Guild Wars 2

S/D SB
25/0/30/15/0
WvW

My thief I’ve traited stealth on steal and blind on stealth.
After some testing, i’ve found that if I open with steal on a mob that’s not attacking me, I will stealth but not blind. If I get close and it notices me, then steal will stealth/blind successfully.

I tested this in sPvP and I never once blinded any opponent out of maybe 20 tries.

Untraited it’s pretty subpar, though I do love having stolen from a Warrior, letting the steal cooldown get to 0, then hitting f1 twice to get the teleport in before the spin precast finishes.

Was thinking that since steal is so integral to the class it’d be cool to have other ways to trait for it. Maybe a trait that integrates whatever standard utility venoms (non heals, non elites) are on the loadout.

Just make it optional on/off. At off give some kittenty buff like 10% movement speed in stealth.

Haha, I did not write the word “kitteny”

No man, check it out yourself with short distances. Garbage in your way or uneven terrain will block ‘shadow trap.’ Only way ‘shadow trap’ is useful is if there is nothing in the way and you’re on a flat plain.

For a dps player that knockdown trap seems by far the best though they dodge through it.

Nowadays the only time I use traps is in wvw and I lay down knockdown and paralyze traps at tower doors. Also shadow trap is awesome for running from EB Mendon’s to speldon’s to get repair sups. Other than these few instances, though, there is no way I’m exchanging my shadow refuge or blinding powder or movement signet or any stun break or etc for traps as is.

This is the only class that is fun. I’m leaving gw2 til next major update. Same thing I did a couple months ago.

Zelulose.8695:

nalovas.5961:

I’ve played an evasive thief for at least 6 months now. I’ve been doing 30 acro, 30 trickery with s/d and sb. Compare this to the standard 30crit 30stealth and I have subpar damage and subpar surviveability, but I did get alot of swiftness. My irk is that the stealth thief is atm the only good standard build. The evasive thief should be as effective but is very much not. Also, venoms and traps builds are still mostly ineffective comparative to stealth/ instagib. To be honest, I am the only thief I ever see in WvW that is not a stealth instagib type and that is because no other builds even come close.

And that’s why I want to see more damage and less spamming of stealth and initiative skills. This will reward a thief who strategically hits rather than a repeat cycle.

Oh yea, that’s another point I’d forgotten. The new initiative return is great but some skills aren’t spammable so it only really helps certain skills (d/d 2 or offhand d 4). I have been playing s/d and while my squishy body is in melee I hit 3… wait… 3… for larcenous strike. The wait is so slow now that 3 is two different skills. INIT RETURNING QUICKLY DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU CANNOT USE IT WHEN IT’S NEEDED.

Forgive my shortsightedness but does this init buff really mostly buff the d/p 2 spammers?

I’ve played an evasive thief for at least 6 months now. I’ve been doing 30 acro, 30 trickery with s/d and sb. Compare this to the standard 30crit 30stealth and I have subpar damage and subpar surviveability, but I did get alot of swiftness. My irk is that the stealth thief is atm the only good standard build. The evasive thief should be as effective but is very much not. Also, venoms and traps builds are still mostly ineffective comparative to stealth/ instagib. To be honest, I am the only thief I ever see in WvW that is not a stealth instagib type and that is because no other builds even come close.

For Assassin’s Reward, a buff of 35% to BASE healing would have made it a GM tier skill.

The current buff (based on +healing points) is of no benefit to any thief. It would have a buff of like 350% for it to be a 30 point trait and even then I would be disappointed.

Ah, had that confused with withdraw. Looks like I need more practice with RFI. So playing around with roll on spvp trainers, the skill is blacked out on a cooldown while im flying in the air. I wonder if that’s what it is, like a guardian’s daze (3 sec). That’s a long time when your spamming your emergency button.

Dodgy thief is hella fun. 30 in crits, 30 in acro with SB and S/D. Got a ton of dodge from acro and from SB got that evade and teleport arrow. S/D has spammable teleport and also an evasive gap closer. You have your steal. Loadout I like is withdraw (dodge), house/bp, Shadowstep ( 2 teles), Roll for Init. From acro for the 10 point trait I like might on dodge and 40% vigor / might on dodge food, or vigor on heal (withdraw is 15 sec CD), 20 point- heal on init use, 30 point – 2 init regain every 10 secs.

Roll for Initiative isn’t a stun breaker, it just breaks immobilized type stuff (where you can still attack but movement is hindered). It’s also not completely an insta cast since it’s influenced by attack delay. Anyway, for having a 60 second cooldown while not breaking stun, this spell needs to not be influenced by attack delay (like blinding powder).
I play with Roll for Ini but I also always have a true stun breaker, mostly shadowstep or init sig. Sorry, roll won’t completely replace shadowstep.

Am I doing something wrong or does the search REALLY REALLY suck? On forums main page I type in what should be very common words such as thief, ele, condition, damage and it only gives me 0 to a few posts, going back a little over a week. Can I adjust this somehow or does this forum system need replacement?

This is a necessary change. While you’re at it, fix the bug where I change loadout on land it may change loadout location in water if its the same skill.

Sry this isn’t about acro/SA. Signet of Malice needs some love. I’d say replace Hastened Replenishment (30 trickery gain 4init on heal) with a new trait to keep passive heals when sig is on CD (maybe with a 15 sec longer CD if traited this). Then remove Instinctual Response (10 trickery stealth if more than 10% damage done to you) and replace is with a weaker Hastened Replenishment 2 init.

I’ve been using 30 acro with 30 crit traits for a dodge theif that works pretty well. The lack of condition removals suck but that can be supplimented with rune of purity on my shortbow and s/d’s number 2 has condi removal. Trait in acro might on dodge, heal on init use, and 2 extra init per 10 secs. Eat 40% faster dodge recovery and 100% chance might on dodge. That’s alot of dodges for might/speed. That extra init means extra heals. Actually using Withdraw with refuge, shadowstep and yes, withdraw (switch smokescreen, some sig) in WvW.
For me, acro can use a tweak but what’s most sorely lacking is trickery line. Power/crit lines seem offensive so lack of cleansers there seems fine. SA, acro are defensive and should both have decent cleansers, trickery is… utility?

I wasnt gona buy gw2 but his video changed my mind. Glad it did.

This is a terrific idea. Also, why not add the option to set 5-man group leader and make it a different color. Thanks for your contribution.

Everyone hits full damage while on siege.
Your utilities are as good as a lvl 80 (stuns, chill, invis, de/buffs)
You should run with a commander zerg. That’s the best way to get experience.

There’s alot of reading you should do on this topic at the wiki.
All upgrades require 3 things: gold, karma and supply (it’s listed when you click the upgrade). If you have the gold and karma then the keep/tower/camp does not have the supply. Like if it takes 300 supply and you have 250/500. You have to wait till it says 300/500.
You can’t use badges for upgrades.
If you’re upgrading a tower it’ll have 1 cannon and 1 mortar placed automatically.
Keep has a bunch of cannons and mortars automatically placed.
Only using blueprints can you determine where siege will be placed.

How about a system where you put up a flag stating you wish to duel. Then they can accept or decline. It can be the LFG flag lol.

To the OP: Do you have a proposal? Do you want thieves removed? There’s no conclusion here.

I tested 2 sigils of paralyzation that do +15% stun duration each. It had no effect on basilisk venom or tripwire’s knockdown. I would expect your sigil to have no effect with BV. So the only thing it would work on as far as I can tell is sword’s daze and the offhand pistol’s daze (though that wont last enough for you to hit seeing as it’s only 1/4 second long).

If I remember right Basilisk Venom was in its own class, not a stun. Then they gave you a way to breakout of it but it’s still not a “stun” class its a “Basilisk Venom” class.

And change the description to accurately say the cripple is 1s, or change the duration to the stated 3s.

Had 2 weapons each with +15% stun duration equipped in normal pve world. Then tested with 2 weapons with 0 sigils. Duration of the knockdown seemed unaffected.

Another one: when you use shortbow 3 to dodge. It says it’s 1/4 sec casting time. Riiight. You better press that 3 to dodge before you see their animation.

Very interesting this stomp stop tactic thanks. I can’t seem to justify the 6 init when it does 0 damage. 5 init would be too little though for this excellent manuverability. A slight tweaking seems necessary. If the aoe blind was increased from 120 to 200 maybe this feeling would go away.

The rez rush cheapened gameplay and made dying and tough fights trivial. That said, everyone in party should get loot.

Answer: kill them somehow or leave the jumping puzzle. Do we know if camping is unintended?

I was supprised at how low the laurel cost for ascended gear is. I got my first laurel daily by just playing the game. I figure I can continue to play how I like to play and after a month I’ll have a near guaranteed item upgrade.

When we in DR were fighting Kain in t1 I saw that we were way overpopulated for them. Even so, we had to use strategy and cunning along with our zergs to overcome kain which is props to them. When we moved up a few tiers and I saw Kain wreckin shop with those lower tiers I said to myself Oh goody its gona be another matchup with the ole Kainings, if there is a good 3rd server this time it should be fun. I felt that Kain was sort of our server’s arch nemesis in a way and looked forward to a more even fight. Wow was my prediction wrong. Anyway, I wonder what will happen to DR now that the fair weather fans have jumped ship.

Rhysati.4932:

I don’t really see why this is needed. Just use the stolen skill. What are you holding onto it for?

I hold onto mine often. Some are better in situations. Also, holding onto it for the 45 secs means you can use 2 stolen items back to back, basically gaining an additional stolen item for a harder fight.

I like the OP’s idea. +1

Has anyone experience with using both of these at the same time?
My idea is that if Blinding Powder is triggered, I’ll have a 2nd blinding powder on backup.
Last Refuge: Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches 25% (90-second cooldown).
Rune of Infiltration: Cloak when you fall below 10% health. (Cooldown: 90s).

With Rune of Infiltration, 10% health seems very low. I wonder how often a player can just hit me for 11% and not even trigger this. Does “cloak” last the standard 3 secs and does it blind? Are these runes bugged like so many others?

Also, wondering if a big hit can trigger both of these at the same time. If so, does the stealth time stack?

I mainly play WvW and with these runes would have about 1400hp 1600tough.

Wow great vid, that looks like it was a buncha fun.

Oh and to keep people like crouze happy you should have not stealthed so often and you also coulda died a few times to make the zerg feel good.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I would like to be able to say, clear a cave. Of course this could leave other players with nothing to kill. Therefore respawn rates could scale according to area population (makes me think of event difficulty scaling). Also, the respawn timers should be randomized somewhat. How it is now, I know which mob will spawn and at what location. Like if I kill a dredge1 then a dredge2. I know the dredge1 will respawn first since that’s the one I killed first and it’ll respawn right where the last one spawned. Makes it feel fake.

Ya it sucks but its necessary. -1

Also, you need your fellow players involved in refreshing siege. If I’m checking out a tower’s walls I’ll refresh everything before I move out. If I’m running supplies from a keep to another I’ll refresh a few things at a time. Inner stuff on keeps is used much less often so needs more diligence. I’ll do more refreshing if it’s very late at night since it’s more likely only me doing so.

Dancing Dagger was OP but nerfing it 50% makes it underpowered. 25% should have been the nerf. It also is a semi AOE and by nerfing this so much it gives P/D virtually no decent AOE.

Flanking Strikes the easiest fix would be to remove the casting time to make it a successful dodge. Shortbow’s dodge has a casting time but that is acceptable since its range. Sword is melee and this casting delay makes it worthless (a theif is squirrly and hard to catch).

Body shot needs something. Drop casting time from 1/2 to 1/4 or increase vuln stacks (or duration significantly, maybe 6 to 10 secs) or add bleeds.

I’ve realised shortbow is best used against groups, instead of 1. I need that arrow to bounce around to hit the target 2x with 1 arrow. I realised this when soloing camps in wvw. It’s actually easier to just dive into the whole camp than try to pick off things one at a time. Too bad P/D sucks bad against groups, its fun.

That trait is worthless. I tried it some time ago and I’d step away but if i remember right it wouldn’t cure the effect I was in, I believe it was immobilized. So I’d shadowstep away but shadowstep (a stun breaker) doesn’t cure immobilized (its considered like crippled, not a stun). So, it shouldn’t have triggered in the first place. Whatever the exact situation I found it worthless quickly.

That and the fact that it triggers when you’re not expecting it. Sometimes you don’t want to exit the fight at that time. If you’re still sticking with 30 acro I take whatever for 1st (vigor on heal 4 me), cripple remove for 2nd, and heal on init use for 3rd. The other GM (3 init on weapon swap) is not worth it IMO.

I was getting alot of “c0000005 memory could not be read” errors. Was also getting “page fault” errors. Also was getting “out of memory” crashes. All told I was crashing about once every 1-2 hours of gameplay. This was with a new gaming rig (gtx 670, updated drivers). Every “out of memory” crash was fixed by reinstalling windows 32bit to 64 bit. I was still getting random crashed frequently mostly with the number c0000005 and saying “memory could not be read” or “page fault.” I removed one of my 2 RAM sticks and have not crashed since (about 3 weeks.) At my old crash rate I would have crashed around 100 times so I’m quite sure that is the culprate. I was also getting random BSOD’s while in/out of game which this fixed also. If you have multiple memory sticks you may want to check them by removing one for a while and see what happens. Mine was dead out of the box it seems.

BTW Arenanet ,all those crash reports I sent you were resolved by doing the previous.

I was having this out of memory error crash several times daily. My fix was reinstalling Windows 7 from 32 bit to 64. Apparently 32 bit can only use up to 4 gigs of memory and 64 bit can use 64 gigs memory. 0 out of memory crashed since I reinstalled and its been 1 month. Btw, I had 8 gigs memory but I removed one 3 weeks ago. I now have 4 gigs and still no out of memory crash. I’d highly recommend changing to x64 based windows.

I’ve tried to work traps into my rotation without much success. You really need to spec for traps for them to be worthwhile it seems. I have started using tripwire in WvW a little bit but not in dire circumstanses. Needle trap I’ve found no use for except to setup next to tripwire. Have not tried the new shadow trap.

The ambush trap (call in a thief) the thief is underpowered and despawns quickly. It has skills (blinding powder, not sure what else) to supplement the sucky power. Lenthening duration from 20 to 30 secs looks like the best fix to start with.

If trap mechanics are not changed, they should at least have the casting times lowered from 1/2 to 1/4.

Infiltrator’s signet with my build seems underpowered. However there are traits which make it useful (+5 stacks of might on signet use, or -20% signet recharge and gain 2 init on signet use). It’s also good with backstab types but this signet seems trumped by shadowstep. It has it’s uses with certain builds so I wouldn’t change it atm.

Signet of malice I’ve successfully used with a vamp type condition build designed around attrition instead of burst damage. The shortbow’s aoe will heal for every hit you make (up to 5? not sure), dagger jump spin move, sword’s huge aoe etc.
Great combo with acro’s 10 (heal for every init used). Also, signet of malice and dagger spin in the middle of a mob is awesome.

My annoyance stemmed from defending in WvW. While trying to grab supply from the depot I instead talk to the workers who say, “Hello.” This can cost precious seconds which may result in your destroyed build site or breached door/ dead players. It is also a needless annoyance. Do we really need to hear them say “Hello?” I propose remove the interactivity with these worker npc’s.

Also, might as well remove the option to talk to wall archers (which can block access to siege) and any other non essential NPC’s. Talking to these does not “flesh out” the world in any way but it can be a detriment.