Guild Wars 2

NICE. I was gonna ask. TY NINJA ANET DEVS THAT’S READING THIS THREAD.

So I’ve recently been in sPvP and pretty much any thief that opens with HS spam or at any time spam HS when the opponent is still >25% health, they usually end up dying or wasting a utility while the opponent basically shakes it off by using CC/conditions/just randomly hitting the thief.

So, HS spam from a thief is often a free kill or they stealthing away (effectively accomplishing nothing but waste their own utility).

However, I do think Heartseeker can be modified. Any strike against an opponent while below 25% HP should have increased initiative. Another punishment would be also increasing initiative if the opponent has more than 75% HP. It would really punish random HS spam and make these beginner thieves how to play the game.

Haven’t touched PvP since the dawn of my entrance to this game but recently I’ve been way too bored of WvW and PvE so I came around here.

My build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0Mp7plOx8J8PNBNBt9wnQE8OMfpMaFAA-TpBFwACeAAx2fgxhAYxRAoaZAAnAAA

Not really sure if I have the best sigil/rune for D/P, and too lazy to look for other builds.

I’m also wondering what is the most efficient role here for a D/P thief. I think roaming was one of our strong points and looking to imbalance a 1v1 and downing squishies.

Any class that is running glassy builds (which seem to be a given in low ranked sPvP matches) is prone to be downed in short order by the thief provided I sneaked up on them.

Right now though I’m having a dilemma of when to use shortbow or swap to shortbow. I know in any non-1v1 scenarios maintaining pressure with shortbow is the way to go but what about if you’re already in D/P, when would be the best scenario to switch back to shortbow?

Also, what to do if the opponent is a bunker? Say the typical hambow Warrior or scepter/hammer Guardian? I’ve read somewhere a bunker guard in sPvP could simply be the difference between winning or losing the points race. But I guess here I don’t really care about winning, but more of how to deal with these builds.

pve update:

-nerf ele fgs #4

appreciated

nerf reflection for arah p1 final boss pls ty

ty DnT warriors for carrying my teef in arahp3.

(pls dun report me pls i didnt do nothin have mercy great lords of pve)

Ironically I went on Warrior for arahp1 and didn’t wipe once. :<

Happened today when I was about to do CoE for the first time after patch.

TY Anet. Another dungeon off my list due to unmentioned patch notes.

I’ve never seen hammer ever hit 7k autos. Exaggerate less pls.

Killing them early also just invite randoms to the last boss, heavily scaling it up. I see little point of killing bosses early when there’s one group clearly not ready to do so.

Amaterasu.6280:

Tachii.3506:

D/P is supposed to be good at 1v1s. That’s what it was designed for. It has self-sustainability with a good stealth combo, 4 of its skills only hit a single target anyway, and the fifth is small enough to not greatly affect other enemies either. That isn’t “gimmick”, that’s what you call a properly designed weapon set. S/P for instance is the best at clearing mobs in PvE and is decent in tPvP, but on a roaming set? S/D or D/P would outshine it in its usefulness.

Not sure where you get your last part’s logic from, but there are no problems with s/p as a roaming set. You don’t roam with d/p or s/d, you roam with shortbow.

Nonetheless against other classes with loads of boons, s/d has a slight edge because of the boon steals, but against everything else, I’d argue and say s/p is strongest in those 3 sets especially against another thief. Unless my utilities are all on cd, I very seldomly lose to a s/d thief, even less a d/p thief, in a 1v1 situation.

Uh wut. D/P has been the roaming set for a while now. Primarily because it’s just so good at disengaging but also sustainability and condi removal. Are we talking about the same roaming? Like, in WvW. not in sPvP or something.

I really can’t compare S/P to be on the same versatility as D/P in this scenario. There’s all kind of player skill in WvW, but if all remains relatively equal, D/P is the classic build still. I also didn’t say S/P have problems. Just that D/P or S/D is better at it.

Also, I’m interested in what S/P build you use for WvW roaming. I’ve had troubles everytime I rolled with S/P against D/P or P/D.

Yeah, if someone do aggro them, I just adapt and kill. There’s no point trying to get out of combat by that point or in my case, kicking me straight then starting another lfg for a fifth. I’ve 4manned this dungeon under 10 minutes, so I find it frustrating when a group filled with elitism kicks you out for aggroing a mob that gets beaten in sub10seconds, then ironically waste more time looking for a fifth.

You don’t run 5 gambits. You run 4. Squemish effectively cuts your damage by 50% and it will prolong the fight from normally 15seconds to 30-40 seconds. For one extra gauntlet chance, the time spent per gauntlet is not worth the extra gambit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/fotfw/The-Fastest-Gauntlet-Chances-farm

This is what I use. Don’t even need Black Powder with D/P. Cast Shadowshot whenever he doesn’t have blind (Hammerfell) as the DPS is far better than 6init Black powder.

D/P is supposed to be good at 1v1s. That’s what it was designed for. It has self-sustainability with a good stealth combo, 4 of its skills only hit a single target anyway, and the fifth is small enough to not greatly affect other enemies either. That isn’t “gimmick”, that’s what you call a properly designed weapon set. S/P for instance is the best at clearing mobs in PvE and is decent in tPvP, but on a roaming set? S/D or D/P would outshine it in its usefulness.

Godkitten kicked in CMp1 just because I aggroed a part where this group wanted to skip (the part with 3-4 elites before the Rifleman/Bombers in front of Bloody Alice). Then proceeded to call me “newbie”, “go play second life”, “12k ap dont know kitten” (I only have 7k ap). Pseudo-elitism makes me butt——hurt.

More so because I don’t even remember the last time I got kicked for something so trivial. Think I’ll auto leave if I see a guild run in CM now.

This topikittenerally gets made every week doesn’kitten :/

(holy the censor is crazy in the forums, my first word is “topic” and the last is “it”, wowowow.)

Don’t think I want to stack for this anymore, even with a good DPS group. I simply dislike being downed and losing my 15-20 stacks of bloodlust, all just for a couple of seconds quicker than fighting it on open area. Not worth it imo.

The problem right now is AFKers stay for far too long in this map than say, a WvW map. There was one occasion where I had to suddenly AFK (turned out to be an hour), came back (I was in the middle of the map), and still haven’t disconnected from it.

Whereas I typically disconnect in WvW after like 10 minutes of inactivity or something. Same with PvP maps too I guess.

For PvE leveling use Sword/Pistol and it’s pretty much all you need (don’t even need a ranged weapon). Black Powder (weapon skill #5) creates a blind field in melee range making essentially every melee encounter a breeze. With Signet of Malice you can get most of your heals just from using Pistol Whip (especially when cleaving through 3 enemies).

You need to get the utility Smoke Screen if you have ranged attacks on you (it blocks projectile).

If you want to play it really safe you can have shortbow and use #3 when you need to disengage from monsters or just get Shadow Refuge as an utility when you’re under critical health.

The thing about leveling any character is you must have your weapon and armor and trinkets up to your current level, say, like every 5 levels or so, or your damage really drops and everything takes longer to kill. Use all Power/Precision stats, get bloodlust sigil (even the minor sigil gives 125 power when fully stacked), and runes that increase your power.

I’d say Thief is one of the fastest levelers in open world content just because they can completely nullify damage from their opponents with a button and is fast on their feet.

kitten, CoE is “RNG” broken?

This patch really did make me play the game less, lol.

Tanky PVT defensive setups can provide healing and damage mitigation for other players, which I say is fairly contributive. So no, I wouldn’t call them leeching.

Guhracie.3419:

MikaHR.1978:

Tachii.3506:

It’s the inevitable conclusion to all that is good. People will find ways to exploit and use minimum effort to get what they want.

AFKers and uplevel leechers are two of the most prevalent groups that will usually make any Gold Medal map implode into obscurity. I just had it happen today with what was initially a TTS map.

There really isn’t any solution for this aside from making these events a large group instance, which I don’t see this ever happen considering pretty much nothing in this game is like that (I guess you can say WvW and EotM is kind of like that, but still you can’t really control your guild members getting in at all).

Uplevel leechers? Really?

Then you are entitled leecher. Much worse from any angle.

Another note for the developers.

Open world content is meant to be played by everyone. That’s a major part of the reason this design is so flawed as-is, even now. It’s offensive to label people who go in below 80 as “leechers” when clearly the content allows them to be there. Don’t blame them; blame Anet.

I joined a taxi to a gold run that was advertising “NO UPLEVELS” and, hilariously, that person was level 73. I didn’t even make the attempt to join.

I’d like to note that with one exception, I’ve brought all level 80s to the Pavilion. I ran it briefly on a level 55 early on, and didn’t find it to be worth my time.

This is targeted at Tachii, and not MikaHR, if it’s not clear.

They would be a leech if they have lv80s but choose to level and tag every boss on the Boss Blitz for quick levels.

I wouldn’t blame the uplevels that only has one character and finds the Boss Blitz fun, but the uplevel leechers (I clearly don’t mean all uplevels are leeching) are way worse than lv80 leechers. (I mean specifically those that contribute little to DPS, and is only there to purposely gain quick experience. Also, if you’re an uplevel and using gears way below your level while clearly knowing the mechanics of this game, then you’re not contributing to this than the uplevel who has gear of their level.)

Speaking of “uplevels aren’t a problem”, ever ran Boomboom with the majority of your group being uplevels? The loss of DPS was clear on that one.

Also, do explain why I’m considered an “entitled leecher”, please also define what leecher is @ Mika. For me, a leech is someone who contributes very little and gains much more than what effort they contribute by depending on other people to do the majority of their work for them. I will make it clear, don’t misunderstand my words for saying all uplevels are leeching. But there are clearly uplevels who are, and those are the worst. Not much worse than a level80 AFKer leecher, but still one of the worst.

It’s the inevitable conclusion to all that is good. People will find ways to exploit and use minimum effort to get what they want.

AFKers and uplevel leechers are two of the most prevalent groups that will usually make any Gold Medal map implode into obscurity. I just had it happen today with what was initially a TTS map.

There really isn’t any solution for this aside from making these events a large group instance, which I don’t see this ever happen considering pretty much nothing in this game is like that (I guess you can say WvW and EotM is kind of like that, but still you can’t really control your guild members getting in at all).

After a week experiencing many kind of “organized” Blitz, I can say like all things done enough, you start seeing repetitions and often in a negative light.

I will now realistically say a map with TS/Raidcall/Mumble (which clearly indicates it’s a guild-sponsored event) is often the superior choice than a map with no commanders and mostly randoms organizing the event.

There is also now a LOT, LOT of leechers and afkers in organized maps and it had become way too prevalent. Even today I had a guildie say “leveling in Boss Blitz by tagging all the bosses is great” which just shows the mentality going around. Now people take organized map for granted with their uplevels, solo selfish efforts to get more experience/karma. With every repeated Gold Medal, there will be more of these leechers and afkers getting ferried into the map, which inevitably will make the map implode, essentially.

My love for the Blitz has gone down to something that is somewhat fun to do if I have nothing better to do, but now I don’t look for it unless I have no time for anything else.

FGS4 definitely need to be “changed”. That’d definitely get more of an reaction than making certain projectiles unreflectable. As of now the DPS on this move is utterly insane. And it’s quite hilarious that if you do target the monster with the move, it does such laughable damage.Have a developer ever addressed this?

Ninja updates with some significance reminds me the time with Alphard where people either complained about it or embraced it for its "challenge’.

Either way like half a year later they finally announce that to be a bug and “fixed”.

This might be no different. Though due to past changes like that, i’d expect no different if it does change back, it won’t happen for a long while.

This is just a temporary period where people get used to the new mechanic.

The dungeon regulars will still FGS stack, but from my #puglyfe group we’ll just open field the Queen which take maybe 2-3mins longer.

Good summary from Darko.

Pugs are inherently a RNG experience. However, if you’ve pugged enough in this game, you will usually know when a run will end badly just when you have at least 2 of these in your parties:

-Sub-1kAP players.
-Players that obviously don’t even have level 80 gears (just from knowing how bland their armor/weapons are).
-And a personal gripe – seeing 2 necros or 2 rangers in any party (I always auto-leave when I see this just because I know it will reaaaaaaaally slow, unless it’s CoFp1).

When I follow my arbitrary criteria above, I have on average smooth dungeon runs for the really easy dungeons (AC/SE/CoFp1/CM). Some issues arise in TA with randoms that die while running, in CoE where people don’t know how to time dodges, and CoFp2 final boss where there’s often a guy that don’t listen and kills every acolyte one at a time.

I believe with this stealth ninja update though there will be at least some horror stories of AC Spider Queen where two types of people collide – the ones that forces us to stack even though the pug party clearly has horrid DPS, ie the pseudo-elitist unable to adapt to a bad pug party and – the ones that clearly has bad DPS yet remain stacked even though others told them to move, ie the casual players that don’t care if they wipe or want a remotely effective run for their time.

Zord.6130:

Asomal.6453:

Don’t know what’s your definition of “counter” to S/D, so i’ll just post some hard match-ups:

• Any x/P thief
• Condibomb builds
• Bunker Engie
• D/D Elementalist
• Medi Guardian
• MM Necro

Hell, I’d rather fight a Hambow than any of those specs, when I’m playing S/D

Not a single one of those specs truly counters an SD.
Killing Hambows kitten is ridiculously easy.

Do tell more. How is it “ridiculously easy”?

Better late than never, however.

And yeah, “life is unfair.”

Guess nerfing reflects for Lupi is the next thing. I’m honestly surprised Malrona was ninja patched but Lupicus wasn’t.

I assume pugging Malrona now will just be everyone safe ranging it with horrible DPS, kitten .

That sounds like one angry guy. Though you could’ve easily blocked him and saved yourself the trouble of hearing some random guy rant. I mean, it’s literally like one right click away.

I’ll try it out, but I doubt it’s quicker considering Dagger auto/2HS has pretty high DPS. Unless deadeye happen to have lower HP than hammerfall or something. I’d imagine the bomb placements could also cause some random deaths at one point or another.

EDIT: Tested, about the same amount of time. Didn’t use Haste considering it has a 60sec CD.

I’m skeptic 5 gambits with Squemished can be repeatedly done continuously for 15 seconds per fight considering you’re doing 50% less damage. :|

oh, kitten . My bad.

Was it updated in the last few months or always liked that?..

Hah.

CoFp1. Encountered Hammer warrior in my speedy lfg. Asked for banners, didn’t get any.

Asked for banners again, “dude I’m tank, I need my shouts”
Called me a derogatory F word then proceeded to say I have an attitude.

^ Thief has no cooldown whatsoever though. No reliance on any cooldown skill except 4 passive signets and occasionally using Shadowshot (which has no cooldown).

^ Not true. Out of combat Fleet of Shadows is quicker than just Swiftness buff.

I main as thief.

6/6/0/0/2
III, IX, IV
I, X, XI
V

Against Hammerfell.
Dagger/pistol.
Strength Runes. <— Scholar Runes will do more damage.
Open with basilisk + #3 -> Steal -> Autoattack -> Shadowshot for blind -> Autoattack -> Shadowshot to maintain blind -> Heartseeker once below 25% HP.

On average I kill him in 13-16 seconds. 4 Gambits except for Squemish and Crowd Favourite.

PS: I run 4 signets, malice, power, precision, and initiative passive only.

How fast are other classes?

0/6/6/2/0 is as bulky as it gets.

Personally I’m running full zerk and have little trouble surviving. The issue is mostly how knowledgeable you know of other classes. Each class have their hardhitting moves and you need to dodge that.

But also, anytime if you do take damage, your first option is going into stealth. D/P combo is going Black Bowder → Heartseeker. This blinds the enemy, maybe allow you to hit a free Heartseeker in, and going into stealth. You should be traited for getting heals, initiative, and condi removal in Shadow Arts.

Stay for the full 4 seconds before getting the Backstab. That’s about 1k of heals in stealth. If you’re traited for Shadow Arts, you better use Stealth as often as possible while landing the backstab. It’s something to practice for, certainly. But there is a lot of options for stealth here, so you shouldn’t be dying too often when D/P is the grandmaster at disengaging and sustainability.

Utilities wise people usually run with Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, and Blinding Powder/Break stun signet. I myself prefer Shadowstep, Blinding powder, and Roll for intiative. I find roll for intiative a better get-away than SR. As a solo roamer SR doesn’t have as much usage when you can disengage perfectly fine without it. It’s usually much more useful in small party roaming when you need to res a party member.

“Friends”. I only know a couple that’d run dungeons and usually don’t want to ask my guild since there doesn’t seem to be many who’d share a similar mindset.

Joining a PvE dungeon guild though seems riddled with arbitrary or stringent criteria which seems too much work for me to really care about.

The thing is, I rarely even have reallllly bad AC groups. Even the one that camped Rifle, it was still relatively smooth as nobody wiped at end boss or died while running. However there are some hiccups like 4manning Kholer because one guy refuse to WP, the Rifle warrior, the Ele that didn’t clearly isn’t stacking might with just 800ap, and so on.

My god I just saw a Warrior camping Rifle. I thought that was just a myth. And at AC against burrows no less… when the killshot didn’t even target the burrow. Lmao.

Safe to say I was on Guardian and kited at least 2 minutes for Hodgins. #puglyfe
One of the worst AC runs I had in a while with my “lv80s/be experienced” description.

Lolwut.
>Boring because it’s blue.

Zerk guardian is pretty squishy if you don’t actively use skills to mitigate damage – Aegis, Protection, Focus 5, Blind and I say requires some attention than just the occasional dodge a warrior needs to do.

I say Mesmer is also a good middle ground as they’re less complex than Ele button pressing but also needs a bit of awareness to use it effectively. For example, time and time again I’ve seen phantasms cast on Subject Alpha and pushing him out before FGS can do its thing. It’s stuff like that that bugs me about pug mesmers and certainly would need at least some awareness/knowledge to use it effectively.

-No resurrecting the dead on any WvW map.
-EotM rewards be nerfed.
-Reward defense more.
-Superior siege should stay up way longer (it’s more expensive to build anyway).
-Keep waypoints should not be contested just because one dude hit the gate for a second, rather it needs to detect either number of people hitting on it or the amount of damage done.
-Supply deliveries should be much more sturdier/faster (Make it an upgrade option at least. Conversely defending and attacking rewards should be adjusted accordingly).

Just to name a few.

Considering might stacks gives flat power instead of a % modifier, theoretically if they’re non-zerk they would get a bigger % of damage. So I’d assume this would definitely be better for casual pugs.

Well I guess if people are mindless enough to zerg 50+ at boomboom, they’re mindless enough to fall for this one. But I’d assume it’s really temporary, and they’d go back or shout out how fake it is once discovered.

I don’t know about the boss’s HP going down if people leave, but certainly the Turret level drops from 84 to 81/2/3 if enough people leaves.

I’ve added people that I commonly see in Crown Pavillion and just PM them if they’re in a good map. Often they do seem to be. Seems more reliable than LFG.

There will be toxicity when one’s rewards is dependent and usually offset by others inability.

The LFG maps seem to fall under this scenario quite often. Technically it’s rare for just one person to screw it up, it usually requires multiple people – too many uplevels, too many afkers, not enough DPS builds, too many people unaware of mechanics and don’t read map/say chat, and so on.

Start experiencing and unlocking all weapon skills (you unlock them just by killing stuff) and see which one you prefer.

I started with Dagger/dagger but Sword/Pistol is just too awesome not to use facing against multiple enemies. What thief excels at is maintaining Blind, using Stealth to do big damage, and evading all damage but at the cost of having low HP and lack of stability.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Tachii.3506:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Evalia.7103:

I’ve already bought them and I can foresee a nerf coming for sure… ^^ :-[
As to where the nerfs are going to hit, it’s definitely the might duration and the bonus might be changed to 5% instead of 7%.

Didn’t Anet just buff the damage from 5 to 7%? It would seem silly (‘we don’t do whack-a-mole balancing’) to just change it straight back.

Also, it’s far from overpowered in PvE, so I don’t see why the heck they would change it there as well. But then again, Anet seems adamant on balancing the game on PvP but make most of the updates in PvE.

Uh, it was more than just 5%-> 7%. AFAIK this rune used to be bugged so the 5% doesn’t even trigger if you have a might stack. It also used to give less power, less might duration, and less % to trigger might upon getting hit.

The rune pretty much got an exponential increase in terms of usefulness. It went from never used to always used.

It’s far from always used for PvE. For a start, if you can hold 90%+ HP enough and you’re in an organised speedrun which holds 25 might, Scholar’s better.

Stay in context please. The OP is using in WvW roaming and sPvP.

At the moment Phalanx Strength with Empowered Allies is pretty good if you happen to be the only warrior. Gives ton of group DPS as well as way more HP than necessary so it’s rather beginner friendly. Optional is having Sigil of Strength in a Greatsword. You’ll be rolling in 25 stacks of might consistently.

0/6/0/6/2 is the build for it or some variation of it. Basically you just camp with the Greatsword and run with 1 or 2 banners and a break stun utility (usually shake it off). Run full zerk gears and you’d still end up with like what, 25kHP? You may have a ranged weapon as swap or just use sword/warhorn for faster running.