Showing Posts For chubbs.3189:
-Your Guild Wars 2 knowledge level:
I would like to say that I know a lot about this game, yet at the same time know little in certain areas. I know my profession (thief) extremely well, but probably couldn’t even tell you all of the weapons that a mesmer could wield. I know most dungeons and their exploratory paths, but I haven’t gotten the dungeon master title. I could tell you what to expect from every path from every fractal (currently level 15), including levels 30+ (although that would be from lurking), yet I couldn’t pretend to inform you how to get to a jumping puzzle.
-Age:
20
-Occupation (not required):
Part-time crap job, full-time student; currently enrolled in a BSW program (Bachelors of social work). In other words, I’m the guy that people go to when they’re sad and I get paid to talk it out with them.
-Previous gaming experience:
I played WoW since vanilla; I know/knew everything about that game to the point where I would see it in my dreams (sad I know). I was often ranked #1 on my server in PvP and attempted to get BiS for PvE but it wasn’t my main focus. I played Rift at release and was in the top guild in world (can’t even remember the name) for the first raid dungeon before quitting the game. I’ve played LoL, Dota2, HoN, and other MOBAs for about a year or so; I’ve also went CAL in CS 1.6 and have been playing some CS:GO. I other words, I love my computer.
-Any other assets this clan could use:
My current guild has shifted towards WvWvW and sPvP and never does fractals. In fact, most of them are still trying to get groups for level 2 fractals and expect me to carry them. I’m down for helping my guild, but I’m not looking to babysit them so they can get to my level and then play sPvP as I go back to GW2LFG.com. Before they shifted to PvP, they found a unique or two different “fun” things in dungeons that make them A LOT easier to complete in record time.
1) Shadow Refuge
I agree, I take this skill a majority of the time. A staple for most groups/encounters.
2) We can steal a mob’s buffs through our Trickery line. I’m still eternally amazed that so few people use the sigil that despells buffs on a crit. Nor do Thief players take Bountiful Thief.
I agree with your points here as well; I covered the trickery line in my original post.
3) Venomous Aura is a game changer. Yes, a devoted VA spec eats up 60 pts worth of trait abilities.
I guess I lied in my original post, as I’ve never tried the VA spec. Like you said, however, you need a specific build/gear set/group dynamic in order for it to be efficient in dungeons. Furthermore, it might be a preference, but I feel that venoms aren’t very powerful in there current state. I dislike how long they last (I would prefer them to last longer), the lack of options they currently provide, and the range in which they apply to your team. If you were to run a VA spec, it would also eat your utility slots as well; you might not be able to run the sigil/refuge you want if you need to put some venoms there.
TL;DR: venoms should have nice little spots next to steal in order to work better with our skills.
It may not be immediately clear, tho, you need to learn the character first. People who say otherwise are very far from mastering this class.
Very subjective, but thanks for pretending to have some unique knowledge of the class that other people (or I guess this is just aimed at me) lack.
Premise
Blind is like Aegis, negates one full hit. Turning any amount of damage to zero is the strongest form of support.
Stealth, once mastered, turns the tides and saves wipes.
If you have a group that is constantly failing because of attacks that blind could have avoided, you have a bad group. Blind doesn’t work on skills that wipe groups – it prevents baddies from getting knocked around when they forget to evade. Again, I must not have “mastered” the class like you have.
Shadow Refuge
Very tide-turning skill
This is probably one of the best support skills around for team support.
I agree, this is a great support skill – one of my utility skills 75% of the time. Unfortunately, since we only have 3 utility slots, nobody would run three skills that all offer stealth to the group. Technically you could, but you would be kittening your damage, making yourself a glorified medic.
Flanking Strike
Boon removal against bosses who have dangerous boons.
But you must play S/P on whatever boss this is. Melee might not really a good option for many different fractal bosses.
Dagger Storm
The closest thing to “tanking” in GW2.
Easiest way to down yourself, although I liked your idea about putting yourself in front of your team to block ranged attacks. However, good luck finding a boss encounter where all of your team will stand in the same location, allowing you to “block attacks”. Most bosses will punish people for stacking.
Didn’t mean to sound belittling, but your tone seemed very elitist/smug.
Warning: This is a PvE discussion.
Hello! I’ve been playing thief since the start of the game, refusing to level up any other alt characters. I’ve experimented with practically every build, weapon composition, and skill combination that either I or fellow forum-goers have come up with. Some of these builds do great damage, others prevent most seemingly-inevitable downs, and some try to do both while not doing much of anything. Regardless of the build I choose, I don’t feel that I’m doing much to help my group complete dungeons/fractals.
Thieves as a profession seem to be lackluster in terms of support to the group. We can provide blinds if we go S/P, but this is a huge initiate-drain and causes the thief to do little-to-no damage; basically making your group a 4man-with-blinds squad. You could argue that we provide the group some essential buffs through the trickery tree, but the buffs compared to other profession’s buffs are very minimal. Regarding our utility skills, the only skills we possess to help the team are Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder. Yes, these skills could be used in specific scenarios to help skip parts in dungeons. They could also be used to make revives in dungeons easier. To help a party, we need skills that act as a preventative as opposed to a cheap “hope this works” fix.
The one thing that I see thieves CAN do, is damage. Unfortunately as there are no DPS-meters are the moment, I can’t say that we do more damage than other professions. Based on the sheer time that I’ve spent doing dungeons (and now fractals), I’ve come to notice that thieves can do some of the best burst-damage onto adds. Is that what a thief is picked for? Burst-damage onto an add that basically any profession can take down?
Note: I am NOT talking about PvP, sPvP, WvWvW, or whatever type of player verse player combat that you could think of. Writing this now, as I know I’ll have to copy/paste it soon.
TL;DR: I’m a butt-hurt thief because I don’t offer much to the group besides damage.
Hey all! My main is a level 80 thief in full berserker exotics. As you are all probably aware, berserker is extremely expensive compared to condition sets. Seeing as I’m cheap, which professions can use condition damage as the best PvE spec? I know that “every profession can use conditions effectively”, but I want to know which professions use condition damage more than power to get the maximum DPS.
i run just about the same build to that except the traits u picked in certain areas are kind of condition traits. unless ur running condition gears ur damage in that area will be kinda low i suggest u trade it out for something else
And yea im the same as u are i rarely ever die even when running glass cannon its all about how to dodge when to dodge when to use ur death blossom when not to. How to use ur shortbow and u have a dodge skill on that aswell the #3 skill so :P it all works out fine just run with wat u wanna run with.
Which of my traits are condition traits? I would love to know which ones I should swap out.
Regarding the pvp suggestions, I guess you didn’t read my entire post. I don’t pvp with this set lol.
Above is the build I run in PvE; I do fractals with my guild and run explorer paths for PuGs. As there are no actual damage parsars at the moment, everything people do is somewhat subjective besides watching for numbers. I was previously running a condition build but I feel that crit builds seem to do better numbers in this regard.
However, the point of this thread is to state that I don’t see how people think that D/D is lackluster compared to other builds. I run full glass cannon with berserker gear/weapons/jewelry and rarely get downed. I would like to pretend that my single-target DPS is above the norm compared to other builds/professions, even with this latest nerf. I can’t really go on anything aside from side-target burst of veterans and listening to the reactions of guildmates/group-mates, but I feel that D/D is still the best spec for thieves.
I’m definitely interested in any feedback regarding my spec, gear choices, or even weapon choices.