Guild Wars 2

There is something to be said for the psychological warfare of a gank squad. Farm kill someone enough, they stop enjoying WvW and leave. That is one less person on the enemy team. Magnify that to zerg busting groups constantly harassing/wiping a zerg and it splinters. The less fun the enemy is having, the fewer there will be to contend with.

Why not get both? ^.^

cipher.7438:

Vanive.3804:

It was at times frustrating and I know sometimes you get impatient, but hey all us world completionists had to do it. Consider it part of the game and more of an honor to wear the star next to your name.

And there’s the rub. I really don’t care about the “star” next to my name. What I care about is that this is a required part of getting your legendary weapon. It’s Arenanet saying “hey, too bad, you have to do PvP to get the best end-game weapons, even if you’re here for PvE only”. And that’s a load a crap.

Granted, I enjoy WvW. But that doesn’t change the principle of my complaint. Not only is this PvP element required for legendary weapons, but being stuck on this due to the lack of interest of others to zerg rush a keep is fail. Arenanet can fix this by auto shuffling servers between different borderland zones/colors each week. After all, they reset them anyways, why not shuffle them too?

The problem goes both ways. Weaker servers in WvW are probably never going to control my server’s (Tarnished Coast’s) central keep in the green borderlands. Those people are scr3w3d over too.

Design fail.

That shoe goes on the other foot as well. I have ZERO interest in anything outside WvW. Yet I’m forced to do these ridiculous hearts and pois in PvE zones……

I’ve heard rumors that the change to the mesmer runes was reversed…..still think paralyzation won’t, though as it’s a “stun” sigil while mesmer is specifically “daze”

@patricide
My guild, [BP], just transferred to EB last week and have been accepted so warmly. These guys work so well together! Expect many more blitz’s in the future ^.^

Too many points there, maybe 0/10/30/30/0?

Psikerlord.2569:

shouldnt you not win a 2v1 anyway? If the game is balanced pulling off a 2v1 should require a lot of luck/good execution

Combat skill plays a large roll in this. Especially in WvW, there are just a ton of people with no clue how to play their class out there, making for easy 2v1/3v1 fights. I’ve even killed a whole 5 man before as a S/D tank.

With over 3k armor though and 17k HP, no mug chain is gonna make a dent lol. That’s the whole point of a tank build, to be unburstable. And daze still works just fine, you simply have to be a bit smarter about timing your tactical strikes, tbh being able to perma daze is a bit OP anyway. As for flanking strike, it’s simply a matter of understanding how it will react at various facings. Do I always land it? No. But it is somewhere in the 90% range. It pwns vs shield block warriors since it’s unblockable.

Also i keep a shadow return on the ground 100% when roaming so if i get turned to stone i immediately hammer it and break the stun, wasting the backstab thief’s attempt.

I will admit I’ve never killed a P/D thief with t his build, but haven’t been killed, or ran from one. We generally just call it a draw after 5 min or so.

That’s just moronic, Same….. I’ve lost count of how many 1v2 vs you berserker thieves I’ve absolutely dominated on my S/D tank thief. Maybe YOU can’t make it work, but don’t assume there aren’t those of us who can.

Simple solution is walk away, don’t let yourself be kited back there >.< Believe it or not, you aren’t simply entitled to fight whomever you want.

I prefer a mix of soldier/knights. Particularly, weapons and armor are soldier, with Emerald orbs in armor. And Emerald (knight’s) jewelry. Still have a little over 50% crit chance with stacked sigil and with power being primary stat on soldiers have that in ample supply. But, I also have over 3k armor and 17.5 (with food buff) HP. Typicaslly run this as a S/D, but I don’t see why you couldn’t adapt it to D/D with some tweaks in the traits……

That’s what I’m saying….ppl go all glass for OMG BIG NUMBERS!!!11!! But a dead player makes no numbers at all afaik :-P

I would not even mind an increase on stealth CD, nor would any thief who has a clue how to build for PvP. Glass cannon builds simply do not exist in high level PvP for a reason, they are ineffective vs something that can’t be bursted in 2-3 hits (and this applies to ANY profession; glass cannon = clueless noob).

I use D-Storm defensively in 1v1 vs ranged either to
A) force them to swap weapon to melee, giving me the advantage
B) kill the nub ranger who pops quickening zephyr to OMG KILL IT FAST >.<

Kyosji.8961:

snip
Each point in Trickery increases the recharge rate of stealing by 1%.
snip

While most of that is good info. It should be known that, while the tool-tip DOES state this, it has always been broken and does NOT, in fact, reduce the CD.

Drago.1634:

Niim.9260:

Drago.1634:

I believe we have a way to talk to our “Enemies” and that way is… wait for it……..
Forums. If we are open to talking to enemies in W3, You will have a lot of Nonsense in chat. You would have chat spam. And believe it or not, you will have people shouting out positions/strategies/Insults/and maybe random “GG’s” or “Nice fight” Imo it is fine the way it it. Id rather see the random /bow /wave even /laugh.

Again, in order to help change the idea to fit everyone’s needs we really need specifics as to why it would impact you negatively. What you describe is a great reason for you to leave the flag on, but not why you would be against your fellow players from having the choice.

Because I am not open to the possibility that my fellow player may get a wild hair up their “blank” and shout out strategies/etc. I hate to be untrusting of some ppl but that is human nature. And in the past we’ve had problems with spies. This would make it very easy for them to relay messages to other teams. I just dont think it would be a good idea. Not being able to talk to other players via In-game W3 is Imo a great thing. Leaves me the Option of coming to the forums to talk to these players in our Scores Threads. Believe it or not, you will always have ppl abuse this. Be it an option to shut it off or not. Simply saying, No, i for one am not open to any sort of cross server communication other than forums.

They can already send messages, the only thing that was removed was a way to find an enemies name. People with a desire to reveal that kind of info can do so easily by sending a message or in game mail to any of the play IDs on the forums. The current system only hinders talking specifically to an individual on a spur of the moment.

Perhaps, rather than a growing rank system. Just have a % favorable/unfavorable…..
Each favorable vote vs unfavorable vote would be rounded to a total “satisfaction” score. So if you had to choose between a commander that had a 50% positive rating vs one that was 85%….you would know which one tended to produce favorable results.

Anyone with at least a bronze contribution to the event would have to option to vote positive or negative. (much like the current system used on sites like e-bay really)

lol we all are :-P

So you admit then that, initiative isn’t really an issue, with C&D + backstab being the bread and butter of any D/D player with half a clue?

Jefzor.7145:

shrewd.5319:

Blacksarevok.8104:

1.) …

Ty for suggestion. Btw, is it true that the higher Ruby Orb, that is, Exquisite Ruby Jewel http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exquisite_Ruby_Jewel cannot be added to armor?

Is there anything higher/better than Ruby Orb stats that can be added to armor (besides runes)? Thanks

Ruby orbs are the best gems you can put in armor.
The jewels are for trinkets (amulet, ring, earring) only.

Divinity runes have better all around stats in total, but less power/precision.
Scholar runes are better when you’re at full hp, but worse when you’re not.

“Keep on thinking that thieves can’t be tanky and successful I’ll keep on curbstomping berserker thieves ;-D”
Tanky thieves can work (especially when condition spec’d), but on a burst build, you preferably want to kill your opponent before you run out of initiative. Keep this in mind, a 3k heartseeker costs the same amount of initiative as a 6k heartseeker.

You are assuming the OP wants to be a heartseeker spamming noob. He did mention an interest in S/D…….I run S/D with soldier/knight and absolutely destroy any thief in berserker gear due to the fact they simply can’t burst me down.

Kurow.6973:

Adaneshade.2409:

Shadow strike breaks Immobilize…..great vs the 100 blades warriors.

Is this a troll?!?

No, you can simply autoattack and melee only build to death using that each time they get in range with P/D lol

Jefzor.7145:

You could use some valkyrie pieces for extra HP, but make sure you don’t lower your critical rate too much (aim for at least 45%)
D/D is better than S/D for wvw.
I’d suggest you start out with ruby orbs. They’re pretty good and cheap, you can change them out later, when you made up your mind (but I wouldn’t recommend eagle runes).

Adaneshade.2409:

Combo of Soldier/Knight

Eww, on a guardian or warrior maybe, but not on a burst thief.

Keep on thinking that thieves can’t be tanky and successful I’ll keep on curbstomping berserker thieves ;-D

Shadow strike breaks Immobilize…..great vs the 100 blades warriors.

Combo of Soldier/Knight

My tip for fighting a bunker ele……run away, no really, just run, they can’t catch you and you can’t kill them lol.

LegoTechnic.5910:

A server is just a server. Why would I have pride in it? It’s like a city. You can love it but don’t let it tie you down and leave if the need arises. There are other cities out there with their own benefits and problems, and don’t let complacency keep you from considering your other options.

This, sadly, seems to be the attitude of most gamers new to this style of PvP…… There are many of us though that remember the “Realm Pride” from DAoC and carry that attitude over to this game. (10 years only Hibby, btw ^.^ for King Lug!!!)

Stiv.1820:

For WvW:

10/0/30/30/0
Mug
Stealth Re-gen, Stealth Con removal, Stealth Healing
50% fall dmg, Pain response, Hard to Catch

P/D & Shortbow

All armor P/V/T and the rest of gear is P/V/ConDmg

Heal in Shadows, Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Scorp Wire and Thevies guild.

I swap scorp wire with Sig of Shadows for when running around as soon as I get close to combat, put scorp back on.

I am pretty convinced this build can’t be beat 1 on 1. At best a good bunker build can stalemate you. It’s really good at taking on many poor players at once.

I recently change from d/d to short-bow on swap. The only negative is not having a good counter to Dagger Storm. The shortbow is way better at everything else for swap though. Bombing a shadow refuge with pbaoe cluster bombs is way more effective than a couple deathblosoms since it still stacks 3 bleeds and probably does more dmg in WvW with a bigger aoe area. For escaping a bad situation while in combat, nothing can beat shortbow.

I run a very similar build, but use S/D instead of pistol and knights jewelry instead of condition.

I run a tanky build of 10-0-30-30-0 in FoTM with full soldiers gear…..S/D and SB, the regen and condition purging from S&D each time revealed wears off keeps me up pretty well….

Laissez Faire.8624:

I’ve been S/D for a while now, and I don’t mean to turn this thread negative, does anyone actually use FS? I find everything else about the skills to be absolutely awesome, but the most killing I’ve done with FS is when it threw me off a cliff.

I’ve figured out how to use it more or less in combat vs a target on approach.
Scenario: Your group and the enemy group charging at each other….pick your target and run towards them, just before you reach melee range veer slightly right and hit FS. 9 times out of 10 it will land both hits, which is great vs a target who just popped stability to charge in and fear bomb or some other form of CC.

Aside from approaching from the front, though, the second strike just mostly misses. Also, it’s great vs any class with regeneration or any other buff you’d like to peel off.

It almost sounds like you believe the attacking force should be on equal footing with the defenders. In what universe would you see that? The entire point of a fortress is to make capture of that point as impossible as you can.

Dacromir.6207:

Adaneshade.2409:

I run a 10-0-30-30-0 build with S/D – SB; soldiers jewel, and dolyak runes, using signet of malice for heal. I can outright tank half the other team with little problem if i play full on defense, very solid build for bunkering.

So I’m curious; why the 30 points in Shadow Arts? I could see 20 points for Leeching Venoms, but 30 points is only good if you’re going for venomshare (which is unnecessary for a bunker).

I’m also wondering why you take S/D. That’s a great weapon set in situations where stealth is okay (it’s the one I use), but without stealth it’s pretty bad. Flanking Strike rates a “meh” at best (too hard to connect in PvP), and you cannot use CnD at all while bunkering. This means that you’re taking sword off-hand solely for Dancing Dagger, and I just don’t see that being worth it.

I use flanking strike as an extra evade/boon removal and dancing dagger as a cripple to kite around the point. The points in shadow arts are simply there for the Toughness/emergency heal, if going down and dagger storm is down, popping in stealth and immediately out before they can tick on the progress bar for the regen is handy.

Additionally, it allows for a counter to enemy bunker builds should they manage to knock you out with knockback.

2 guardians, 2 eles, 1 engineer (grenade) Stack up together on inc, guardians rotate light fields/bubble, eles drop water field and aoe into enemy, engineer just spams #1 grenade at his feet to proc retaliation/heals…enemy blows themselves up on reflected dmg…….profit

Daecollo.9578:

I really hate the CnD / Backstab Mug Steal Combo, but now that people are actually building bunker we can’t really kill anyone, once we get our stuff down we lost, because we can’t really get away that easilly.

We don’t have access to any other builds… we don’t have any group utility or boons like other classes get.

So basicly we all spec the same.

Try a thief bunker build, surprisingly effective counter to other bunkers…..

I run a 10-0-30-30-0 build with S/D – SB; soldiers jewel, and dolyak runes, using signet of malice for heal. I can outright tank half the other team with little problem if i play full on defense, very solid build for bunkering.

neclon.4510:

Knight is not P/T/V in wvwvw. Only dungeon gear and wvw badge gear gives that.

I posted a build that is viable in pve and wvw with 1 set of gear. You lose some damage, but I down people regularly. I was plying with a guard and we dropped people 2v4 without much trouble. Retreating and stealthing is still absolutely necessary for survival even with heavy p/t/v stats on a thief, though. We just don’t have the utility to stand head to head without using our thief mechanics.

actually, you can get all armor pieces (sans pants) with karma in Orr temples in P/T/V loadout, you do still have to get badge jewelry though

I personally just tank bosses with S/P…….Built with soldier/knight hybrid setup, nothing aside from the spirit scream in AC can one shot me that I’ve found……

I use it as a control tank for my roaming 5-man in WvW. Granted I fill a very specific role and always have glass cannons with me. My job is to keep enemies pinned down through immobilize, cripple, and well timed dazes, plus providing group stealth to assist with rezzes, etc. It is a support build which is a role most think we do not have.

I recently tried a “tank” build just for lawlz….thing is I got so addicted after half an hour I stuck with it. Went full power/vitality/toughness gear (easy to get) Slotted Dolyak runes. Then used the following spec

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckmz9moFrvooFrvoG0xG0cVcmqMk

End result is a build that has an insane amount of control and solid aoe melee dmg. I primarily run this build in a roaming 5-man in WvW.

Best decision I ever made was going full power/vitality/toughness gear on my S/D thief. I’m nigh unkillable and still able to kill fairly effectively due to the high power. S/D was never a burst build anyway.

sorrow.2364:

Adaneshade.2409:

Pigeon-holing all thieves into one specific build is a very narrow minded approach. There are, in fact, many of us who choose to build in such a way that we do really need to reach a high skill cap to succeed. (i.e. any non stealth-oriented build, any sword build[post pistol whip nerf])

Yet, whenever I win a fight with a difficult build, I’m still subjected to hate spam about OP thief. While there may be some legitimate complaints about certain builds, there are just as many made by people who can’t accept they may just have lost to a superior player.

That is another inconvenient effect to play a profession which has some overpowered builds.

People who are actually enjoy playing thief and like the challange, don’t run the gimmick build which is around and don’t cry about the past nerf (which were fair to be honest) or any future nerf, but still they are subject of the rage against a profession which is considered overpowered in common sense. Nerf to backstab combo will only help good players to stand out, while hurting only players who are abusing an overperforming build and will probably reroll to the next FotM profession once the nerf has spoken.

I honestly look forward to the day when the “Find my build and rotation on google” mob moves on from the thief class leaving only the respectable players behind.

Pigeon-holing all thieves into one specific build is a very narrow minded approach. There are, in fact, many of us who choose to build in such a way that we do really need to reach a high skill cap to succeed. (i.e. any non stealth-oriented build, any sword build[post pistol whip nerf])

Yet, whenever I win a fight with a difficult build, I’m still subjected to hate spam about OP thief. While there may be some legitimate complaints about certain builds, there are just as many made by people who can’t accept they may just have lost to a superior player.

I play a Norn thief, granted it’st he shortest Norn possible. This was mostly due to the fact that I like the female Norn figure more than any other race. From a purely Min/Max standpoint, Sylvari have to take the cake for their racials…….

Played melee ranger and nightshade in DAoC, rogue in DDO, witch elf in WAR, rogue in WoW, riftsalker in Rift, assassin in GW1…….always play dual wield medium/light armor classes. Just made sense to play thief in GW2.
Once the balancing is tweaked, maybe even a respectable class to boot.

Matsumori Oukanishi.8794:

My only question is what would a condition thief do in keep sieges and defense? the normal go-to Cluster Bomb from the short bow would hit like a wet noodle for a condition thief…

Actually, detonating the bomb at the right moment stacks bleeds really fast with the bow. When your bleeds tick for 130ish and poisons for 230ish, the shortbow does put allot of pressure on.

Also, twisting fangs is available for use on a fresh character. Since you don’t start off with 2 weapons, and the thief 3rd ability is determined by your “set” it only makes sense to have a 3rd ability of some type.

Sprawl.3891:

there has only been a handful of class bug fixes since beta/ release. mainly just pve contet bug fixes and other fluff. if there is not 10-20 major class/trait bug fixes with this patch i will be extremely disappointed.

There is a huge problem with that. This method would bring the huge pendulum nerf/buff cycle that so many MMOs are plagued with. The smarter course of action is to make small changes and see how they affect the overall gameplay. If you change too many things at once, how do you know what to change back if you take it too far?

ower.9143:

So if condition theif is so bad kitten and better than BS, why isn’t it the current FoTM build for all the theives playing?

Mostly due to the fact that, while condition specs have a higher potential performance, they also have a higher skill cap. People are, as a general rule, lazy and will pick the most output/effort build they can go with (currently BS) over the one that requires more effort for a small gain).

gamefreak.5673:

All I want is to see a thief after stealth breaks. Not 2 seconds after i try to avoid rest of the spike damage by dodging is complete and not sure where to place a aoe or root, or something on my necro after i get away from that first hit, I know its a combo of skills but i can still try to dodge. Not seeing them is killing me. Ill live with ill never be able to stop you from running since grasp never hits anything that moves, same with dark path. My root is a joke, and my axe skill to immobilize you is never equipped because axe skills are a joke besides 3. I have already stopped trying to be anything but a bunker build from insane spikes of damage.

I just want to see you as soon as stealth is broken from damage or it runs out, not 2-3 seconds just barely enough time for you to re-stealth.

Saw a dev post somewhere in the forums 2 days ago that said they had a fix for the culling and it was being implemented int he Nov 15 patch ^.^

Shooopa.5632:

SKuDDer.1860:

Personally, these arguments about being a 1 hit wonder are not an excuse. Every class has to wait on cool-downs, but can no where near output that kind of burst damage thieves can with little that can be done to dodge or avoid. And thieves can do plenty of sustained damage when they are fighting with a group.

They just don’t want the combo adjusted because as of now, most who use it never die and always kill their target. I’m abusing now on my thief till its fixed and its awesome.

All these, “its your fault you aren’t paying attention, you have no skills, l2p, have better awareness” comments are just as invalid for WvWvW, sorry I can’t pick out the thieves from the group of 10,20,30+ that jump right in and smoke players, you are right that is my fault for not knowing he’s about to teleport from 1200 range with basil and venom prepped, and not dodge roll the second he CND and steals. I must be getting old, my reaction time cant handle that .25 seconds anymore.

That’s because they don’t have anything else. The only thing a thief can do at all is one-hit wondering. Their condition damage sucks, their HP sucks, their armor sucks, their ranged attacks suck… They’re not good at anything else but attacking a single target.

I have to disagree with your opinion on thief condition damage. I do really well with my evasion focused condition build without the use of stealth or backstab.

@azuzephyr

“Then there’s caltrops on dodge. Oh-My-God, I don’t know how this one ever made it live, here you can stack bleeds up to max stealthing away from damage weaving death blossom in between to stack endurance buff. I………….snip………. I can still never match the bleed application of this spec, caltrops apply stacks all the while you are stood in them, you can reach 10 stacks withing a second, it’s a permeating field lasting 10 seconds, endurance refills within three seconds with boon uptime, all the while death blossom attacks evade damage, dodging to apply cantrops evades damage and massive access to stealth.”

The fatal flaw in this whole argument is that you assume the “Uncatchable” trait is the same thing as the “Caltrops” ability. They are not, the caltrops on dodge from uncatchable do not last more than maybe 1-2 seconds (doesn’t say in tooltip exactly but the duration is crazy short) and has a very small radius. The actual utility skill “Caltrops” does have a 14 second duration but is on a 30 second cooldown. The situation you describe would be standing in that.

No thief EVER stacked 25 stacks of bleed with “Uncatchable”…..ever.