Guild Wars 2

Alex.6940:

Arganthium.5638:

… Which is why we run full zerker. c:

25/30/0/0/15 builds tend to run full zerker too except they get 250 more power, 5% more damage with daggers and extra burst damage from mug :P

But they die near instantly.

Alex.6940:

They’ve mentioned adding some kind of boon hate mechanic to the thief profession at some point in the future as well as giving greater mobility skills other weapons sets. I think the profession will see some buffs in the future, but i doubt it’s going to be soon.

‘Bunker’ builds have been around since launch for thief also, usually with 30 in shadow arts for more healing in stealth and sometimes 15-20 in acrobatics for more initiative and dodging. The problem is there pretty significant loss in dps. Something like a 10/30/30/0/0 still offers good damage but, with reduced burst damage, the usefulness of these builds in spvp and tpvp is limited, especially when compared with other professions.

… Which is why we run full zerker. c:

Shukran.4851:

no armor&weaps sigils
no amulet.
fix it pls

I know, that’s why I’m making a new post.

Lemme just link to the build directly: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmiP3eS6E95EBniiaUPFfdsdPuqV1KA;TEAg0A

There, that’s the PvP build.

EDIT: also, I typically just use Sigils of Force, simply because they’re the easiest to work with, are reliable, and give me a much-needed damage boost. Outside of that, all I can suggest for runes are anything that gives you additional crits and power.

I can’t say that I go too much into depth in these builds, as you can probably tell, but they do work well, and, theoretically, they should.

Not entirely related to the topic, but I watched that vid, and I have to say

That was one of the best videos I’ve seen of guild work, ever. Absolutely spectacular, really. Sowing chaos throughout the army, having such great coordination…

… It almost makes me teary-eyed.

Shukran.4851:

Arganthium.5638:

I think that people just haven’t found the right build for themselves yet. Personally, I like the 0/0/20/30/20 spec, which works with just about any weapon set (like ele’s 0/10/0/30/30 spec), although I like it most with D/P. Dasorine says that thieves have too little defense, but this spec has plenty of it, with stealth and evades on top.

To balance that out, I typically run zerker gear. The result? An insanely balanced thief that has lots of survivability while maintaining very nice damage.

I want to see more people trying out specs like this in the future. Currently, the two main camps for thief theorycrafting seem to focus around bursting or conditions. I’d like to see a new camp form, one that discusses the phenomenon of the “bunker thief” in more depth.

in depth build please. logging now gw2 to test your build. please

Check my sig, I’ll probably write an updated post in a sec for it.

Also, you can swap SA I with Shadow’s Embrace for Condition Removal. I just like SA I because it’s fun.

daphoenix.4283:

Whizzy.5723

Arganthium.5638
I think knowing the thief downed state is important, especially when your fighting several enemies at once and don’t have time to go for a stomp.

I didn’t really realize about the new D/P trend, but it does make sense using a combo + leap to grant stealth. I’ll add that in the notes.

“Just emphasize “spam AoE/PbAoE” when Shadow Refuge is thrown down. " ->
I thought I mentioned t hat already, but I’ll make an additional note about that, and about thieves edging its field of effect

Air5 is the only spell that misses against invisible people. I’ve tried it before with an enemy thief in the party.

Fair enough, perhaps it’s just my personal bias against the downed state.

Yes, D/P is really starting to make its rounds through the thief community, like the one shown in Yishi’s “Outnumbered” Commentary.

I know, but I wasn’t sure it was emphasized enough. Another thing to note might be not to waste all of your AoE spells when the thief is stealthed and you don’t know where it is. When you do have some clue as to its location, AoE is very effective, but I’ve seen too many players waste attacks while I was standing five feet to their left, simply b/c they didn’t know my location. Also- don’t know that you emphasized this enough- spamming 1 when you don’t know where the thief is is particularly useful when you don’t know where the thief is. Particularly given the PbAoE granted by spells like Lightning Whip. Even against skilled thieves, this can be annoying, and it gets even more annoying if you spin around, changing direction while spamming LW at the same time. Best-case scenario: if you do everything perfectly, you’ll avoid a Backstab and the thief will have to resort to using less optimal attacks. Against a D/D thief, this would be absolutely lethal. With the D/P spec currently (and P/D, for that matter), this is less effective because of less reliance on backstab and because of range, but it’s still better than running head-first into 8K damage in a single blow.

Didn’t know this. Huh.

I think that people just haven’t found the right build for themselves yet. Personally, I like the 0/0/20/30/20 spec, which works with just about any weapon set (like ele’s 0/10/0/30/30 spec), although I like it most with D/P. Dasorine says that thieves have too little defense, but this spec has plenty of it, with stealth and evades on top.

To balance that out, I typically run zerker gear. The result? An insanely balanced thief that has lots of survivability while maintaining very nice damage.

I want to see more people trying out specs like this in the future. Currently, the two main camps for thief theorycrafting seem to focus around bursting or conditions. I’d like to see a new camp form, one that discusses the phenomenon of the “bunker thief” in more depth.

For leveling, I would definitely use S/P or D/P (S/P for the AoE, high damage w/ pistol whip; D/P for blinds, which are always fun). Also, the SB is going to be a really good friend to you, use it more often. Kiting with the SB against melee-range, weak, susceptible-to-cripple types of NPCs can rack up a lot of kills for you.

John Smith.4610:

A durable good is a good that isn’t destroyed on use, Weapon Skins are closer to luxury goods I believe.

This is correct.

I have to ask the same question Ursan asked, though- why can’t players be allowed to buy off the TP? I get that it would possibly be less profitable for ANet, on the one hand… On the other hand, the ability to suddenly own 100+ gold via selling a rare skin might- of all things- actually increase sales of BL Chests.

Lol.

Scorpion Wire- bounces off, pulls you to reflection? :P

eldain stenlund.4306:

lol.. it should deflect. not pull.. but i still see how it worked that way.
seems like a bug if you ask me.
Your hit should have been “miss” or something similar instead.

Sorry, I might not have made it clear. You’re right that it didn’t technically “pull”; it did deflect. However, the thing with Shadow Shot is- the shot blinds and shadowsteps towards the target, and once you shadowstep, you hit him/her with your dagger. Since the shot rebounded and hit me instead, though, the deflection turned the attack from my own into the ele’s, effectively making the ele shadowstep towards me as if it had fired the shot. That’s why I called it a “pull”, because it’s basically the same concept, just a lot cruder.

Doubt it’s a bug though, IMO it’s a perfectly legitimate tactic. If ele’s (or any other profession’s) reflection makes the projectile turn into your own, and thus hit you/your allies, it would make perfect sense that the effects of the projectiles also affect you and enemies the same way that they would have done if you had fired the shot.

Also, technically, because the shot comes with a blind, once the ele shadowstepped towards me, and the second part of Shadow Shot came in (the stab with the dagger, which deals the damage), I’m guessing the two negated one another out, so that no damage was actually done, just a shadowstep.

andywerdna.9128:

It’s the interaction with skills when you reflect projectiles (look at damage log and it says you hit x with y skill for z damage). It also works in FotM on on Maw to pull those Jade Collosses to you

:P no, don’t get me wrong, it’s not something that I didn’t understand- actually, it made perfect sense, though it took me a second to understand it. Either way, it’s kinda fun to make your opponents shadow step.

Just wrote this on the ele forums, might be a useful tactic for all y’all thieves out there that run D/P. Might not ever happen to you, but still interesting, and perhaps you could use it some day.

I’m about to post this in the thief forum as well, I feel that this would be useful information for both thieves and eles to have.

Basically, long story short, I’m hunting an ele on my thief in WvW yesterday. The ele is running staff, and pulls out Earth 3 (Magnetic Aura). Purely by accident, I used shadow shot (the D/P combination that grants a blind, shadow step, and decent damage). The shadow shot hit the ele’s shield, bounced off, and hit me… And the ele actually shadowstepped towards me.

Maybe if somebody wanted to post a video of this tactic or something, that would be great, but I thought I’d stop by and allow you guys this piece of information. For most of you, it probably will never happen, but just in case, it’s a method we can use that works as a crude form of pull, but still a very useful and relatively cheap pull at that.

~Arctu Spackle Yarba, Asuran Thief~

daphoenix.4283:

Countering Thieves

From a thief to an ele, let me make a few adjustments for you. Feel free to copy+paste, whatever you need to do.

- Remove 7: Downed State. Simply because thief downed state is pretty awful, and there isn’t much of a point behind having it in the guide (unless you’re targeting, specifically, brand new players who have no idea what the kitten they’re doing)

- Remove parts about P/D thieves, replace with D/P thieves. P/D tends to be much more uncommon nowadays, and even beforehand, it was more of an overly passive build that I honestly had no respect for. On the other hand, D/P is becoming an increasingly common spec. What you can expect from D/P is:
- A lot of blinds
- A combo field that blinds you if you stand in it. Also, the combo field allows for thieves to HS→Stealth, so be prepared for that.
-Tends to rely more on HS than regular D/D builds would
- A bit more of a “tanky” thief build, but still one where you might want to watch out for Backstabs, as they can still really, really hurt.

-Just emphasize “spam AoE/PbAoE” when Shadow Refuge is thrown down. Typically, thieves can do little or nothing about damage you do to them when they’re in SR, and, 99% of the time, thieves will spend the entire duration of SR just sitting there, waiting to max out stealth. If there aren’t any nearby enemies threatening to kill them, they’ll typically just stand in the center, but otherwise they’ll stand closer to the edge of the circle to avoid getting hit. I would say that this makes Lightning Whip most useful, because it hits the entire radius around you, while other skills don’t have that option. Also, because LW is so powerful, that gives you yet another reason to use it.

Also… I can’t guarantee this, but I would imagine that Air 5 would be extremely useful against thieves. Few things annoy me more than standing in a SR, only to be pushed out by Mesmer GS 5, which slams revealed on me and makes it impossible to gain any other stealth benefits from SR. Similarly, I believe that Air 5 might pushback thieves, which would be a real pain, to say the least. I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work.

That would be my advice for now, PM me or comment if you want more explanation for the Ele vs Thief matchup.

eldain stenlund.4306:

The answear for everyhing everyone says is from you:
“the designers made it like this, its perfect. shut up and deal with it”.

I see flaws.. and so does many many others.
(including designers, or they whould never have to bend, tweak, nerf ,buff)

• answer

• so do

:p

^ Basically what Hof said.

That being said, this sounds like a really cool idea, I just don’t think that the game’s infrastructure is ready for that much change yet. However, in the future, this could totally be a possibility, or at least a blueprint for a possibility.

I like it.

bomber.1540:

Why isn’t this thread a sticky, really really helpful thanks

lol have you seen the “Guide to Thief Guides” post? It’s been up for… Insanely long, and yet, despite tons of requests to sticky it, it has yet to be as such.

“Welcome to the Thief forum, how may I help you? Actually, I don’t want to know, because you guys are thieves. So kitten off.”

I think that it’s an absolutely horrid downed state, although it depends on the situation. If you have a cloud of allies nearby, then you can port to them and likely be rez’d. However, in just about every other circumstance, I pretty much go grab a snack and wait to see how long it’ll be before the enemy realizes they can stomp me without any resistance whatsoever. I just hate it.

On the other hand, I love the mesmer’s downed state. With a powerful autoattack that stacks confusion on your opponent, a clone that does the same, and, if you survive long enough, an insanely powerful phantasm, they have so much going for them.

Hexxen.7216:

In a snap shot instance with a 2-hander ya got me there is no off hand. But there are the world completion stars, health bars. That aside though, battles aren’t screen shots are they?

Also, please don’t think that any of us are trying to convince you that you are wrong. We don’t care what you think for yourself we just don’t want other new Mesmers thinking your right cause well we know you aren’t. But it is a free world and you can think what you want. ^^

Well, a video is nothing more than a fast-moving collection of pictures…

Gee, thanks. I think, however, that if this is what you’re feeding to new mesmers (who are most prone to… Accidents, via abuse of dodges), then you’re going to find that they’re going to walk away from the class very quickly. If there’s any group that you don’t want to have abusing these dodges, in fact, it’s the newer players, simply because they don’t have enough experience with mes to be able to handle whatever situation comes at them.

Hexxen.7216:

Arganthium.5638:

Hexxen.7216:

You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.

Arganthium.5638:

So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.

If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.

If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.

The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.

So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.

You don’t mention DE once in that post. Also, if you took a snap shot you would just have to look to see which one doesn’t have an off hand weapon and you would know.

I mention evading, however, and I think I’ve already explained multiple times why DE can cause people to evade more often, which can be a problem.

Also, I assume that your eyesight is so good that, in a battle with projectiles flying around and lights everywhere, you could instantly pick up which mes was the real one, even if they were behind you, because of a small object in their left hand? And what about with, say, staves and GS? What do you do there?

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Arganthium: You say that if you look at 1/10 of a second of video that you wouldn’t be able to tell which one the mesmer is. That’s because you’re starting in the middle.

Take a video of a mesmer from the very start of a fight, and break it up into small segments. In each segment, you can tell which mesmer is the real one, because you simply follow them. If you close your eyes for 5 seconds and then look at the screen again, then maybe it’ll take you a second or two to find the real mesmer again. The thing is, when I fight a mesmer, I know which one is the real mesmer 100% of the time. If they don’t go invisible, I simply follow them. Once they start losing hp, its the only one with lower hp. If they go invislble, it’s the one that just became visible.

There’s also that setting thing you can do where you turn off npc names and only the player will have a name bar. I don’t need to do this, but it certainly is an easy way out.

This is the very basis of the fault of your argument. You are talking from a perspective that is 100% and completely wrong. You can defend it all you want, you can have whatever opinion that you want, but it won’t ever make you any less wrong.

That’s the point. Close your eyes for a couple of seconds, then you’ll have to take a few more seconds to determine which mesmer is the real one. Because mesmers are so good with teleportation/invisibility/etc, assuming you know which mesmer is the real one at the beginning of the fight, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep your eye on it at all times, simply because it can be so slippery.

Yes, thank you for trying to reemphasize that I am wrong by repeating it over and over again. Maybe if you said it again, I might actually hear you.

Hexxen.7216:

You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.

Arganthium.5638:

So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.

If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.

If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.

The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.

So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.

Hexxen.7216:

Have you watched the Mesmert Videos? Like Osicat’s Shatter Cat vids. The really good Mesmers are always on the move. Also, we very frequently have vigor up and thus can dodge like crazy.

I am sure when the game came out several people (myself included) attempted to do the whole hid in clones thing instead of moving around like a mouse on fire like we do now. It didn’t work. Too many attacks are actually short AoEs and clones die SUPER fast and thus trying to hid only lets our enemies get closer to us. We also attack faster than out clones and have an off hand weapon and everything else we do that they don’t. Clones work great in PvE cause mobs are stupid, players are in general not as stupid as mobs and thus we Mesmers moved to extremely mobile and constantly moving builds. Other than yourself has anyone agreed with that that tryn to hid in clones is a good idea or for that matter even a viable idea? I am pretty sure I have read everything and no one has.

I know that some of the best mesmers are crazy active, and that makes sense; because they can utilize their other mechanisms of defense so well (teleport, stealth, etc), then they would actually lose more by using their illusions as forms of defense, because they would have to give up some of their defense in those other areas. But not everyone has this playstyle.

Here’s a statistics lesson: no amount of analysis can make up for badly produced data. This post is a simulation of a voluntary response sample, which is necessarily going to be biased one way or another, and it has been. If you’ve noticed, most of the comments here come from people who seem to be constantly engaging in argument about this with me. So I can’t say I’d expect you to look at this post and think “oh, what a great idea!” because everybody around you is sticking to the same old dogma that, I think, needs some refreshment. But hey, don’t use my ideas if you don’t want to.

shimmerless.4560:

Don’t get me wrong, I think the trait is a bit goofy in some ways… but then the Engie/Ele dodge traits are even sillier (drop a bomb on roll, set peeps on fire/heal randomly).

It seems at first glance like the obvious culprit for the Mes’ difficulty to hide in clones, but really it has no effect since clones just fundamentally won’t behave the same as players do.

This is true, but in very short periods of time, clones will behave similarly, if not exactly like people. There are a few factors I look for in determining whether a player is real or an illusion:
-Are they under leveled?
-What’s on their boon/condition bar?
-How fast are they dying?
-How are they positioned? (Mes tends to be positioned behind clones, I find)
-Are they engaging in any actions that would prove that they’re real? (dodge, heal, movement, etc)

So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.

If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.

If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.

The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.

So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.

Hexxen.7216:

DE doesn’t have any negatives though. In the OP you mention that it exposes the real Mesmer. Ok fine I don’t trait DE and dodge roll. BAM you know which one is the real Mesmer. Now, I trait for DE and dodge roll BAM you know which one the real Mesmer is anyway but I now have a clone which probably isn’t my only one to either blow you up or give me a second or two of invulnerability.

There are no negatives. Now if you are trying to get at that people are using DE in a build that shouldn’t be using it and should be using another trait in that spot then yes you are true but that is just because they are new and don’t have their build finished yet. But my point still stands that in ANY BUILD, even if it isn’t the BEST trait to take there are ZERO, NONE, NO negatives to the trait itself.

The issue isn’t in theory, because, theoretically, the trait works great. The issue is in practicality, where mesmers will use it as one of their main ways to spawn clones. They abuse the trait because of all of the “free” clones they get, but, in doing so, they fail to recognize the threats they come under by making themselves so instantly visible. It’s similar to, say, the thief trap “Shadow Trap”. It’s a wonderful trap in theory, but in practicality, it’s worthless because it’s buggy, but also because players often miss the 5 second window that allows them to teleport back to the trap, due to the fact that that 5-second window could occur at any time. It also keeps them from using other utilities that might flow better with the average, current thief build.

Skyro.3108:

@OP

You say in the OP to not take X trait. This is, literally, the definition of build advice. You can emphasize the caveat that it is directed at players “who can’t control a particular trait they have very well” all you want, but even then, it simply becomes very very bad advice. The correct advice for these players is simply to learn how to use the trait better.

Also the correlation between this trait and “fooling” your opponent is completely and utterly inconsequential vs experienced players. This notion continues to escape you. I do not think there is a single experienced PvP Mesmer who would recommend attempting to fool your opponent with your clones. That is like saying don’t ever strafe since clones don’t strafe.

And I’m sorry I assumed you didn’t play Mesmer. I would imagine somebody who played Mesmer to any significant degree would know that attempting to fool players with your clones is a fruitless endeavor.

It was an idea, one of many. It was not the recommendation.

I’m not suggesting you “fool people with your clones”, I’m suggesting that your clones automatically fool people, whether you like it or not. Most of the mesmers in this thread hold the ultra-conservative, defensive view that illusions cannot be a defense because they are practically see-through. On the other hand, an ultra-aggressive view would hold that illusions are a perfectly adequate defense, and thus they can run, practically speaking, a GC build. Both views have their upsides and their downsides, but I think that we need to accept that, to some extent, having three copies of your character going around is more of a complication than just having your character go around.

Earlier, people mention that you can just look at the boon bars on clones to see which one is fake. While this is a perfectly adequate technique, and works particularly well when the opponent is running signets, it fails in that you still have to take significant portions of your time up to check every illusion’s bar. You’re not going to just be able to check every bar in half a second. Now, there are other markers, like movement patterns, but remember that illusions can move, to some extent, so you have to be careful in that regard. Even so, some movements can be somewhat subtle, so that, in the heat of battle, you might not recognize them at first; either way, not moving only to move later on will slow your opponent down by checking illusions. Anyhow, you get the point; there isn’t a foolproof, quick and easy method to telling which mesmer is the real one if they’re all acting alike. Dodging/healing, however, are two extremely noticeable markers of whether or not a mes is real.

Let’s compare this to, say, an example with thieves: the increase in Revealed duration in the latest patch by 1 second. One second, and yet there were thieves ready to start a riot on the thief forums, because, supposedly, it screws up their rotations, and totally messes up their builds. And that’s just one second. Take, say, stuns or knockdowns; typically, they last virtually no time at all, and yet, in the few seconds that you’re knocked down or stunned, you could lose half of your health, easily. So yes, I understand that illusions aren’t meant solely to deceive people, but they can and do anyways, and if you don’t use them to gain a couple of seconds of protection (or more), then you’re underutilizing the resources available to you. It would be like a thief only using stealth for offense, a ranger only using a pet for its F2 ability, or an ele that only uses the fire element. By using your illusions so strictly, for such little purpose, you’re missing out on a lot of aggressive and defensive opportunities you could gain, via a few seconds worth of protection.

shimmerless.4560:

You say you played Mes for a while with staff and S/P and enjoyed it… but what doesn’t add up is that you’re saying you made a lot of clones. Well, native clone production on that weapon set is quite low… so you were running DE most likely (or by your own admission? It’s a bit hard to tell) and using it to get clones out.

That’s basically how everyone uses DE. If you weren’t being targeted properly it’s most likely because of the great mobility that staff offers. I’m still a tad circumspect since I feel if you’d really played a lot of Mes you’d just know what we’re talking about, but I’ll take your word for it.

Oh no, I was using DE. I most certainly was. But the things that I mentioned before allowed me to bypass the negatives of DE that I mention in my OP.

jportell.2197:

The problem with a thief running a no stealth build is A. Sure they can do damage pretty easily from the AA but it also leaves you completely vulnerable to the other persons AA… And I don’t care how much toughness a thief runs they are the lowest on the totem pole when it comes to being able to build a tank build… Not as much armor as guards not as much access to boons as ele’s… A non stealthing thief will get blown up more than a stealth thief…. Plane and simple.

Look at the D/P build in my signature. Run it. Fix your life. Kthxbye.

Skyro.3108:

What in the world… the whole OP is implying that Mesmer’s main defensive mechanic is through fooling the opponent on which one is the real Mesmer. This could not be any further from the truth. Experienced players can easily tell which one is the real Mesmer quite quickly. You never ever want to bank on your opponent’s inexperience.

Deceptive Evasion is basically a must to use in any shatter-oriented build. Period. No offense, but I really think people should refrain from giving build advise on classes they do not play. Tips on how to fight your class, ok, but build advise? No.

Joy, another one of these.

No, I’ll tell you guys again: I understand that illusions aren’t mesmers’ only defensive mechanic. Outside of the obvious armor/toughness/healing stats as defense, I understand that mesmers also have stealth, teleportation, conditions, pushbacks, confusions, and so many other weapons in their arsenal that they can use as defense. What I am saying, however, is that illusions are most certainly one of the mechanics that mesmers have as a method of defense. If you can keep away from an opponent who knows you’re the real mesmer, great. Good for you. You shouldn’t have a problem. If you’re a mes that can use confusion (the condition) to make it difficult for enemies to completely roll you over, wonderful. But if you can’t do either of those, or your opponent is able to avoid your shatters, whatever- then you need to have some plan B, and making yourself the most obvious target is not , IMHO, a very good option.

Lol, you don’t even know what my experience with mesmer is like. For all you know, I’ve never touched a mesmer since GW2 came out… Or perhaps I play it as my alt to my thief. To be honest, I have played mes a decent bit (probably the profession I’ve used second-most-often, the first being the thief), although I don’t enjoy the profession as much anymore. I used to play a lot of PvP with my mes, though, and one of the things that I did was run Dueling X, and it turned out perfectly fine. I played a S/P and Staff Shatter build (that I developed mostly by myself, although the idea was certainly not original to me, I’m sure). The nice thing about it was, at a distance with my staff, I usually didn’t have to worry about opponents coming after me anyways, because of conditions and Staff #2 (which I absolutely love). It was also a lot easier, at a distance, for me to just blend in with my clones anyhow. Then, when my opponent closed in on me, I’d switch to S/P and let loose with as many clones as possible. I’m pretty sure one of the reasons why I survived so well with my S/P set was because my opponent was (literally) being blinded by butterflies, but it was also because, with so many clones around him/her, it was near impossible to tell which mesmer was the real one very easily- it was just too confusing.

I hardly ever killed anything (I hadn’t worked on the build for very long), and yet, with my light armor, I think I must have survived longer than anything I had ever played before. It was insane; I’ll probably go back and try the build again some day.

Either way, this entire thread isn’t about giving advice for build changes, it’s giving advice to mesmers who can’t control a particular trait they have very well. It’s about mesmers who think “better run away now lol” and get mauled for it. So I’m sorry if that bothers you, but please read the OP before putting words I didn’t say in my mouth.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Arganthium: As snarky as that comment may have been, it contained some truth. Thieves are extremely predictable. They have to be. You stealth, and you have a short window of time to use that stealth before you have to start over. Since mesmers have so much active defense, it is very possible to completely ruin the rhythm and attacks of a thief.

Stealth, wait a beat, blurred frenzy. You have no option but to waste that stealth, or hit a clone or phantasm or something. Repeating that sort of thing with other active defenses, burning two dodges to do the same thing, this can completely ruin the damage potential of a thief. Yes, you’re using up your active defense a lot, but against a thief, that’s all that matters. If you can completely ruin their ability to use stealth attacks, the thief loses.

Ok.

P/P nonstealthing build.

D/D LDB nonstealthing build

D/P Build combining minimal stealth with Signets

S/D (mostly) Nonstealthing Burst Build

Hybrid Stealth/Signet S/P build

“Lifesteal” build, minimal stealth

Point in case: if you honestly believe that thieves “have to be predictable”, that they all use stealth, then I honestly don’t believe that you’ve played thief enough to say anything.

Above are a whole selection of builds that I picked up from all over the place within about 5 minutes, and with each of them, players either use very little stealth or no stealth at all (typically, the builds that fall under the “very little stealth” category only go there because they run SR).

For you, it seems to be a matter of “Stealth → Burst” on thieves, but that’s just not the case. My thief, for example: he sure does use stealth, but it’s for both offensive and defensive reasons, and most of my damage isn’t from backstabbing, either. Although backstabbing does do a nice bit of damage in my build, and I do backstab fairly frequently, other skills like the autoattack, HS, shadow shot, and all of my SB skills are the real meat of the build. If you would do exactly what you stated above, then you’d still get minced by my D/P weaponset, and probably even more easily, because, as you said, you’re “burning up your active defense”. I’ll just roll you over into the ground completely, if that’s your mindset.

I don’t understand why you people suffer from this extremely narrow point of view. There is just as much, if not more variety in thief builds as there is in mesmer builds, guardian builds, or, for that matter, any other profession. If you think that every thief is heavily reliant on stealth attacks (such as Backstab), then I hope that you’ll change your mind after a good thief comes down on you and shows you that that narrow point of view is completely and utterly wrong one day.

shimmerless.4560:

Arganthium.5638:

Agony.3542:

-Don’t run Dueling X.

I lol’d … seriously wtf?
Running Duelling X has its purpose in some builds, not running it would simply be dumb.

This was my point. If you can’t handle the trait, reroll or swap builds. Thanks for obviously having taken this into consideration.

Well, you clearly haven’t taken into consideration what’s already been pointed out…

Deceptive Evasion has no bearing on telling which is the real Mes. And why would it? Clones don’t dodge roll, no matter what the source: if you get caught dodging then having DE or not will not make any difference.

No, I’ve taken it into consideration, I just think that everybody’s ignoring the fact that, whether they like it or not, it’s difficult for any player to tell which mesmer is the real one if they aren’t doing anything to clearly show which one actually is the real one. Everybody just says “oh, a good player can always tell which is the real one”, but that’s only necessarily true under a few circumstances (such as the player being under leveled- clones don’t show up as UL, players do). Under other circumstances, it can be very difficult to discern between mesmers, or, failing that, it at least takes longer to determine which one is real, which is practically the mesmer equivalent of a daze that lasts, oh, say, 5 seconds. During that time, they can’t attack you, because they don’t know where you are, necessarily.

My point with DE is that mesmers often use it as their prime method of spawning clones, which is perfectly fine, but if they abuse it too much (as they often do), then it can backfire.

Wait, somebody who is coming to the thief from another profession, not telling us “LOL THIEF IS OP EASYMODE”? 0_o

Look here brothers and sisters, this strange phenomenon may never happen again.

Ok, here are the two that I thought might be best for you:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Juke-and-Nuke-guide-video-post-patch/first#post1774241

Pros:
-pretty balanced offense + defense, although slightly more offense than defense
-similar to most other backstab builds, if that’s what you’re used to
-lots of stealth
-teleporting up cliffs and whatnot
-overall fairly balanced for a backstab build
Cons:
-if you’re not a fan of the stereotypical backstab thief, this might not be the build for you
-not many dodges
-lower base initiative pool
-still a bit unbalanced

Now, here’s my build that I run virtually 99% of the time:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/D-P-Bunker-Build-0-0-20-30-20/first#post1670968

Pros:
-High initiative regen, and the +3 base initiative pool
-Going to use just about every attack on your bar, as they’re all fantastic
-Shadowsteps, shadowsteps everywhere
-Stealth
-Very nice survivability for a thief build
-Still very good damage
Cons:
-since you have +300 vitality, +30% boon duration, +200 toughness, and +200 healing, to balance out, you’ll want to buy aggressive gear, preferably zerker. Unfortunately, zerker gear tends to cost the most, so you’ll have to slowly buy one piece at a time if you’re poor (like me)
-The lack of any trait points in either of the first two trees might be a huge change for you, as most builds run at least a few points in one of the first two trees, DA and CS
-Not as aggressive as most other thief builds
-DO NOT PICK THIS BUILD IF YOU ARE BAD AT REMOVING CONDITIONS. JUST DON’T. DON’T DO IT TO YOURSELF. This build has some pretty awful condition removal. Fortunately, you can change that by changing SA I to SA IV, but… Idk, I love SA I too much for that, personally.

Those are the two that I’d suggest right off the bat to you, maybe I can find others.

Witham.5621:

Added this to favourites, will have a good look through when i get home from work.

Ive been searching for good thief build for a while now, one which is applicable to PVE & WVW.
Tried many, but still feel something is either lacking in damage output in one or survivability in the other.

Any advice where i should start looking?

Lemme see what I can grab you…

Nikked.7365:

Don’t be distracted by the butterflies.

lol

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s a pro tip for you, since you’re here.

You said you play a thief. Great, I already know what you’re going to do. For that reason I want you to know exactly which one I am so you will hone in on me and spam your attacks. We’ll get in real close to eachother, at which point I’ll drop a shatter on you. You’ll run your usual skill drill and rack up the confusion damage. Your life will melt, you’ll freak out and naturally do what all good thieves do and dive for the sanctuary of stealth. Whoops, those stacks of confusion are still there and when you come out of stealth you’re downed and ready for the stomp. Like all good thieves should be.

I almost thought that there was going to be something useful here, but then I realized that you completely unjustifiably, stereotyped the entire thief class, and probably think I’m some kittening idiot thief who has no idea what he’s doing. I don’t claim to be the best of the thieves, but I’m certainly not the worst, and let me just say: I make all of my builds from my own ideas. If you’re going to stereotype thieves, please don’t attempt to apply that stereotype to me, because I run much different from your stereotypical “regular skill drill” thief.

No, I’m not stupid enough to ignore confusion damage and flip out like some lunatic. Thank you for your well thought-out response, though. I’ll totally take this into consideration. /sarcasm

Fixed the D/P build as well. Adding a few more builds now.

Condition counter build fixed.

Rusc.4978:

Problems that I noticed:
The “D/P direct damage build by Authority” is showing up as D/D.
The “condition counter build by Authority” is showing up as a bad link.

Other than those, looks good so far. I didn’t go through every single link because some of those playstyles aren’t to my taste, but it’s always nice to see what other people do with S/D.

Fixing now, thanks.

Witham.5621:

Added this to favourites, will have a good look through when i get home from work.

Ive been searching for good thief build which is applicable to PVE & WVW.
Any advice where i should start looking?

It depends, what’s your playstyle like? Aggressive? Extremely aggressive? Passive aggressive? Damage over time? Ally support? What?

Orc Slayer.2780:

1. what is TL;DR

“Too lazy, didn’t read”

Here’s a list of thief builds, all of them are pretty good. First find something you want to spec in (burst, blinds, conditions, etc), and then look at the individual builds listed in each category. Check them out, draw some inspiration from them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-to-Thief-Guides/first#post1650361

I think Necros, played well, are very, very powerful tools.

On the other hand, at least your class doesn’t have people complaining that it’s OP and people whining that it’s insanely weak… Thieves, on the other hand…

Eh. I don’t like how Yishi uses the BP+HS stealthing combo so much. It’s a perfectly fine tactic, and it works really well, but it costs 9 initiative minimum, 3 more for every other HS that you use. I usually prefer to use the combo against melee enemies, where I’ll blind them, lay down a bit of damage, and then HS for the stealth. That way, I get to do a little bit of damage while taking little or none, get in a free HS, and, on top of all of that, a neat stealth that works in perfect coordination with the rest of the build.

Adaneshade.2409:

Arganthium.5638:

Oh My God.8423:

Arganthium.5638:

To quote myself…

4. You think that thieves make awful support classes
This tends to be something that people complain about when they define a “support class” as one that gives boons to all of its teammates, but could never survive a 1v1 on its own. Rather than going into detail about how this is misleading, I’ll just give you some reasons why thieves can make a good support class.
For one thing, thieves are irrefutably the class with the highest mobility in the game. We have teleports all over the place, tons of ways to boost our speed, and a great capacity to evade often. Thus, we are able to insert and extract ourselves from skirmishes in the blink of an eye. Use this to your advantage. If you see a teammate struggling to fight a bunker guardian, go help him or her out! Burst the guardian for a few seconds with (for example) the S/P Infiltrator’s Strike + Pistol Whip, add a few more bursts in there, then use Shadow Return and find somebody else to fight. I promise you that this will drive other professions completely insane.
Or maybe you and your party can work out a strategy where they will just damage as much stuff as possible, and then you can be the clean-up crew for them, wiping out enemies with moves like Heartseeker or Pistol Whip w/ the Executioner Grandmaster Trait.
Another idea: did your friend just get Downed? Maybe they were killed in an enemy-heavy zone. Use Hide In Shadows, Blinding Power, and then lay down Shadow Refuge with a 20 in Shadow Arts to get them up and fighting again.
One last thought: you know how annoying it is to fight entire mobs? Even if you have great AoE, it can be a real pain in the kitten, especially when you’re fighting higher-level hordes, like the Risen. Thieves specialize in 1v1, though, so make the most out of that. Find somebody who looks like maybe they’re causing a bit of trouble, and take them out. Reducing the size of the swarm one by one will make things surprisingly easier for your allies.

If you define “support” as sharing boons with your allies and whatnot, you’ll be disappointed. However, this idea of “support” is a very narrow view that, I believe, doesn’t make much sense.

My idea of support is very similar to being a force multiplier: in other sense, being a buffer or a debuffer. So I am interested in builds that makes the team or any one around me better.

So based on that premise, is thief still a good class?

If that’s the case, then no, I think you would be much better off rolling guardian or mes.

No other class provides that niche that VS thieves do, though. It essentially allows the other players to become walking CC machines even though their own builds lack that feature all together. A great example is a GS warrior paired with a VS thief, the warrior can literally pin down anything and kill it because of the added CC to his attacks. It takes the ability to avoid attacks away from the enemy when all of the thief’s allies are spamming them with immob/stun/chill etc.

This is true, although that’s pretty much the only support spec (“support” as defined by OMG) that thieves have on them. On the other hand, mes and guardians both have a wide variety of support builds available to them, if they want them. So… Eh.

ExZee.8109:

Skill required to play a thief:

Arganthium.5638:

I press a few buttons and down them fairly easily. Stealth, stomp, gg.

Skill required to counter a thief:

Arganthium.5638:

Anyways, there’s a small list that I’ve started right there.

Couldn’t resist. :d

Eh. I made this post mostly for nooby mesmers who honestly don’t know how to handle their illusions, and start running the instant an enemy starts chasing them… I wouldn’t say that this applies just for thieves vs mesmers, but for any profession vs mesmers. So it’s not so much an issue of thieves not requiring skill as it is that some mesmers completely lack skill, IMHO.

Calae.1738:

Usually, when I walk into a store and want to buy something; I exchange my money for what I want to buy.

Why is it that they design a system that makes the customer roll dice for a chance to get what they want? The store keeps our money even if we don’t get what we want.

Why would anyone want to shop in this store?

Because customers are foolish enough to think that the odds will magically be in their favor.

Once people see that this gambling is an issue, they’ll stop gambling, and ANet will have to find something else to make money that doesn’t involve RNG.

jportell.2197:

Arganthium.5638:

Agony.3542:

-Don’t run Dueling X.

I lol’d … seriously wtf?
Running Duelling X has its purpose in some builds, not running it would simply be dumb.

This was my point. If you can’t handle the trait, reroll or swap builds. Thanks for obviously having taken this into consideration.

Dueling X has its purpose in most builds… Any build with the word SHATTER as a describer… Requires this trait… No two ways about it… And coming from a Mesmer to a thief… We honestly do not care if dodging to make clones gives us away because by the time you get to us for dat burst we have already gotten one in…

Well, you can say that to all the mesmers that have died under my foot because they thought “LOL SPAM DODGE”. don’t get me wrong, I can usually tell which one is real with very little effort, even without the dodge… But until they heal/dodge like that, it usually takes me a few more seconds to recognize movement patterns that only a player would have.

EDIT: also, I’m not a GC bursting thief, if that’s what you were thinking, I run a much hardier build. Still, after I see which one is real, I go full out on the mesmer, and, at that point, things become a lot more difficult for them if they don’t know what they’re doing. Which is why I made this post.

Sebrent.3625:

The useful of clones to distract people depends on your mobility. Can you get behind them when creating clones. Did you already have clones out when they entered the fight? Can you teleport around? Can you break target using stealth?

The better a player is, the quicker they’ll identify the real mesmer. However, the better the Mesmer is at deceiving their foe(s), the longer that will take. The second(s) this provides is/are second(s) of skills coming off cooldown without additional pressure on the Mesmer.

Quoting this for emphasis, probably a pretty good summary.