Guild Wars 2

Shucks, you can’t spam Backstab to deal 12K damage any more?

Brb, rerolling.

JS, this is not a good poll. It is based upon a voluntary response sample. These make statisticians cry.

^ True.

I’ve been playing my usual D/P build with S/D instead recently (the two weaponsets, different as they are, happen to be extremely interchangeable), and I’ve found that the weapon-set, post-update, still works great.

randomfightfan.4091:

that’s because they used to be subpar. Now they’re great. Just watch as more pve warriors who know what they’re doing start using banners.

I’m sure they’ll be better now, but they will still suffer from some of the same problems that turret engis have. They can use banners to create a semi-movable fortress, but banners will restrict their mobility and even when they are carried, they’ll have a bit of a slowing-down type effect on armies; they can’t just leave banners lying around any more, or the utility is wasted. The only real difference between engi and war, then, is that engis can’t move their turrets around as much as wars do, but their turrets have shorter cool downs and have more utility when playing solo than banners do. On the other hand, wars can move around banners, but they still need somebody to pick up their banners after them, and they need to stay within the vicinity of their banner in order to collect benefits from it. Plus, they’re pretty good with groups, but alone, they’re terrible. All a thief would have to do is draw a warrior out from its banners, and then proceed to chop the warr to pieces.

Lol. Bro. Take a deep breath. Yes, like that. Now breathe out. Very good.

Let’s look at the update:

Thief
Corrosive Traps trait:
Applies the correct vulnerability duration with Shadow Trap.
Now applies vulnerability with Ambush Trap.
Healing Seed skill:
Increased radius slightly.
Now displays the combo field ring.
Caltrops:
Reduced duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
Now indicates its radius.
Steal skill: No longer initiates autoattacks.
Uncatchable trait:
Now displays an active combat area to both allies and enemies.
Increased effective radius by 50%.
Basilisk Venom skill: No longer immobilizes targets in addition to stunning them.
Haste skill: Increased duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

Stealth: The duration of Revealed has been increased to 4 seconds when coming out of stealth via an attack.

You’re throwing a fit over nothing. Unless you’re a 12K DPS 0/30/30/X Berker GC Backstab Thief, but that was pretty OP, and that’s coming from another thief.

Outside of that, the changes to us were almost nonexistent. The Haste change, for example- everybody gets the debuffed Quickness now. It’s not like we’re alone. And Caltrops: for a utility that applies insane amounts of bleed and cripple, and has an insanely low CD, it is still fantastic. And the radius- given that it was virtually impossible to see cals before, and all traps have a displayed radius, this change was totally justified.

Also; if you’re sick of adapting, you shouldn’t have chosen a thief. Every build that I have ever created has had to be extremely flexible, able to adapt to as many situations as possible. For example, here was a build that, for a long time, was a favorite of mine:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsaVlUmaOHfS4E9JFymiKUo4UUUGl/hvq/wVB

The thinking behind the original version of this build (0/30/20/0/20) was to have a very flexible build that could use signets, deception, and trickery utilities. It was fairly logical, actually; before every battle, you would select the exact utilities that you would need for the upcoming battle. The eventual fallback would be that, due to a lack of consistency with the build, you would suffer from a lot of problems, including lack of good damage output and survivability. That’s why I built the 0/20/20/15/15 version. I don’t use either of these any more, but the principle still stands.

You’re the class with some of the best (but most specialized) utilities, and have no cool downs on weapon skills. So, my point?

Seriously, if you can’t be flexible- if you can’t adapt- then thief was absolutely the wrong profession for you. Reroll.

Yeah… To the extent of my experience, virtually no warriors use banners.

Anybody that can give me info about post-patch build changes, would be much appreciated.

Khyber.2693:

I just finished my first 80 and I want to start on an alt. I’ve always loved stealth mechanics and the complete lack of cooldowns is an extra plus. I also recognize that it isn’t a class a lot of people desire in their parties and that it isn’t obscenely OP. Just on a fun factor compared to other professions, is it worth it?

Also what race is your thief? If I where to roll one I would either go with a small human female with whichever of the human stories are least awful (Which would that be…?) or a Norn female because I don’t know… it screams rogue.

Thanks for coming here! Thieves really are a fun profession to play, although it depends on what profession you currently play and how you like to play.

Like you said, no cooldowns (which is the best-est thing in the world. Almost all of the builds that I run include heavy init regeneration, so I end up being able to do the craziest things with my move orders). Also, Stealth: no other profession has as much access to stealth as we do.

Thieves also have the best mobility in the game, which you have to (ab)use to make up for your lower health pools and lower armor.

Thieves, then, could be summarized as a class that enters and exits battle when and where they like, zipping to other locations very quickly, dodging and weaving through enemy armies, and generally wreaking havoc. However, in a fight versus just about any other class, you’ll have low armor. If you’re used to being able to soak up damage as a guardian or a warrior (or a necro, depending on how you spec), then you’ll be in for a very nasty surprise as a thief.

But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! You’re going to be extremely active, confusing opponents, and being impossible to catch. Once you master the thief, you’ll be able to flank zergs, leaping into the middle of them, and really confuse enemies, disrupting their movement and dealing a ton of DPS. This comes at a price, though: these are high-risk situations that could get you killed almost instantly. I would know; I’m very fond of using these tactics against enemies. Most of the time, they work, but only because I use a very bunker-like build that gives me tons of dodges, easy access to stealth, and (especially if I run S/D instead of my traditional D/P) teleports. However, I can also tell you that there are a lot of times where I’ve made a single mistake and found myself downed, because I made myself too trackable for enemies.

So, to directly answer your questions: is it fun? That depends. If you like to be more of a semi-movable fortress, you might prefer to be a turret engi, laying down turrets where necessary to bunker down and get ready for a tough fight. Maybe you like the range of the Ranger. But, if “fun” for you means being extremely active, always being on the tips of your toes in a battle, and being insanely mobile, then the thief is going to be a loooooooottttt of fun.

Finally, the race question… PLEASE DO NOT BE A NORN OR CHARR. :P it sounds fun to be a very big, fat race playing a subtle profession, but after about five minutes that fun will die down and you’ll just look kinda embarrassing. Js.

Personally, I play an Asura. They’re intelligent, witty, funny, cute, and generally fun to play.

Lilsteele.4567:

Great work, thank you.

I hope that it will be made sticky, and that it will be kept up to date.

Thanks, I hope so too.

I’ll keep it as up to date as possible. c:

Not sure what you mean by an “artificial” cap.

That’s not an artificial equilibrium, that’s just an equilibrium, brought about by the supply and demand curves.
Prices would only be volatile if supply and demand were volatile.

Here would be the criterion for the cap:
-By capping taxes, any items that are placed above the cap cannot have a significant effect on inflation by reducing the tax.
-Cap is low enough to benefit people by allowing them to be flexible with prices, but high enough that it doesn’t remove the gold sink.

I believe ANet could very well possess the data required to determine what cap fits these criteria.

Again, capping taxes will not increase prices. Again, look at my real-world example, which shows that not having a tax on putting an item on the market does not make toilet paper cost $1,000,000.

Olba.5376:

1. This would lead to issues, as it causes items priced at or just below 20 gold, such as 18-20g to benefit unnaturally from bumping up the price to 21g+. For example, an item sold at 20 gold would net you 17 gold on sale, whereas an item sold for 21 gold would get you 18.9g, instead of 17.85. So you just increased your price by 1 gold, whereas your profits increased by 1.9 gold. Reduced taxing would cause similar issues, but to a lesser extent.
2. It would be a problem for people who spend most of their time trading.
3. In fact, since removing tax at a certain point causes higher prices to be more profitable, the prices of tons of items would gravitate up from the 15g region to 20g+.

So, to summarize:

• Removing taxes would cause people to use TP as a storage, thus resulting it in being unusable.
• Making the tax dynamic would cause prices to go up

Neither of these are desired results. So we’re left with the third option and that is all items getting a fixed tax. The only thing left to discuss is the amount of tax to make it reasonable.

Arganthium.5638:

…And sure, you could put Storm for 1000g, but why would you? Why not just sell as soon as physically possible so that you can use the new money that you get to flip items on the TP, or spend part of it on investment (i.e. better gear, food, magic find for farming PvE)? Basically, you’re just wasting time that you could be using to expand your wallet exponentially. Maybe you didn’t read that part of my post, though.

If it causes higher prices, it would be because of inflation (which is something I stated in my original post), not because “LOL SELLERS CAN SET WHATEVER PRICES THEY WANT”. In the real world, do you see people selling toilet paper for $1,000,000 just cuz they can? No, of course not. People are intelligent enough to realize that the costs (in time, labor, or whatever) of taking an item off the shelf over and over again to reprice for the entertainment value is ridiculous, and just a loss of money. Eventually, they’ll have to realize that they’re losing money by wasting time.

-Again- it’s their choice. It also helps people reach market equilibrium, as previously stated. This is what happens in the real world, y’know.
-Read Reply to 1.

Lafiel.9372:

Removing tax in my opinion will cause even higher prices since now sellers are free to price however they please WITHOUT being taxed for it. I would put up storm for 1000g just for fun because I by no needs am obligated to sell it.
Putting a cap or reducing tax will not do anything. 1g is nothing for those who are putting a precursor up on the market. 5 % is little already.

Yes, a 5% tax on a 1000g item is nothing- a mere 50g! /sarcasm

Look, I don’t know about you, but no matter how rich you are, 50g just to put something on the TP that may or may not ever sell is ridiculous.

And sure, you could put Storm for 1000g, but why would you? Why not just sell as soon as physically possible so that you can use the new money that you get to flip items on the TP, or spend part of it on investment (i.e. better gear, food, magic find for farming PvE)? Basically, you’re just wasting time that you could be using to expand your wallet exponentially. Maybe you didn’t read that part of my post, though.

If it causes higher prices, it would be because of inflation (which is something I stated in my original post), not because “LOL SELLERS CAN SET WHATEVER PRICES THEY WANT”. In the real world, do you see people selling toilet paper for $1,000,000 just cuz they can? No, of course not. People are intelligent enough to realize that the costs (in time, labor, or whatever) of taking an item off the shelf over and over again to reprice for the entertainment value is ridiculous, and just a loss of money. Eventually, they’ll have to realize that they’re losing money by wasting time.

Lafiel.9372:

1g is nothing for those who are putting a precursor up on the market. 5 % is little already.

I run an event and get a precursor that sells for 600g. 5% of 600g is 30g. I have about 11g, currently.

But then- what’s the guarantee that I’ll ever be able to sell the precursor in the first place? What happens if supply of the precursor starts to rise, and prices fall? Then I’ve put a precursor on the TP for 600g when it might only cost, say, 500g. So, according to you, I would then have to take my item off of the TP, and then put it back okitten00g. That’s another 25g tax. 55g total so far.

If there’s deflation occurring within the economy, too, then this causes a multiplicative effect on that deflation. Now, more money is taxed out of the system, decreasing the money supply and thus increasing deflation (which is good for players who have tons of pure money, but bad for players who invest in things like mats, dyes, armors, weapons, etc).

Oh, and by the way…

Lafiel.9372:

1g is nothing for those who are putting a precursor up on the market. 5 % is little already.

Lafiel.9372:

I would put up storm for 1000g just for fun because I by no needs am obligated to sell it.

If 5% is “nothing” why not just do that now?

EDIT: Working on fixing a few bad links here and there, also going to look at some ways to make builds more specific than “Backstab Build”.

alex.7950:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tDRwKYTYus

thief can dps all the time….but i just only 100s and stand right here
and block all the time.
OP or not…you guys think about it.
but ANET really making gw2 pvp not fun at all, in my view.
i miss gw1 gvg.

This isn’t an example of thieves being “ermahgerd OPz”, it’s a case of you just playing badly.

Others have already made their commentary, now I’ll make mine:

0:09: “LOL THERE’S A THIEF WIT BAZLIZK VENEM, ILL JUZT APPROACH IT AN ASSUM IT WONT DO ANYTING TO ME”
0:21: Thief Shadowsteps away, guess I’m going to just stand in the same spot and allow him/her to stealth and then wait for the thief to Backstab me.
0:29: Well, I’m only going against the most mobile class in the game, I guess it won’t hurt for me to use Hundred Blades, a channeled move that keeps me in place while the thief rolls out of the way.
0:39: Random Rush, maybe you can outrun the thief! Not like it can see me or anything…
0:57: Thief attacks you from behind, instead of turning to face it, where you’ll be less vulnerable, you continue to run forward and hope that the thief has a really short attention span.
(On a side note, seeing enemies run away like this- I’ve gotten countless kills off of this tactic)
1:04: Random #2, should’ve just drawn your longsword and attacked while you were still standing next to the thief.
1:06: Random #3, would’ve been better if you had used it right after the thief had gone into stealth and you knew its approximate location. Instead, you decided to proceed from your random leap with the sword to waste a fantastic attack.
1:08: Random Rush. If you didn’t learn the first time, you’re not going to outrun a thief- not easily, anyhow. When we see a weak target, unless there’s a weaker target nearby, or a more important objective, we’re going to hunt down our prey. Third move in a row that you’ve wasted.
1:12: Start running in circles around the thief for no readily apparent reason.
1:16: Waste your number 3 again, this is ridiculous. You can’t go against a thief by running away, running around them, and using up all of your mobility with random attacks and dodges.
1:20: “Oh, I have 2.2K health left, and the thief just stealthed, looks like I better stand in place and use 100 blades and leave myself as a sitting duck!”
1:24: Your character really deserved to be stomped right here.
1:35: Random number 4, hoping that you’ll stun the thief?
1:38: Wow, you’re doing something right for once! When a thief SRs, one of the best things to do is step inside the SR and using AoEs and your auto attack. This is also one of the few appropriate times to use 100blades.
1:44: Wait, why are you running away and leaving yourself vulnerable to backstabs?
1:48: Waste your Leap again.
1:55: Proceed to walk back and forth through the thief for no good reason.

Basically, you just played against the most mobile profession in the game by leaving your back wide open to it as often as possible, wasting your mobility skills (which allow you to catch a thief who isn’t stealthed or has just Shadowstepped away), and then used 100blades at the worst times physically imaginable. One of the reasons I didn’t like warriors was because 100blades didn’t insta-kill everybody instantaneously, unlike the hype.

HoD, I saw all those golems you guys set up yesterday to take SM.

I was sitting on the side, trying to count them as they walked back into your keep… I lost count after a while, there were so many. :P

I made a post recently about a D/P build that I play most of the time:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/D-P-Bunker-Build-0-0-20-30-20/first#post1670968

It’s fantastically survivable, and a lot of fun. I’ve had my fun leaping through zergs, spamming HS and dodging opponents before they see me. :P it’s a lot of fun.

Zoltreez.6435:

These are the Dev’s that represent the thieves:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5010/5328903665_ace091f1e4.jpg

Obviously, he/she is stealthed, can’t you tell? :P

Obtena.7952:

1. Manipulate item to a net loss position for flipping
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!

See, easy. Ultimate proof ectos are manipulated.

Dang it!

Looks like the conspiracists were right the whole time, darn!

Gasoline.2570:

Manipulators are thieves and that’s that.

And they do it under their veil of Stealth, too!

Aberrant.6749:

Didn’t see it on the list, but this is the P/D build that I use… not really an original one by me, just something I saw and tweaked a tiny bit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmiO3ey5E+JFB3Djm0m6p4rjVXQ/hrC

First 2 major traits in shadow arts are flexible… swapping one of them for remove condition in stealth works well too. Just personal preference.

Alternatively take the 5 out of deadly arts and put it into acrobatics for vigor on heal or assassin’s reward, but I like the pois on steal (gives you something other than ONLY having bleeds) and I don’t find myself needing any more dodge/hp regen.

Thanks, and I agree with the poison idea- at the very least, it’s an interesting and very cheap idea to use. Posting now.

Ooshi.8607:

No 5% sale tax:

- Encourages people to use TP as personal bank! If you find it slow now wait for when there’s a trillion listings.
- Encourages people to babysitt their orders continuously.
- Discourages people to put their items for a reasonable price as there is no penalty to re-list the item.

-True! Which is why it would be better to reduce the tax instead. For example, perhaps we could limit the tax to a max of 1g (1g tax on items that are priced 20+g). After that 1g limit, perhaps ANet could set the tax so that it no longer goes up the higher you price an item, or that it goes up more slowly than 5% (maybe 2.5%, for example).
-Uh… So? Is there a problem you have with people babysitting their orders? If it’s their choice…
-Not true. First of all, by keeping an item on the TP for a ridiculous price (ex the chickpeas that were priced at +600g a while ago :P), you’re sacrificing the money that you could have otherwise made if you had straight-up sold the item in the first place (see the example I showed with dyes in the second part of my post). It’s not like every person is going to suddenly be selling Cinnamon at 100g a piece, and even if they were, nobody would buy it. Eventually, sellers would have to realize that they’re wasting valuable resources by overpricing an item.

Also, this post’s point wasn’t necessarily removing the 5% tax (see the title). This problem could be fixed still if we decreased the 5% tax, as I showed in my answer to your first point.

Behellagh.1468:

The 5% listing fee has been discussed multiple times here.

Now I may be fortunate, I’ve never had anything take longer than a week to sell. The 5% fee has multiple purposes besides a gold sink including encouraging sellers to price their goods at a price that will entice buyers as oppose a price to bilk buyers of as much coin as possible.

As I said it’s been talked about multiple times and I wouldn’t be surprised if this thread gets merged into the one we had last week.

I realize that it’s been discussed here before, although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any good economic arguments for it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this got merged into the other thread, I just wanted to voice my opinion here.

Also, if somebody could post something connecting to this “legendary” P/D build that everybody seems to be talking about, that would be great.

DuskTwilight.4862:

To the OP: You may want to remove the link to my build. It was just a concept that upon playing around with just didn’t work out the way I had hoped. Too little focus made me suffer overall and I went back to the established P/D bleed build.

Done, thanks for the tip.

How do I feel about it? Apathetic. :P

So, assuming that it would take me months to sell an item like an armor on the TP, we now have to consider two things:

1. What if the item doesn’t sell?
2. What could I do with the money that I get by vendoring or salvaging within the amount of time it would take for me to sell my item?

Long story short: this gives people less incentive to sell on the Trading Post.

The way I see it, there are two main ways to fix this issue that do not involve ANet setting a price ceiling or automatically buying out items on the TP:

1. Reduce/remove the 5% tax.
Pros:
-Gives people more incentive to place items on the TP.
-Allows people that sell on the TP to adjust their prices more easily without being slammed by the 5% tax simply for trying to reprice, thus helping get to market equilibrium.
-If deflation starts to occur across the board, and price levels start to drop, then the deflation doesn’t increase by players taking items off of the market and placing them back on for lower prices, thereby reducing the supply of gold and causing further deflation, which causes people who invest in items like ectos to lose a lot of cash.
Cons:
-How much of a gold sink is this 5% tax? Is it enough to cause major inflation if we remove it? (I honestly don’t know this; to the extent of my knowledge, only ANet does)

2. Allow people to reprice on the TP
Pros:
-Allows people selling high-end items like Zap to reach market equilibrium more easily once the item is on the market, thus helping reach market equilibrium.
-Don’t suffer the possible inflation issue that you might have with solution #1.
Cons:
-Doesn’t do anything to fix the issue of people who don’t want to put items on the market in the first place because of the tax.
-Doesn’t fix the multiplicative deflation that we saw that reducing/decreasing the 5% tax does.

So… Thoughts?

Summary
5% tax makes it harder for items (esp. high-end, expensive items) to reach market equilibrium. Also gives an incentive not to put items on the TP, which reduces the benefits that people gain from using the TP.

Ways to fix: remove 5% tax or allow people to freely adjust prices on items that are on the TP already (each comes with their pros and cons).

EDIT: to see the short and sweet version, just scroll to the bottom of the second part of this post. c:

OK, OK, I’ve written a few times about the taxes in this game before, but after reading the thread about Storm increasing in price by 150g overnight, I have to wonder if it would be beneficial to reaching market equilibrium for the 5% tax to be removed- at least, on very expensive items.

The problem is that, of course, the items that always seem in most disequilibrium are the ones with the fewest supply. Let’s look at, for example, the precursor Zap:

Lowest sell: 437 g 99 s 99 c
Highest buy: 366 g 2 s 65 c
Difference: sell is 19.6% higher than buy, 71g 97s 34c

On the other hand, for an item like ectos (a highly demanded, supplied item nearing/in market equilibrium):

Lowest sell: 28 s 58 c
Highest buy: 28 s 57 c
Difference: Sells are .035% more than buy, difference of 1c.

Of course, this is only a single example of two completely different items, but that’s not the point. The point is that we can expect very rare, high-demand items to be completely out of market equilibrium, and thus experience huge fluctuations when a single variable changes (i.e. supply, as in the case of Storm), and that just makes it more difficult for both suppliers and buyers.

The big problem here, then, is when prices start rising and falling, and sellers place their items on prices that are either too low or too high. With the huge tax (5% = 10g for a 200g item- that’s almost all of the money that I have :P), when prices fluctuate and you find something like Zap being +70g higher than the highest buying price, it’s difficult to have to pay the 5% tax again and get double-whammied for placing such a super-expensive item on the market again.

In summary: the 5% tax makes it more difficult for buyers and sellers to find a single price that they both like and can agree on, because it limits how many times sellers want to remove their item from the market and reprice it.

The other issue: the taxing costs are incorporated into supply, which furthermore determines the price and quantities that suppliers are going to sell their items for. When you put an item (especially a weapon or armor) on the market, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to actually sell it. Why, then, would I place a rare piece of armor I just crafted onto the TP when I think that nobody will buy it? Sure, I could wait for a few months and hope that, somewhere along the line, it’ll sell, but that comes with another cost: now, I have to consider what I could have done with the money that I would gain by vendoring or salvaging that armor piece instead, and how I would have gained from that money in the period of time that it took me to sell the item on the TP.

Here’s an example. I have, in the past, been very fond of using the disequilibrium in dye markets to make money. For example, look at the price of Blood Dye:

Sell Price: 1 g 11 s 21 c
Buy Price: 85 s 30 c
Difference: 25s 91c

If you’re online and playing right now, I’d seriously suggest that you immediately place a buy order for Blood Dye at ~85s 31c right now.

Here’s what I’ll do. First, I’ll buy at about the price previously stated. Then, as soon as I get the item (generally, most sell listing prices will stay about static within the period of time between when I place my buy order and pick up the item), I’ll sell off the Blood Dye for 1g 11s 20c (or whatever). Total profit (assuming item sells): +9s.

Not a lot, but when you repeat this with thousands and thousands of items over and over again, always pumping in as much money as you can into the TP to get extra money later, it really adds up. Plus, from a theoretical standpoint, your money grows exponentially.

So, let’s say that, for every 1s I put into the TP, I get 10% extra money back once I complete my trade. Furthermore, let’s be extremely conservative: let’s say it takes a full hour for me to get this bonus back. From a mathematical standpoint, the equation that models this is

M = 1.1^n

Where M is the amount of money I have from that 1s, and n is the number of times that I buy and sell back for my bonus money.

Thus, after 50 trades, I have a little over 117s, or 1 g 17s.

While I wouldn’t yell “conspiracy!”, it’s true that with such a low supply of this item, the price is in the hands of just a few people. I count sixteen on the market right now, which means that, at the time of writing, a maximum of sixteen people get full control over the selling prices. Thus, the price that we see in the GW2DB is going to fluctuate insanely due to even slight shifts in supply or demand. As I’m reading, it sounds like the supply yesterday was 25% of what it is now. Because there’s such a demand for an item like Storm, I can’t say I’m surprised that sellers saw this supply decreasing, and, thinking that they could make a very nice buck, decided to increase the cost by 150g. I’m sure that a great deal of them were also thinking things like “hey, with the new patch, the supply of Storm is going to increase, like, tenfold, so I’d better sell while prices are high!”. There’s not really anything we can do about it when the number of sellers of an item like Storm is so low.

On the bright side, the sellers are eventually going to have to realize that they’re selling too high for the demand for Storm, and they’re eventually going to have to lower the prices to compensate. By the looks of things, the price has already decreased ~80g from its peak last night, so I doubt that there’s too much worry about the selling price continuing to lower from here.

Authority.6145:

Arganthium.5638:

Cool, thanks. Adding a link to the comment now.

Bunker/Damage final version.

Runes: Scholar, Strength or anything with Dolyak
Amulet: Berserker or Soldier.
Sigils: Chill + Quickness on dagger and pistol, fire on SB.

Copy Paste It.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoalYm6Oncy5E95Ex2jeKUiypIpFtTxVtKA;TkAA1U5YyRkjNHXOycGXMLA

D/P Support final version.

Runes: Dolyak
Amulet: Berserker or Soldier.
Sigils: Chill + Quickness on dagger and pistol, fire on SB.

Copy Paste it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoalUmaPHfS5E95EBnCnmUPFkdsdP4qWlPA;TcAg0U2YsRYj1GnNSbA

D/P Countering Condition build.

Runes: Monk
Amultet: Berserker or Cleric or Soldier.
Sigils: Chill + Quickness on dagger and pistol, fire on SB.

Copy Paste it.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoalUmaPHfy5E+5ExWhdy9wpGtpdP4qVlPA;TcAgzUeZ8S4l1LnXSvA

I’m adding these builds and editing the Support build right now.
Btw, I noticed that you didn’t have a secondary weapon on any of your builds, so I added SB to all of them (because SB is a generally very safe option to have when you don’t know what else to have as your secondary).

Madnek.7921:

I have made a d/d condition build, the build offers alot dmg evasion, quite high armor, but most of all stacking up for high bleed ticks.

http://full.sc/Y2jqEK

Also, about the build, and this is just a small thing I’d like to throw in here:

I’d take out at least 10 in Shadow Arts and put it into Acrobatics instead. That way, you’re getting the buff for having <100% endurance (which seems to be the case most of the time with your build), and you can also get the Trait Quick Recovery for the extra init regeneration. The problem that I see with having 20 in SA is that you really only use it for the utility that you get from stealing. That’s not entirely a bad thing, but even with 30% less Steal cool down, you’re waiting 31.5 seconds to be able to steal again. Then, when you do steal, sure, you get 5 initiative and Stealth, but with your build, it seems like you come out of stealth almost instantly after you Steal. That 5 initiative, also, is only 2 more than you’re already getting when you steal.

If you took out 20 in SA, then you would be getting more than 3 times more initiative per second than you’re getting right now with IX in Acrobatics. You could then also put 10 into Critical Strikes to get either increased health or increased pistol damage. This is what your build would look like then:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqa4YlYmCO3dy8E+5ExWBg694rkNsdPuqV1KA

Or, you could just take out 10 in SA and still have 10 more in SA, in which case you would have something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqa4YlYmCO3dy8E+5ECXBL07xXRWhV3jryq0KA

Just my two cents for you.

Madnek.7921:

I have made a d/d condition build, the build offers alot dmg evasion, quite high armor, but most of all stacking up for high bleed ticks.

http://full.sc/Y2jqEK

Thanks, adding this now.

Also, your thief has some pretty BA armor.

callidus.7085:

Arganthium.5638:

Chessrook.8643:

Arganthium.5638:

Like the personal story, but, y’know… NOT the personal story. :P

So ANOTHER Personal Story.

Yes and no.

Yes in that the instances would be very similar to story lines. I was also thinking that in the hero tab, we could add another section to accommodate these events. These events would also share the unique flavor that we enjoy from personal story events.

No in that we could repeat the instances as many times over as we wanted, although, like any other event, we would have to wait for a period of time before the window for starting the instance would open again. Personal story doesn’t have this option. Once you’ve completed part of the plot, you can’t decide “Oh, I think I’ll go back and do that again”. And it wouldn’t make sense for ANet to do that, anyways; the contradictions would be somewhat absurd.

Actually, I think it would be cool if people could select the step they want to be on in their personal story (assuming they’ve already completed that step) and redo it (without the completion award) just to relive it, if they wanted… It’s one thing to reread the description but it’s another to re-experience it (even if the choices were now locked in because you’d already done it before).

Not that this should be a top priority or anything, there’s lots more in the game they should do first… but if it’s not hard to squeeze in, I think it’d be kind of nice (OK, maybe SOME reward.. and a hardmode option where everything is lvl 80.. and and and ^.^).

Actually, thinking about it, that sounds like an interesting idea. I think a way to implement it would be for the game to include some “Asuran” device that allows you to go back and relive those memories, kind of like how we have golems and portals and whatnot.

Chessrook.8643:

Arganthium.5638:

Like the personal story, but, y’know… NOT the personal story. :P

So ANOTHER Personal Story.

Yes and no.

Yes in that the instances would be very similar to story lines. I was also thinking that in the hero tab, we could add another section to accommodate these events. These events would also share the unique flavor that we enjoy from personal story events.

No in that we could repeat the instances as many times over as we wanted, although, like any other event, we would have to wait for a period of time before the window for starting the instance would open again. Personal story doesn’t have this option. Once you’ve completed part of the plot, you can’t decide “Oh, I think I’ll go back and do that again”. And it wouldn’t make sense for ANet to do that, anyways; the contradictions would be somewhat absurd.

Like the personal story, but, y’know… NOT the personal story. :P

Just read Joseph Skyrim’s post, and it gave me this idea:

What if we could add in something similar to story plot points, or the equivalent of mini-dungeons throughout the world?

It would really be quite simple: just have separate instances in which players are completely by themselves, unless they have a party (like dungeons and story plot points), but still make the instances function akin to events in the real world.

This way, you could add more in-depth living story options that are more than just

1. Something bad is happening
2. Better do something stupid to cause something really bad to happen
3. Something really bad happens
4. Really bad guy appears
5. Kill really bad guy
6. Wait to repeat the cycle all over again

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice for farming… But I rarely ever play PvE any more because it seems like it just recycles the same old story every single event. If I do play, usually it’s just to explore Tyria (which actually is a good bit of fun).

Anyhow, just wanted to throw my two cents out there.

Authority.6145:

Arganthium.5638:

Thunderbrew.7034:

Good idea, but some of those links when I go to them
dont show the point allocation, they are just blank.

IMO a forum of guides should be actual guides and not
just showing where the points go. There are allot of guides
out there that actually talk about the build AND playstyle,
which is what I think people look for to make them better.

Just my 2 coppers.

/sigh

As it just so happens, I don’t have time to search through thousands of thief builds all over the Internet just to find one that isn’t completely screwy. A lot of the builds here I designed myself through Skill Editor because, honestly, I wasn’t even going to bother trying to look for them. So I apologize.

This is why I need people commenting new builds, however.

Forgot to add quickness sigil on pistol on all of them. Apologies again :/

No, no, it’s fine. As a matter of fact, thank you for your comments up to now, they’ve been very helpful.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Good idea, but some of those links when I go to them
dont show the point allocation, they are just blank.

IMO a forum of guides should be actual guides and not
just showing where the points go. There are allot of guides
out there that actually talk about the build AND playstyle,
which is what I think people look for to make them better.

Just my 2 coppers.

/sigh

As it just so happens, I don’t have time to search through thousands of thief builds all over the Internet just to find one that isn’t completely screwy. A lot of the builds here I designed myself through Skill Editor because, honestly, I wasn’t even going to bother trying to look for them. So I apologize.

This is why I need people commenting new builds, however.

Play
D/P is going to be your main weapon set. Typically, going into battle, this is going to be what you’re going to do:

Shadow Shot (mitigation+closing in on enemy) > Heartseeker > Auto attack a few times > Shadow Shot > HS and 1 until enemy is downed.

This, however, is a very, very rough sketch, due to the fact that, with all of the initiative regeneration, this build can be very, very flexible in its move order. For example, I often will go into battle with

Infiltrator’s Arrow > Swap to D/P > Shadow Shot > Black Powder > Heartseeker

And whatever.

I’ll also throw in stealths, of course, every once in a while to do a little extra damage (Backstab doesn’t do a whole ton of damage in this particular build, so don’t expect to burst people into shreds like you might with, say, D/D). Here’s more of an explanation of the attacks:

D/P
Auto: you’ll be using this fairly often when you don’t need to use anything else, mostly so that you can let init regenerate until you do need it. Apart from that- decent attack, comes with a good endurance regeneration as well as a little poison.
HS: you’ll be using this one a lot. Mostly because it’s fun, and does a decent bit of damage (which is a good thing, considering that this is a “bunker” build)
Shadow Shot: the move that will be inserting you into battle a lot, remember to use it while fighting too for some cheap mitigation.
Headshot: mitigation: preventing enemy stomps. Interrupting channeled abilities. A whole lot of fun, and very useful.
Black Powder: I admit- I used to hate this attack. Now, though… I use it a lot while attacking groups larger than me. It’s great for mitigation, for one thing. It’ll annoy burst-y enemy thieves that Backstab a lot. It gives you a nice combo stealth too, which you’ll be using a lot since you’ll be using HS quite a bit anyways. Honestly- this move is really fantastic, and- I think- somewhat underrated.

Shortbow- you’ll just be using this as you would with any other build, although with all of the extra initiative you might have a bit more flexibility with it.

Finally, utilities-

HiS- condition removal, stealth, and tons of healing. If you aren’t sure what to expect, this is a very safe ability to have on your belt.
(Can also be replaced with Signet of Malice, which is especially fun with SB)
Shadow Refuge- I’m a bit iffy on this ability. I suppose you could replace with just about anything you wanted, really. Some good options would be Ambush, Smoke Screen, Scorpion Wire, and Caltrops. I just use SR because it’s a very safe ability to have on you.
Blinding Powder- insta-stealth with a blind and a short cool down. Very easy ability to use, and easy to know when to use it. You should have this on you a ton.
Shadowstep- mostly used as a stun breaker and condition removal. It also provides some really great mobility, of course, and with its shortened cool down, it becomes even more awesome.

So there you have it, sorry I couldn’t write anything more detailed. If you want further explanation of anything, just comment below and I’d be happy to address your concerns.

Before starting, I will say that- yes, you’re right, this isn’t a “true” bunker build because it doesn’t invest 30 in both Shadow Arts and Acrobatics. That being said, it still retains a lot of the survivability of such a build, while maintaining a lot of the things that we love about thieves too.

Without further ado, here’s the build.

(designed for both WvW and PvP- haven’t done much testing in PvE yet)

The Thinking
Okay, so I’m a fanatic about initiative regeneration. The nice thing about thieves, see, is that, in a sense, they’re the most flexible of all of the classes. Unlike other classes, we don’t have to worry about cool downs preventing us from using the abilities we need to use. Seriously, think of what would happen if the Shortbow had a CD on it. It would suddenly turn from being a staple in most thief builds to- I think- one of the worst weaponsets in the game. I mean, c’mon- one of the best things about the SB is that we can use Infiltrator’s Arrow multiple times in a row for that extra mobility, that we can spam Disabling Shot to try and get away from a battle if we’re desperate, and we can use Cluster Bomb to deal a brickload of damage from a nice distance (and with some very nice healing, too, if you run Signet of Malice).

Point in case: initiative is the lifeblood of the thief. That’s why I make sure to run as much regeneration for it as physically possible.

20 Shadow Arts
As mentioned before- high init regeneration, which is why I chose the following:
- Master of Deception- because Deception skills are just to good to have to wait the extra ten seconds to use them. Plus, Shadowstep is a staple to this build.
-Infusion of Shadow- As mentioned before, because extra initiative is fun.

30 Acrobatics
One of the nice things about being a thief is the mobility. And the Acrobatics Trait line. Acrobatics is a lot of fun.
-Power of Inertia: because you aren’t investing in either of the first two trait lines, I thought it best to have this trait thrown into the mix simply because it helps you boost your damage by a significant and sustainable amount. It also benefits you for evading, which you’re already getting benefits for by the Adept Trickery Trait Uncatchable by spreading caltrops everywhere, gaining swiftness (via Acrobatics minor trait: Expeditious Dodger), and for the Acrobatics minor trait Fluid Strikes, granting you ten percent more damage for having less than 100% endurance. How cool is that?
-Quick Recovery: this is going to be one of those things that you’ll notice a lot outside of battle, but very little inside of it. I used to be highly skeptical of this ability, but I’ve come to use it and love it. It’s really sweet outside of battle when you’re trying to move around a map by using Infiltrator’s Arrow. The initiative cost for Inf Arrow is already pretty high, and when you use it multiple times in a row… Well, most of the thief builds that I see nowadays wouldn’t be able to sustain that kind of stuff. This build can, however. I prefer this to Quick Pockets simply because it gives you more flexibility, and it works without you having to think about it (which is a major boon, given the fact that, as a thief, you’ll be evading, Shadowstepping, and generally moving around so much that it’ll be difficult to suddenly remember “Oh, looks like I had better swap weapons!”). I’d much rather gain one less initiative in return for those two extra benefits.
-Assassin’s Reward: because that extra healing is just awesome, and works even better if you use it with Signet of Malice (which HiS is easily swappable for, and vice-versa).

20 Trickery
This one’s pretty simple, won’t go too much into depth. Basically, I chose this trait line for a few reasons:
-Extra Initiative (Kleptomaniac, Preparedness)
-Spreading Caltrops
-Extra Initiative
-Extra Initiative
-Extra Initiative
-Flanking Strikes (which, oddly enough, seems to work pretty well because I always seem to find myself on my enemy’s flank)
-Have I mentioned the extra initiative yet?

Cool, thanks. Adding a link to the comment now.

Authority.6145:

Arganthium.5638:

Authority.6145:

Arganthium.5638:

Edit: Added in a link to Authority’s thread about countering other professions, looks great.

Was meant to post to your thread. Apologies for the late reply. And thanks a lot.

By the way this build looks intriguing.

PvP Lifesteal Thief
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/pvp-lifesteal-thief-updated-4-02-2013-pvp-pistols-lifesteal-4861.html

There was a youtube video that inspired me to make an effort to create a “support” build as a thief. Still not done with it because I am still playing around with runes and amulet just to figure out the best possible stats for my vision of “support” as well as utilities, ect.

Bunker/Damage has been posted on the d/p theory crafting so check it out too and let me know what you think.

Thanks Authority.

I’ll add those builds on, I think (I’ve been playing a lot of bunker/damage D/P thief too recently, so I’d be interested in posting that on here for sure). Outside of that, there are a few other updates I’ll be adding to make the list more complete.

Well I am twitching the final version for it.

Right now going for 0/30/20/20/0. Seems more balanced all around for condi enemies (jesus christ getting tired of seeing so many condi players). Will re-post the second version when completely done.

And comment on it as well.

Alright, that would be great. The more material we have, the better it will be for thieves and the more likely we can actually get this stickied.

Adaneshade.2409:

My S/D tank guide (build updated as of 3-19-2013)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Looking-for-a-survivable-tanky-WvW-build/first#post1195052

Added, thanks.

Authority.6145:

Arganthium.5638:

Edit: Added in a link to Authority’s thread about countering other professions, looks great.

Was meant to post to your thread. Apologies for the late reply. And thanks a lot.

By the way this build looks intriguing.

PvP Lifesteal Thief
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/pvp-lifesteal-thief-updated-4-02-2013-pvp-pistols-lifesteal-4861.html

There was a youtube video that inspired me to make an effort to create a “support” build as a thief. Still not done with it because I am still playing around with runes and amulet just to figure out the best possible stats for my vision of “support” as well as utilities, ect.

Bunker/Damage has been posted on the d/p theory crafting so check it out too and let me know what you think.

Thanks Authority.

I’ll add those builds on, I think (I’ve been playing a lot of bunker/damage D/P thief too recently, so I’d be interested in posting that on here for sure). Outside of that, there are a few other updates I’ll be adding to make the list more complete.

Anticipated inflation isn’t a real issue here, in all honesty. If ANet announced that they would be increasing gold drops by a lot in future patches, then the economy would be able to react quickly and efficiently (most likely).

But I think that the real issue here is as Icepick stated: it’s extremely inconvenient to try and count out prices of things in millions of gold. There’s just no reason for ANet to do it. It makes the transaction cost of using money higher, which will in turn hurt trading on the TP.

Of course, if the inflation is unanticipated, it gets even worse. Then you would have all the same problems as before, but also the issue of arbitrary winners and losers… The guys with 100 gold in the bank instantly going broke while the guy that hung onto 10 ectos becomes insanely rich.

Bren Ranger.3725:

Nice working putting this together. Keep it clean and updated and we might get it stickied like the Mesmer’s index.

That’s my goal. We need more representation here. I hate seeing other professions whine about how “OP” we are (haha… Right), and I hate seeing the same build being used by every single thief. I sure don’t want this profession to become another ele profession, with the overwhelming majority of eles playing D/D nowadays. -_-

Edit: Added in a link to Authority’s thread about countering other professions, looks great.

Done. Think I’ve fixed all of the bad links.

Going to check one more time.

zaxon.6819:

nice start, getting bad link on a couple though.. double check.

Thanks.
I saw those links too, figured I’d edit them later. I’ll go back and check through them, and make edits where necessary.

First, “inflation” is not the correct term to use here. Simply saying an “increase in the price level for dyes” would be far more accurate, albeit a bit awkward to say.

Second, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at. If the drop rate decreased for UDs, then you would expect for prices to rise, because now it’s harder and more costly for players to get a hold of UDs and thus sellers pass on those costs to buyers via the selling price of dyes on the TP- in other words, increasing the prices that dyes and UDs are sold at.

[reserved for future edits]