Guild Wars 2

Favorite part of this discussion over transfers, bandwagoning, and long shifts to beat so and so is that none of this matters. I mean really what does the first place team really “win”. The only thing anyone can actually do is make sure that whenever you reach the battlefield you kick kitten and let the loot bags lie where they may.

No, this is a team game with emphasis on team tactics and cooperation. Classes are balanced around that objective.

Costume brawl = duel imho if you want to see who is king! There is even a crown for the winner…

So a thief walks into a bar…

“Mate, what’s got you down?” says the bartender, because he’s noticed that the thief is looking very sad.
“I dunno,” sighs the thief. “I just get the feeling that no one really likes me.”
“Why not ask that norn guardian over there in the corner,” says the barman.

So the thief goes up to the norn guardian. “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
“Maybe it’s because you don’t have good support abilities,” the guardian bellows over his pitcher of ale. “I give lots of helpful support and everyone likes me. Why not ask that mesmer over there?”

So the thief wipes the flecks of ale from his face and approaches the mesmer. “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
“I’m sitting right here,” the mesmer croons, beckoning him with a slender finger. “You were speaking to a clone. Maybe no one likes you because you can’t portal people about. I portal people everywhere and they all like me. Why not bother that warrior over there.”

So the thief goes up to the warrior. “Why doesn’t anyone like me,” he asks.
“Hmm,” growls the warrior. Maybe it’s because you don’t charge headfirst into the enemy. I always lead the charge into battle and everyone likes me. Go ask that dev over there before I crush you with my superior damage."

The thief gives one final sigh and approaches the dev.
“Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he asks.
The dev puts down his coffee, slides his plate of cookies to the side and looks the thief square in the eye.

“Dude.” He says. “You’re a thief.”

It’s one of the strongest downed states in game for pvp. Damage is ridiculous and you can easily prevent two stomps.. So unless they have different downed abilities between pve and pvp I think your outa luck

I care little about the downed state since I rather not to go down in the first place.

C&D burns initiative even if you fire it at the wind. Also, the trait that is used to make it more spamable by reducing the cost by 2 actually instead gives back the thief 2 initiative (out of 6) when he enters stealth. So when he whifs his C&D on a miss/dodge/evade/block/immune there is a huge initiative cost in the process.

Traps are not visible to enemies.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

We always, ALWAYS win (the one time we didn’t was because of an exploit!) and as such we are always Green. This makes WvW Map completion very difficult to get.

First-World Tyrian Problems at its finest.

Elmuerto.9840:

I think people have gotten used to stealth ocurring so very frequently both in attack and defense. I wonder does this particular problem affect heavily those who use D/D?

It does primarily affect D/D and S/D setups that go heavily into Shadow Arts.

Since these setups rely heavily on Stealth as an offensive and defensive mechanism, they use stealth at high health to get off damage/control abilities and manage their initiative and revealed debuff to allow them to CnD defensively at low life.

In between stealths they will often use other attacks during revealed after which they’ll make decision whether to continue to stealth for damage or to put pressure on with other attacks or to CnD as a defensive measure.

If they stealth for damage then there’s the risk of being hit below 25% and procing Last Refuge mid-CnD OR they get off the CnD and are unaffected by Last Refuge Proc (Stacks duration in stealth, revealed if having already come out of stealth)

If they use other attacks (Flanking Strike/Heartseeker/Death Blossom/Dancing Dagger) then they’ll have a good chance of breaking the Last Refuge stealth instantly giving them no way out.

If they CnD defensively then there’s still a chance they proc Last Refuge mid-CnD and get revealed (Thus negating any defensive benefit from going into stealth, using up 6 initiative and also getting 4 seconds of revealed) though there’s a chance that they can get CnD off and have Last Refuge proc giving them extended stealth.

Last Refuge on P/D builds is less dangerous since you’re less likely to be at low health (In my experience P/D is very hard to take down due to spending long periods in stealth as damage will still be done via bleeds) and primarily it’s damage comes from Sneak Attack and auto-attacks during revealed reducing the amount of skills that can be interrupt the stealth caused by Last Refuge down to just the CnD to gain stealth (Though if timed well it will land less than 0.1 of a second after revealed wears off, as there’s no auto-attack chain to interrupt when casting it)

For other builds such as D/P and P/P Last Refuge is unlikely to interfere much due to how they gain stealth.

But for how Last Refuge interacts with D/D and S/D builds (2 of the primary stealth focused weapon sets) it should be at least tweaked if not replaced by a more useful trait (Bearing in mind how powerful some other classes 5 point traits can be and how none of the other 5 point traits can be detrimental to a build (Aside from Reanimator for Necromancers))

Hello all! Just wanted to get a post going that can include some nifty tricks and tips for our wonderful community!

I noticed that hardly any boards have any stickies aside from the ones that were there when I started playing (right after release). Being an adamant thief player, I thought we might try and get something useful stickied here.

I am one person, and I am certainly not the best thief. I will try and put in things I can think of, and I hope that the rest of the thief community can help as well. I know a bunch of names around here that I am sure would just love to hop on in and throw some secrets and spoilers of the trade, so please do! All that said, let’s get down to what the thief can do!

General tricks!

Stomping downed players:

-Begin stomp, shadowstep away during stomp, shadow return right before completion.
if you aren’t obviously on top of a lot of people trying to stomp, they don’t know they’re being stomped.

-CnD>stomp. works well, and with trait points to increase time in stealth, you’ll pop out of stealth right after a flagpole appears in their head.

-Ever (finally) downed an ele, just to begin a stomp(stealth or not) and the bugger turns into a vaporous cloud of broken limbs and floats a few hundred yards to the left?
Begin stomp>(ele, thief, even mesmer – but you have to be quick targetting in mesmer’s case – generally lucky mouse location when they reappear – used their downed #2 skill to move out from under the stomp)>Steal when they stop moving(mesmer’s case; reacquired target) before the stomp finishes and you shadowstep/finish the stomp.
So: Begin stomp>steal once target’s #2 downed skill used up midstomp>completed stomp.

Signet of shadows. You forgot to unequip it before engaging didn’t you? Nah, it’s legit. This one is really dandy for guardians with their aoe push from their downed state. Just pop the signet before they pop their aoe. A blind push, is a missed push, some clear it with an autoattack, but that’s the effectiveness of timing.

Sword tricks!

-Infiltrator’s Strike doesn’t require a target! You can lay your cirlce down with no
target and you have ~14 seconds to utilize shadow return.

-You can use Infiltrator’s Strike with an enemy target out of range to shadowstep 600 units in their direction! This combined with steal (900 range, 1200 range traited for ‘long reach’ in trickery) can net you 1500-1800 range gap closer (and you’ll still have shadow return available, and even well past that distance, it will return you). (please note to get the full distance, infiltrator’s strike must put you in your respective steal range, otherwise steal will gain a 4s cooldown and you’ll just stand there)

-Pistol Whip (s/p#3) is a stationary attack with a small stun and evade component. Most players will move out of pistol whip range right after the stun fades (because it supposedly hurts them, go figure). Once they get right to the edge of it’s range you can steal mid-pistolwhip and land the rest of the chain on them.

-Infiltrator’s Strike seems to have a height barrier. Don’t expect to make your circle atop a keep, jump down and then shadow return when things get sticky!

Shadow return doesn’t have a height barrier. The general rule of thumb for all the teleportation skills is this: if you can get to the area (even if it’s on the z-axis) WITHOUT having to jump, you should be able to teleport on to it as well. This arises due to high the pathing is on the maps. However, there are some areas that have their pathing intentionally blocked – keeps, enemy base on foefire etc.

-Thanks Rome!

-Flanking strike has two hits for it to land. The first one will remove a boon, and is unblockable – on demand boon removal is not bad. The second strike is blockable, and affected by your odd pathing (though the evade built into the skill lines up with it’s animation nicely, as opposed to some other dual skill evades) when chilled/crippled or with swiftness. It’s a hard hit if both land.

Don’t underestimate the power of Infiltrator’s strike. If your circle is down away from you and your victim’s, erm, pursuers, drop a shadow refuge on yourself and shadow return out as soon as you see that temporal curtain, or feel they aren’t crowding where your circle was. Most will be too busy trying to pull you out of the refuge, or trying to blow it and the surrounding area up.

I love a dagger, and would go on about those for another 15 minutes, but I am about out of time for now, and want to see what other great things other people can contribute!

I thought the thief QQ would be gone after culling was destroyed. I was wrong.

As albotelho stated, use Well of Suffering. Additionally, if you’re using staff, you can use it in a variety of ways to improve survivability. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Always cast staff #2 (Mark of Blood) as soon as it’s recharged as it gives you regeneration (you must be standing inside the mark when an enemy triggers it to benefit from the regeneration, though). It doesn’t hurt that it causes bleeding to your enemies, as well.

2) Place staff #3 (Chilblains) followed by staff #4 (Putrid Mark). Chilblains is a poison field while Putrid Mark is a blast finisher. The two together create an Area Weakness combo which will reduce the damage output of your enemies.

3) Alternately, you can cast Well of Suffering and follow it up with Putrid Mark. Well of Suffering is a dark field. The blast finisher of Putrid Mark inside that field creates Area Blindness.

4) Whenever you have sufficient life force to do so, enter Death Shroud and use Life Transfer to hit up to 5 enemies for some decent damage. Try to time it at the same time they are inside your Well of Suffering.

5) If you would like to keep your opponents nearly perma-weakened, bring Corrosive Poison Cloud as a utility. This skill causes weakness to those caught inside of it. It will also cause weakness to you. This is NOT a bad thing. To turn this to your advantage, cast Putrid Mark inside the AoE of Corrosive Poison Cloud. CPC is a poison field and Putrid Mark’s blast finisher will interact with it to create an Area Weakness combo (5 additional seconds of weakness).

Furthermore, Putrid Mark transfers conditions (all of them) from you to your enemies; you will transfer the self-inflicted weakness of CPC onto your opponents, as well.

Opening with Chilblains (which causes the chill condition) and then following up with Putrid Mark will help ensure they remain caught inside your CPC for a longer period of time. Since CPC pulses, you want them to remain within it’s perimeter for as long as possible to maximize the length of the weakness and poisoning this skill causes.

6) Unlock Consume Conditions as your healing skill as soon as possible. It removes all conditions from you and heals you for more for each condition consumed.

7) Staff #1 (Necrotic Grasp) pierces; you can hit up to 3 enemies with it. Practice lining up opponents to maximize this ability. Another suggestion is – when facing multiple enemies – target one near the back. Then kite around while attempting to keep the other mobs between you and your target; this improves your chances of hitting multiple opponents.

Outside of the suggestions regarding weakening opponents, I don’t have suggestions regarding conditions as I don’t use them. This isn’t meant to start a debate or flame war about the pros and cons of conditions. I can certainly see their usefullness if that’s the kind of necro you want to play; especially against PvE mobs. It’s just not my personal play style.

I prefer Blood Magic which – despite it’s disappointing implementation in this game when compared to its predecessor in GW1 – I’ve found to provide decent survivability when you are finally able to unlock the Vampiric and Bloodthirst traits. Those small but constant ticks of life siphoning with every hit can help keep you alive through all the PvE mobs.

Just know that if you go this route, you have to be aggressive with your fighting style. Your sustain comes from constantly hitting your enemies; the more the better. Stacking wells, marks, and then getting up close and personal with dagger and warhorn’s Locust Swarm so you’re getting in as many hits as you possibly can in the shortest amount of time. If that’s not your style, then go with conditions and Epidemic. This will permit you to put distance between yourself and the mobs while killing them with the damage-over-time of your conditions.

Lastly, if you decide to try some of these suggestions, find a neutral animal like a moa or a deer to practice on. Since they won’t aggro on you due to close proximity, this gives you time to set up your marks in advance without having to worry about coming under attack while doing so. This will permit you to more easily witness the synergies of the combo fields and finishers while practicing the timing of when to cast what skills and in what order.

Good luck.

I fail to see why people view zerging as a problem… Strength in numbers is a very, very old concept.

Yeah, it stinks to be the other guys sometimes, but it always has. Always will.

You will adjust. Its not a biggie just used to the old timing

Lets all just be friends? Friends who kill each other for loot bags and internet points?

<3

ANet reads: “Lets increase reaveal to a 5-6 second time so it matches 2 autoattack chains.”

They could increase it to 6 seconds, so you get 2 auto chains per stealth. Yay fluidity again.

listen friend, i understand you upset but you also need to take a deep breath and calm down. Its hard to take suggestions from someone who is angry, even if your argument is passionate. Also demanding something feels very self entitled, and probably wont get you very far to use that terminoligy if you want to see actual changes.

On one hand, P/D condition builds seem to be completely unaffected by the patch. but i can completely understand your frustration. haveing fludity in a combo is what makes a class fun and make it have synergy, when that tempo is off is kills alot of the entertainment. because you actual have to sit and watch rather than just feel it out.

I told a chemistry joke to a Bookah once.
I got no reaction.

Anyone that relies on repeated sneak attacks definitely took a dps/ultility hit. I’m not just talking about d/d here.

In the recent state of the game they talk about how thieves rely too much on stacking huge amounts of bleeds. They talked about giving them more cover conditions to at least let the bleeds last through a bit of condition removal.

The patch decreased the duration of caltrops and made revealed last 4 seconds.

P/D now has a full second longer before they can apply bleeds again, a 25% damage reduction in a 12 second fight, and conditions only shine during longer fights in the first place. Caltrops ticks 5 less times, 1/3 of the damage removed. Condition really took a hit here when it already suffers against direct damage mechanically.

Blind on stealth is also effected, in dungeons you could mitigate quite a bit of damage with it due to the attack lengths of npcs, but the extra second actually pushes it just past a few of them, less blind = less long term survivability, another thing they mentioned wanting to add to thieves in the SOTG yet it decreases with this patch.

Sword/daggers only redeeming factor, the daze spam, was also effected by this.

An entire trait line received a nerf with this.

No huge nerf, but adding all the things together really hurts any sort of long term fight. Which is sad because in pvp people are complaining about burst and perma-stealth. Neither of which was effected much at all. PvP wise it just makes me want to make fights end even faster because my weaknesses in a long fight are ever increasing.

Basically the thief is balanced around stealth and any changes to it will have far reaching repercussions. Just look at the thief downed #3, it does nothing in PvE anymore aside from give you an extra second before a mob starts attacking again ever since the aggro patch (which was much needed even if annoying now).

The general haste nerf also effected a trait that did not receive any duration buff like the ultilities did (same with the sigil too). Builds that used the sword relied on haste for burst, but have lost quite a bit from that too.

Edit: Actually while thinking about it I realized that that has to really suck for anyone running p/d and caltrops. That’s a lot of lost damage.

Zoltreez.6435:

your joking right ? he is fighting againts Bads REALY bad players.

but yeah Thief as a class is seriously screwed

Calm down son, his point was that, stealth was not OP’ed in the first place as Bill proves, its about SKILL.

Stooperdale.3560:

Am I right in thinking that before the patch stealing would apply a venom, but after the patch stealing does not apply a venom unless traited with mug?

Before the patch, auto-attack is initiated after Steal, which applies the venom. After patch, auto-attack no longer happen after Steal, thus you need to have a damaging effect to apply venom, either by spec-ing Mug or just start auto-attack.

@OP

Build Name : P/D + SB
Purpose : PvP (WvW)
Changes : None

Here is what it boiled down to for me. As a condition specced P/D Thief, I have gone from being able to stack damage when coming out of Stealth with guns blazin… to hanging around in Stealth a bit more and letting my Conditions do more of the work for me. The only real change to my playstyle is that I don’t run and gun anymore CnDing to get my burst damage off like I use to.

PROBLEMS:
The only real problem I have encountered is now that the revealed buff has been pushed back an extra second, GUARDIANS with outrageous Condition Removal pose more of a threat in numbers to me because I am stacking Conditions and having them removed more times over the duration of a fight.

SOLUTION
Time your attacks and use Stealthing abilities as a utility rather than an annoyance!

If you want to do max damage with P/D, try this:

1) Select target

2) Steal

3) Cloak and Dagger

4) Sneak Attack

5) Vital Shot x4

6) Cloak and Dagger

7) Sneak Attack

8) Vital Shot x4

As it is Body Shot tends to be a waste of initiative (Unless in a group where the damage that other people gains vastly outweighs the DPS loss from using Body Shot) and Shadow Strike should be used as a situational ability (Gain distance as a pseudo evade/kite a melee player/prelude into escape)

Similar to how a D/D Thief will use Heartseeker/Death Blossom/Dancing Dagger as situational abilities or a X/P Thief will use Headshot and Black Powder as situational abilities.

When it comes down to it, a P/D thief isn’t as much a ranged weapon set as it is a melee weapon set that just isn’t completely redundant at range (Though with the lack of a gap closer to help get CnD off, it comes close)

Pvpers get punished by pve changes, get over yourselves. The game is not broken beyond repair. If your spec no longer works, adapt- it’s part of playing a class in an mmo. Be advocates for improvements to your class as always.

Body Shot’s entire purpose is to be a 100% combo finisher on pistol main hand. They could try things like making it pierce or be AoE somehow I guess? I mostly just wish it was cheaper, somehow. But 2 initiative is probably too cheap, so.

While I like the idea of more fluid animations, I can’t fault the ones there now. I think you’re right in that black powder could probably use something a bit more special though.

I… Don’t see any reason to add confusion to head shot than “I wanted to throw more even MORE damage and control into this weapon”.

Grimwolf.7163:

I don’t think there’s another trait in the game crappy enough to only boost a weapon’s damage by 5%. They all either grant 10%, or grant another effect along with it, like increased range or reduced recharges.

While Thieves only get 5% damage increase on Daggers/Shortbow and #3 skills via traits they also have other things to balance out damage outside of that such as:

7% crit chance when flanking Critical Strikes 10
5% damage when flanking Trickery 10
5% crit chance with #3 skills Critical Strikes 20
10% damage when target has a condition Deadly Arts 25
10% damage when initiative is over 6 Critical Strikes 25
10% damage when endurance isn’t full Acrobatics 25
1% damage per initiative (Up to 15% with full initiative) Trickery 25

With 70 trait points it’s entirely feasible to get 20% passive damage increase for all weapons with various different circumstances.

Most classes don’t get these type of traits, and those that do only have 1-2 amongst all of their traits lines.