Guild Wars 2

Barquiel.5610:

If your looking for tips on how to be decent at thief even if you are new or a casual comes down to a few things.
1. Pick a Build and weapon set you like. For me I run power D/P -SB power build.
2. Practice in Spvp zone. Use the Golems and other practice dummies for stealth combos, stacking stealth..ect.
3. After you feel comfortable with the build and combos go into Spvp and practice. Don’t worry about dieing and such just practice jumping in and out of fights.
4. After your Spvp runs try and roam around in WvW getting those 1v1’s when you can and flip camps and such.
5. As with any skill it takes time to get good. You don’t have to no life the game to be good just stick with one class and practice, you will get there.

Or just search on browser ‘1v1 arena’ and theres plenty of servers to join

The best opener onpt is from stealth backstab, otherwise its just tickle tickle lose the cooldown game

Id say HoT was a success as it came with new, and that is change, something many learned not to like. Without HoT, you would still be a Jon Snow.

Zappix.7928:

I agree, Kudzu is awful and I don’t want it on my Ranger, can we have a less “flowery” longbow and get something that looks good and deadly? Ranger bows have lololol rainbows yay with unicorns, the awful new tiger one Chuka? And Kudzu, which has an annoying yellow arrow point on it.

We need something good, something darker and less silly, I love the Twilight but in a bow form. Make it happen anet, make it happen!

Dude chuka is awesome, no dis!!!11 the storyline is good and makes u attached, and the visuals are just fine, even a bit fiery when running around, and the two tiger souls comming in when wep swapping is just epic. The perfect mix vs twilight meets something less serious (but nowhere near clownsy kudzu, the dreamer, themes)

Jugnificent.2061:

Helbjorne.9368:

Azukas.1426:

Helbjorne.9368:

The MMR system in itself is also quite flawed. I’ve ran into Gold players that still didn’t know that as a thief they should go home

That’s not flawed MMR. The problem is you actually believing thief needs to cap home on opening split.

It was an example to show lack of game knowledge in ‘higher’ rankings. If that was your takeaway from everything that I wrote, I pity you.

Thief capping home is more of a mid MMR thing. As you get higher thieves tend to stealth mid or go far. Thief is not that good at holding home if the enemy sends someone there on initial split. At middle range MMR people seem to focus on doing home/mid splits (probably wisely so) and higher MMR tend to do 1-3-1.

But if thief isnt good at holding someone that is sent home, how is far easier, unless u speak of +1, which rarely happens in pug startpushes

id rather have them change the way u hold ur staff in the first place on daredevil n rev

Smiggles.6823:

In every profession specific forum there are threads saying effectively “this profession is bad, everything is bad.”

Nowhere is there a post complimenting Anet’s successes. I’m a filthy casual, I’ve only unlocked part of tier 3 fractals, done no raids, my wvw rank is like 150, my spvp rank is like 40. People will say I’m not qualified to speak on this but I find it confusing. How can every class be bad, every skill too low damage? Yet the game is too easy and needs to be more difficult. There seems to be a lack of moderate views.

As you say yourself you are a casual, which means you only scratch the surface of the content you play in, you arnt in a position to fully delve into the dyanimcs and mechanics. People who are dedicated are naturally often more subject to experience more, and thats why they yell. Sure some may do it for the wrong reasons or based on faulty impressions, but the intent is often good. It’s like With anything in life, even yours, the stuff you care about you are more passionate and critical about.

Healix.5819:

Repairing is simply to let you know you’re doing something wrong and to take a break to go and repair. A stacking death penalty would actually be the more casual approach, since it’d probably only last 15 minutes or could be repaired away, whereas repairing alone is permanent until done. All penalties are pointless in the open world however, since you’re only burdening everyone else.

Zoe.8310:

They should remove the WP cost to revive within the SAME zone, and then add back the cost to repair.
Double was dumb, but letting people camp and wait for a rez is worse.

People don’t bother reviving because there’s no consequence and they’re lazy. They could make dying cost 1g, but it’s not going to matter because people will just learn how to tag and run. If you want to stop people from AFKing events, they need an actual contribution meter. If you simply want to stop people from staying dead, forcibly waypoint people.

Yesterday I did an event and one of my armor pieces took damage while I was alive, I didnt die, how am I suppose to learn from that? I think its a meaningless addition as it has no cost, and death already is as forgiving as ever.

Something that was extremely frustrating when playing in the story demo as rifle thief was the single target dps lockdown, during stages where u had to kill 5 10+ mobs it got tedious real fast having to take em down one by one, instead of having a fancy aoe.

Warrost.4895:

“It (deadeye) cant compete with any old hot spec or any of the new ones.” -Sindrener (Source)

“Like I can go on and on about how little viable DE really is.” -Same as above

While im also worried about its viability for spvp, the matches Sind streamed were pretty average in quality, whereas Caed really did show a better potential in his gameplay and he were more positive about the traitline.

Captain Obvious.6951:

I haven’t played one yet but I watched some vids on Deadeye. Class stolen straight from SWTOR which I’m fine with, everyone copies.

But one of the benefits of being ‘immobile’ as a sniper was that you got cover.

So why isn’t the Deadeye getting this?

http://imgur.com/a/YcKvW

I’m thinking a lot of Deadeyes are gonna get rocked pretty hard in PvP the second they kneel down. Having a 50% cover and immunity to teleports seems like it would be immensely useful and almost required, as to not having kitten burn guardians tele to and burn your butt down in 2 seconds, or condi thieves stealing to you and plopping 20k condi dmg on you in 2 seconds.

the swtor sniper doesnt have the same high amount of stealth uptime, and mobility (shadowstep, withdraw, theotherwithdrawutility-icantremember, leap backwards on rifle #4). Furthermore, swtor and gw2 has different classes and gameplay mechanics, so its not accurate to compare the two.

All we need is more fine tuning based on the feedback ppl already been giving, then we on the right track.

Ghostdogk.3280:

i think 5vs5 random capping flag has nothing to do with pvp for me, 1vs1 you can show real skill and show how good you are, pls anet add 1vs1 ranked, ty!

while 1v1 does support more skillful play, im not entirely buying the “show real skill” argument as traits are more shifting towards passive defense, some builds are quite ezmode.

i miss the flamewalker armor set

thats an awesome looking aura, no need for flashy legendaries eh?!

Durrik.4679:

Thanks for the advice.

I main a squishy, viper/sinister elementalist (use to be zerker), so I’m use to dodging, and getting out of the way of things. That’s definitely a class that can’t take a hit, and with dagger main hand you’re always up close and personal.

I did make a thief the other day to try out the starting instance. It was definitely a different experience then I remember. I watched some complete beginners trying to face tank minotaurs (Norn start) and getting pasted, as I was running around not taking damage. Knowing the telegraphs, and cones of damage allowed me to just dodge out of the way and attack.

Even the final boss of the instance (the wurm), was a piece of cake with the thief. I felt like yelling out to the other players: Large spin…. get ready to reflect…. since the animations are the same for the Great Jungle Wurm and 3 Headed Wurm. It was down in at most 15 seconds, a very anti-climatic fight.

So what I’m saying is that I’m not afraid of the squishiness of a thief. I will also probably go through all of GW2 core story & LWS2 before picking up daredevil. I am a bit of a role player / author too and I’ve been feeling the story telling itch get at me. I might just write something down, fiction wise, about my character’s progression through the game. Maybe I’ll be done by PoF but I doubt it.

Once you unlock daredevil you’ll have a strong powerspec, it has two GM traits where one gives swiftness on dodge and the other gives dmg on dodge. One is good for roaming and the other is good for those story instances where u need that extra dmg. You have more dodges with daredevil, and with staff auto attacks u hit like a truck, while staff #5 inbetween the dodge dmg does some sick dmg and evades, Im even soloing most champs in HoT maps with it.

Deadeye does look interesting, but I fear it may be too single target focused, we’ll see. In any event shortbow #2 spam up close with autos are a good lootstick weapon for events where swarm of mobs spawn.

But as the other guy said, in general pve, esp roaming the maps, try out power. Dagger is a good start, either with pistol offhand (#5 gives good blindfield, and dagger #2 through it gives stealth, where you can quickly dagger #1 for backstab from stealth for more dmg) or you can go offhand dagger for #5 stealth into #1 dagger from stealth for backstab, as #1 changes when in stealth, and you wanna hit from the sides or back.

Theres is no this or what way to do it. And you will play pve exclussively so you may not have that pressure pvp-mapchat throws at you. I would just open my Hero menu and look at the traits and skills, that way you can get a good grasp what possibilities lies out there in the traits and how each differ and give, as with how each weapon functions, because as you said you wanted to learn from the scratch – and I dont think theres one guide out there to cover it all. Try everything and get a feel for it, either start or stick with power or condi, up to you. Personally I prefer power, but that’s me. If thats the case for you, try out dagger or staff when you get daredevil, while you have shortbow as offweapon as extra movement around the maps.

You mentioned stealth build, generally such isnt really needed in pve as going stealth aka Shadow Arts traitline will also reduce your dmg a bit. Sometimes going too much utility aka stealth may not be needed, it depends on the content you’re in. But it’s good to remember, while it may be so for all classes, thief is really the class where you dont want to take hits, it’s not designed to be rugged like a brawling warrior, it has its own ways, a finesse or a dance you will learn over time.

Im sure there are others here though that could point you in direction of more specific guidies.

If you watch from 26:50 in Sindrener stream you’ll see that he friends one of his teammates who turns out to have around 400 achi pts aka a new player. A legendary player fights on same team as a newbie, probl bronze or silver at best. This just shows the flaw of this system.

I feel as a thief Im more reliant on knowing my own limitations and knowing my enemy more, than on any other class.
Other than that the game has indeed shifted towards more everyone can do the same, less rock paper scissor, which can get messy with all the boons, reflect, cc, flying around

kito.1827:

afaik it takes 4 seasons with no way around it, i may be wrong tho.
wiki tells nothing about it

but there is no easy way to any legendary equipment and imo thats ok – cause legendary…

have they changed anything, like i said above i finished almost all achis during season 1 tho i did hit legendary, and after returning now im done

i think this backpiece is here to stay, same with WvW and pve fractal backpiece. You see same patterns across all gamemodes, pve raids had their legendary armor, now spvp and WvW get theirs. THis is the endgame content and way of aquiring legendary gear, in the end any endgame player want to deck out all slots with legendary gear, unless you are fine with 1 2 3 ascended sets. At worst you problably have to wait another one or two season, depending on how hard you grind. I finished most of my backpiece in season1 but then I quit, I returned and finished it during this season.

rwolf.9571:

Why is this a thing? I thought unranked was suppose to have a separate mmr system? (or lack thereof)

One plat said they use unranked to warm up. I’m skeptical, that giving the smack down on plebs is any sort of warm up :|

Even if it were a case of warm up there should be a better way then just steam rolling through players. Making the game even less accessible to the general player base.

Given that 80% of games I’ve experienced are 100/200 – 500 blowouts. (Having being on both sides, but mostly the losing end) This goes beyond warm ups, even at twilight hours.

better to test out new builds in unranked than in ranked right?

didnt c the replies till now. Sad to see them give up on the mode, we could use more than just conquest, but i guess the players has to “love” it for it to be a thing

Wargameur.6950:

When I kill ranger really fast, it’s usually that I got 3-4 interrupts. The damages from PI + AA is usually enough.

Btw be careful to the weakness proc, your damages will fall greatmy if you don’t clear it !

how fast can u kill a support druid? and what skills are u dodging, other than the pet bursts. ALso can i ask what rating ur facing such druids?

I just dont c how I can kill the real good ones, while I do know I need to git guuder

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/AikijinX-s-Thief-Roaming-Vol-3/first#post6728073

This guy has a vid of ur dp staff and does well (probl goes for all dmg modifiers traits as he hits like a truck). What u can do is to swap to UC gm when roaming to stack swiftness via dodges and then seap bk to the bound gm as fights get close/ur close to enemy camp.

Xtinct.7031:

I’ve been recently coming across more and more of that yolo LB/GS core ranger build, and I am shocked to find out that at times it has more total cleanse than druid. How is a build that hits so freaking hard gonna be allow to have access to so much cleanse? This is sort of a slap in the face to the glass cannon concept.

Druid has more condi cleanse so ur post reeks of virginity. Also, since u got ur intel wrong, have u considered that u may not be playing optimal vs that setup, and one build isnt meant to beat all. Are we talking wvw or spvp? Spvp the build is already at a disadv not able to camp on points, and wvw is FFA

Just try to not hold down spacebar and ur good. Before gliding was implemented, holding down spacebar as u know had no impact, its all about u evaluating as u go the distance and speed with just one short spacebar press. Practice that and rid urself of that bad habbit.

Ive played not as much ranked on my thief compared to my druid bunker/support ranger in s1 to legendary, but the last month on d/p thief i simply fail at taking down the real good druids. Some even can camp staff n still take me down slowly. Usually i just let em be unless +1 arises. I guess same could be said vs good auramancers too. Any tips or am i doing it right? Ive never had it this hard vs any other classes.

I spent all my resources 2-3 years ago making eternity just to get that shiny crystal. But now i hate it because of the explosions on footfalls, its way over the top and ruins immersion for me.

Then i made predator after deadeye announcement as i gambled on it being more mechanical than warr rifle, as thief requires insight, but instead we are left with a hard hitting wep which reduces functionality in other aspects, which is a hinderance vs top players. Now i dont think ill ever play that spec, but ofc i had to make the wep soulbound..

Hupsel.1920:

Hey guys

Loving the game as always, looking forward to the expansion. I am finally playing through Living World season 3 and there is a lot of content there, so congrats and thanks for that! There is one problem, though, which has plagued many missions in Guild Wars 2.

Story missions, especially those with bosses, are way too hard or unfair for solo players.

Yeah, yeah, this is a MMO and blablabla but I bet there are tons of players out there that queue alone and try the story missions. It sucks that a lot of bosses can destroy you so fast. I think that some of them would be okay for 2-3 players but in solo play you just hit your head against the wall, respawn and go at it again. The design is so bad that it doesn´t matter if you die – you can respawn, the boss has the same health as before then you just continue fighting it, dying and repeating.

I think some mobs could be scaled down for single player play and a lot of bosses could do less damage – maybe even as far as 40-50% less damage.

Thanks!

Every boss in LS3 has mechanics, some mechanics you have to master to be able to kill it, while usually theres another mechanic that can aid you in killing it very fast. On top of this you need to be on the lookout for what kills you, what attacks hurts, the patterns. Thats how you become better as a player, than slamming your head towards the boss without trying to understand the fight.

Instead of the boss being a HP-sponge, it requires you to think and act, and the mechanics are simple, but hard if you dont accept them.

But you always have the option to do them with someone, put up a lfg note.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

The aspect that people overlook, is that there are players down in Plat 1ish who are capable of and do the very exact same things to carry games as top 50 players but for whatever reason, their match making is so much worse than the top 50 players, that it doesn’t matter at all how hard they play. How can one person’s match making quality -always- be that much better in terms of PUGs picked up than someone elses? How could one person carry like that for 10 games in a row and receive no success from it? Yet another person generally always receives success from such plays?

It’s a really good question that people should start asking. I mean this season I’m repeatedly being thrown matches during lose streaks, that could only possibly be won if I could somehow simultaneously be on two nodes at the same time and 1v4, while allowing my one armed PUGs to 4v1 some other opponent somewhere else. You think this is am embellishment? The sad thing is that it is not. I’m just wondering how top players are somehow avoiding matches like this or why they aren’t being given matches like this to begin with.

This is a good sum up.

I returned for a month ago or so and I noticed I never get stronghold anymore, did they remove it completely? I kinda miss that gamemode, was a nice change of phase from the conquest.

Honestly the only reason i see soloq ppl pushing legendary is if they play flawlessly and carry every single match, but sometimes u do a fkup along the way that heavily influences the game cuz sometimes u are teamed up with ppl u shouldnt be, and that pushes u further down the ladder. When i got my legendary title in s1 it was just that, i had to grind hardcore cuz sometimes i was on winning streaks with balanced teams, and othe times it was pure losses chaos unfair.

I just cant see the higher end players reaching those titles without duo+ queue, unless the soloq leg guy is grinding hardcore.

While dp has more stealth, u have more dodge with sword #3 n withdraw with #2. The matchup is hard, and what mostlikely kills u is continous backstabs from stealth, maybe try and predict by dodging. If u got distance n thief is stealthed u often hear dp #3 tp shot which gives u 0,3 sec to dodge. Dont burn ur stealfrom the get go, its a game of cooldowns

This happens to all, it varies between close fights n 200-500ish fights

First you have to wait 4 or 5 days after purchase, then you have to wait a full month for them to unlock you being able to recieve and send stuff.

Jayne.9251:

Strider Pj.2193:

Natto.5819:

Taobella.6597:

Do not report them unless there doing something wrong “anet will ban you if report them for no reason”

So purposely wasting Keep defensive tactics before an assault isn’t against the rules? Pulling Invuln or EWP 5 minutes before 10 Omegas and a zerg of 100 descend on your wall could be considered a mistake if it only happens once. But when you see it happen a lot, you know something is up. Since there’s no report option for this, there’s no need to worry about a false report anyway.

As for why it takes so long to ban hackers, I don’t know what to say about that. But other competitive games allow players a /kick option. A realm vs realm type competitive game like WvW should have something similar.

And no, it can’t be abused, since War Councils are the most honorable players in the server.

That last sentence is GOLD

.

Darn. You beat me to it.

Hilarious.

But how does one aspire to join such an honorable council? My thief was born in the streets, does being a lowborn hinder such progression, or are there noble tasks one can fulfill in WvW to aquire note and rank? I swear I will represent the interest of the free folk, and do no harm unless spoken ill of

Toad.9146:

Is this build a thing? If so can anyone direct me to a good source on the build or can someone give me their two cents on it and how effective they are?

Its def a thing, if u c the druid offensive trais they are perfect. The last gm roots target on cc, and u have a trait that reduces movement cc and increases passive move by 33%, and the first trais u pick urself, either remove all condis on druid forum.

Straegen.2938:

Brahnan.1026:

Just do a small amount of your collection each day in addition to your normal play and you will get there before you know it.

If I did an hour a day, every day and didn’t miss a day… I am guessing it would be 2019 before I got it. Seems strange the new legendaries have the money sink of the old ones (around 3k to craft) and a massive time sink. I can buy an older legendary for a what a new one costs to craft right out of the TP and not spend months cobbling together the parts.

Seems very excessive for one item that not every character can use. I cannot imagine what completionists do.

This is the unique part come gw2 where most is easily accessible if you have the coin, which in return may not give that epic feel. Having made both the new staff and shortbow, both over the course of 7-8 days with 5 6 hours focus daily, i can tell you that the journey makes the items more prestigious. But i do agree that for the more familyman with restrictions it could take a month at best with 2 3 hrs a day or less, it all comes down to how you spend the time and go for tasks first that may be accessible on the lfg tool, like dragon stand event.

Gw2 is one of the most casual friendly mmos as it has content for all, and even if ur gone for years ascended will still be best, as with lvl 80.

Ziggityzog.7389:

@ AndyJo.8794

Like i said above “Unless your a pve person going for pvp related only gear i understand”

Every competitive mmo out there has top pvpers that cares about skins. It doesnt make sense that a ‘pvper’ wouldnt do unranked over ranked during season when the rewards are that much better and gives access to skins via transmutation charges.

I want an upgraded bday blaster with 10% buffs lasting for 30 min

mac.9645:

I’m super excited to play a deadeye in PoF. I’ve already made an ascended rifle for my character, but now I wanna make my second weapon, only… I don’t know what that is. Is there anyway to say with a modicum of certainty what the opimtal pve (fractal and dungeon) and wpvp alternate weapon will be? I’m thinking sword + pistol but really unsure if there’s some synergy I’m forgetting. D/D would be better dps but I’m not sure if I should prioritize that over utility. I also saw some success with short bow in PVP for the mobility. Thanks, please let me know what you would craft if you were in my shoes!

Im a bit torn as I have the predator but idk how effective itll be in PoF pve. Sure you have good opening burst on single target, but after that u have little ini left and lower upkeep on dmg, whereas on staff, dagger or sword u can at least keep plowing 3+ mobs all the time with autos. Rifle is a one trick pony, a gimmick, in its current iteration.

U have to wait and see, its too early but so far with deadeye in its current iteration the DrD still seemes ontop spvp, esp for most of us soloq

latinkuro.7304:

You seriously need to limit the deadeye’s kitten access to stealth some more like pronto…!!!

Having such ridiculous damage from long range and still having that much stealth access, did that even get tested properly by QA ! I think NOT !!!

Raise your shield, dodge, pop reflect, get close with steel or hide behind that pillar!

Ramoth.9064:

XxsdgxX.8109:

For anyone complaining, do you even know what a sniper is?

For anyone who thinks they know what snipers do, do you think they fire off shots rapidly in succession?

Havent you seen the movies?

The thing is that druid has so much juice going for it with LB play, like the extra stealth when leaving druid, passive 33% move, and the icing the root on cc, when that procs and u get to kite at 1500.. mmmhmm

Fat Disgrace.4275:

cursed bullet is unblock able (stealth attack), i forgot what it actualy does now, something to do with boons or something.

its very slow moving so hardly anyone uses it, but it is unblockable and converts 2 boons into conditions (or strips)

Phosphorite.6192:

Warrost.4895:

Congrats. It work in PvE.
Not like literally anything works in PvE, no matter how braindead played.

So? I was just pointing out, that not everything is bad about this new specialization or all the others. And braindead is pretty overstated. Besides, I’d say it’s a good thing that every kind of build can work. That encourages diversity which is way more fun than everybody running a snoringly boring meta-build.

The downside in pve tho is that the rifle brings no aoe and during events that yields loot from adds n swarms, the rifle with its singletarget n few piercing falls short, leaving the shortbow still the top lootstick.

Other than that it will be an ok wep for solo progress in PoF and some smallscale in wvw, but its curreny iteration sadly falls short in spvp

if u play gw2 then u have to buy it

Blackari.2051:

LOL you have to be doing something wrong, I literally was able to 2-3 shot people with rifle, p/p, d/d and s/d ….. did not even need to stack malice to full

This doesnt really prove anything of their skill. A deadeye has a hard time vs any class used by a player that are good at his class, while deadeye does score kills if u manage to nail that small open window for dmg

I just dont c it being that good given leap costs like 5 ini and flare lasts for only 4 secs, ur almost better off just using the tp function flare has, unless u want to use the leap after u flare (idk if stealth would activate when u leap out of the flare, normally u have to be charging towards in it no?)