Guild Wars 2

Taobella.6597:

throw gunk is one of strongest steal thief gets.

Nope. That would go to Warrior Twirl, Ranger seed, Thief stealth (which is a tuft of hair, isn’t that weird?), and mesmer plasma (are we stealing their blood and drinking it?), and necro fear. Necro fear is so good.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Thief main here. If you play thief in ranked, get on the other team. I know exactly what odds this class is against with the current meta. While its not as bad as last season (NOTHING could be that bad), it is still foolish, selfish, and arrogant to roll thief in ranked unless you are in a premade that is OK with it.

It is NOT a class to solo with as pugs will often not know how to play with a thief and dealing with aspects such as dealing with an outnumbered team fight while you decap.

Selfish? It sounds more like it’s a matter of them simply not knowing that the Thieve’s role is and not playing any differently to accommodate them. Sounds less selfish and more ignorant to me.

Taobella.6597:

if you are still losing you probably engage wrong or you do not know how to fight.

i use my build as how to engage with that style because i have not seen you post one of your own.

first you need to understand what is important on traits
daredevil big thing is 50% endurance on steal + weakness on crit +dodge is – dmg mod and con removal.

deadly is weakness on posion. + dmg mod + CC

Trick is bonus initiative bar + cc + boons
——
so for fighting you want to try to avoid using steal to engage because by doing so your giving up 1.5 dodges + not likely to land intrup

so typically you go black powder > 4 heart seeker> running up to them to backstab auto attack

if you need to do it faster you go black powder > heart seeker > (over 300 range) shadow shot > backstab

set up intrup most people react at 1/4 of a second so just hit head shot after first auto attack of your backstab.

i hope that help abit with what you could be doing wrong.

Hmm, well I was definitely using steal wrong then, and here’s my build. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnY5Tw7Jw/ELwEmXa4M0Gm7gnwWoWCIAkBA-TVCEwAEeAAbVCi4EAkb/hHHCgO6bAcEAaq8zl6PBAQA4oBCBwaBA-w

Let me know what you think, what I can change, etc. The only dif I make sometimes is I’ll swap out Blinding Powder or Refuge for Roll For Initiative and take tricks clear condi and have less CD.

Asrat.2645:

Ok guys. im playing ranger for ranked atm. A strong class, but not the best and not completely op.
I play a build without toughness and invulnerabilities and only one source to stability.
Do you know how I beat guards? I could trigger their traps with my pet. Sometimes I do. If they are good, I use sotp to prevent getting stunlocked. If they use test of faith I may dode through it instead of just walking. Other than that…my main tactic involves: -trigger the traps cycle one. Stand there, heal, nothing bad happens.
-Trigger trap cycle two. Stand there, heal, nothing happens.
-Deny possible bow bursts with sublime conversion if I should get remotely close to low health.
- Wait for my pet to kill the DH.
It is actually pretty satisfying: I main a thief. No matter how good and how how flawless we play, we dont seem to make any impact on dh while we see our health vanish.
As a dh, no matter how much traps, pulls and true shots you have, I remain untouched and slowly watch your health vanish.
The counters are really simple: stability, protection, decent healing. What you gonna do dh?

Fighting a DH as a Thief is just impossible. I just don’t do it. When a class downright has no potential to beat another, there’s an issue. I know DH hard counters Thief, but c’mon.

Fivedawgs.4267:

dominik.9721:

Feel the same way, in the current meta revs need a support to be effective.

Ye in sapphire things might feel different. And no rev doesn’t counter my class.
I also never said I want them nerfed hard. I just want that they are balanced and not make any other dps build redundant and 10 times worse.

But ye as I mentioned above, in the environment of most people here in this thread – dragonhunter is probably the biggest threat for you.

Idk, why you keep on pushing the experience thong on my head; you are staring to cross the line. First of all, I am ruby not saphire not that it changes anything but I have stalled Pony Slaystation or for at least 45 sec with my warrior and had close round against phataram. So idk, what you are barking about. Revs atm are ok, I duo with a diamond friend today and what I noticed is that the revs up there are more effective because there is always a bunker near by. So to be blunt, revs don’t need a nerf, they don’t need it. 2hat Anet has to do is to bring other classes on par.

And about DH, idk if you live in a cave or what, but if you have been following the AG tourney; you d know that DH can carry games. I have seen Naru carry his team twice because he was on a DH. just b3cause revs counter your class doesn’t mean they deserve a nerf, you always nerf the most op class not the one in between. I could said the same about DH, just because DH are strong against melee warrior doesn’t mean they deserve a nerf; but I’ll consider a DH nerf over a Rev nerf because unlike revs DH can hold points alone.

DH are also SUPER punishing to melee and point capping. A Thief can’t decap a node that a DH is on, ever. A DH can hold a point just because his traps are just about the same size as the node. They’re just cap griefers. If their traps were nerfed a bit, they’d be a bit more in line. Also, their crazy sustain. I’ve seen a DH go from 20% to full just from their sustain and blocks alone. They really have too much block uptime. I’ve tried countless times to rez deny/stomp deny, but they just block everything.

Erzian.5218:

Its totally fine that a class does 8k+ Damage + evade + hard cc by hitting 1attack skill, 6k+ by hitting a 4sec cd skill , having god-tier mobility, 8 dodges/evades in a row + blocks, close to perma stability, party buffs
Totally fine.

Necro/condi mez counters them entirely. Rev has hardly and condi cleanse what so ever. Unless the team has a pocket healing Ele, a Rev will go down so fast to just some poison stacks.

I agree SOME things about Rev need to be tweaked, but not a lot. Precision strike and UA are so buggy that sometimes it’s not even worth using, like in Stronghold. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve used precision strike while INSIDE a hitbox and watch it fly off behind me to hit the door. -.-

But truly, Engi/DH/Necro also need to be HEAVILY looked at as they’re pretty much breaking the game right now for many reasons. Especially necro, yet we can all take a stroll into the necro forums and see that none of them think they’re OP. Sure….

Jana.6831:

Anomaly.7612:

Yeah, once I have the money I’m going to drop close to $700 on this game to deck out my Thief in ascended and legendary gear. Doing WvW in exo’s and ascended trinks is just torture.

If the balance weren’t that kitten it wouldn’t be too bad.
I started out as a valk/zerker D/D thief with a 200 ping, exo gear and ruby orbs and it still kind of worked because my spec wasn’t nerfed into oblivion back then.

Yeah I use valk armor, valk/zerk trinks, zerk back and zerk weps and it just has no sustain. -.-

CadeRG.4508:

Anomaly.7612:

Moky.3104:

The OP lose all his credibility when he say “mesmer are actually top tier”, you might be stuck in the S1.

Pretty sure me and other 3/4 mesmer in the entire game are still playing GW2 with a main mesmer char.

But yeah, the 6 second of auto evade, so balanced… How someone can just even think about that?
The actually top tier profession are Necro/Scrapper/Thief. Mesmer are pretty much dead in every single game mode.

Sorry to say it, man, but Thief is far from top tier. Necro/Scrapper/Rev/Ele take that cake. The rest are as follows from best to worst:
Druid > Mesmer > Thief > Warrior.

If you try to play thief as a 1v1 and team fighting class, you will not have much success with it. What makes thief so good in spvp is their insane mobility that allows them to dash around the map and even shadowstep up walls to get to the capture points faster than any other class. With the bunker meta gone (thank you!) thieves are even more relevant!

Just don’t worry about fighting and focus on taking points for your team and away from the enemy team and you’ll just win every game.

Yeah, it’s just lame that Thief has been relegated to the only class in PvP that shouldn’t be PvP’ing while in PvP. It’s like backwards inception.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

LumoPhoton.4517:

Currently I am solo roaming, I changed my build and the trait’s are now similar to those of Sindrenerr’s spvp build. Also, my trinkets were awful, which I had not realized, and have since fixed that.

Ok, once you have the right build it is up to gear, experience (skill) and consumables. By “gear” I mean if you’re running exotic, your opponent might have ascended. And remember some builds (Dragon hunter, etc) are a pretty hard counter to thieves. Good luck!

Yeah, once I have the money I’m going to drop close to $700 on this game to deck out my Thief in ascended and legendary gear. Doing WvW in exo’s and ascended trinks is just torture.

swinsk.6410:

My latest class is bunker healing shout ele. Closest thing to a healer/cleric in this game. Running magi ammy…

I can heal npcs and players a lot with shouts and warhorn skills. It’s nuts. I do no damage but the support it provides is unreal compared to any healing build in the past.

I like the common idea some people are talking about which is if you are playing thief you can beat classes 1v1 if you don’t screw up… I screw up in ele all the time and I can hold a point or keep npcs in stronghold at 100% for a while before having to back out… Making tons of mistakes and just spamming buttons…

Thief really isn’t the 1v1 king we used to be. We used to pistol whip someone from 100-0. Those glory days are long dead. We’re actually told NOT to 1v1 anyone. Not a single person. I’ve been talking to higher skilled Thieves like Vallun, and he was telling me that it’s not our job to 1v1 anyone. We’re merely supposed to be +1’ing and decapping nodes that aren’t manned.

At this point, I kind of see Thief as a support role. We’re like that burst cooldown that someone pops when kitten starts getting real and they need to down someone fast.

Does your teammate need an interrupt on demand? We got that.
Does your team need a node decapped real fast and then head back to the teamfight to +1 and burst the kill target? We got that.
Does your team need someone to rush to stillness/tranq to get it before the team can react? We got that.
Does your team need someone to kill that treb so they can take mid? We can do that.

Thief isn’t really the 1v1 dueler that we used to be. There’s an acro staff build floating around that’s good at 1v1’s but it takes a long time to kill anyone with it, granted you won’t be killed either, but Anet has decided that Thief is really just for map control. We play the map. That’s it. If you want a good 1v1’r and team fighter, play Rev.

I was dueling a mantra power mez friend of mine today, and lost every duel unless they messed up badly. They used their mantras and bursted me from 100-0 in 2 seconds. Not even joking. And that’s with the meta D/P build. We dueled probably 15 times. I won twice because someone decided to +1 for no reason, and another because they had the wrong mantra on their bar the whole time. After getting a little tilted, I hopped on my Rev and never lost a duel again.

The old Thief role has really been taken by Revenants. I only play Thief now when I just want to play the map game and +1 when it seems necessary. Hell, Revs are also great at +1’ing as they have a plethora of knockbacks, an AoE stun on a tiny CD, and Staff 5 is just crazy. And they rez people like a god while tossing out small heals and great boons.

TL;DR: Rev is just better now at everything we can do. Sure, we can run a LITTLE faster, but that’s it. If you want to 1v1/teamfight, just play Rev. It sucks, but it’s true. Anet needs to fix this.

Amhara.8395:

Last season was even worse trust me.
Fun fact yesterday I had 7 wins streak as Thief which got ruined by team of Thief bashers refusing to rotate properly. Wonder when ppl learn play with roamer in team… Also it’s rare to get praised as Thief in spvp but it happenes time to time. It feels good after all gate you get for no reasons.

On different note. Anyone noticed Thief hater of team always leave match super fast when you carry victory? It happened only once that hater apologized.

Yeah, they’re usually the one to quit first.

Cynz.9437:

Fun part about playing thief atm:
- you lose match, everyone blames you
- you win match, nobody acknowledges what you did

This is life in GW2. Never had anyone acknowledge if I did well. Never. Well, unless they’re a friend. Hell, I’ll pst someone who was able to roll over me all game and say, “Hey, you did really well, I’d love to duel you sometime!” The usual answer is no. I think they’re just taken aback by someone not getting salty. Oh well.

Loboling.5293:

It is normal to be told by bad players to reroll. Not sure if this is the case here. But I got yelled at all game once. I finally told the guy to shut it, and we went on to win. (two thieves on my team) He was a meta necro reroller, called the loss and kept saying how we lost because of the thieves all game. lol I don’t usually care about score, but I had 250, and the next on my team had 120. The guy kept saying things like (“don’t know what a decap is thieves?” or “We lost thieves are noobs.” or “Thieves have to 1v1 all game, if you can’t 1v1, don’t play thief”…. lol at the end of the game, the rest of the team told him to shut it too lol. Was pretty funny. He was pretty mad for someone who got carried. (both by his class, and by the rest of the team who played spot on, while he was chatting all game insults) You don’t get such a higher score without getting decaps all game. (luckily, the enemy team let that happen again and again.)

Wow, it sounds like we ran into the same necro!

This thread makes me sad.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Anomaly.7612:

Should I have just tried to kill the DH again until I figure out how to? DH are really the hardest matchup I’ve had. It just seems like I make one mistake and they trample all over me with two attacks. I just felt defeated because nothing I did seemed to please my group and that toxic necro player.

If the DH was just camping the point and refusing to leave, then you should leave him there. Go help fight at mid instead. With a five on four advantage on the other two points, your team should be able to win. If your team can’t win, then the problem goes beyond just you as a thief.

As for toxic players, some players will just be toxic. Offer them cuddles and that you hope their day gets better. There’s nothing to gain from getting angry at them, and there’s usually no point in asking them for advice because they’re not interested in helping you get better, they just want someone to blame who isn’t themselves.

What you might want to do is figure out ways you can help in a teamfight, for when you can’t go and decap far. Probably the strongest asset Thief can bring now is Impact Strike for quick stomps. Be careful about charging into the middle of a fight, hang out in the periphery and pick your spots, then when the opportunity is there, dart in, stomp someone, and get to safety. While there’s other classes that have various safe stomps, with Distortion or Elixir S or whatever else, Thief is the only class that can actually deliver a quicker stomp now. This is a big help!

Thank you, and the rest of you so much for the well received advice!

Moky.3104:

The OP lose all his credibility when he say “mesmer are actually top tier”, you might be stuck in the S1.

Pretty sure me and other 3/4 mesmer in the entire game are still playing GW2 with a main mesmer char.

But yeah, the 6 second of auto evade, so balanced… How someone can just even think about that?
The actually top tier profession are Necro/Scrapper/Thief. Mesmer are pretty much dead in every single game mode.

Sorry to say it, man, but Thief is far from top tier. Necro/Scrapper/Rev/Ele take that cake. The rest are as follows from best to worst:
Druid > Mesmer > Thief > Warrior.

Sir Mad.1092:

You could have switched to the combat log tab and / or unticked the chat from the tab menu.

True, but I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault. I lost twice in a row. In T2 of Ruby right now. I told them at the beginning that we have too many necro’s, but they refused to swap out for something else.

Should I have just tried to kill the DH again until I figure out how to? DH are really the hardest matchup I’ve had. It just seems like I make one mistake and they trample all over me with two attacks. I just felt defeated because nothing I did seemed to please my group and that toxic necro player.

So ranked is a completely toxic environment for me right now on my Thief. I’ve been in games where people yell at me constantly, tell me what to do, etc. Even so far as to tell me to reroll as “It’s just not the class for you.” Someone from an earlier game called me trash before we even started.

Now, I’ve been playing Thief for years as well as Ele, and in all those years, I’ve never had this hard of a time in game just for playing Thief.

I just had a game where I was on a team with mostly necros. I capped home, saw that they were doing fine in mid, so I went far. Capped it, then went mid to help +1 to ensure a win. Mid was doing fine after my initial burst, and I saw that far was getting decapped. I was then yelled at the same person that called me trash before, so I went back to far to decap/cap it. There was a DH on the point, and I’ve realized since they came out, they counter me pretty harshly. I tried to fight him and lost.

Mid kept getting pressured and decapped, so I rezzed and went mid to help after seeing that the same DH was sitting on far still. We couldn’t take mid so I went back far to see if the DH was gone. He wasn’t, so I didn’t engage, and went back mid.

This continued until we lost, and of course, that same necro who called me trash called me a number of new names. I whispered after the game to see what he would recommend as a course of action in that scenario. He didn’t know, but instead, told me that I just suck at Thief and should just play something else because I’m losing games for other people, told me he’s tired of my questions, and blocked me.

I’m not satisfied with that answer, and wish to improve my rotations. What could have been done in that situation? I refuse to accept that I need to play another class because “Thief just isn’t for you,” as it has been for years now.

This thread…My heart…Exploding with how much love this community can have. :’) Happy tears.

They really need to not allow some sigils to work in WvW.

Yasi.9065:

After having encountered some forum heroes in pvp, I actually dont think anymore anet is that far off in most cases. Im not calling names, but quite a handful of those shouting that they are mis-rated and constantly have to carry games in sapphire/ruby t1 Ive seen rushing mid alone with 3-4 enemies standing on point, just because rest of team decided to play far and they didnt read chat/minimap and missed that.

Others Ive seen abandoning close even though it was clear that my team’s mesmer would portal back (portal lieing in hearing range).

And what Ive seen most is players stubbornly focusing their own target, instead of yielding to a maybe slightly not so good target but at least assured kill.

It kinda opened my eyes seeing those kinds of things. And made me rather doubt some of you guys stubbornly stating its all matchmakings fault, and not your own. Im sorry.

If you are stating that 90% of your matches are pre-determined, then maybe its rather your attitude then the matchmaker. Too many heroes, not enough followers will loose you the game. So, can you be a follower even when the leader makes a stupid decision? Just carry it and try to make the best of it? Instead of stubbornly doing what you think is best? Havent seen lots of those tbh.

So, what I think is… sure there are outliers in matchmaking, and Im sorry for those that get the short end of the stick. But the big pool of players is exactly where they belong – mmr wise. Not pip wise, but season end is still far away after all.

What I think is… not mmr algo has to be adjusted, but rather a lot of pvp players have to adjust their attitude – especially in soloqueue. Maybe you actually really are a good solo player, and you win lots of 1v1. But that doesnt make you a good teamplayer… it just means that you have the potential to be a huge asset to your team, if you get the necessary skills for playing with a team and stop playing against it by constantly trying to correct “mistakes” or only doing your own thing.

I do agree with a lot of what you said. I’d like to add that I think it’s important to watch other good players play. Whether that’s streams/video/etc., as the only way to get better is to emulate those that already are.

I’m also generally curious and think it’d help if we talked about following the strat that the failing leader is giving. I see you touched on this in your post a bit already, and it could really help others to talk more about that. What do you think is best in that situation of a leader leading the team into death traps? Should we just follow into that situation and try to carry it, or break off and do what we think is best?

Eater of Peeps.9062:

Anomaly – I have seen you play. You are a good player. I was matched with you on several games early on. We won a few. We also lost a few to opposing teams that had better compositional player structure (in 1 instance someone on other team "rerolled after seeing our team’s composition – great). You got lucky, and kept moving up (I presume). I am on a downward death spiral. Yet we won a few games together. That means, at least at some point – you and I and our teammates were “skilled.” However, I have now lost 65 games in a row. I don’t think I am at the bottom because all of a sudden, I lost all my skill that I had when I played with you. I got tot the bottom because of bad luck and the new calcs for mmr/pip placement. So yah, I am not sure how to reconcile all of this “skilled v. unskilled” players and their appropriate “placement,” but I don’t see how starting me out at the bottom next season will help me claw my way to the top again through a morass of noobs, newbies and afkers/dcers/“I threw a skill, we lost mid, I quit” players.

Senpai noticed me! \0/ That really sucks, I’m sorry to hear about that. I’m currently in mid Ruby on a 50% win/loss. I also remember playing with and against you. You’re a good player, and this system is obviously not calculating your skill correctly as you’re easily Ruby/Diamnond material. Hell, I was wondering why I stopped seeing you in my matches. =\

Whatever Anet does next season, there’s really no way possible that it’d be worse than this system. Ruby finally starts to feel pretty even. I rarely have matches that are total blowouts in either direction. The only way I got out of Emerald and Sapphire was to find other people that I knew were good players and que together. Now, I don’t think that’s a good solution at all. We shouldn’t HAVE to group together to get anything done. I feel like that’s Anet’s solution though.

Doing HoT map content? Better group.
Wanna raid? Better get a guild and group.
Wanna PvP? Better get a premade on TS.

I just don’t think that’s a good solution, but I’m sure some “pro” players might think so. I watched Helseth’s carrying video, and I can see where he’s coming from on some points, but I thought it was really funny how he just scoffed at the PvP slot machine picture calling it, “the most noobiest thing ever,” yet he didn’t even finish his video. He just abruptly ends it and says, “I’ll make the real video later. This is just a taste.” So until the great “Lord” blesses us plebs with a real video, I guess carrying matches will be a total mystery.

Thanks for the responses! How do you make ascended mats?

How exactly is this done?

Do you just salvage all your gear and sell the mats, or do you put your greens/rare in the mystic forge in hopes of better gear?

What strategies have you used that have been successful?

Hey all! I was wondering if anyone has a good WvW build or could direct me to one? Are the ones on metabattle good at all for WvW stat wise? For ascended trinkets, I have a zerker back and zerker/valk everything else and I could swap any of my trinks with straight up zerk. I have those from my Thief. Are they even relevant on Rev? I’d hate to have to use up a ton of laurels to get more…

Krysard.1364:

Waiting for the OP to face good revs/thieves so they make nec feel like utter trash

Revs have no condi clear. They have stab on dodge. Just AA when they dodge and turn it into fear. GG. Necro and condi mez are literally the biggest counter to them. If you’re dying to a Rev, you’re really doing it wrong.

Gristo.4816:

The main Problem is, that the Necro always got focused by the opponent team. which of the top teams have a Necro? none.

Lack of Mobility, Lack of blocks, lack of stunbreakers makes it necessary for a necro to tank a team. it was not fun to play necro for the last years. now it’s ok in my opinion. once you get focused you’re still down.

Actually all of the top teams had a necro in the most recent tourny games.

Moreover, the rose colored glasses are so thick in this thread. I can’t even….

Jana.6831:

Of course they prefer Rev over thief, but they’d prefer any class over thief in zergs since ages – unless they know you and know that you’re good. Pulling thief off is hard enough, pulling it off in zergs is even a bit harder – although I have some very kind druids lately who keep my health up (= usually in a zerg the people take care of each other which makes things easier).

So why do people even play this class anymore? It just sounds like Thief isn’t good at much at all anymore.

DHawk.2687:

thief is ok for 1+ and decapping in pvp but rev is just as good
1v1 thief sucks bad
pve autoattacks are good dmg
we are not the 1v1 class we once where, risk reward is high risk, barely any reward
dead class at this point if you like the deception 1v1 playstyle

This is kinda how I’ve been feeling. I’ve been playing both Thief and Rev, and Rev just seems to be better than Thief now at all the same jobs Thief had. Maybe I’m wrong, but I seem to have much more success with Rev than Thief in ranked, and some WvW guilds simply won’t take my Thief because they don’t want them in zergs, but if I were on my Rev, they’d take me. (Yes, I asked them if they’d prefer Rev over Thief, and they said yes in every circumstance they’d prefer Rev over Thief).

Hey, I was curious what people think of this in terms of WvW/PvP. I like the sustain that a rev has in a teamfight, while still being pretty fast for decaps (not as fast as Thief). What class has more potential right now and seems to be in a better spot overall?

What seems better in PvP? I’m torn between them both. They both seem really great. Some classes I get utterly ruined by on my Thief (DH/Engi) I can just chew through on my Rev, whereas classes I can ruin with my Thief (Necro/Mes) I just get trampled over on my Rev.

I like that Revs have a lot of teamfight potential and sustain, whereas with Thief, it seems like you’re just not supposed to be in any kind of fight for more than a few seconds, which gets boring.

What’s a good burst rotation for Rev on the kill target? So far I’ve been dropping elements, using facet of strength for the vuln stacks, swapping to shiro, using daggers and UA/Precision Strike then Impossible Odds and AA on their back/sides for syphoning. What can I do that’s better burst than this?

I came from playing Thief to play Rev because Thief has no group support or team fight potential like Rev does. Should I just stick with Thief?

Taobella.6597:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVn0MBlOhFOBGmCkmiFYCTLBEAyAzdwT4K0LNcGaDA-TVCEQB+T9H3pPgAnAg/9AAMoyPDcIAlgA4IAIv9Hqm5PSBExUL-w

run this have easy wins

Instead of marauder, would Valk+Zerk/Valk work too? My stats are basically the same.

Cynz.9437:

still trash in tourneys

Let us keep dreaming please.

Zilvereen.2091:

Anomaly.7612:

I’ve been using blinding powder for ages. Is it worth dropping for BD?

I believe yes! First of all “it breaks stuns”

Blocking can save you from a lot of stuff that otherwise would have killed you e.g. Dragonhunters traps and Mesmer’s Gravity Wells etc etc

and also it gives you a counterattack stun-interrupt.

Need more? Its on 12 seconds cooldown.

Would you recommend using acro/trick/DrD with D/P as well?

Zilvereen.2091:

Anomaly.7612:

I’ve been using blinding powder for ages. Is it worth dropping for BD?

I believe yes! First of all “it breaks stuns”

Blocking can save you from a lot of stuff that otherwise would have killed you e.g. Dragonhunters traps and Mesmer’s Gravity Wells etc etc

and also it gives you a counterattack stun-interrupt.

Need more? Its on 12 seconds cooldown.

That does sound pretty cool, but the block is really short, and there’s a lot of unblockable attacks in the game right now, but it does look really good. I’ve just never seen a Thief use it and be really successful in ranked, but I think that’s just an issue with ranked and the meta right now, than Thief itself.

meepeY.2867:

Anomaly.7612:

I’m currently running Pack runes with valk gear, zerker+valk trinks with zerk weps and back. Would Defender be a better option?

Depends if you’re running Thrill of the Crime. If you’re running Totc then Pack runes aren’t as necessary (but still one of the strongest choices). But if you’re running Defender runes, it’s best to take Bandits Defence instead of Roll4Initiative.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Bandits Defence because of all the unblockable skills floating around but it can still work vs a lot of match-ups.

My best advice would be to experiment and find what works best for you with all this info in the thread.

Hmmm, ok. I’ll trait for flanking strikes and see how that goes instead of TotC. Thanks!

meepeY.2867:

Anomaly.7612:

I’m currently running Pack runes with valk gear, zerker+valk trinks with zerk weps and back. Would Defender be a better option?

Depends if you’re running Thrill of the Crime. If you’re running Totc then Pack runes aren’t as necessary (but still one of the strongest choices). But if you’re running Defender runes, it’s best to take Bandits Defence instead of Roll4Initiative.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Bandits Defence because of all the unblockable skills floating around but it can still work vs a lot of match-ups.

My best advice would be to experiment and find what works best for you with all this info in the thread.

Hmmm, ok. I’ll trait for flanking strikes and see how that goes instead of TotC. Thanks!
(Aside): When do you usually stream?

Zilvereen.2091:

Anomaly.7612:

Is acro really that good to take over DA? Does the added sustain help in team fights and +1’ing?

You will know when you test it. Personally the Acro build I prefer is 3-3-3

I’d still take upper hand if I’m taking Unhindered in DrD, but I agree, 3-3 is good.

Zilvereen.2091:

If you go for staff plz dont pick Deadly Arts. Instead go for Acrobatics. You will notice far better survivability. My rotation is Impairing Daggers , Weakening Charge, Steal, Fist Flurry and if my target is low enough I finish with Impact Strike or switch to dual pistols and Unload. Also Bandits Defense is a must no matter what build you play. Its a stun breaker on a rly short cooldown that will add even more to your survivability.

I’ve been using blinding powder for ages. Is it worth dropping for BD?

Is acro really that good to take over DA? Does the added sustain help in team fights and +1’ing?

TheBravery.9615:

Do you guys think meta-shifting (blizzard way) is a good way to balance at all? Why or why not?

No, because if people want to play a certain class that they’ve dumped 1K+ hours into, then it all of a sudden is obsolete for a full season, that’s going to feel like a big slight to a whole community of players. (Looking at you, Thieves and Warriors).

In a magic dream world of happy time balance, each class would be relevant in PvP and be brought to a team for various reasons. It should be more, “bring the player, not the class,” than we’re seeing now.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Anomaly.7612:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Anomaly.7612:

I really hope they don’t plan on releasing one a year after HoT as HoT already messed up enough as it is. The fact they’re even working on one makes me afraid that it’s going to be as much of a headache as HoT has been.

I remember a time when they said they’d never release an xpac as they didn’t believe in making people pay for them. I really wish they’d had stuck to that.

Source please. I’ve never seen that quote and I suspect you’ve misremembered.

Oh, lawd. That was years ago during beta times. So believe it or not, it’s cool. I don’t mind people thinking I’m crazy.

EDIT: Not the exact source, but it’s still a quote from Mo himself

Apparently they needed to pay some bills afterall.

Yes, they hoped to support the game on gemstore sales but it appears that income was insufficient, so they switched to the expansion model. However I doubt they ever came right out and said no paid expansions, as no one can predict the future and it would have been foolish to rule out an income source.

“We don’t need an expansion to pay the bills, and we’re not focused on an expansion right now. I won’t try and predict the future, maybe someday we will do one, maybe we won’t. But for now we are focused on the living world. We believe we can update the world and adapt the world in any way we want to through these bi-weekly updates.”

Word, I agree. Also, your signature is far too relevant right now. 0_o

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Anomaly.7612:

I really hope they don’t plan on releasing one a year after HoT as HoT already messed up enough as it is. The fact they’re even working on one makes me afraid that it’s going to be as much of a headache as HoT has been.

I remember a time when they said they’d never release an xpac as they didn’t believe in making people pay for them. I really wish they’d had stuck to that.

Source please. I’ve never seen that quote and I suspect you’ve misremembered.

Oh, lawd. That was years ago during beta times. So believe it or not, it’s cool. I don’t mind people thinking I’m crazy.

EDIT: Not the exact source, but it’s still a quote from Mo himself

Apparently they needed to pay some bills afterall.

meepeY.2867:

Take Remove Condi on Evade, Dash and Trickster

Use Roll4Initiative, Shadowstep, Agi Signet and Withdraw

Laugh at condi builds.

I’m currently running Pack runes with valk gear, zerker+valk trinks with zerk weps and back. Would Defender be a better option?

Thanks for all the info!

Shovel Face.4512:

First one is Condi-sustain build. You can hold 2v1s for a while you can 1v1 any class except DH and Mesmer. Perma evades and recent changes to Thief helps this build a lot.

Second is Staff build. Easily the highest damage weapon a thief can have. You can easily melt Eles and Vaulting in the middle of a fight never felt more satisfying. Auto does crazy damage as well.

Can you give a link with a full build for these? I’d love to try them out instead of using the usual D/P. I can’t seem to sustain long enough to kill a target quickly and leave to decap/+1 somewhere else.

Calaereth.6720:

Hi guys, I know thief often gets a bad rep and whilst this is not true in all cases, I was wondering whether the 2016 update has given back the thief profession a bit more power again to contend with other classes.

Thanks very much.

They underperform to Engi’s/DH/Rev/Necro by a big amount. The changes have helped a little, but it’s still a gamble to have one on your team, or to play one for that matter.