporting all thieves that use their skills appropriately.

Just to add my experience to the fray:

I have played solo all the way to 80, on Maguuma the whole time. I started WvW just last week, hopped into mumble right away, and was instantly hooked. No one cares who you are, or what you’ve done, but if you relay pertinent information, commanders listen.

I’ve been in plenty of guilds back in WoW and it’s easy to pick out the strong communities. Maguuma WvW is definitely going to last and be successful when the wrinkles of the system are worked out.

My thief’s name is Scarnah, by the way. I probably won’t do a lot of WvW this week since I just hit 80 and want to get a decent amount of exotics for next week’s match.

I was on last night from about 8 PM – 12 AM EST (from Maguuma) and there was a good number of us actually fighting with tactics taking/losing/re-taking stuff all over FA Borderlands. It was just a few people that decided to build up all that siege and it (not surprisingly) caused us to lose almost all of the little momentum we were building. That was when I left, and it looks like it got a little out of hand later on. Out of hand in the sense that the cops were called and told everyone to turn down the music.