Guild Wars 2

Woo. I was part of the party that captured the Guild Hall.

Glad we have our own Thieves den to operate out of. Was great to see that banner fly.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

I heard that Reaper Shroud is the strongest Reaper’s skills at the moment. As being a MM necro ( won’t change it for any thing ) I think that specially to MM , Staff/GS would be the best combination along with Soldier ( PVT ) gear.
As for traits , I belive that the best ones would be Blood 333 , Death 111 & Reaper 331.
I have a question here , how did you manage to spawn horrors while having the other six minions at once ? Did you use rise! then switch back to bone minions ?

No, my skillbar was Fiend → Rise → Bone Minions → Ranged bone dude (sorry forgot name) → Golem

Trying to experiment with a weird build. Focusing on Knight’s and Cavalier’s gear.

Here is a screenshot of the number of pets when you use “Arise” on a group of enemies.

Unfortunately you lose a lot of the “Chills – Vulnerability” synergy, but because it’s an MM build, you don’t lose as much of your utility when you stay in shroud for long periods of time.

Overall seems fun.

Basically

Spite
Death
Reaper

I deactivated “Double Tap Dodge” due to control issues before. My dodge is bound to V.

I was just surprised that it seemed to let me move a little bit, while casting, but if I move again, it fails the cast.

I’ve been trying to practice my Might Stacking rotation for D/D and I am noticing that moving twice kittens up the Earthquake spellcast.

Is this normal/intended?

It does? Why? I’m testing this out on Target Dummies and I’m only getting 1 each blast. What am I missing here?

kitten you are correct. Apparently I’m actively cancelling out some of my spells my moving around too much, like I was with earthquake… What the kitten.

Hey guys,

I’m watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAtDKypiS5M#t=1m32s from the metabattle wiki for the D/D build, and I’m having a hard time replicating his stacking rotation.

It supposed to look like this:
Ring of fire, Attune to Earth, Magnetic Grasp,
dodge roll, earthquake, Ring of Earth, Magnetic Leap, Attune to Water,
Frozen Burst

Problem is that he keeps jumping 3 might stacks at a time, where at each move I jump up maybe one or less.

By the end of a good rotation I have 7 might stacks and in this video I’m seeing 12+?

I’m really confused. Has something changed since July?

I’ve had inconsistent results with it popping me out of stealth too. Can anyone confirm? It seems to hurt the most when you so the CnD into Steal (without Cloak on Steal).

Thank you to all who posted here. I found out that 3 pieces of Celestial (non armor) are actually account bound, so I was able to share them between my Necro and Ele ( although this is a bit inconvenient ).

Hey guys,

I just got a 80 ele, thanks to Golem week and I am now struggling with builds. I could get Zerker gear and just make a back-line staff ele, but I’ve always wanted a D/D Ele. Problem is that I’m currently building Cele gear for my Necro, so my ele won’t have a set for at least another month or so.

Is there an alternative gear set up I can get to be semi-efficient as a D/D Ele? Or does that build really need all the Hybrid stats?

Lola, did you not read my original post? I’m not complaining about Mesmer combat abilities. Even after I level a Mesmer, a Thief will always be my main.

I am complaining that you guys have the coolest Raid utilities. I am sad that no other class has unique raid-changing abilities that aren’t limited to 5 targets. Marth knows exactly what I’m talking about, and it’s THAT kind of thing that I want to see more of.

I want more classes to have unique abilities that benefit the entire raid that are more in-tune with the theme of that class.

I’m not saying give that ability to everyone. I’m saying give every class a unique useful ability that is as effective for the whole raid, rather than 5 random people!

So, I’m wondering if I want to use this Golem Rush week to level up a Mesmer. No, this is not because I think their Burst is ridiculous, or their stealth it’s too great.

It’s the unique tool-set that they bring into WvW that no other class can compare. A Thief can put down a smoke screen and blast it, giving 5 people stealth, but a Mesmer can lay down a veil and hide an entire army passing through it! Combine it with multiple Mesmers, and you can run hidden for a long time.

Portal bombs, the best thing since string cheese. No other class can hide in a fortress and sneak an army into it without destroying walls. No other class can move an entire army into the back-side of another.

I don’t want these abilities nerfed. I want similar abilities given to other classes. No, Wells on Necromancers do not count. No Venom-share does not count as it only applies to 5 people. WvW would be much more fun if each class brought unique WvW mechanics along with it.

And now I’m rolling a Mesmer because I want to be the spy who sneaks an army behind the walls of the enemy. I’m rolling a Mesmer because I want to hide my friends as they run towards certain death.

What do you guys do for Condition clearing without SA?

I’m just used to most MMO’s making % modifiers additive, so that you don’t end up with this exact problem, where each modifier makes the last modifier even better. It’s usually a balance decision, so I didn’t even factor that in.

Wait, all of those damage multipliers are multiplicative on top of each other? What about the signet that gives you an extra 15%, is that also multiplicative?

Also, what are those 2.14 and 2.18 values you are multiplying by? One of them is Crit Damage, right?

What kind of Backstab crits should I be expecting with my stats? Because I feel like mine are way too low.

So, if I lose Acrobatics I HAVE to switch CS for DA, and this basically turns me into the typical D/P Meta build.

Basically, I see two important keys to an engagement in WvW with dagger. Either I need Mug so that I can trigger Basilisk Venom so that I can stab my target… OR I need the Acrobatics 50% speed boost in stealth, so that I can easily catch up to targets.

I didn’t consider the damage difference that Trickery brings along.

EDIT:
Has anyone tried this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYlsMhSnY3Tw6Jw/EHwE1OQXuUwHGnRboTgAIDA-TVDBwAGVisXHgy9Hg8AAUYWBwJAAn6OZVKkSLASlVJMRNRJoOVCCAgAczAAtZAA-w

Seems to have most the damage multipliers.

Pretty much this, with like 4% more crit chance:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYlsMhSnY3Tw6Jw/EHEF1OLHtAgXBJwE0ThQIMB-TVDBwAGVisXHgy9Hg8AAUYWBwJAAn6OZVKkSLASlVJMRNRJoOVCCAgAczAAtZAA-w

Getting completely creamed in WvW 1 on 1’s. Maybe not evading enough, used to playing Necro.

Not really sure what I’m doing wrong. I have a build with 2400 power, 40% crit, and 207% crit damage and its just been frustrating. Trying to ambush another Thief ends with them simply stealing after my initial hit (which is up to 7000 on average) but then I get hit for 10k on a returning backstab.

Do my stats suck? Does food and utility make THAT much of a difference? (I’m not running food for testing out these builds)

Is there a good post-june video you guys can recommend to watch? I seem to have more luck running a condi-venoms build.

Signets has decent might access, no?

I’ve always been a fan of Hybrid builds. They are interesting, in both WoW and GW2 Hybrid gear gives you “More” Stats. Meaning if you add up the total stat bonus to any and all Stats from Hybrid Gear, and Specialized gear, you’ll notice that you have more Stats on Hybrid overall.

Now the downside is that none of your stats will be as high as the specialized Stats can be from specialized builds. I’m working on a Celestial set for my Necro because he has a good mix for abilities that do direct damage and condition damage, along with having a signet build that grants lots of might.

Unfortunately as a Thief, you don’t get many options for abilities that do good condition AND direct damage. Your signets don’t do good Conditions while providing might, and your venoms suffer by losing utilities.

I really want to experiment with a Celestial Thief build, but I haven’t seen too good of synergy between direct damage and conditions.

Do we have any Necro competitive players on Twitch right now? Most teams seem to have Engineers, Guardians, Thieves, Eles.

So Zerker is our new WvW Meta?

I was really excited about being a condi-tank.

Improvisation is good against other thieves because you can stealth twice for more time, causing the enemy to appear quicker.

Swink, I can’t imagine the WvW build being good at anything but scouting and following a zerg.

In Roaming I find SA is much more useful for escaping/tracking/getting the drop on an enemy.

Can anyone lay me down the merits of CS-DA-SA vs Tri-DA-SA?

It seems like you can some boon-theft going on with Tri-DA-SA and a daze to interrupt on steal (also steal more often), but with CS-DA-SA, combining with a Assassin’s Signet you can get a pretty nasty spike at the beginning of a fight that will often end everything asap.

IGN: Valnilus
Playstyle: WvW/sPvP
Server: Yak’s Bend
Experience with Theif: Been my main since the game came out. I come and I go, but I always love a sneaky teleporty class. Used to play Condi thief for WvW, but am not trying to learn to play a stabby bursty theif.

OIIIIIO.7825:

Valvador.4291:

OIIIIIO.7825:

IMO Celestial is really bad for the thief.
Stats you want are spread out and weaker, bonus you get other stats you don’t want.

Please for all that is good and right in GW2 stay away from celestial if you want to have damage that a pure DD/Condi specialization has (pst stay away from conditions)

Did you even bother reading the greater discussion in this thread?

Yes I have, what part of that would you care to expound upon?

I wanted to share my experience with you and let you know that if you use Celestial you will be statistically less effective vs going with a more streamlined build. I crafted celestial gear for the MF before it was removed. I have the trinkets and even the rare celestial back, however it is weak. I would like to save you some time crafting all of that. Divinity/Traveler runes are the only “celestial” items I could suggest honestly without losing too much damage.

You pretty much told me to not go Conditions as a thief in your previous post. So forgive me if I have a hard time taking your input.

I realized trying to play like you on a server on the opposite side of the world from me is a terrible idea.

Trying to be this awesome with no practice and a 250ms ping = GO HOME VAL.

OIIIIIO.7825:

IMO Celestial is really bad for the thief.
Stats you want are spread out and weaker, bonus you get other stats you don’t want.

Please for all that is good and right in GW2 stay away from celestial if you want to have damage that a pure DD/Condi specialization has (pst stay away from conditions)

Did you even bother reading the greater discussion in this thread?

The problem is that Numbers do really tell you everything, it’s just it’s hard to analyze numbers from highly variable situations. How do you include damage from an extra proccing Bleed from the Sigil of Earth? How do you keep track of the fact that in a condition build, Might increases Condition Damage AND Power?

I just crafted my first piece of Celestial. Such stats!

BlazingBeast.3104:

@Clumpsy
Actually i dont want the same build for WvW and PvE!
The trait options are looking pretty intresting and i most likely check them out!
@Oghier
Thanks for the tips!I would like to know though what should i pay more attention gear wise too!I mean,when i go power/ precision/ crit thief do what stats should i aim expcept power?Should i mix some vitality there too?
For WvW, is P/D better than D/D or even D/P?

I would only suggest going P/D if you have a Condition Damage build.

Otherwise D/D and D/P will be far superior.

I really enjoyed the “Tactical Strike – retreat” juke against the Ele on top the wall.

I think a lot of times it’s something to do with with latency. Do you have a particular weapon’s set you are running? I notice this the most when I run Pistols, or happen to be using a bow.

The reason this happens to me with Pistols is when an attack already happened and is mid flight (hasn’t done damage yet) while I use stealth. The “shimmering graphic” is utterly broke and doesn’t really mean anything. I occasionally get stuck in this “queued” mode with auto-attack on my character and then can’t get out of combat.

Here is a hypothetical. If a thief built himself up for maximum DPS, 11K HP so he could be a one hit wonder, is this not balanced in PvP? In a huge WvW situation he is useless. In a game not balanced for 1 on 1, his entire purpose is to attack someone in the back lines and kill them before he gets one shot.

He doesn’t unbalance the team mechanic. And he himself has to make sure he kills a high value target so that when he dies his death was not useless.

wish.1027:

Valvador.4291:

but the point is that you are making up that damage by the increase direct damage from crits.

I like when people make statements like this without providing any math to back it up. It leads to lulz when people start to prove them wrong.

Post your celestial build so I can beat it with a mix and match set please, Im pretty bored right now.

Gully.7358:

I’ve played these kind of builds for over a year

Post yours too.

But do it fast or I’ll find something else to do and wont bother til I get bored again!

I apologize that I haven’t done the math or testing myself. I don’t have the time at the moment.

I’m looking for a hard numbers comparison for this build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAqY4alYmKNHfS6E95EB3Dj60m6p4rjtTBXlPA-jUCB4iChoOYUADZk6AiABO5rIas1MFRjVVjIqWdDTKAYWDA-w

VS a pure dire Condition damage build and maybe a pure Carrion condition damage build.

Everything I am saying is purely on “feeling” like it would work, but just looking at the general stats and the benefit of using Sigil of Earth for stacking extra bleeds seems very enticing.

I also don’t have access to gear to be doing the tests myself.

So Mr. Wish, if you make me a Carrion + Dire mix build that is more effective for this sort of set-up, you will save me a lot of time and money!

EDIT: Also saying “Carrion and Dire combo gives power too, you’re wasting your time and money” isn’t exactly a mathematical disapproval of my build. Your topic discusses mostly Crit damage builds, if I remember correctly. I apologize if this is incorrect.

Gully.7358:

I play more of a support role then really focusing on bursting people down. I’ve played these kind of builds for over a year and I’ve never come across another thief with a similar mindset that’s not in my guild. So I’m not the best person to ask for advice on if it works or not, it works for me because I do require all the stats.

I’m a huge fan of the buddy system, so I attach myself to somebody else and make them play better (act like a can-opener while cc’ing like crazy) or I try to get a lot of attention on me while the rest of my squad gets free play to kill. When my guildies get into trouble, I become the peeler and rezzer. If a fight goes downhill, I get myself in between the enemy and my guildies and kite the enemy around so my guildies can regroup.

I play sword/dagger with pistol/dagger and use several different suits for different situations but the suit I run the most is my celestial suit. Might stacking concept.

Might is even more effective with this build due to Direct Damage and Condition access.

Why is it acceptable to go kitten on another class’s forums?

Gully.7358:

>_>

<_<

raises hand

Can you comment on it? I would honestly love to hear how you feel about the investment? It’s a kitten ton of gold. 60 gold for runes of Divinity, 20g+ on Ectos alone to craft all the items you want. What build are you running and how do you like it? I honestly think this

Incurafy.6329:

Valvador.4291:

Incurafy.6329:

roamzero.9486:

Incurafy.6329:

Celestial gear is absolutely terrible for a Thief, as explained thoroughly by Wish in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2424729

His main beef with it seems to be as a purely direct damage set. For full celestial you’d want to use P/D, or maybe in a D/D deathblossom build, mixing direct damage with condition damage.

That’s still going to be useless, hybrid Thieves don’t work, and if you wanted to try one you would try and mix Berserker and Carrion or something, not full Celestial. If you’re using a condition build, then what on earth is the point of the power, precision, and crit damage?

I wouldn’t waste your time or money on Celestial gear, OP, there are much better alternatives for every build.

I highly disagree with this fact because unlike going FULL condition damage, doing Hybrid still benefits condition builds in the fact that you STILL ALWAYS DEAL direct damage on ALL of your skills, and having them less useless always benefits you.

I’ll be able to talk more once I do a better numbers test.

Carrion gives you power, you don’t have to go full Dire and only get CD/T/V. Again, you’re wasting your time and money, but it’s yours to waste so whatever, enjoy.

No. You don’t get it do you? Celestial/Hybrid gear has a larger OVERALL gear budget. Let’s compare the stats you get from a Celestial head + shoulder combo vs a Carrion + Dire head + shoulder gear combo:

Celestial Head + Shoulder:
____________________

35 Power
35 Precision
35 Toughness
35 Vitality
35 Condition
5% Crit Damage
35 Healing Power

Dire Head + Carrion Shoulder
______________________

32 Toughness
56 Vitality
79 Condition Damage
25 Power

If you ONLY add the non crit damage parts of Celestial, you get 210 stats additionally. While Dire + Carrion gives you a total of 169.

Sure the condition damage aspect, and vitality aspect of the dire + carrion beat Celestial, but the point is that you are making up that damage by the increase direct damage from crits. In ADDITION to this, you have a god kitten EXTRA source of BLEEDS because with Celestial you have a high enough Crit Chance where you are also applying an extra bleed EVERY TWO SECONDS thanks to Sigil of Earth.

Extra crit provides so much utility and extra pressure for for a mostly conditions build, it also lets you utilize MORE of your build and more variety of weapons.

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, still there.

The problem is sleight of hand + basilisk venom when used simultaneously. The daze cancels the basilisk venom out completely.

Hope they fix it soon because Basilisk venom is probably the most cop-out elite in the game unless you use lyssa runes.

Holy kitten, is this something to do with the fact that Daze prevents Stunbreaks?

Incurafy.6329:

roamzero.9486:

Incurafy.6329:

Celestial gear is absolutely terrible for a Thief, as explained thoroughly by Wish in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2424729

His main beef with it seems to be as a purely direct damage set. For full celestial you’d want to use P/D, or maybe in a D/D deathblossom build, mixing direct damage with condition damage.

That’s still going to be useless, hybrid Thieves don’t work, and if you wanted to try one you would try and mix Berserker and Carrion or something, not full Celestial. If you’re using a condition build, then what on earth is the point of the power, precision, and crit damage?

I wouldn’t waste your time or money on Celestial gear, OP, there are much better alternatives for every build.

I highly disagree with this fact because unlike going FULL condition damage, doing Hybrid still benefits condition builds in the fact that you STILL ALWAYS DEAL direct damage on ALL of your skills, and having them less useless always benefits you.

I’ll be able to talk more once I do a better numbers test.

I guess here goes my two month Journey to make the gear.

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone has full Celestial Armor + Trinkets can comment on this?

It seems like in most games, when you spread out the stat values to more different stats, you can get overall “Larger” amounts of stats, but obviously not as much in a specific stats.

Well lets compare a Conditions build with Dire
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAqY4alYmKNHfS6E95EB3Dj60m6p4rjtTBXlPA-jkCB4iChoOYUADZk6AiABOTqIas1MFRjV3ATxiIq2joIa1SBAzaA-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAqY4alYmKNHfS6E95EB3Dj60m6p4rjtTBXlPA-jUCB4iChoOYUADZk6AiABO5rIas1MFRjVVjIqWdDTKAYWDA-w

What you lose Dire – > Celestial
400 condition damage,
50ish toughness,
200 vitality

Gain Dire – > Celestial you gain about
20% crit chance,
48% crit damage,
353 healing
250 more power?

I guess it makes sense that the more expensive to make set is overall better. What I was wondering is, does this set actually make your condition build better for a thief? If you think about it, this makes your direct damage MUCH more functional when compared to PURE dire build, and this doesn’t even include Runes of Divinity.

What do you guys think? I feel like a thief in Celestial (even without the Divinity Runes) will overall out damage a DIRE by quite a bit just because his auto-attack damage will be massively improved. At the same time, you can start paring it with %chance on crit sigils for extra bleeds.

Dear god, with all Divinity this is even more Lopsided…
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAqY4alYmKNHfS6E95EB3Dj60m6p4rjtTBXlPA-jUCB4iChoOYUADZk6AiABO5rIasVNFRjVVjIqWdDTKAYWDA-w

Just tried this a few minutes ago.

The weird part was that while I was still inside shadow refuge, it seemed to be working fine.

Coloxeus.3480:

do you guys experiencing this? my 2 or 3 out of 5 basilisk strike is like this!! so annoying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LosrMrTUr8A

Yeah, I’ve had this happen to my necro. No Stunbreaker used. Just able to run around.

Turns out if you enter shadow refuge and have to dodge roll to save yourself from AOE, you drop out and gain revealed.

Oh boy…

Questular.8359:

thx for the fights and gl to both server in the rest of the league

You too, Gents. Well played.

Bitahnii.2458:

Glad to see that FSP pulled ahead from being nearly 20k down two days ago!
As far as the various posts about night capping, FSP and UW had been the victims of the FR blob night caps the whole week. The last couple days of FSP pulling together members to stay up and equal the playing field against the FR blob is what resulted in us pulling ahead. Fair numbers on both sides doesn’t equate to night capping. Night capping, to me, would be a blob being able to steamroll through the other servers at night since the other servers don’t have the members to hold their land.

Night capping to me, is a much more intimate experience.