Guild Wars 2

I believe this trait needs complete rework.
True, there HAVE been times in which it has saved me, but there were also a lot of times in which I have been killed by it.

Last Refuge (Shadow Arts Minor Adept Trait):
Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches a certain threshold.
-Health threshold: 25%

Let’s see WHEN it is a good trait to have.
1) if you are already stealthed and are running away. It is "good", because if it procs, it will extend the stealth duration and will blind nearby enemies, thus improving your chances of escaping.
2) if you are disabled. It is good because you would enter stealth and will blind nearby enemies, thus improving your chances of survival.

On the other hand, let’s see WHEN it is a bad trait to have:
1) If you are not disabled and are attacking your target. Your next attack will give you Revealed, and since you would be already at low health, you would immediatly need to back off from your target. Failure to do so usually results on your death.
2) If you are fighting alongside a nearby thief who is attacking his target. Same reason as above, but of course the victim will be the other thief. Results here could be even worse, because the other thief would get Revealed out of nowhere and most times he will be dead before he realize what happened. If the "user" is experienced, he will know what happens when it procs, and AT LEAST it will give him time to react or to understand what happened. But if it procs and stealths a nearby thief (assuming him to be a SA based thief, thus with stealth as main defense), he would rarely understand why he got Revealed. Even worse, the other thief could waste a lot of initiative trying to get into stealth again, adding to the problem.
3) (minor issue) If you already have Revealed, the only thing this trait will do is to blind nearby enemies, thus greatly limiting the effectiveness of it.
In a way, when this happens it would be a good thing for you, because you would be ensured you wouldn’t face the #1 issue, which is far worse.

This problem applies to every area of the game, be it WvW, PvP and PvE.

In my opinion, I find that traits should always be a "win-win" situation. That is, no matter how powerful, there shouldn’t be situations in which having a particular trait would dampen your survival BECAUSE of the trait itself. If such situations exist, the trait should be changed. The fact that Last Refuge is a MINOR trait, and as such it is mandatory for every thief who specs into Shadow Arts, greatly adds to the problem.

That’s why I believe it needs a rework.

Now, let’s see what we could change in order to fix this problem.

Many people have asked for it to remove the Revealed debuff.
This change would fix the #3 minor issue I listed above, but would worsen the #1 issue.
True, it will "cure" Revealed, so you would always benefit of the "full" effectiveness of the trait. However, it would potentially increase your Revaled time if you are timing your attacks in the proper way.
I’ll provide an example:
Let’s assume a D/P thief. The thief has just backstabbed the enemy, thus getting Revealed and exiting stealth. The thief now casts a Black Powder (off hand pistol #5 skill), and proceeds to autoattack the enemy, planning to Heartseeker through the Smoke Field when the Revealed debuff expires.
IF this change would be implemented, there is a chance for the thief to proc the trait while autoattacking, curing revealed but giving an additional 3s (4s in PvP) of Revealed upon landing the following autoattack, thus messing with his rotation.
-->let’s discard this change, as it could potentially do more harm than good.

Another possibility is to make it that the stealth you get from it would be "unbreakable" for the whole duration.
While this would solve all the issues I listed, this change will make the trait too good, as you could attack your target while stealthed for 3s (4s if traited) withoug worrying about getting revealed.
-->So let’s discard this change too, as it would make this trait ridiculously OP.

The last thing I could think of, is to change the "stealth" part of the trait, making it only work as an AoE Blind rather than a AoE Blind+Stealth
This thing would solve all the problems, while still being a good thing to have as a low HP proc trait
There wouldn’t be situations in which you would die because you wouldn’t get revealed out of nowhere. At the same time, nearby enemies would still get blinded, so it will improve your survival anyway (which is what you would want from a 25% HP proc trait).
-->This change would make this trait actually good to have, and would completely fit a Minor Adept trait in terms of cost-effect.

Any other thoughts are appreciated. If any other good solution would be posted, I will add it to this post.

EDIT: typos

Because 99% of the people playing this game are really bad.

_ that North America is not the Center of the World;
_that there are other servers aside from T1 NA;
_that making one topic every hour because something is odd in that matchup will not solve any “issues” you are facing;
_that if you want to discuss about matchups, you should use the unofficial forums: www.gw2wvw.net
_that, in any case, the difference between winning or losing a matchup is one chest with 2 greens and a few silver.

Thank you for your time.

Imho the problem with conditions lies in the fact that most condition based attacks CANNOT be dodged and are RANGED.

Think about the vast majority of the Power based attacks:

Warrior:
_Earthshaker
_Eviscerate
_Hundred Blades

Thief:
_Pistol Whip
_Backstab
_Larceneous Strike
_Heartseeker

Guardian
_Whirling Wrath
_Zealot Defense

Elementalist
_All staff attacks
_Dragon Tooth
_Burning Speed
_Churning Earth
_Phoenix

Ranger:
_Maul
_Rapid Fire

Mesmer:
_Phantasms (can be easily dodged by good players, at least the first attack)
_Mind Wrack (it’s istant, but requires good managing of clones to be correctly landed)

All these skills MUST be set up in order to be correctly executed. Good players won’t have much problem realizing when to dodge a backstab and all the other attacks are easily readable and avoidable UNLESS they are CC-ed. Landing a POWER based combo requires a lot of effort if the two player fighting are any good. Not only this: the user must give up all the defensive stats in order to do a decent amount of damage.

Now, let’s look about condis:

Necro:
_Marks (0,75s cast time, the casting animation is almost the same for each mark)
_Signet of Spite (0,75s cast time)
_Dhuumfire (random proc)
_Scepter Autoattack (autoattack)
_Doom (istant)
_Tainted Shakles (0,25s cast time)

Engis:
_Nades (PBAoE, travel time non existant if fighting on point, same casting animation)
_Bombs (almost the same as above)
_AT LEAST the pistol lets the opponent understand what the engi is doing (assuming enough distance between the target)
_Incendiary power (random proc)
_Bleed on crit (random proc)
Warrior:
_Flurry (0,5 cast time, but at least is melee)
_Impale (0,5s cast time, animation is readable but very hard to avoid unless predicted or at long range)
_Pin Down (shouldn’t even talk about the broken-ness of this skill)
_Combustive Shot (travel time non existant if fighting on point, unavoidable AoE long lasting fire field)

Mesmers:
_All random bleed on crit procs
_Clones autos (especially staff autos which inflict burning)
_Phantasms autos

Ranger:
_Sun spirit (random proc)
_Split blade (0,75s cast time, CAN be avoided because the casting animation is readable in melee, assuming low clutter)
_Throw Torch (0,5s cast time, really difficult to dodge if melee unless predicted)
_AT LEAST the SB auto requires you to flank the enemy

Thief
_I’d say they are the only “balanced” condition based class in sPvP, because their condition application requires the venoms to be any effective, and venoms can be dodged, are not spammy, are single target and take up utility slots.

Considered this, there is a HUGE difference in how Conditions and Power based attacks work. You CAN dodge/protect yourself from power based attacks, which usually require a proper set up to be landed. You CANT protect yourself from conditions, unless you heavily spec into condi removal or are a Zerker Stance Warrior/AR engi, because no matter what you do, you WILL get that dhuumfire proc, you WILL get hit by those nades, you WILL eat that Pin Down. There is no counterplay, unless you don’t get hit AT ALL by the enemy, but this scenario only occurs if the skill gap between the two players is not so high.

Some people really don’t want to accept the fact that they lost.

The new running animation is AWFUL! Please, change it back!

The only thing I’d like to see changed about steal is it going in full cd if you don’t have anything targeted. It should go to kitten cd like when you try to use it on a target which is out of reach.
Everything else is fine imho. It’s a free, pseudo-stunbreaker (it saved my life in many occasions) and a teleport.

Disclaimer: watching the video or even reading this post will make you a bad player!

With the constant rise in prices of everything needed to keep your character up to date in terms of gear, I decided that the best way to do it is to refute the meta itself. I only have one Ascended Weapon, namely my Dagger, and since I didn’t want to pair it with a crappy Exotic off hand, I started to fight without any offhand weapons. Needless to say, the results were really good and I think I will keep sticking with this formidable weaponset.

DP thieves? I laugh at them!
Perplexity Condi Engis (who even use Supply Crate!)? They die by my powerful dagger!
Permastun, Hammer/Mace-Shield Warriors? Who said you need stunbreakers? 4x Heartseekers are all you need!
“Challenger of the Arena” who don’t even /bow before duels and permastun you with PW? There’s no escape for them!
Lyssa Runes (hello, upcoming nerf!)? Who needs them!

What is best about this video is that I never used my trump card: Twisting Fangs. This is, in my opinion, the best skill in the game. 4 initiative for a skill that roots you in place for 1 second, does less damage than autoattacks and stacks 2 Bleeds for 10 secondos! This is freaking OP, I can only imagine the things I could do once I fully master this weaponset (in the video I even wasted a few Blinding Powders because I’ve never used that skill in a long time )!

Also, since my thief has gone on a diet (last time she checked her weight she was not so happy), I limited the use of my food buffs to only one Deluxe Burger : apparently, the increased Poison Duration was what I needed to kill that Perplexity Engi. Really OP food, I expect its price to increase tenfold very soon.

I hope more and more thieves will start using this weaponset. Maybe they will realize how good it is. The fact that you can chain 5x Heartseekers without worrying of managing your Initiative is so good! I can’t understand how people still have to figure it out.

Oh, yeah, this is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjyvreIrqI

Build link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYMQJAYVlsMp8pdPx6J8PNhs9oCFKii7hTZUNVXBsC-zEDBYfAYLQUgA0FQJfAZPRM9RZtqpIasKGYqSJV5SQ2bQZlQAV2CA-w

PS: please go easy on me, I’ve started playing this weaponset only recently

monkeysensei.6492:

Is a thief being able to insta-stealth while under the effect from revealed from sic’ em a bug or a feature?

Shadow Refuge gives stealth at every pulse, which occurs every second for 5 seconds. If the thief has been knocked out of the refuge quite early, it is possible for him to get back inside and get the last 1-2 pulses of stealth.

Working as intended.

Can I ask why do you FSP people run away when I, a thief, am going inside a camp carrying a Warbanner? It’s not like I’ll try to warbanner rez the Supervisor, I would never do such a broken thing.

UWs were not so scared when I ran into them with it!

I’ll say this here as well: even if they made Vigor last 300s with no ICD, it would still be a garbage trait in a garbage traitline.

Simon.3794:

tbh, anet need to stop giving warriors passive sustain and give them more active sustain and utilities

the concept of warriors being able to “facetank” and no much technic involved is just bad design.

the problem is not these active skills(stances), it’s warriors passive sustain. ele has 4 second complete invulnerbility with only 50 CD(which warrior need 3 utilities to achieve) and can cast other spells during it, no one has problem with it.

Wait, you’re really comparing Ele to Warrior?

Iavra.8510:

Carighan.6758:

Iavra.8510:

I REALLY hope you give all players using any gear with + critdmg (berserker, valkyrie, cavalier, celestial, …have i forgot something?) the option to change stats. Otherwise i, and possibly a lot of other players, will be kittened.

Yes, you lose 10% of your crit damage. It’s the end of the world. Your char will fall over the dead the moment you press an attack.

I’m losing more than that. I’m assuming that Celestial Critdmg will get nerfed to the ground compared to berserker/valkyrie/cavalier. I spent an awful lot of time to grind for ascended Celestial stuff and won’t accept having to trash them.

/edit: Also Shatter builds lose up to 50% of their long term DPS because of Vigor Nerf so i might even reconsider to completely rebuild.

Yep. I wear Celestial Helm with Divinity/Traveler Runes on all my Power Based Characters (4 out of 6). The nerf will be really huge.

They should make a “Destroy all Arrow Carts in a 10k radius” trap.

I still see decay engis and mm necros as worse abominations than HS, triple stance Warriors (and I’m playing Condi necro these days).

Still, I must admit that people saying “eh, bring poison” or “they are weak to high bursts” really don’t know what it means to fight a warrior with any other class.

Use steal when to interrupt the HS through the Black Powder to deny him stealth. Use the stolen skill to get into stealth, cast Basilisk Venom and interrupt his HS again a bit later.
Then just use Sw2 to immob and burst. When they have already used their heal, cast refuge, immob them with sb and drop 2-3 cluster Bombs. They should be dead.

Cynz.9437:

hihey.1075:

Even if they made the Vigor on Feline Grace to have 300s duration with no ICD, Feline Grace would still remain a totally lackluster trait compared to what it was before, and to what it SHOULD be now that everything got buffed.

Tbh, i think thief weapon sets in general need to be reworked so all of them have 5 useful spells and not just d/p. That way they don’t need to heavily rely on one trait to be viable.

It’s not just one trait honestly.
Pre-patch Acro, gave the thief:
Vigor (due to 6s of Vigor every 15s thanks to Withdraw);
Condi Cleanse (Pain Response);
Boon Duration (which resulted in perma Swiftness and perma Vigor, coupled with the Trickery traitline);
A GOOD source of damage increase (10% when endurance is not full);
A nice third trait: Fleet of Foot (which would be AWESOME now thanks to all the Weakness spammed everywhere), Power of Inertia(which paired well with all the vigor+feline grace), Assassin’s Reward (same as now) or Hard to Catch (the new version is still buggy though, as you will still get interrupted – IE: it’s not like Ranger’s Shared Anguish);
Feline Grace.

Now you have no Boon Duration, “weaker” Vigor (which EVEN with Endless Stamina provides less endurance regen than other classes), less Vigor because you can’t give up Pain Response; a terrible choice of Master traits; a “meh” choice of Grandmaster traits (even Don’t Stop it’s “meh”, because it only really work against Thieves with Panic Strike. The Immob from other classes could easily be “ignored” with Sw#2, SB#5 or any other teleport.

You can’t really ask for better skills on weaponsets when an entire traitline has been NERFED to the ground, and literally EVERYTHING else in this game has been buffed to extreme.
Even people that use S/D right now don’t take Acrobatics because it’s pure kitten…

Warrior hands down.
Having 400HP/s ALWAYS on, without the worrying of being interrupted and without having to do anything is pretty much why they have the best survivability in the game. Add to it top tier mobility (in and out of combat) and top tier cleave damage, easy access to stability and a lot of crowd control skills. Not to mention that their Fire Fields are better than Elementalist’s ones and that their conditions can wreck almost any build.
Need to know more?

Azawrath.7304:

hihey.1075:

Classes that counter D/P thieves in a 1v1:
-Nade/bomb engis
-Hammer Warriors
-D/D eles (assuming the thief is actually dueling and not just trolling)
-PU mesmers (arguable)
-Zerk Guardians
-Condi Necros

Of course, you have to know your class and know how D/P works in order to beat them.

The majority of these classes counter a brain dead D/P thief. A D/P thief with any skill with perma stealth outside of the Engis AoE and come in for a backstab, run away and stealth. Rinse and repeat.

Hammer Warriors could be a counter but their attacks are very telegraphed and they require to be in melee range which can be a problem with pistol #5.

D/D eles I could actually see being a counter with all of the AoE they have but then again a D/P thief can just stealth until the Ele stops. Just like the Engi.

I would have to say that PU mesmers are not a counter since a D/P thief can perma stealth and completely avoid condis and clones.

Zerk Guardians. I assume you mean the ones that teleport every where and blind constantly. I don’t really see how (maybe you can enlighten me) since blinds really do not affect D/P thieves.

And lastly condi necros. Condis hurt every class and this could be a counter if you can put enough condis on the thief before he stealth.

About engis: a Engi with any skill will not have any problem in using his blocks and Invulns to avoid being backstabbed if he sees the thief avoiding his AoE. Plus, while Shadow Embrace is a good trait for condi removal, the condis put out by a nade engis are usually too many to only rely on SE for cleansing. Also, the Engi has so many interrupt skills that the thief will have a hard time against a good one. I suck as engi and made one just to understand how they work, and guess what, I melt D/P thieves.

About warriors: Their attacks are telegraphed but a D/P does not have any source of Vigor. The only way he could mitigate damage is with blinds, against which Warriors have zerker stance. Also, using hammerstun near the BP field will force a dodge from the thief, making him waste half of his Ini pool. Not to mention the #4 skill insta-aoe knockback, the #3 cripple (usually an immob) and #2 weakness are all great against D/P.

PU mesmers are a counter because if the thief is stealthed to cleanse their condis the thief will not do any damage.

Blinds not affecting D/P thieves is the most fun statement I’ve read in this thread.

Condi Necros have an istant interrupt with Doom. Again, I suck at necro but I kill so many D/P thieves with it that it’s extremely fun.

The only easy thing about D/P is chaining stealth and saying “hey look i’m stealthed you can’t kill me trolololol”. A good player will crush a D/P, period.

Made the same point yesterday 30m after patch hit and the Devs locked the thread and said I had to write in the “feedback” thread, where 99% of the posts are from people complaining of the outfit changes.

I seriously think this is an issue, especially given the high amount of non salvageable gear and the need of changing builds due to the Ferocity nerf.

Let us just hope they will at least see this.

Here is proof of the bug affecting the Steal ability after the most recent patch.

Apparently, every time you try using Steal while channelling a Heartseeker (reports says that it even affects skills like Flanking Strike+Steal), the Steal ability will fail, going on Full CD and without giving any of the benefits (outside of Thrill of the Crime) that it should give.
The reason “Out of Range”. Funny thing is that, when the opponent is ACTUALLY “Out of Range”, the Steal ability should go to kitten CD without even teleporting to your target. This is clearly not the case.

Please fix it Arenanet!

scerevisiae.1972:

Rym.1469:

So far, double sigil is a problem only on Thieves, so…..

air and fire are both on-crit sigils, when one fires it puts the other on CD. using them together is pointless.

Please, get your facts straight before posting here…

Krag.6210:

That’s even more stupid since you never get critical gathering (when you get 2 instead of 1) on wood and there aren’t any rich wood gathering nodes.

There actually IS critical gathering for wood

To the two PU perplexity Mesmers from FSP from YAY guild (and even to the permastealth DP thief from the same guild):
if you give me your addresss I’ll send you a copy of Cooking Mama2. I heard you like easy mode.

Westside.7213:

Im definitely interested.

Since you asked, this is the build link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaBlknpRNmphbtRaNmTn0RNRqAK9FZUNA-TlTDwAvVDonSMKnCg87PATlCBmQqqUAqSiuKDApPYhSQAmok8EAipqCpAeaBA-w

Basic strategy is to “play” with your Phantasms and your opponent’s reaction to them. If he doesn’t care about them, he is going to melt, unless he is full zerk (in which case try not to get hit and use your teleports to AVOID damage rather than as stunbreaks).

If he tries to kill them, which a good player should do, you have to be “creative”: your main damage comes from your phantasms, but YOU can still do a lot of damage, so be ready to use all your skills, and don’t just try to kite while your phantasms do all the work.
In order to avoiding your Phantasms to die, there are a few tricks you can use:
_Avoid grouping your phantasms. The iDueler will spawn right next to you, while the iZerker will spawn next to your enemy and will do a Whirlwind. Wait until the Whirlwind animation is over, then cast your iDuelist as far as possible from the iZerker. If you cast iDuelist first, chances are the iZerker will do the Whirlwind toward you (because your enemy might be charging at you), with the result that both the iDuelist and the iZerker will get hit by the same AoE attacks, dying together and crippling your damage by a lot.

_lure your enemy into a trap. This is my favourite, but very risky: try to look desperate, staying at low HP but with your utilities ready (so you can escape whenever you want). This will lure your enemy to attack you rather than your phantasms, but since you have all your utilities ready you will not die (assuming you planned everything in your mind); meanwhile, your Phants will do a lot of damage to your enemy.

_Try casting your Phantasms together: this will confuse your opponent as to which Phantasm to kill first, while the other one (and you) will be free to deal his damage.

Other intersting things you must know about this build:
_If you are finding lots of condi classes, consider picking the Healing Mantra as your heal. Between the healing mantra AND Shattered Conditions, you have an amazing condi cleanse potential. The only class you will somewhat fear are P/D thieves, but only because of their sustain thanks to CnD your illusions. All other condi classes are a joke with the healing mantra and SC.

_Use your shatters. If you have 2 phantasms up and you have 2 phantasms off CD, shatter your illusions. With the increased Mind Wrack damage, your Mind Wrack will hit for a lot. Also, if you see your enemy going after your phants, consider shattering your illusions to get a free burst on a unaware enemy (most people who go after Phants do not expect to get a sudden 3-4k burst from a Mindwrack). Also, if all your Phants are dead, feel free to use F1 or F2. F3 should be used only to interrupt a key skill (heal on a low HP enemy which you can finish by yourself).

_Shattered Conditions is an amazing condi removal. But it has a drawback: aside from your F4, all other Shatter skills do not take place as soon as you press the key, as your illusions will need to get near your target (and you need to be close to the shatter point too, otherwise you won’t get any cleanse). Which means, use F4 when you are condi loaded and you need a cleanse ASAP.

_The third utility can vary. Arcane Thievery is great against D/D Eles (use when they have 15+ stacks of might). Mantra of Resolve is another good source of condi removal if you are having troubles with condis but you don’t want to take the Healing Mantra.
Veil is another good option for extra survivability, which in open field can mean a lot.
Daze Mantra is godlike against D/P thieves. Even Portal can be a good choice if you are good at planning ahead.

_Don’t get waste your phantasms when you are blinded. Missing a single Phant means death against a good opponent.

_General rotation should be: Start with GS, #4->#2->#3->Swap to SW+P->#4->#3->(swap with #3)->#2.
Save GS #5 for thieves when they get into refuge. Pistol #5 takes too long to be a reliable interrupt, so I’d suggest using it for setting something up (either do #4->#5, to ensure that all the bullets from iDuelist hit, or use it to cover your heal).

_Since you have Deceptive Evasion, you will never have more than 2 phantasms up: if you cast a third phant, as soon as you dodge the oldest of your phantasms will get overriden by a clone: shatter your illusions instead than having them die a meaningless death.

_Last trick: if you end the casting animation of iDuelist when you are jumping off a cliff, the iDuelist will spawn in the air. This will make it very difficult to be killed, so try to keep this in mind when you are fighting in open field: use the terrain to your advantage.

Eloquence.5207:

Travlane.5948:

Qaelyn.7612:

Thief and mesmer is all I’ve played so far. And yes, mesmers are a pain in a lot of ways.

But I spar a lot with people who can absolutely tear me apart. It’s all gameplay experience. With mesmers success depends on learning to read the tells and pick the player out from among the distractions. Practice doing that by watching behavior and even spectating other fights.

BS. mesmers enter stealth and RARELY RARELY RARELY EVER get revealed. they are also in stealth a good 60% of a fight. this is a condi spec but still. bs.

Torch stealth: 30 (24) seconds CD
Decoy: 40 s CD
Veil: 90 (72) s CD
Mass invisibility 90 s CD

The last two skills are probably used during initiation or escape. It’s not like a Mesmer can “kitten kitten BACK STAB YOU FOR 7K” and get away with minimal to no risk.

Mesmers have to use their stealth much more strategically than thieves. Thieves? Pffft.

The prestige: 16,7% stealth uptime. (traited)
Decoy: 10% Stealth uptime
Mass Invi: 6,7% stealth uptime
Veil: 7,78% stealth uptime (untraited)
total: 41,18% stealth uptime. It can reach 45% if Veil is traited, and it can be brought to 55% if you take Desperate Decoy (assuming you make it proc), but you have to give up Blade Training for that.

If we add to this a 26% Evade uptime thanks to Blurring Frenzy, a 5% invuln uptime thanks to F4 and perma Vigor… Good luck taking one down :/

It takes 30 minutes to do a daily pvp in hot joins…

Ring of Fire Scout from [Fire] (A Condi Warrior and a Axe/Shield+Hammer Warrior), thanks for being the only one “roamer” I’ve found in 5 hours of roaming in RoF BL.
This night was REALLY boring. No one from RoF even tried to capture the Bloodlust points. RoF, what are you doing?

Eles should eat Thieves alive to be honest.
Mesmers, they are harder but not impossible (unless they’re PU specced).

Anyway, please provide the build and weaponset you (at least intend to) use, as the strategies are different.

Thieves’ HP are fine.
Eles need a lot of buffs to be on par with most classes in any pvp envirorment that is not zerg fight with a support role, so I would really like an HP boost.

Fights against PU mesmers with 4 invis (The Prestige, Decoy, Mass invis, Veil) can last really long. Especially if they are using a Staff instead than Sword+Pistol.
Anyway, a few tips:
when they go in stealth, they will probably have Aegis when they reappear: just attack them with your backstab, doesn’t matter if on the back or on the front. They will dodge most likely after the attack, so don’t keep attacking, just use it once. Keep stealthing as they waste all their utilities and go full offensive when they have used Veil+Decoy really close to each other.
It’s the only spec against which I won’t hold my back about stealth, and will spend most of the fight stealthed. I’ll give them some of their own medicine and usually drop a ballista and a /laugh on their corpse.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Dakarius.3284:

This skill is an elite skill that stuns for 1.5 seconds on a 45 second cd with a 1 second cast time. It also doesn’t stack with other stuns. The problem is it doesn’t measure up to other stuns let alone other elites.

Examples of better stuns:
-Signet of Domination (3 second stun, 45 second cd, 1200 range, is a signet, 1/4 second cast)
-Magic bullet (2 second stun, other effects on bounce, combo finisher, 900 range, 25 second cd)
-Static field (2 second stun, 40 second cd, 1200 range, combo field)
-Earthshaker(1-2 second stun based upon adrenaline, 600 range, 3/4 second cast, 10 second cd)
-skull crack(1-3 second stun, 10 second cd)
-Whirling strike(1-2 second stun, 10 second cd)

Basilisk venom was fine as an elite when it was unbreakable, but as it is now, it’s meh as a stun and lacklustre as an elite (this is important as it’s thief’s only underwater elite).

I suggest either increasing the duration to 3 seconds, or reducing the cd to around 25-30 seconds.

i disagree completely. It’s an elite skill which extremely blows out every other one in terms of CD. kitten cd is amazing. the stun is at a good level, 1.5 isnt too little nor is it too high.
And i see almost every thief use it. Why buff something already widely used? so people can never use daggerstorm ever again? or thieves guild?

Each of our elites has its uses, but I agree that BV could take some love.
I think even a 1s UNBREAKABLE stun would be ok.

The fact that most thieves run it does not qualify it for being good. Most eles use Tornado in PvP, yet all Elementalists’ elites are awful.

BV is usually taken in PvP for Lyssa Runes anyway.

Coulter.2315:

I would tend to agree with your points Sizer and probably the best options avalilable since a really solid Observer Mode seems unworkable. PvP needs spectators to thrive – generates new interest, ups the skill level of player base and even helps in balancing (broken things being picked up by huge numbers forces the issue and ANet have to react faster – if you had 1000s of viewers watching the number of deaths by Air+Fire proc and shouting at the time of it happening this kitten would hopefully have had more attention – anyone who thinks Fire+Air is balanced needs to go check to see if they complained about Dhuumfire).

Making viewing PvP a better and more engaging experience is definitely something to support.
kitten SBow.

Haha, mesmer complaining about thief sbow is so 2006 xD
In any case, Air+Fire is just one of the problems we’re facing right now.

lordhelmos.7623:

Rune of krait basilisk spiking from stealth requires a stunbreaker, condition clear, and heal (if backstabbed) to counter. Unless your a psychic and can dodge stealthed attacks.

I can dodge stealthed attacks.

But I admit, I’m quite the psychic.

Azawrath.7304:

Tao.5096:

what’s the point of nerfing thief build and some other ones which can be countered if you will use your Brain? /no offence, not directed at you anyway

D/P is an easy build but doesn’t mean it’s flawless and it can be countered by any class.
Problem lies within players and lack of creativity. Mostly works this way:
- if someone beats me up all the time with certain build, it means it’s too OP – wtb nerf.

I’m saying that because I have seen it in lot of games and it always did end up with never ending nerfs on that class – already have seen NCSoft doing that, outcome was horrible.

D/D build with CnD properly used is OP as well – how much does it take to learn how it works and prepare for a counter?

Well, I’ll quote a some admin from other MMO:
- Let’s make everyone have 1 HP and 1 MP and let them pvp – fair and square.

D/P is not flawless, you are right buts its close. D/P has almost all of the benefits of running D/D without many of the disadvantages. Does D/P have counters? Sure you can interrupt them but what else can you do? Please tell me I’d love to know more, I don’t have a brain :O

An OP class IMO is a class that either does not have a counter or is countered by a small number of builds that are either not viable or not used. I could easily destroy any build/class in the game if i was built for it! But the problem is that you can’t be build to counter every build in this game. Thus OP builds need to be nerfed so that more classes can counter them or builds that don’t counter them can still win if tactic and skill is used.

Nothing is worse then a good player losing to a player of lesser skill because of the builds being used.

Also D/D OP if used well? Thats not OP, that’s called knowing the class and build very well and know how to play off of advantages. D/D is far from being OP since stealth relies on actually hitting the target which can be countered by blinds, evades, blocks, etc.

P.S. /No offense still means offense

Classes that counter D/P thieves in a 1v1:
-Nade/bomb engis
-Hammer Warriors
-D/D eles (assuming the thief is actually dueling and not just trolling)
-PU mesmers (arguable)
-Zerk Guardians
-Condi Necros

Of course, you have to know your class and know how D/P works in order to beat them.

I like the cleave on daggers a lot actually. Now I can cleave on a downed body being rezzed without having to swap to SB.

The “nerf” is only VERY situational. Also, you shouldn’t be fighting PU mesmers anyway, just laugh at them and leave: it’s not your fault if they can’t play.
Speaking of mesmers, the cleave is really good against shatters. Now if they use Decoy, they will still get hit (before, the clone bodyblocked the damage). And there are much more situations that make the dagger cleave a buff.
I really liked this change ^^

Yeah let’s add another free source of Stability to warriors, they really need it.

DT ignoring LOS is the only good thing of that spell in a PvP environment.

The only profession that makes really good use of Dire gear are P/D thieves, who are by FAR the less damaging, but still viable, condition spec in WvW roaming. Every other condition based class has to invest a lot in Precision to get a decent Critical Chance, used to proc conditions (like Bleeding or Burning).
Condi Mesmers, Condi Necros, Condi Engineers, Condi Rangers and, to an extent, even Condi Warriors, need at least 30-35% base Critical Chance, which is about 500-600 Precision. Dire gear is usually used to add some much needed Vitality against other condition users, but that’s just it.
I don’t think that Dire is overpowered at all. Rather, I would be happy if every roaming class in WvW started using Full Dire gear: that would mean a far weaker condi pressure, and even with a higher health pool they would eventually go down.

Dire gear would be ridiculously OP in PvP, where Condition users are mainly used for bunkering. Dire Spirit Rangers or Dire Engineers would be a complete PITA to fight against.

Kyon.9735:

I agree, it’s really needed. Whether you play elementalist or not, it doesn’t give the player time to react until they realize they’re being hit by 5k~15k Metoeor Shower crits in pvp/wvw.

1) Don’t zerg (in WvW).
2) 3,5s of casting animation, interruptable and punish-able (in pvp).

Anything else you’d like to know?

And there I am, waiting in LA for a queue to pop up

Good luck everyone! Let’s rock!

/respect.
You are one of the reasons I still believe in this class and in its users. Fighting against a glass cannon Shatter/Phantasm mesmer always provides me with unmatched adrenaline.

Keep it up

ODB.6891:

Godmodder.9571:

…10% reduction in crit damage =/= 10% loss in dps. Not unless you have 100% crit chance, which sure, some builds do, but most people sit around 60%. Even if you have fury taking you to 80% all the time; crit damage is not the entirety of your dps.

Though this is still the most idiotic change Anet have made to date, of that I’ve no doubt. xD

The summary of the live stream on dulfy says it will be a 10% overall nerf if in full zerker per player. This is disturbing when considering a full zerk group….10% per player = 50% damage nerf for a full group = double the fight durations. may as well carry a pvt strapped to your back while trying to clear a dungeon/fractal.

LOL!
Do you even Math?

Anyway, OP, I came to the same conclusions that 10-12 Ferocity will be 1% critical damage.
This change will nerf:
-Celestial Gear
-Jewels/Orbs with Critical Damage
-Divinity Runes.
-Ascended Trinkets with Critical Damage (but to a slight lesser extent)

Since pretty much all my Power Based builds have zerker Jewels and Divinity/Traveler Runes, with Cavalier/Berserker-Valkyrie Ascended trinkets, I will see a HUGE drop in my damage on my Ele, Thief, Mesmer and Guardian.

TY ANet.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md44Og2TK3k

This is a collection of our best moments as a Focus Party back in Vendetta [VnT].
The video was made to show a taste of the life of a Focus Party member, which is made both of epic moments and disappointing letdowns. I tried to include all the possible situations that a Thief can encounter, but of course these might not be enough. Gameplay is by no means perfect, but it should be fun to watch (I hope).

Clips include GvGs against dF, vE, RS, TA: basically, the best guilds around when VnT was active.

I can easily say that playing in the VnT Focus Party was extremely rewarding. All the players in it were extremely cool, and although some might have been hotheaded, they were all an important asset in our team. Our main tactic was to wait for the enemy Focus Party to engage (sometimes even baiting it), and then try to either jump on them or just retaliate: we were extremely specialized in Focus Party fights, and we are proud to say that we have lost very few FP fights during the whole pS/VnT lifespan.
My role, specifically, was a “supporting” role for FP: my primary goal was to ensure that everyone in our FP survived, especially our leader (George). Of course, sometimes things did not go as planned, and that’s when individuality had to kick in: I might not have had the same DPS as a Critical Strikes Thief, but on an already weakened target my burst was deadly.
Our strategy worked really well…. until TA’s Focus Party came up with the “screw FP fights, in order to win GvGs we need to take down casters, or even melee-ers”: sadly, this tactic not only completely countered ours , but became extremely popular. That, however, was at the end of my GW2 “career”, so that’s why all the fights shown in the video are quite old – some are even 6 months old, but I believe they are still cool too watch

In case you haven’t realized it yet, I easily get excited during a GvG: it was very common to hear a loud scream in our TS during a round whenever I managed to do something “clutch”. Going “on fire”, and letting your teammates know it, can be of use as a psychological morale boost to both me and the ones hearing the scream (but don’t be too loud – I still have to learn this though ).

I kept the editing simple, I hope you’ll like it.

If you have anything you want to ask, go ahead and type it. I will answer every question regarding the video you have. Also, if you have any question concerning a FP I might still be able to answer it (I took a long break from GW2 but recently came back and got updated on the new “meta”). Build, tactics, composition, role… if you want to know something, I will try my best to answer your question.

Thanks for watching!

Other info:

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0Mp7pVOx0J8PNBNhwdpaz8O83yaFA-TVCFAB2pJAgHBQhqvclSQkU+9oKECcGAqZ/h00DEAABYn1ZbezAH9oH9oD9otzdO0bO0jWGgqFA-w (this was the one I used in most of the fights there)
Song list: Pokemon RBY Gym Leader Remix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaX4vN-uF24), Mass Effect 3 Credits song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZhdXhOr8AA), Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – The War Rages Within (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMiVeLTwQeo)

PS: This is the first of my final “batch” of Videos. I need to clear my hard drive of all the clips I took, so I will be making 2 more videos in the upcoming weeks. The following video will be a smallscale WvW roaming video with some friends (and guildies) of mine. Then there will be a 1v1 focused video (Not a 1handed one, I went “tryhard” with my S/P set for once ). Stay tuned!

I let my mother play with this spec in a solo q match. The only game she had played before was Super Mario Bros for my Game Boy, 15 years ago.
She won the match just by standing all the time at home point and didn’t get decapped once.

I’ll also add this: if they didnt nerf Lyssa Runes, (most) people would still be using them.

Rune of Strength is simply the best Runeset for dealing damage. It is simply “the best” runeset for Elementalists, Warriors and Thieves.
Same thing can be said for Rune of Balthazar for condi Engineers, rune of the Nightmare for Condi Necros, or Rune of the Soldier for Bunker Guardians.

Working as intended.
Next thread!

Without ICD it would be good.
With ICD it would be useless.

Toker is the epitome of carrying. Never seen something like that.