Guild Wars 2

And the production quality on the streams is on point! Anet seems to be stepping it up!

Ah i forgot all about meta battle! Nice call bros.

Tactics wise we looking at 3 team splits still? That was my favorite thing about the cele meta when i left

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Current meta specs are

S/D + Shortbow 2 0 0 6 6
D/P + Shortbow 2 6 0 0 6
D/P + Shortbow 6 0 2 0 6

Hmm.. well it appears the meta for thief didnt really change at all.

HIS, SR, Shadow step, and I sig for the D/P specs still? and I’m guessing withdraw, double sig for S/D and basi all around?

Maybe Withdraw with panic strike?

Ah, I forgot about panic strike. We were heading towards panic strike possibly overtaking crit strike in popularity/viability when i left the game, did this end up happening?

Hey guys I’ve been away from the game for the last 5 months or so (ya know school and grades being important or whatever), but i used to be pretty involved in highish level TPVP. I wanted to slowly jump back into the game.

Anyone have a link to the most recent tournaments streamed so i can get a peak at what the meta looks like now and how people are playing?

Or if you just want to tell me some meta builds going around that would be fine as well.

Thanks for any help!

Hey guys, i havent played in 4-5 months because of school, but i wanted to slowly start coming back to the game again. When i left i was very into TPVP, but it appears the meta has pretty drastically changed since i last left (not surprisingly).

I was curious if anyone wanted to update me to the thief meta. I see that Crit strikes D/P still seems very popular (and is really what the thief class seems to be defined around so no real surprise there), but is acro s/d in much gameplay anymore? I can still kill people very easily with it in Duels, but i noticed the way stability is used in the game is VERY different from when i left so S/D no longer destroys lich and rampage like it used to.

Any top level players still run S/D? Or maybe some new build im not even thinking of yet? I also figured strength runes appear to be nerfed so im guessing people are running ogre or pack or scholar runes now?

Thanks for any info TPVP Teefs!

You could borrow from WvW and have something like bronze legendary champion, silver reaper, gold ransacker, platinum gladiator etc. I guess a symbol by your name could also be possible (think the world completion emblem but a different color and a roman numeral on it for prestige rank).

My only suggestion is to take hoelbrack runes over strength. I think the defense from the hoelbrack runes is better than the small damage increase the strength runes give you.

It honestly not a very good team build. It is a great build for 1v1’s or roaming in wvw, but i would look for a build more oriented towards team play if you want to use it in team or solo queue.

Consider trying a staff greatsword shatter build, or a lockdown build.

Although I prefer D/P, I’ll continue to run S/D until they nerf strength runes. Currently everyone is running them on power builds and the ability to strip them and apply then to yourself is just too strong not to take.

Hey, I’m Rand X Al Thor a little about me:

• Rank 48 as of posting this
• 20 years old
• Very easy to get along with
• I have Teamspeak 3, Ventrillo, and Mumble.
• I have just started streaming again, so if you want to check out my gameplay watch my stream at twitch.tv/pantsforbirds
• I’m looking to play around 7pm cst on weekdays and whenever on weekends.

I’m only looking to play on a competitive team with players who understand rotations and team fighting.

Hey bros, i updated my guide (here) for d/p backstab gameplay. Feel free to comment anything that i should add to the guide.

Jhughes.8341:

I keep finding myself going back to lyssa

Personally I’m using ogre runes after the patch. Without the aegis and stability, i dont find lyssa runes to be worth the loss in dps anymore. Sadly that means i have to run hide in shadows in most games over withdraw as a way to compensate for the condi removal lyssa provided.

I got a weapon reward box from the Arah reward path and i opened it on my engineer and chose the warhorn for my warrior. Unfortunately the warhorn was souldbound on acquire. Is this supposed to be the case? I kind of assumed it would be accountbound on acquire and soulbound on equip. It’s not a huge deal and i can get a new warhorn easily enough, but it seems odd to be able to get a soulbound weapon unusable by your profession.

Ps. i wasnt exactly sure what thread this would go under, so i decided to put it in spvp as its a only problem.

Forestgreen.7981:

I’m almost positive you wouldn’t be able to sell any of the skins u get from sPvP. All the skins will be account bound. If anything it’ll be just be lower demand for the item that is all!

I was more curious to see which one saved you more time, or how many swords you needed to get in tpvp for it to be easier that way.

Josh Davis.6015:

I know that feel, bro. In WvW I look like I’m rabbit rank.

Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a “Silver Knight” like my pearl weapons. I’m pretty sure their /laugh’s are actually just thinly veiled attempts to hide their jealousy.

Ive been wondering what will happen to the high value skins tpvpers have after the march 18th update. If things really do become transferable then its interesting to think about whether tpvp or pve was faster for obtaining the item. I went ahead and calculated it out for the fiery gladius at its current market prices. Feel free to leave your opinions!

I leveled most of my characters to 80 using the tombs of knowledge, so i geared them with the cheapest (crafted) exotics. When i hopped into WvW from the Heart of the Mists yesterday i realized i had a first world tpvp problem.

Discordia.7293:

The build is wrong. We not use signet of agility, side strike and combo critical chance for tPVP

We not use energy, air and paralyzation.

But nice try for kill puggies.

I attempted to update the guide, but apparently i didnt do it correctly. I updated my original post to clarify temporarily while i try to update the guide on into the mists. Although this build is great for hotjoin, i made it for tpvp. I dont appreciate the condescension, im simply trying to help the thief community become all it can be by providing information to those who dont know.

Arkantos.7460:

lol after 1 month someone has finally copied a s/p build from pvpler an opened a thread, but berserk Amulett/lyssa is so old fashioned, with that much fury up time …. be a bit creative …..
theres a much stronger survival build available without spamming 40 Points into a steal

Trickery is an incredibly powerful trait line and is, in my opinion, the best way for a thief to play in the current tpvp meta.

Dahkeus.8243:

To give you an idea of how long this build has been around, check the date on this thread:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83957-tessa-averys-swordpistol-shortbow-daze-burst-build/

And even then, it wasn’t radically new. This was just one of the first good guides outlining the build.

(Props to Tessa Avery for their awesome contributions on Guru)

If you look at the post i made, you’ll see the guide is from july 28th, which is shortly after into the mists added the guide section. when i made my 2 guides there were almost no thief guides on the site, so i made a wvw and a tpvp guide to get things started. I have dueled Tessa often in the past and I definitely think He/She is a great player, and has a very similar build to the one i use.

Hey bros, I dont know if many of you have noticed, but sword/pistol is gaining a lot of popularity in tpvp and i’ve been having a lot of people ask me what build im using whenever im playing in hotjoins or soloques, so i decided to go ahead and repost the guide i made a while back on the forums.

http://intothemists.com/guides/294-rand_x_al_thors_swordpistol_build

Edit: Hey guys, it seems that the edited version of the guide i made did not make it into the guide like i thought it did. I attempted to fix it, and will work on getting it updated, but for now ill just say that i use practiced tolerance, critical haste, and executioner in the critical strikes line instead of the ones on the guide and that the sigils i currently use are air/force and force. I also use blinding powder over signet of agility sense it helps stop stomps or even help you res easier.

I realize that i was not the first one to have a build similar to this one, but if you look at the date the guide was posted (july 28th) you’ll notice it was one of the first guides added to into the mists. If you have any questions about how i play the build or if the guide isnt clear please tell me what needs to be clarified. I also like to stream thief gameplay, so feel free to check my twitch to see how i play it.

This is my current wvw build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaPHdy5E+5Ey2jeqC5JuHFlT1UaFoJA-jkCBYfDakgIQkFgEBYZmFRjtwpIas6aYKXER1WzDRziO1A-w

I also make sure to carry an extra pistol so that i can swap to d/p if i run into a situation where it would do better (like against another d/p thief or a hammer warrior).

If you want to see some gameplay with it check out my stream! Twitch.tv/pantsforbirds, i will be streaming tonight for a little bit if you want to see some different thief playstyles.

Hey, it seems the chat suppression is too sensitive in spvp now. If you are in a duel arena and you like to say gf after your duels then you are absolutely going to be suppressed after about 2 minutes. Is this a recent change? I’d love to hear a response on whether its intended to be so sensitive or not

Awesome video. I would probably be tempted to run knights armor with zerker and some cav trinkets though. I think soldiers is just a little too much survivability for me, but that’s something everyone needs to figure out themselves.

I like that you actually commentate your videos, and I’ll be looking forward to the next one!

What’s up bros. This is my rifle build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sg-70;0RKkO0S4oL-60;9;4T9;0T38A3;657AL-k0;2JF04JF045Bu.

Now let me start by saying I only run this build on temple, or if my team arena friends want to build around me a little bit. You have absolutely incredible damage with this build but you need to be babied (spell?). I main a thief which has a similar, but more flexible, team role as the build I posted does which means I can save this build for an ideal map (temple) or a solid team comp for it ( aoe condi clear & someone who can stomp easily).

How do I play it? Let’s say my team roles temple first. I’ll rush up the stairs on my side of the map and get on the highest ledge. If there is an enemy player ledging I will pop signet of rage and signet of fury and kill shot the ledger and follow up with a volley. The person ledging will either be dead or run (which usually has them jumping down so my team at midnight will finish them). After I finish bursting on the enemy ledger (or if they don’t have one skip to this step), i will have my team call a high priority target at the midfight and I will kill shot, then volley them. This will easily do 12-14k + 6-8k damage on any build without a large amount of toughness or protection (which is usually a priority target anyway). If I haven’t downed them myself, the team will instantly finish off whatever meager health out target has, and then they will pick a new target. Usually a couple of things can happen at this point.

1) someone will go to res the target using a banner, spirit etc. you simply cast killshot as soon as the person is ressed and you will almost certainly down them again since they will have low health.

2) someone tries to res the opponent. You’re never to stomp with this build, so you’re job is to cleave. If your opponent resser has popped an invul, then you should be volleying the body while you wait for them to be vulnerable once again, and then you should immediately bulls charge, frenzy, hundred blades + whirlwind the resser (if they have staving skip bullscharge obviously). You will do an incredible amount of damage to the ressing opponent(s), and you will almost certainly keep the res from working. If your team is on voice coms, they will have someone stomping while you do this and you will probably down the person who attempted to res as well.

If you play this build correctly, you should immediately be able to down 2 enemy players at the mid fight within 20 seconds. This will guarantee your team the first capture of mid in almost any game.

The biggest problem with this build is how easily it’s countered by any kind of condi pressure. If I see the enemy team has a multiple classes that are generally condi based ( necro/engi/ranger), then I’ll use Lyssa runes, but it’s still incredibly hard to survive pressure from them. You’ll spend a lot of time killshotting from 1300 range and then having to peel under pressure. You have a pretty easy time peeling with gs and bulls charge, but you’re also wasting time helping your team. You honestly have to play this build the same way the only d/d assassin’s signet, thief was played. Pop your utils, do massive damage to the target from your team and gtfo to the next point to help a teammate.

I don’t recommend this build for soloque, but if you do I would take Lyssa runes, and either use zeker stance, bullscharge, balanced stance with, or zerker stance, bullscharge, frenzy depending on how willing you are to lose damage.

Ps this post was written from my phone, so it’s probably riddled with errors. If something isn’t clear I probably autocorrected the wrong thing and feel free to ask me what I meant.

Noctis.4753:

Since thief is going to be the worst class in pvp now, I wonder how many thieves will reroll to the “noob slayer” warrior with the combo bull’s charge/bolas + fenzy + 100b.

I have seen several high ranking warrior rank 40+ using this “noob slayer” combo against another high ranking player and it actually works.

So, will this “noob slayer” build be popular and viable in pvp again ?

I qued with you yesterday on my killshot hundred bros build i was running. Its amazing on some maps like temple. I was able to instantly down 1 player from the mid fight while ledging with rifle and then bulls charge frenzy hundred bros down the player trying to res. 2 players instantly out of a mid fight? Good luck recovering from that without battle standard.

edit: the build works 100x better in team arena when you can have voice coms with a team that will help peel for you. I dont recommend it in soloque

Sorry about the wall of text. I guess this is just something I’m getting really excited about. I think its worth the read though!
I just started experimenting with setting up a good stream in time for dead week and finals to show up to my uni, but after this week ill be streaming a couple of hours of gameplay each day. Right now I only play tpvp and solo/havoc wvw, but i would be down to run dungeons with viewers too.

I’ll be streaming around 10pm cst on weekdays and probably around 2am cst on weekends. I want to get a really interactive stream setup (a lot like shin’s amazing stream). My stream is twitch.tv/pantsforbirds

I think gw2 has a great potential to be an esport even as an mmo, but it’s gonna take a dedicated group of streamers willing to stream tourney play. gw2pvptv does an amazing job of that, but i would like to see streamers take some time to explain the basics of pvp games and why they should make a decision in a match or how they choose their team comp etc. I think it would be pretty cool to get gw2pvptv up 24/7 again or maybe even combine it with another channel to stream tpvp and wvw gameplay with some different streamers 24/7.

Currently gw2 has a pretty low viewer count on streams, but (from my observations) the dedicated streamers seem to be doing pretty well and are getting more and more viewers. I think 2 things could really help the view count of streams.

1) I think Anet should continue to promote twitch streams. I had no idea what twitch was until someone mentioned a tournament was being streamed in /m chat while i was in the heart of the mists. I know a lot of people like to just listen to streamers discuss classes/balance/new updates in the background while they play gw2 (i know i do).

2) I think gw2 needs more streamers. There are times when i really want to watch people streaming gw2 and there just aren’t people streaming, or the streams are lagging too much to be watchable.

If anyone is interested in getting a group of dedicated players to stream on a community channel together send me a pm. gw2pvptv does an amazing job of it with tpvp games (although the uptime on the stream seems to have temporarily declined), and i think it would be cool to get a dedicated dungeon/fractal stream and a dedicated wvw stream where streamers can take timeslots to stream.

Streams that give away gold/items also have much higher view counts, so if we could get a community stream (or even a couple of them) we could let viewers send in a small amount of coin (10s maybe?) for a raffle style give away. Collect all the money and give it away to a couple of lucky players.

TL;DR I think gw2 is growing a nice community on twitch and i think Anet is doing a great job with the support it has given and i think they should continue to put an emphasis on it in the future.

Ps if you would like to set up a stream with me send me a message. Please have the hardware capable for streaming decent quality streams. You can also visit my stream if you want to talk about it more feel free to stop by my stream twitch.tv/pantsforbirds

Travlane.5948:

Thief vs mesmer stealth. With the nerf bat swinging wildly for the fences on the ball that is the thief….. it usually comes down to one reason. Stealth. So if our stealth is the reason for all our little perks. . . lets put some perspective on it shall we?

Let me also start by saying perma invis builds that use stealth to reset fights or regen for 30 seconds at a time are dumb. i dont think infusion should be nerfed like it is…just HS entering stealth to have a 5 second cooldown or w.e.

Now, the other day i was in spvp dueling arena and fought a mesmer….a condi mesmer. she got mad bc i equipped thieves guild and i said “well they are a helluva lot weaker than your clones thats for sure and both are AI so whats the problem?” This eventually led to me realizing she was a condi spec and the clones/phants or w.e. they are called in that particular build are used for pretty much 85% of the damage. i notice she (probably a he but thats a conversation for another time) was invis probably a good 60% of the battle and kept entering and reentering stealth. I was thinking well wtf right? i have revealed why doesnt she? well what im getting is while stealthed the mesmer clones doing dmg wont release her from stealth into “revealed” and basically was a “make clones and hide” tactic which is pretty lame and pathetic. atleast thieves , even tho they use stealth, have to work VERY hard for the kill and most of the time need perfection (against a good player) in order to win. there is little room for error as we are usually dead in 2-3 seconds.

So why is a mesmer able to enter stealth and not get revealed when clones do dmg or w.e.? if our gunk that is thrown on the ground…then we enter stealth and somebody runs over it….BOOM REVEALED.

This isnt a “nerf mesmers” conversation …just to keep it in perspective how far thief is falling behind other classes. leave us alone and perhaps buff a few needed things …. like p/p and s/p and a few trait changes that have been howled forever

I’m 90% sure this was after you dueled me on my mesmer. I wasn’t mad at you, but its kinda silly to use the thieves guild ambush trap trick in a duel. I personally dont ever use thieves guild in duels, just like i would never use polymorph moa in a duel. I just dont see it as a skill thats fun to use in a duel. Sorry if that upset you some how.

phaeris.7604:

I’d just like to know what Anets vision for the thief is. What exactly was the role they wanted for it.

I don’t understand why they’ve buffed mesmers and guardians in the dec 10 patch, 2 of the most popular and powerful classes yet decide to hurt thieves again.

I still won;t go back to my warrior though, it’s just a ridiculously easy class to play.

DPS guardian has been seeing some pretty decent buffs. I’m starting to think it might find its way to the meta in the next patch.

I was bored today and thought I’d try to a theory craft a build. The build i came up is pretty different from any other build i’ve played on my thief: Build. I’m not really sure if it would have a place in soloque, but i think if you had a team with good coordination and had some players that could peel for you, you could really help in a team fight. I’ll be messing around with it in hotjoin and then either solo/team que and see if its worth using. I doubt i’ll change from my d/p trickery build, but i think its fun to try out and share new builds with the community.

Do you have a new or an unique build? Share it in this thread! I’m also up for constructive criticisms or comments!

Edit: made a small change to the build
Edit2: more changes to the build. It’s actually viable now, but i might change more after i test some more.

I really hope they increase the daze on headshot to .5 seconds. I was dueling Cruuk a couple of days ago and when he would drop a black powder and i could hit him with a headshot as he was heartseekering through the bp to prevent him from stealthing, but the daze is so short on headshot, and with daze not giving thieves a a 2-3s cooldown on the interrupted skill like other classes Cruuk was able to use a second heartseeker through the black powder to stealth. So i would have to use another headshot to interrupt his second heartseeker, which would put me out 8 initiative, or he would stealth and i would have wasted 4 initiative from the first headshot. Now that was a super specific example, and there might not be many other situations similar to that, but i think a .5 or even a .75 second daze wouldn’t be too strong.

bettadenu.5483:

Excalibur.9748:

Even the most hardcore of thieves ie. Jumper will play a different class (likely warrior, most thieves are rerolling/have already rerolled a warrior) after Dec.10 path in tPvP.

Not to rag on anyone personally but if one is ‘’hardcore of thieves’’ and moves to a different class after a balance patch then that person is not ‘’hardcore of said class’’.

If you run with a premade team then you need to bring whats best for your team. If you have a team that can peel for you, I think a really heavy damage oriented thief would do great (so would a mesmer), but in soloque you aren’t going to have the communication for that sort of play. In soloque i find myself often swapping to my condi engi or bunker warrior to fill a role on my team that no one else is willing to fill (even though i want to play my thief). I think we will just have to see how the metas change (ive noticed pretty big differences in team and solo arena gameplay).

Jumper, that was an interesting video. I agree with almost all of the points you made. I’m wondering what your plan is for the December 10th patch. Personally I’ve been running a 10/30/0/0/30 build since the steal update patch (first as a s/p user and then after the stun change d/p). The trickery build has been very popular recently and I’m thinking it will have a net gain in initiative regen. Do you it will keep its popularity? It counters the hambow build pretty well 1v1, but after the changes to warrior i’m not sure how the meta will change. I personally am thinking we are gonna see a pretty heavy bunker meta with 1-2 damage classes per team (like a mesmer and necro). I’ve been theory crafting some more dps oriented builds, but I’m not sure its worth bringing over an axe warrior, burst mesmer, or maybe even a s/d ele.

I’d love to hear your plans/thoughts.

Great gameplay man! For the video i would recommend you cut it into smaller segments. A lot of people wouldnt have time to watch the whole video, but would watch more 5minute videos. Other than that, I think its awesome!

Sanduskel.1850:

Zacchary.6183:

Burnfall.9573:

Arcuss.6457:

you people are kittening stupid. You’re complaining about a profession that has kitten defense and kitten attack (save for stealth backstabs, which is why they have an exposed condition), and you want them to take away the only way a dps thief can survive. sounds like a bunch of cry babies who got their kitten handed to them by thieves.

What is a cry baby when we get you to 80%-90% health and you cowards stealth away.

Fight like a man than you will never hear us cry.

Like the saying goes, “Bravery bring Honor, Cowards bring Disgrace”

-Arena.net designed and supports a Coward Mechanic which Disgraces the Rule of Class Balance-

What a Shame.

If it is so overpowered, then why are you and sanduskel not playing it?

lol i AM playing it. i am not playing scrub spec though.

I’m curious what build you run. You’ve stated you don’t use “perma stealth,” “perma evade,” and you have lots of health from training defensively. Would you mind posting your build? Are you a condi thief or what?

Travlane.5948:

Narcarsis.5739:

Use Ogre runes. Rock dog will keep the other player in combat. If you do it properly you can stealth out, reset, and reenter before they get ooc as well. Sneaky sneaky.

pets keep you in combat. unless theres a bug i dnot know about.

I’m not sure the rock dog is a pet?

The bridge just south of hills is my number one “killbox.” It’s definitely not the best, but I get to use it a lot. Whenever I run with a havoc group we have to use locations like brides or the arches at the SE and SW supply camps to kill bigger groups of people.

My absolute favorite area is the cliff just south of the NW tower. I’ll take my level 40 engi up there with bomb and flamethrower kit and actually get 2-3 kills before I die. You can take people to that edge and drop a smoke bomb whole you try to push people off with your flamethrower and shield and them drop a big ole bomb to try to get a sweet knock back. Sometimes I’ll take throw mine up there too for extra laughs.

Narcarsis.5739:

Use Ogre runes. Rock dog will keep the other player in combat. If you do it properly you can stealth out, reset, and reenter before they get ooc as well. Sneaky sneaky.

I love the rock dog. My favorite is when it blocks the warrior throw hammer attack for you. Plus that cleave is nice

Hey Jon,
Are there any plans to give thieves more condi removal In the future? Thieves rely pretty heavily on the shadow arts tree to get condi removal, and while it isn’t too bad of a problem I’m tpvp, In worried about wvw. I’m wondering if a trait In acrobatics that removes condi on dodge rolling (with an ICD) would be a good idea? The 10/30/0/0/30 D/P shortbow build that I, and many others, run In tpvp is getting a pretty sizable buff with the extra initiative (and a small nerf to vigor from bountiful theft), so I don’t think it would be wise to add condi removal to trickery or crit strikes or we will have an overpowered spec. Another possibility would be to normalize the condi removed by the signet of agility. Maybe make it remove 3 condi regardless of teammates?

Just some thoughts I had as a tourney and WvW player.
Edit: I’m on my phone so pardon any mistakes

mini.6018:

pantsforbirds.9032:

mini.6018:

Cogbyrn.7283:

mini.6018:

Larynx.2453:

mini.6018:

Cogbyrn.7283:

mini.6018:

Also it was possible to land a skullcrack right between a thief’s sword evades.Gl doing that in the future. Just sit and get spammed all day by a sword thief.MAce is dead if patch goes live except against obvious noobs but then again i don’t need no mace to kill any baddies i just do it with whatever weapon i have sloted.

If you could time a Skull Crack between evades before, just press the button .25 seconds earlier than you used to. It’s still a matter of timing and anticipation, it’s just a slight bit different.

Problem solved.

You have no ideea whatsoever about pvp just by saying that.

In what way is he wrong? Any warrior with half a brain does that currently, and any warrior with half a brain will be able to compensate after this nerf.

Because the thief would already be inside his evasion animation by then.You can’t start loading your skullcrack because no one ever has a clue when a thief is gonna pop on them out of nowhere.Brain has nothing to do with it,only reflexes and castingt time is too long now even if you have perfect ones.

You are both just like that guy saying landing a finalthrust is harder when in fact mace lacks the tools to close the gaps ,immobilize,cripple to perform it and it’s exactly the opposite.Just stop talking nonsense you are the guys that need to land a shield bash or a bs just to do a skullcrack even in the curent state.This change will only affect good players while baddies will still go arround landing one shield bash->skullcrack-> 100 blades every christmass since shield stun is 1 sec and ppl will still complain about it.

I don’t even use a Mace. Hammer/GS in Zerker gear is my squeeze, and will continue to be.

I just thought it was interesting how you didn’t factor anything into the equation besides the change to Skull Crack. All those Thief tears about nerfs to Initiative regen through traits, Sword’s shadow step mechanic, and perma stealth must be for nothing.

It all remains to be seen.Meanwhile lacernous strike will still hit for 7k and will be harder to counter with mace.The initiative regen loss will only be punishing the bads that need to spam forever while skilled thieves will always expect the right situation and burst you down without fail.

In what works does larcenous strike hit 7k? When a zerk S/D thief hits my zerk thief with scholar runes, it hits for 4.5k max. Skull crack has a small cast time, that will now make it a pretty balanced skill. It’s gonna be harder to land now, but with a 3 second stun it has a great pay off. I think the balance changes are going I’m a pretty good direction this next patch

What good payoff ?Where does it say i need to use it only at full andrenaline for a full stun ? i just want to interrupt his big damage so i can prepare my counter..Did you even notice even autoattack barely hits?Just stick to hambow pls and stop talking nonsense.

How can you not understand how huge a 3 second stun is in a pvp setting? You can get off most of a hundred blades and then whirlwind through and kill almost any thief in that 3 seconds. A 3 second stun on a 8 second cooldown should have a very obvious animation and a small cast time. Even if you miss you can swap to your other weapon set and use your F1 with no penalty. If you can’t see how the changes to skullcrack are a good thing, then you’re the one who’s talking nonsense.

Callahan.3180:

So Earth shaker will now be reduced in damage by a total of 27% (if we take those traits), and Staggering Blow is reduced by 23%.This almost forces us to adopt Hammer Mastery in order to do some kind of viable damage with hammer. I thought the point of this update was to encourage build diversity. It seems like you’re doing the opposite of that.

With around 100% critical damage from gear, a full combo of Backbreaker, Staggering blow, and Earth shaker will amount to around 7-12k damage in 3 attacks depending on the armor of the target and whether protection is on them or not. This combo is hardly enough to take on a skilled mesmer, or good elementalist, and will barley harm a good guard. Now take into consideration how obvious those 3 attacks are when used in a chain. Earth shaker can only be landed now if someone is imobilized, inexperienced, or lagging due to the vast numbers in a zerg. Almost everyone knows the animation of it by now. Not to mention that Earth Shaker is completely useless on a slope because you guys can’t figure out how to fix this 1 year after launch. Backbreaker’s windup takes literally forever and is also a very obvious animation. Staggering Blow is a useful setup skill that helps you chain Earth shaker or Backbreaker. Ideally, a good combo is considered 4,5, f1. Landing 3 abilities at fight start proves very difficult without the use of imobilize, or Line of sight mechanics (By this I mean stunning people through walls, where they can’t see your player model). A good player will often carry atleast 1 stunbreaker or CC immunity. Some classes such as Guard even have this built into their weapon skills and don’t have to waste a utility slot on it. These changes would then increase longevity of an opponent and therefore increase the fight duration. Shout heal builds aside, a good warrior will likely agree that unless facing another warrior, for sake of class knowledge and equally readable skills, a prolonged fight against almost any other class will equal a warrior’s loss. This is speaking in terms of a 1v1 situation, and on flat terrain. I suppose I could tackle the element of zerg play, but I feel that going the direction of army vs army simply dumbs down skillful and interesting combat that can be seen otherwise if maps were created bigger, with greater terrain diversity, and less simplistic over all. I feel that you seem to balance in this perspective primarily when you should be looking at class balances in terms of class vs class, instead of army vs army.

Instead of damage nerfs towards warrior, I honestly think you still need to consider Guild Wars 1 for useful traits and class mechanics. There were many intersting ideas behind stances in GW1 that I find greatly lacking in GW2. Please consider the use of stances, class knowledge, and the stability boon in general for counters towards a hammer warrior. In truth, a hammer is just as obvious and easy to read from telegraphed animations as a Greatsword warrior. The last thing we need is another damage nerf because less skilled players do not bother to inform themselves of class mechanics and builds.

I think the problem is hammer brings good aoe burst damage whole also proving cc. It’s too much utility and damage together. 12k damage is a very large amount of damage for using 3 skills that are aoe and stun/knockdown. An ele or thief that used theist stunbreak already (say against a skullcrack from the warrior) can easily be killed without every getting to use a skill. If you use hammer #4 you can easily get off 5 and earthshaker and down the opponent without them being able to retaliate. You also have to remember that anytime the warrior is ccing an opponent they are also getting health from HS and adrenal healing (which most warriors use right now).

I think the hammer nerfs are a good idea. If you want more damage now you will have to trait for it, but if you don’t you still have a weapon that has great utility on every part of the weapon.

Famine.7915:

This would be a rather hard discussion. All changes listed in the Dec 10th post are subject to change. By Dec 10th they could come up with a completely new list. (With exception to some things that need to be fixed).

Well the I posted as a response to all of the negativity and complaints about losing builds to the changes that are coming. I still think we as a community can easily discuss the repercussions of the balance patch (which we have to assume will be close to the preview). It looks like condi is getting toned down some, so we may see ogre/scholar runes become popular again as people feel they don’t need the condi removal of Lyssa. We can’t be positive of how the meta will react to the changes, but we can make an educated guess

mini.6018:

Cogbyrn.7283:

mini.6018:

Larynx.2453:

mini.6018:

Cogbyrn.7283:

mini.6018:

Also it was possible to land a skullcrack right between a thief’s sword evades.Gl doing that in the future. Just sit and get spammed all day by a sword thief.MAce is dead if patch goes live except against obvious noobs but then again i don’t need no mace to kill any baddies i just do it with whatever weapon i have sloted.

If you could time a Skull Crack between evades before, just press the button .25 seconds earlier than you used to. It’s still a matter of timing and anticipation, it’s just a slight bit different.

Problem solved.

You have no ideea whatsoever about pvp just by saying that.

In what way is he wrong? Any warrior with half a brain does that currently, and any warrior with half a brain will be able to compensate after this nerf.

Because the thief would already be inside his evasion animation by then.You can’t start loading your skullcrack because no one ever has a clue when a thief is gonna pop on them out of nowhere.Brain has nothing to do with it,only reflexes and castingt time is too long now even if you have perfect ones.

You are both just like that guy saying landing a finalthrust is harder when in fact mace lacks the tools to close the gaps ,immobilize,cripple to perform it and it’s exactly the opposite.Just stop talking nonsense you are the guys that need to land a shield bash or a bs just to do a skullcrack even in the curent state.This change will only affect good players while baddies will still go arround landing one shield bash->skullcrack-> 100 blades every christmass since shield stun is 1 sec and ppl will still complain about it.

I don’t even use a Mace. Hammer/GS in Zerker gear is my squeeze, and will continue to be.

I just thought it was interesting how you didn’t factor anything into the equation besides the change to Skull Crack. All those Thief tears about nerfs to Initiative regen through traits, Sword’s shadow step mechanic, and perma stealth must be for nothing.

It all remains to be seen.Meanwhile lacernous strike will still hit for 7k and will be harder to counter with mace.The initiative regen loss will only be punishing the bads that need to spam forever while skilled thieves will always expect the right situation and burst you down without fail.

In what works does larcenous strike hit 7k? When a zerk S/D thief hits my zerk thief with scholar runes, it hits for 4.5k max. Skull crack has a small cast time, that will now make it a pretty balanced skill. It’s gonna be harder to land now, but with a 3 second stun it has a great pay off. I think the balance changes are going I’m a pretty good direction this next patch

Zacchary.6183:

I would troll this thread with a link to a crappy warrior build but doing so would make me feel like an kitten . OP is trying harder than most of us.

I’m positive there is an awesome build hiding from the community. I’m going to being looking into bunker condi, power builds that use deadly arts again, venom share, and acro builds. I’m also interested to see how pistolwhip performs now.

Hey bros, as I’m sure all of you know thief is having some major changes coming to it in December. Let’s make a productive thread to discus some possible builds after the patch. Please stay on topic, there are other threads that provide you an opportunity to voice your dislike, but let’s make this a thread to explore the many new options we thieves will have.

It think it would be best to describe your build as: supportive, damage, mobility, bunker Etc. And make sure to list if it’s spvp, tpvp, WvW, or PVE. (Please list the point of the bills in these subsections as well ie roamer, far point assaulter, dungeon).

I’ll be updating this thread later with more descriptive versions of my build, but to start I’ll describe what I’ll play in tpvp.

TPVP, far point assaulter, damage, some team support.

I’ll be running a dagger/pistol shortbow thief.

I’m going to run force x2 and fire sigil for my weapons and either scholar or Lyssa runes (depending on the other team comp) on my armor.

I’ll take a berserker jewel for that phat deeps.

I currently run a 10/30/0/0/30 build with: mug | practiced tolerance, side strikes, and executioner | thrill of the crime, bountiful theft, and slight of hand.

This build has been popular for a whole now (made famous by caed) and if you have read my sword pistol guide you’ll see it’s very similar to the traits I used for it.

I personally feel this build will be solidly buffed overall. Sadly the bountiful theft trait is getting pretty severely nerfed on the vigor uptime, so I might look into longer range on steal for easier bursting, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the changes to see how much vigor actually affects the build. The initiative regen should be a HUGE buff to the build. You’ll have more initiative for that clutch headshot to interrupt a heal or res.

What about you guys? Wow me with a build or an explanation for why your build is gonna survive/improve after the changes!

Mods: could you please delete posts that are unnecessarily negative or aren’t on topic. I really want to start a good resource here.

I main a thief and while I love thief and it will always be my main, I want to level another class for some wvw play. Thief is great for roaming, but it’s not as good in guild play (or zerging). I have had a tpvp warrior for a number of months now, so I understand he weapons and the traits well enough, but I’m not sure what stats I need to be going for. My thought right now is to go knights armor, cavalier trinkets, and melandru runes for a power build.

WvWers what are your thoughts? Ill probably swap around with greatsword sword/warhorn, greatsword hammer, hambow, mace/shield greatsword, and greatsword sword/shield. My favorite thing about warrior is the kind of mobile bruiser it can be. I’ll probably be rocking HS, zerker stance, balanced stance, signet of stamina (that’s the condi clear right?), and signet of rage.

I realize hammer is getting a damage nerf I’m December and unsuspecting foes is getting moved, but I don’t think that’s going to change what I want to accomplish.

How do you guys gear yourself? I also thought about soldiers armor with cav trinkets if I use unsuspecting foe, but after the patch I’m not sure it’ll still be worth using soldiers armor.

Ps. I’m sorry about the poor formatting/organization. I’m typing this from my mobile phone.

Side note: I’m not trying to FOTM here but Im ready to get a profession that is more sustained in it’s damage and has a little staying power, and I like the warriors play style a little more than guardian

I’m fine with the changes. The initiative change will be good for any thief not traited for int regen. Obviously perma stealth is dead now, but thats not too bad. The biggest problem i have is the lack on condi removal thieves will have now. Our main source of condi removal came from shadow arts, so i guess we will see how that plays out. Perma stealth was never that great in tpvp, so i think overall tpvp thieves will be fine. We will probably see more 10/30/0/0/30 thieves using d/p.

Heres a guide I wrote a whole back: guide

I’ll be updating it later this week.

Aeolus.3615:

Okaishi.8320:

Oh, look, it’s another thread for people whining about thieves.

The only silly thing about thieves is perma stealth really. Everything else is perfectly manageable and anyone who is atleast decent at his class has a good chance of beating a thief of equal skill. (…)

Actually that is not entirely true, no matter how many rolls or armor u have there are some builds in 3 classes that can instadown any player in 2 seconds.
The game is not that balanced how many players think it is.

If you are referring to the 4 signet thief build then i agree nothing will survive the burst. The build requires you to take 4 signets and basilisks venom as your slots skills and you pretty much have to use d/d. You trait 30/30/0/0/10 and you become a 1 trick pony with base vitality and toughness. You have to pop your heal, 3 utility signets, basi venom and then do the burst combo. You will have 22 stacks of might when you do the cloak and dagger precasted into steal and you can hit for INCREDIBLE damage. I once hit a mesmer for 17k or 19k on the mug, C&D, and air sigil proc. The mesmer downed before i even got to use my backstab.

If you want to beat this build you just dodge 1 time. The thief will be 900 range when (s)he does the steal, alternatively you can just watch for the c&d animation, and then you just dodge role 1 time. The thief will be left with only 9 of his/her initiative left and will have no heals, utils, or an elite. You can then auto attack the thief down for ridiculous amounts of damage. Last time i did this build i missed my cheese on a warrior (wearing knights armor) and the warrior was able to hit me for 16k with a single whirling axe (i think only 2 or 3 hits proc’ed on me).

Literally every class in the game can make an incredible burst combo (although i think necro might be the hardest to burst with). The counter play is extremely easy on most of these cases though.