Guild Wars 2

Holy wowsers! That is a thing to know and use! Thank you, Genev.

…Charr intimidation died and was replaced by a good-humoured lightheartedness the second I saw an idle Charr, guarding Lion’s Arch with good cheer:

Dear Forum Search Box,
When we first met, you used to work beautifully- one word and you would list all related posts that contained it. Now, even when I search a forum I know contains a specific word to test you, I cannot get results.

What happened, dear Search Box? Have you caught a cold?
Are you, perhaps, in love?

…but taking away WASD leaves the question of dodging. I tried using the mouse for movement and number pad for actions, and was the easiest target EVER.

Flumek, thank you.
Advice is the precious concentrate of experience and effort of others.

Regarding movement:
I was under the impression of the total contrary, where I used to find WASD to be difficult, and used mouse-camera on my former game.

That left the long string of 1234567890-= at the top of the keyboard. It was annoying and not always difficult, so I rehashed the keymap to:
1234
QWER
ASDF
ZXCV

With the mouse for the right hand. I came to Tyria, and thought I would train myself to learn WASD movement from scratch, so I flung all the commands to the number keypad, starting at the bottom, like this:
(Key: WS: Weapon Skill; US: Utility Skill)

7= US2 8= US3 9= PS2 (Thief has only one? So ‘blank’ key) [+] = Weapon Swap
4= Elite 5=Heal 6=US1
1= WS4 2=WS5 3=Steal!
0 = WS1 .=WS2 [Enter]=WS3

Now you tell me that I need the mouse for the camera- I tried that. I had to! Literally had to push my keyboard aside to use the number pad with my left hand and steer with my right. A different world!

Looks like I am going to buy this baby, or, actually, I have finally earned the reason to buy it: The Razer Tartarus Gaming Keypad

Or I can climb down the price ladder to buy a separate number pad, telling anyone who asks, ‘For accounting’ with a straight face.

Dear Tyria,
I have just completed the long series of quests leading to the completion of my first story with you.
To the call of ‘Story – First Time’ came two other new souls like myself, One Norn, one Asura- and two players who confessed they were ‘old players’, both charr.

A merry band it was, and an adventure grand!
Our patience and skill were tested, hearts were broken and mended, and we won the day!

I shall never forget.

Thank you all so much! I will treat your posts as a handbook for Thievery.
Very valuable advice. It is a massive relief coming out of the darkness of ignorance.

Thank you, Jackaljag, Ojimaru, Thaddeus, Grimwar, Seal and Gnat.
You are all so helpful.
So it is Soldiering till I can fly as Berserker. I see.

And all the considerations to be given to the other members are important, as well.
This game is so not ‘me, me’, is it? It is very much a ‘we’ game.

Currently fond of the Sword/Dagger combination with a Shortbow complement.
Considering switching Shortbow to Dagger/Dagger or Pistol/Dagger.

William C, imaclown, thank you.
William C,
I wasn’t romanticising or RP’ing as much as expressing my reaction to what I have seen as Thief. Perhaps the expression was less technical. So far, I have thoughts and feelings, not know-how

I was doing everything on your list except b) taking out high level DPS, and not being consistent with d) watching enemy movement. When I did, it was a source of delight to look at the map, see everyone clustered in a battle-lock, then go and uncap all the other bases, forcing the opponent to break battle and run after me around the map while my teammates rebounded. The pain was when they caught up!

Kiting, Line of Sight, and Terrain Manipulation, is it? Thank you!

imaclown, thank you very much also for your patience with a newbie. Maybe there are others like me who are struggling with basics but are keeping quiet.

Autotargeting is finally off. UGH. With it on, I was evading like 3 opponents and hitting none because each evasion sent me on another right-curving L-hook jump to an irrelevant location.

I wasn’t used to it to begin with, so it might be less painful for me to switch.

Working on all else, with much thanks.

Flumek.9043:

Turning auto targeting off for thief in pvp is a must. Hiting or even porting to wrong enemy is too big of a risk.

Tab target at least prioritzes players over pets,minion…. Just not mesmer clone. So if theres few enemys you can reliably use tab otherwise mouse is faster.

A lot of you skills dont need a target. Weapons with cleave will hit even multiple enemys in range, example swinging your sword will hit even stealthed enemys if theyre in range front of you.

This is real beginner stuff to be honest.
When you got called stay in practice i presume you were at least playing unranked. That mode already uses matchmaking so poeple expext to be matche dwith equally skilled players and when you a big beginner on your team you often can call the game lost.
I hope i explained you a bit and i strongly recommend you check out a few guides for both thief fighting gameplay as well as their role and map movement.

Thank you, Flumek.
I was mocked, not called to order, in Practice PvP. I was called during the one or two times I played ranked. It was said in an insulting way, but it made me think, and check forums and whatnot. I will not play ranked till I am sure I can hold my team’s score up.

On targeting: I see. So no auto targeting. Mouse involvement. And all skills auto direct themselves to a target so long as they are nearby. What about swerving the camera? I suppose I have to stop using the direction keys altogether.

On movement: I will go to the practice arena for this, but the evasion on key 3 seems to be very random. I don’t want to fall off cliffs or face the wall when my opponent is behind me.

I am sorry if they are beginner questions, but I am a beginner, and it has taken a lot of reading trying to get to this point to begin with. Bad basics make a bad player.

I want to at least play normally, if not well.

My main problems are movement and targeting. I could have all the fancy builds and stats and what have you, but not moving well at the right pace in the right direction is DEATH.

I was given to understand a thief is supposed to be a solitary roamer in PvP, but I always get killed if alone. This is very frustrating.

It takes anywhere from one really good to four really bad/preoccupied players to kill me nowadays, thanks to evasion, but it really bugs me to be so weak and clumsy.

Once, together with another Thief, I’ve been scolded for ‘sitting bases’ in ranked PvP, trying to be clever and sneaking out of/away from the fray on the map to capture another base for my team while they captured and fought for another, keeping our opponents distracted. I and another Thief were both told to be roaming and killing folks.

What happens is I get killed instead. I only seem to be doing well if I run together with others, and top off their maintained damage by using my own small, rapidly repetitive, sharp bursts of damage.
Thanks to the sword, I think, sometimes those bursts are far from small, and the opponents who mock me in chat can get very earnest in retaliation. Those few seconds of violent silence..

Well, going anywhere alone in PvP gets me killed too easily for me to be useful.
Any advice on that would be great.

I do not want to feel a coward for sticking to the team, but I do want my team to win.
I also want to be efficient on my own. My impression is that a thief is one who sneaks and gets difficult things done alone. That requires a good deal of strength, imagination, and ability to move around in a landscape in the least expected ways.
I am a bit of a coward, with my own kind of courage. Ready to go anywhere, afraid of being killed doing it, yet enjoying the thrill of danger while doing it, and all too happy to reap a good reward for my efforts.
‘Thief’ suits me.

This was supposed to be a much longer post, but I decided to divide it into sections.
Part II:

Reading all the raves and wows on how Thieves are the penultimate glass cannon, the hidden shard of ice that strikes hard, fast and true, then just ‘eating grit’ during 99% of my PvP experience is also taking some time to get used to.

Listening to all the complaints from the oh-so-pro players who, oh-so-professionally remain in practice PvP and crow over me for being so weak is also taking some time getting used to, and will not eventually happen because it does not make sense that people are so unkind in a game.

The only thing that makes sense is that these people are being jerks to weaker players because they themselves are probably weak, or lazy, or impatient: too weak to play ranked, too lazy to earn their PvP rewards playing against equally strong/experienced players, or too impatient to wait for the loading transitions that occur in ranked PvP.

What else could they expect from someone they are rude to? Those people will wonder why, and the answers will be ugly. Geeks gloating over other geeks? Come on.

The only time a criticism actually bothered me was when I was told I was hurting the team. THAT, I can take. It hurts, but they are right to complain.

Allow me to add that I use the following method as a humbling experience towards bigmouth ‘pros’: I make sure I am on their team for the next round if they talk too much in the wrong way. I still try hard to do my best for the team, and if they cooperate, we actually win.

But elitists hardly look over their shoulder or on the map to see if everyone is OK.

I shall have to resort to this unfortunate means of punishment until I am good enough to play them as an opponent, by which time I will be playing against much stronger folk.

On the other hand, there are some awesome people. They will kill you, but teach you how, and will not put you down for dying as frequently as they kill you. They might even stay their hand and go after their customary ‘heavy’ opponents while you pick up your pieces, and try again.

They can also give you an amazing display of skill one can experience by ‘spectating’ a game. (Thank you, GW2 Devs!)

There was a BEAUTIFUL one-on-one Thief vs. Thief match in my second-ever PvP day here. I shall always remember it, and the group that was there. They let their two Thieves go at each other for a deathmatch:

The man vanished like water into nothing, whisped around the space like he weighed nothing, then HIT so hard and disappeared again, always, always in full control of his space and location, and his opponent always on his tail, in direct and balanced opposition, relentless, matching strike for strike, step for step.

This was better than any action movie. I could feel my heart in my ribcage, it was fast. I was holding my breath.

I want to be that good.

Was the thought I had, then.

Kharr.5746:

All skills auto turn toward the opponent as long as you’re not holding down a movement key.

You can perma stealth, you just need to work for it and trait for it. Smoke field + heartseeker (e.g. dagger + pistol, use 5, then 2, 2, 2 through it).

It’s easier to mouse target opponents in a crowd of turrets/minions. You can see who you are targeting by the visible outline (must have post processing in graphics set to at least low).

Thank you, Kharr. Even if they are behind me?
As for the stealthing, that is relieving to know.

Hello, I am a month old in this game.
Decided to try PvP straight off, since that is what I understood to be the end-game in the previous MMO I was in.

I started a Thief because the latest promotional material on GW2 said we have to be a thief to catch one, that is Caithe.

No, actually, the main reason was that I finally tried Rogue after years of playing ranged spellcasters and the difference of breath-close melee was exhilarating.

But the thieves here get only a few seconds of stealth, not the ability to run miles while stealthed until action. That took some getting used to.

Targeting: Auto-aiming at a target by hitting Tab is not there. It happens, in PvE, automatically, by just flinging any spell or weapon within range of the NPC, but it doesn’t work that way with living, thinking people.

Neither does your automatic following of them while channeled skills (if there is such a thing here) are active.

Add to it that targeting while hitting ‘Tab’ is not always accurate. That also is taking some time to get used to.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Inferring from all the above I gather the following:

I have to carry my own ’Superman’s clothes-changing telephone booth’ everywhere I go, where I have to carry a wardrobe of three different full clothing/gear sets:

1. Dungeoneering and gallivanting about the countryside: Berserker Power- Precision- Ferocity
2. World Bosses: Soldier Power – Toughness – Vitality or Cavalier Toughness – Power – Ferocity Valkyrie Power – Vitality – Ferocity
3. WvW: Power Builds without Ferocity. Does this mean Power as any attribute (Major, medium, minor)?

Right. I see.
So it boils down to ‘glass cannon with group’.

Secondary Attributes from the Guild Wars2 Wiki Attributes Page.

Thank you kindly.
Zerk as in Berserker, I understand, I think.
Running full glass? As in full glass cannon?
Sick deeps?

Or is it Carrion? Argh…

I have bought an Ascended Inscription Recipe as a forethought. I have Leatherworking.

After talking to some folks, scouring the GW2 Guru and the forums here I have come to the understanding that:

• The best gear is made or forged
• Stat Priority for a Thief: Power – Precision – Vitality, in that order.
• Ascended Inscriptions do not provide that combination. Instead I have a choice between gear sets known as:
  - ‘Valkyrie’ :
• Power – Ferocity – Vitality (Stonecleaver’s Inscription)
  - ‘Berserker’ :
• Power – Ferocity – Precision (Zojja- very like her)

I could throw another 22K karma down the drain and buy them both, but right now I can only afford one. I need to make a decision and activate this recipe in the right direction for me. What sells on the market is yet another question altogether.

There also isn’t any clear, 100% Stat priority order answer for Thief. What I gleaned from all I have read is:

Damage Stat Priority
Power>Precision>Ferocity>Condition Damage>Vitality>Toughness
Using the Berserker’s sets for arms, armour and jewellery.

Endurance Stat Priority
Power>Precision>Vitality>Ferocity>Condition Damage>Toughness
Using Valkyrie’s sets for arms, armour and jewellery

Not so sure about the second one. I seem to have answered my own question but am not sure.

So, it boils down to:

1. Stat Priority for a Thief?
2. Valkyrie or Berskerker for my use?
3. Valkyrie or Berserker for the market? Provided self-made Ascended armour is salable to begin with.

I have only been playing three weeks as Thief. ‘Button mashing’, is it?
As for the other new term, ‘button bloat’, I think keybinding helps a lot.

Would it work for Mesmers, Elementalists, and Engineers? No idea.

I can share my setup, but it is flawed:

All action keys to the number pad, WASD/QE & spacebar for movement.
That leaves the camera, which I revert to the mouse for, and get hit meanwhile- have to solve that.

Didn’t know that it took a lot of ‘button bloat’, but I have seen Elementalists rip a battlefield apart, again and again. Asurae, chiefly.
Mesmers can be very annoyingly good at multiplying themselves, but then again, I have control and targeting issues.

No idea what works best, but from all the advice people have given you, maybe you can find the best teammate for your character, and pair up as she levels up.

Odd. I find him unattractive. Highly.
But his courtesy, calm, dignity, steadfastness and efficiency more than make up for it.

Aedon Silverspear

(holds hand up)
Questions:

Terminology:

• white fields: Which? Where?
• without breaking stealth: is that even possible in a large area?
• do the knockout: boxing?
• pathing: new verb? How does it apply to golems?
• kosh:

1. Is this an RP thread, or a help thread?
2. Mind The Gap

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This has been quite informative. This world is vast. So far, my WvW experience has consisted of ‘running with the herd’ by finding a ‘zerg’ on mere instinct, the first of which I had found by seeing the winged signet of a commander moving on the map, and deciding to stop chopping firewood to find out what that was.

I kind of understand the thrill horses must get from running together. Or ancient armies.

The other experience was being killed by the solitary warrior from other servers, roaming like seasoned predators across the landscape. Neither enemy nor ally leave time for sightseeing.

I have had a few crashes, myself, but I attribute it to bad networking. Should log each crash. Do we have those logs in the application folder somewhere?

Here seen giving us his best ‘Saturday Night Fever’ Pose…
Dancing ensued after we three strangers gave up on combating this ‘Statuesque’ version of Vollym.

Ah, King of the Ring, indeed.
Stayin’ alive..

The dashing, debonair gentleman-thief Rahuvar standing by the Countess Anise at Minister Wi’s party.

Please welcome him, This is his social debut.
What’s a rogue without intrigue?

Not all fights are held in combat.

He will see you again once he has reached his prime.

How beautiful are you, Tyria?
How varied, how detailed you are!

I am so glad to have finally met you.

From the simple design of the game site’s pages and package cover, to the choice of fonts here, to the tasteful, thought-out player names I see around me even in low levels, the level of civility I see in those who post in the forums, here and elsewhere-

I have come to a good place.

Thank you.

Thank you! My STARS this thing is BEAUTIFUL.

Seafarer’s Rest it is! Arr!

Numbers win!
Guesting possible. So I can PvE on a low-pop server till I am ready for the big Kahuna on the WvW. And if that WvW server is low-pop by then, so be it. Will stick to it.

Deep within my brain, a voice says, “Roll a 1d8”

To boil it down to Server names:
1- Tarnished Coast
2- Seafarer’s Rest/EU
3- Jade Quarry
4- Eredon Terrace
6- Darkhaven
7- Aurora Glade

Hello! Just finished downloading, and am very excited.
Been doing my share of digging around the web, and the question is still up in the air.

Where to go? Which World?

1- Quiet, PvE/RP? vs. Crowded WvW-Tier 1?
2- America? Europe? (Player Culture, not Player number question)

3- OR use Crowded WvW Tier 1 (NA? EU?) as base and go as ‘guesting’ as you say it here, on any other server for PvE?

4- Trading post is one for all realms, so I do not need to worry about gold vs. population, am I right?

What I want: Explore. Grab Gear if necessary. Battle from time to time, but chiefly explore and quest: PvE.

World choices are final, I understand. I do not want to regret this choice later during my endgame.

Do I follow the numbers, and go to the top US WvW server for future end game benefits?

Or do I follow my heart, and choose a beautifully-named server, come what may?

Appreciate any advice given.

Using Mac Beta

With much thanks.

This is heartwarming.