Guild Wars 2

Mega servers have really ruined the large guild open world experience for me. Guild missions, the biggest bosses, etc.

I’m in a guild of easily 100+ members online at a time.

Now for running around with a low level character alone or in a small party, yeah its nice, I won’t disagree at all, but its really hurt the large guild experience badly.

Like a lot of the rest of the changes though.

How about “hardcore” servers with 60% health, no rallies, your mass idea, and wait for it…..

Friendly Fire on!

lulz

I enjoy S/D with the dredge and any other boon making enemies (not that many though).

Otherwise I go D/D, and S/P.

Obviously the D/D is pure offensive single target set, but the S/P, that’s more than just multitarget…

If you are facing melee trash or melee with 1 ranged that is targeting you, P 5 is pretty much invulnerability.

Single target trash, S/P 3 can be the same if your interrupts and evade frames line up with their attack animations.

Well timed, S/P 3 can be used to dodge painful boss attacks.

Finally, some say that certain world bosses have more than 1 “hit” area that can be reached with cleaving weapons. In this case the sword autoattack would do more than dagger. Not sure if this is true though. However its not like you’re soloing world bosses either so not really important either way.

Personally, I enjoy the fluidness of S/D, D/P, D/D over the “tanky” nature of S/P. However I cannot deny how kitten powerful S/P can be.

Hell, my favorite thief build was the one I used leveling over a year ago, condition D/D.

Those were the days, pre nerf caltrops, training enemies into a clump, making them bleed so bad, and loling as they melted while in stealth, repeat as necessary.

That’s a staff.

I was underwhelmed at first when I saw screenshots.

Then I saw the animations.

It’s legit.

+1 to Dahkeus blind on stealth suggestion

Necromancer. High health, long range fast effect AOE.

I do a power well build in WvW when I’m running with the pack. Use thief for roaming WvW, and everything else with 2 exceptions:

Do have an 80 warrior and guardian though, warrior is a Teq setup, and guardian is large group melee WvW setup (very recently made it to 80).

Thanks for sharing.

1) S/D and Shortbow
2) 0/30/0/20/20
3) WvW, PvP

1) S/D and D/P
2) 0/30/20/20/0
3) PvE

Good sir, you have inspired me. I will do this tonight.

Enjoy the show.

However the latest episodes’ .mp3, I believe Jindrake’s audio was WAY quieter than Batosai and the guests.

Similar problem with the patch notes episode for the engineers, I believe Asteria Rose’s audio was way quieter on the .mp3 than her co-host.

Just a little feedback.

mp3s please, I prefer listening while driving.

Just wanted to post, NA Tier 1, closest match up of all the NA Tiers.

Don’t take it for granted.

First thing I scanned for.

That’s one of the leaked changes that worried me the most, though I don’t like the 1200-900 clusterbomb nerf either.

Thanks for keeping the game subscription free!

1st to publish is pretty important.

Takes effort to do that too.

Bummer, looking forward to the mp3. Listen to your shows driving back and forth from work!

GAME CHANGER

Just remembered a major downside to Infinite Light.

The icon for your inventory is a lame standard sword.

So there you are trying to switch back from D/P or D/D or something to a S/x kit before you get back into combat and you equip some junk blue sword by accident!

Booooo, fix it Anet!

Also, might be cool if the glowing runes started to glow when you draw the sword instead of on all the time.

I have Infinite Light on my thief (S/D before it was cool). I choose that over Bolt because I liked the look better and I knew it would be more rare.

As for the ascended weapon thing with respect to auto powerup w/ a legendary…

Yeah that’s a sacrifice, but I’ve gotten full ascended jewelry with my main, and I pretty much play 6 days out of 7 so I figure when the ascended weapons come out, I’ll get it and transmute it, no problem.

On the flip side, I have the stats I want on the sword instead of PVT since I’m rolling exotic instead of Legendary.

PS Izaya, that is one BA look for your guardian, the Chalice focus thing is an excellent touch.

I make an increased effort to gather plants now because the animation is so much fun.

hex.3218:

Aha, but you didn’t count on me building up a resistance to iocane powder!

INCONCEIVABLE!

Thief – 80
Necro – 80
Warrior – 80
Guardian – 60

Warning: Wall o’ text from a guy bored at work.

So what to do instead of standing a step behind the melee commander spamming clusterbomb and daggerstorm (w/ shadowsteping as needed (which you can do while dagger storming without breaking the animation))? This gets you the bags, but perhaps not as useful to the team.

Don’t overlook SB #4. It might not get you as many bags, but putting down a lot of AoE poison (and blast finish area weakness OR traited poison = weakness) can help your team out a whole lot. Will anybody appreciate it? I don’t know.

Lol, same thing with a build that gives your nearby friends boons when you steal. Random Joe, “I just got Fury, Might, Swiftness, Vigor, Protection/Stability, must of been that warrior and guardian next to me, thanks guys!”

Opportunist style:

So maybe you’re hanging back a bit with the shortbow, and you notice a downleveled guy or somebody who is hurt, but backing off and you suspect their heal is on C/D. SHADOW STEP down them, cloak stomp them.

Also, if you are on top of a guy you want to stomp, but you worry that you can’t even pull off a cloaked stomp with out getting CCed, AOEed, etc. Start the stomp animation, shadowstep to a safe place, shadow return before the animation finishes. Lulz.

You can often get to the backline via teleporting or stealth and you would be surprised sometimes how long you can go ganking ppl from behind before anybody notices to help out. This REALLY depends on the make up of the enemy group, if its a pug group not on team speak or a hardcore guild. Maybe target ppl who don’t have a tag or one that doesn’t match with the rest of ’em. This can be pretty fun.

Other things is murdering guys who are just trying to get away after their zerg breaks.

For me though, I love the class, and whether or not I go solo/small group or just follow a commander I really enjoy on server Teamspeak is down to the mood I’m in.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you guys here, but have you guys listened to any of SOAC’s stuff on other classes?

They’ll have WvW focused episodes, then a PvP one, then a dungeon one, all with a guest focused in those areas.

I for one would love to hear an episode dedicated to dungeons for this class, maybe RFF could be the guest for that episode!

My understanding is it will be a new world boss w/ chest just like Jormag’s Claw or the Fire Elemental in Metrica Province.

Chest once per day sorta thing.

Just to add about Hodgins in AC, as a thief, its super easy to protect him.

Spammable AOE that can hit enemies behind you as you run flatout dodging as necessary.

Shortbow makes it easy, and shadow refuge & dagger storm in case things get hairy.

Note: grenade engineers can do the same thing no problem.

Disclaimer, I’m not pro by any means (probably a better talker than player):

I find that zerker gear (in my case w/ Scholar runes) in WvW is very situational. I’ve had success in a garrison defense where the main fighting was on the 2nd and 3rd floor, when ppl fell down where I was waiting…. it was glorious/horrible depending on the POV.

However when running with the zerg in the open field, taking towers, etc, there is one thing that is SUPER important, do NOT die. If you die, every enemy that is downed that tagged you rallies. That MUST be avoided because you don’t want to be the one guy that swings a close fight in your side’s favor against you.

So I like to run zerker trinkets (always no matter what) and I have a soldier armor set w/ Melandru runes. I find in WvW you get lots of conditions and the reduction is conditions and stuns is great, its even better with the lemongrass soup. At that point you can ignore conditions. (Overly simplified: a bleed that has a half second duration will do no damage at all half the time).

With the defensive gear above, I find I can most help in a large fight by using my SB #4 poison AOE, SB #2 blast finishing water fields (AOE healing!) during a fight. That or selfishly spam SB#2 cluster bombs for mega tagging.

When the enemy breaks, I like to shadow step (via the skill, stealing, infl arrow, etc) into the fleeing badguys and start that Dagger storm. AOE cripple!

Alternatively I’ll switch to S/D and stun/boon strip vulnerable baddies.

So I like equipment allows me to stay alive and support the team, even though the damage isn’t crazy high.

In open world PVE I zerker because its plenty easy w/ some exceptions (certain guild bounty bosses for example), then you go down like a chump.

In a dungeon I haven’t mastered I’m more conservative with my gear though, I normally use a middle of the road approach, to armor, I find mixing soldier stats with zerkers better than all valk or knights.

TL:DR:

In WvW in large battles bring equipment that prevents dieing, as that’s disastrous for your squad in a pitched fight.

It will be interesting to see how hard the T2 servers push next week, maybe DB is sandbagging? Or for that matter maybe BG is too?!?

LOL vince, now you have me thinking about armor sets w/ the blings. Perhaps CM dungeon armor.

Definately happens to thieves, so maybe a medium armor issue.

Though I’ve been fortunate though, both times I had no problems finishing the dungeon.

Authority.6145:

Leadfoot this is what I would go with.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmaPHdy4E/5Ex2je6Te6pgsjtTBXtKA-TsAAyCsIqRVjrGTNyas1MoYZxsAA

2.5damage
2.4armor
37% crit
62%crit chance
16.7hp

I think that is the most balanced stats you could get out of from your build.

What’s your opinion on removing 5 from acro and adding 5 to trickery? Is the +1% damage per initiative good on paper not in practice?

I can see it working for high sustain damage against dumb PvE mobs, but probably not so good in WvW were you’d be using your initiative to Infiltrating strike/ steal boons, CnD stun, etc.

I’ve been trying the following in dungeons and some WvW (not sure how I feel about it in WvW yet):

0/30/0/15/25

Withdraw, Shadow Step, Signet of Agility pretty much always (Signet of Agility is so good at keeping you alive I’d use it active only if necessary). 3rd Utility & Elite to suit the situation.

Food is either the +endurance and might one or an offensive one.

Have a sigil of Paralyzation on the sword.

Play style is lots of shadow stepping w/ dodges.

The 25 in trickery plus what we have in Critical Strikes gives us 25% bonus damage when at full initiative!

Crazy sustained damage cleaving, lots of dodging, lots of condi removal, lots of teleporting around. Boon stealing and stun locking silver mobs and below.

I used to do a heavy shadow arts build but I’m having fun with this now.

I currently have a berserker armor set w/ scholar runes, and a soldier set with ruby orbs, trinkets are a mix of berserker and celestial.

Doomdesire.9365:

I was actually 50G away from my Infinite Light when I decided not to because reveal nerf. I then did something really stupid and lost all 750G to the forge.

Biggest GW2 regret

Ugh that’s horrible. That’s part of the reason I decided not to go legendary, didn’t want to deal with the precursor.

Love all the podcasts your website puts out Bas.

Gotta fix Batosai’s internet connection, then again after he was DCed from skype and raidcall etc it was fine for the rest of the show.

Hopefully you can get a Thief show going at some point.

I hear that Xirin.

I was excited that this patch was going to fix some weapon icons, but still no fix for Infinite Light, looks like the default sword still.

As for damage, what do you get when you add the 10% extra damage when over 6 initiative, plus 20% when less than 50% health, plus 1% per initiative (Trickery 25) together?

You get CRAZY sustain damage on a weapon set that you consume ini as utility not for your damage primarily.

Cleaving like a truck my friend, cleaving like a truck.

Been using before it was cool as well.

And ppl thought I was crazy for getting Infinite Light on my thief (Paralyzation Rune ftw)

For looks, I paired it with a berserker transmuted AC dungeon Dagger, that blue glow plus gold dust from the sword look AWESOME together. I use Sigil of the Night for 10% bonus damage on the dagger as well. Synergy!!!

I was listening to a recent podcast about Mesmers (Mesmerized – Sitting on a Couch.com) the Mesmer people where trying very hard to think of something their class wasn’t completely awesome at.

After much deliberation, farming Orr was offered.

Not sure what server you are on but try guesting to a high pop server. Might be a quick fix.

Regulations? Sounds like red commie talk to me.

Some say… The Necro has the most access to AOE in the game.

Easy open world, easy tags in WvW. Power necro for the win.

Staff/ ranged Wells/ Lich form (Nasty autoattack piercing)/ Deathshroud autoattack

And my favorite, slicing and dicing with my dagger while standing in my wells (PvE)

Or maybe my favorite is fearing suckas off tall surfaces in WvW. Hmmm.

CuddleStrike.8215:

Sorry if it annoys you, however, my friends want to see my pics sometimes too.

shrugs

Each to their own. However, the score is always nearby. Sorry if it irritates you in such a manner.

Farewell

Carry on CuddleStrikes. If not for you and a very few others lite hearted posting, what would we be left with?

Vodka.3958:

Now you know how it feels to be blue; they use to do that every night on BGBL…

LOL, somebody needs to set Kermit the frog straight.

“It’s not easy being green”????

1 – Garrett Ward – as a low level thief
2 – medium level thief w/ wife’s guardian
3 – My defensive armor
4 – My offensive armor set w/ wife’s ranger

Auesis.7301:

My Thief, now immortalized by a paintbrush.

Supercool, thanks for sharing.

Similiar experience here. I agree with Lordslack about Caltrops.

Another weapon set to consider is S/P or D/P for the blinktanking ability.

Just get the bad guys inside of the circle and stab stab stab using initiative to keep up the blinds.

Not the most exciting way to play though.

I did early levels using condition D/D, Shortbow, caltrops. Nice to be able to be able to blow all my initiative on lots of bleeding and then play defensively if necessary while they bleed out.

Besides, D/D # 3 death blossom off a ledge to your death, that is the opposite of boring blind tanking.

I recommend using single target damage, no AOE.

When you kill the rats in the cross fire, bad things happen!

Also to repeat some above advice, activate as soon as you can, first person to find it will probably die though.

Asglarek.8976:

Thundercleese ever play a shaman on hellscream?

Ah no my friend, if that shaman was also named Thundercleese, must of been another fan of the Brak Show on the Cartoon Network.

This is actually my first MMO.

Question is can we (SoR) in the future make up enough PPT during NA and SEA/OCX to overcome JQ’s EU superiority?

I must say that our EU has done better this week though. Look forward to some BL action tonight, can we get 2nd again?

It’s not as good as HiS. No doubt about that when it comes to clearing damaging conditions.

That HiS cast time can get you killed. A smart enemy will interrupt that and you dead.

LOL I remember early on after I switched to Withdraw from HiS in the fractal with the giant. Jumping up to the next seal location, somebody drops the hammer and I pick it up and take a decent amount of damage.

Better heal that up!

I’m sure it looked pretty crazy to my party, at least I didn’t fall to my death.

I’m trying a 15/30/0/25/0 build with S/D, D/P, SB. I rely on Sword 2 and Shadowstep to clean damaging conditions. CC Conditions are a breeze though.