Guild Wars 2

Sartori.6758:

Agree with almost everything, but if you use energy sigils you can easily move those 15 points from acrobatics to trickery for more initiative and take flanking strikes for 5% more damage. Even without those sigils, signet of agility should be enough to get you through most situations when you run out of dodges. IMO, 15 into acrobatics is best when you’re doing solo/duo dungeon runs (lupi in particular).

Yeah, it should be plenty. I’m talking in the context of someone who is struggling with playing like the OP, just to take a big endurance safety net (bigger than necessary) and then start removing it once they know the ropes a little better.

As a follow-up to my first post after reading some of these responses – do NOT listen to anyone who tells you not to use melee weapons or to stay at range as much as possible. These people are either:

1) bad players who are only making the anti-Thief stigma worse with their own incompetence OR
2) playing another class as a primary OR
3) lazy and don’t want to learn fights the correct way like everyone else, and would rather make the 5-man team a 4.5-man team with mediocre DPS from across the room.

Take S/P primary or D/D + S/P with Energy Sigils, take a heavy DPS build with some Acrobatics eg. 25/30/0/15/0 and use the copious amount of evades available from endurance and initiative to accustom yourself to each fight. When you get more confident, you can start removing the Acrobatics and spec in to full DPS. I would advise keeping the Energy Sigils though, they’re fantastic for most scenarios and you lose out on very little without a Force or Accuracy in comparison to losing out on other things.

In essence, you should only ever be cowering away at range if you have terrible FPS and can’t land evades at correct moments due to simple hardware limitation.

Even in PUGs, the practice will pay off. Trust me.

I use it on daily 49 runs without any real issues. When you have a solid group it’s fine.

I do change it a little when either I’m tired or the group isn’t as reliable as usual (not 4 other guildies etc). It becomes 10/30/0/15/15. In either case, I use D/D + S/P and the S/P set has a Sigil of Energy. That is usually more than enough to keep me alive along with the active of Signet of Agility should I ever need it.

Try some Energy Sigils or the Acro variation to learn the encounters such that you’re more able to anticipate and play to a rhythm. When you have good, reliable groups and you know the encounters much better, 25/30/0/0/15 will serve you well.

Dahkeus.8243:

Auesis.7301:

Assassin’s Reward doesn’t need a boost to healing power. It needs a boost to its base heal. It’s pathetic, especially now that it’s Grandmaster.

Hmm…maybe my wording was unclear, but that’s what I meant. When it procs, it should heal for more than what it currently does.

Well, it can be taken either way, but to me it implied a change to scaling with the healing power stat, which already received a buff but remained terrible.

Assassin’s Reward doesn’t need a boost to healing power. It needs a boost to its base heal. It’s pathetic, especially now that it’s Grandmaster.

Just skill points sounds dull to me. I would prefer this:

- Ascended items now have no innate stats.

- They now have an Inscription slot, that sits where the stats usually go.

- This slot only has one Inscription to begin with, which is the default of the original item. For example, Zojja’s Visor would only have Zojja’s Berserker Insignia.

- Applying a new Inscription to this slot would unlock it for unlimited swapping. For example, applying Chorben’s Soldier Insignia to Zojja’s Visor would result in the item having access to Berserker and Soldier stat combinations of Ascended level, similiar to how Legendaries swap stats but with the restriction of having to acquire the combinations yourself.

- If people still think this is too much, I would suggest a lesser, “Versatile” version of an Insignia that exists just for swapping and applying to another default. It could use Skill Points instead of Damask.

I wouldn’t place blame on any specific player. Bad ideas are given all the time, by all sorts of players.

The onus is on the Arenanet balance team for not realising that this idea was a horrible one.

It…never had a stun break.

Instead of removing Reanimator, like every sane Necromancer has begged them to do for months, they buffed it.

We’re not losing Last Refuge.

Either Shadowform or Flashing Blades.

No, it doesn’t. It pulses physical damage continuously.

http://youtu.be/AetZ-8QV8xo

I’m tempted to do it a few more times to sell spots for gold, now that a person in the comments mentioned it.

Hope this helps anyone who wants to try it.

Ruined City of Arah, P2 (full run including Lupi) on Thief:

http://youtu.be/AetZ-8QV8xo

What role do you actually see Thieves having in this meta, because it seems that the only two methods they have of staying alive under any circumstances (stealth and especially mobility after Dec 10) are constantly under fire?

Where do you plan to take the class in the future, because it seems that each balance patch is a weird mish-mash of pseudo-buffs and nerfs in all sorts of areas with no specific goal or direction, the only exception being the change to Initiative recently?

There’s no real reason to change from 25/30/0/0/15. I don’t use anything except that in all normal dungeons. In Fractals, I may sometimes change to 10/30/0/15/15 if the pug comp looks dodgy (not many reflects etc).

Quick Recovery isn’t a “physical spectical thing”. Neither is Master Trapper.

Sorry, but a forced displacement has no place for this trait. At all. I don’t care how cool you think it will look. If I lose control of my character for any reason at all, I will NEVER use that trait. Ever.

Finished it yesterday, but replaced the shoulders and helm. They look hideous. Other than that, I like it.

I’d like to see much more of those kind of cutscenes or even the custom stuff done for the Fractured trailer. It would be a lot of work, but it would pay off so much imo.

In solo arena I’ve tried running S/P with the 10/30/0/30/0 build that S/D is commonly used with, with Energy sigils. A lot of fun, actually.

I would also like to point out the unnecessary 25 SP gate for new skills for sPvP players.

I understand the motive – to keep the initial skill pool relatively low and allow a newcomer to adjust and accustom himself with his skillset before expanding.

However, why don’t they cost 1 Skill Point, or 3, or 6? It doesn’t make sense to me that a new healing skill would cost more than double the points for some elites, and close to the full cost of others.

If sPvP progression with skills is to go down this route, I would think about reducing the costs of new skills to be consistent with the PvE unlock system that newcomers may have been using before entering the Mists. At maximum, I would say a cost of 9 for any non-elite skill. I just think the cost is too high for absolutely no reason.

Latinkuro.9420:

- here’s a thought, all these once per day resources could be adjusted to work for example like this: for every level 80 toon you have the time gate extends by 1 per day, this way if I have 8 maxed level toons I can gather the resource 8 times.
goes w/o saying but all of the gathered resources should be account bound even the end item itself in order to prevent economy disruption.

I also love this idea.

Momentarily, yes (and I mean that, like 0.25s or 0.5s). Since Arenanet are so fond of visual cues for everything (hence effects clutter), I thought it would be both useful and a helpful way to show that HtC has kicked in and you’re about to get some Stability.

Whoops, worded it completely wrong. It’s late.

Edited to show what I meant. You don’t lose control of your character with my imagined version.

FeelsAlright.5860:

Doggie.3184:

There’s a ton of things they can do with HtC without linking it to a skill. They just need to remove the shadow step from it.

Break Stun > Stun is broken… nothing else happens.
Break Stun > Blind AoE
Break Stun > Blind Target
Break Stun > Gain a Boon
Break Stun > Remove Conditions
Reflect incoming disable back at enemy.
Break Stun > Summon a horde of angry vengeful chickens.
Ignore Stun Effect as a Thief NPC appeared and took the attack for you.

Do anything you want, just remove shadowstep from it and it’ll automatically be better. Being moved in a random direction sucks. Also make it not proc when stability is going. .-.

THIS! Especially not procing when we have stability and not even breaking the stun.. The trait NEEDS to break the stun when triggered, it NEEDS to not proc when we have stability and it NEEDS to not teleport. I’d also like to see 5s of stabilty/vigor added to it as well, but maybe my hopes are too high.

Honestly I think the Stability and Vigor is the way to go.

Personally, I’d like to see it work like this:

1) Incoming stun
2) Check for existing Stability
3) Do nothing if Stability exists
4) If not, the Thief ignores the stun and gains evade frames for a fraction of a second.
5) After the frames are up, the Thief gets 5s of Stability and Vigor
6) During cooldown of the skill, a debuff appears on the status bar, named “Exhausted”. When it expires, the Thief knows that he/she can afford to take another stun.

Then you missed all the important things.

Malrona? Dodges.

Fyonna? LOTS of dodges.

Aldus the Stormbringer? LOTS and LOTS of dodges.

Ginva the Butcher? LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of dodges.

You also probably mistook Smoke Screen for being used as a blind. Actually, in boss scenarios, it’s just an anti-projectile to allow some initiative to recharge to continue PW spam as well as just to relax. You should also know that blinds do not work on bosses anyway, so your complaints about it being blinds only are totally wrong.

All of this was 10x easier on my Thief than it is with my Warrior, or my Guardian or Mesmer, to do alone.

Plus, I’m not doing 0 damage when evading. Pistol Whips do damage in evade frames, and Flanking Strike does spike damage after it ends.

I seriously don’t think you PvE to any noticeable degree. Pretty much every high-end PvE-goer would agree with me here. Thief is absolutely amazing in the hands of any competent player from the insane amount of blinds, evasive capabilities and the DPS that goes with it all.

I found it amusing how you even suggested that a PvE Thief would ever use Carrion.

I’d be happy to show you solo stuff from Fractals if most of the methods to reach the bosses didn’t require team elements eg. the buttons/console in the Dredge Fractal (and you can only access it after 2 other Fractals). Nobody I know would have the patience to do that for no reward. You can, however, find videos from randomfightfan from a while ago when the Molten Facility was a normal dungeon. No agony involved, but agony doesn’t matter because any competent Fractal-goer has 55AR anyway.

As for Mai Trin, no, I would not die. Pistol Whip and heavy Trickery works fine against her. FYI her Shadow Shot is set in stone for the target and cannot be dodged, only blocked or stopped by anti-proj or invulnerability, both of which you can access during the fight. PW, Smoke Screen and the stolen Drink skill is more than enough to wipe the floor with her. PW for the normal attacks, SS and Drink to either facetank or stop the Shadow Shot (which doesn’t one-shot you anyway, and SoM with the PWs will keep you afloat).

At this point, I think you are just being ridiculously pedantic to constantly twist the story to “THIEF UP WE DIE SO EASY” when I have shown you that the opposite can be true in the hands of any competent player, regardless of the method (but most of them involving some sort of evasive skill whether it’s a regular dodge, PW, FS or otherwise)

Other classes can do that stuff one-handed? Can they? Really. Go watch a Guardian’s version of HotW. Last one I saw required a metric ton of kiting around multiple corners constantly, for any encounter. No other class can blind as efficiently as we can and then have evasive DPS skills on top of that.

Lol, I wish my Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer and Ranger had access to infinite blinds and could spam a version of Blurred Frenzy over and over.

I definitely think the skin locker idea would be a huge step for horizontal progression.

I can imagine a system where Transmutation Stones or Crystals are used as tickets to “unlock” a skin for permanent, unlimited use from the Hearts of the Mists locker instead of applying a skin to an stat item. This way, the Gem Store items will still be generating good turnovers, possibly more than before due to reinvigorated interest in acquiring skins.

This is just for the skins side of things, though. There have been good suggestions before for the stat side.

I should also point out that at no point in your “calculations” did you account for mob attack frequency and telegraphy, which is exactly why your “vulnerable time” matters for absolutely naught. Pistol Whip and dodges alone will keep you alive against encounters that can’t be negated via just Black Powder spam, easily. It’s even simpler against bosses like Ginva who has huge telegraphed attacks that can easily be prepped with infinite Flanking Strikes. See videos above.

Like Erebus said, if you’re “spamming” dodges and evasive skills you’re doing it wrong. So, so wrong.

Travlane.5948:

ahh lets assume u play thief .

Yes, let’s.

Travlane.5948:

Auesis.7301:

Going to have to agree that Thief is actually one of the easiest classes to stay alive with in PvE, even against bosses. Once you know their attacks you can basically not even get touched through timing PWs and other damage avoiding attacks. Heck, bosses like the Archdiviner at 49, I just run D/D and S/P and stay right on top of him. They have no AI variation – you can just get in to a pattern and job done.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

guardian/warrior/mesmer/ranger are all better!

They aren’t. You’re just not very good at it then. Sorry.

Defenses mean nothing when you can dodge or avoid all damage, and Thief excels at doing so, far beyond anything else. This is amplified multiple times over by the fact that mobs are stupid and can’t change up their attack patterns with such a limited array of skills and simple AI that just triggers them as soon as cooldowns expire.

Going to have to agree that Thief is actually one of the easiest classes to stay alive with in PvE, even against bosses. Once you know their attacks you can basically not even get touched through timing PWs and other damage avoiding attacks. Heck, bosses like the Archdiviner at 49, I just run D/D and S/P and stay right on top of him. They have no AI variation – you can just get in to a pattern and job done.

Dempsey.8760:

Auesis.7301:

Excalibur.9748:

Okay let’s see you solo Horace and the 3 champions that comes before with full zerk and glass build.

More than doable. A Pistol Whip build would demolish all 4.

Actually, a PW build demolishes most dungeons that can be soloed (don’t have group-forced elements like consoles to activate at the same time).

PW has bad DPS, you’d be better off with assassins gear.

Nevermind that PW isn’t “bad” DPS at all (not the highest, but not somehow dreadful either), and that I didn’t say anything about Assassin, Berserker or otherwise, but I refer to a PW build because it’s by far the easiest to solo with. You can basically evade absolutely everything without many dodge rolls and keep the DPS going during the evade frames, especially now that the rhythm is much smoother from the aftercast reduction.

Example of what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y3izc58BUI&feature=youtu.be&t=12m57s

If you keep changing builds radically then one set will never suit all your needs. The best you can do is get Celestial but then you’ll never be able to fully flesh out stats for each build optimally, you’ll just have decent amounts.

I can assume you’re not interested in speed runs or anything, since full Berserker is the best for anything like that and you’re not running builds like that at the moment. Celestial will be fine if that’s not your cup of tea.

If you don’t mind losing direct DPS in PvE then you can always try sticking to sets with Condition Damage somewhere in them that are more optimal instead of a mish-mash of everything.

Really, it depends how much you see yourself PvEing and how much you care about optimisation in that field.

Excalibur.9748:

Okay let’s see you solo Horace and the 3 champions that comes before with full zerk and glass build.

More than doable. A Pistol Whip build would demolish all 4.

Actually, a PW build demolishes most dungeons that can be soloed (don’t have group-forced elements like consoles to activate at the same time).

It should work a bit like Withdraw. No cast time, but doesn’t work while stunned. Then, it should take priority like you said.

Sanduskel.1850:

I spent a fair amount on gems last night. I think that ascended armor will bring additional interest to the class.

Wha…what?! How?!

Malik.6781:

You should ask Sanduskel, he is a greatest thief ever.

You are evil.

Viking Jorun.5413:

To all of you retaliation naysayers, I’ve run my own S/P build and never died to retaliation. Run 20 in Trickery and take Bountiful Theft. Many of the times I steal, both stability and retal are the first boons to go.

That’s all well and good until you’re trying to contribute to a contested mid with more than one enemy target around. SYG isn’t just a self buff.

You can make all the QoL changes you want to Pistol Whip, it’s still going to melt in a single instance of Retaliation, which was the problem to begin with.

Talking about other classes also being forced in to specific specs for condi removal is all well and good until you realise that those “forced” specs are actually desirable in tPvP anyway eg. Hambow. A Shadow Arts-based Thief build for tPvP is a joke.

In essence, yes, we cannot have good condition removal for serious PvP because all builds that could possibly incorporate it are hilariously awful for use in the game mode. This is a boundary that builds like Hambow do not have.

I made suggestions for this a while back.

4) – Riposte (4 initiative)
Block the next attack and retaliate with a weighty slash, weakening foes in front of you. Regain initiative if not attacked.
Damage: ~600
Weakness: 6s
Range: 150

5) – Javelin (3 initiative)
Hurl your sword to the target location with increasing velocity, crippling foes it passes through before it hits the destination. Deals more damage to targets further along the trajectory. Cripples for longer further along the trajectory.
Damage < 300: 400
Damage 300-600: 450
Damage 600-900: 500
Damage > 900: 550
Cripple < 300: 3s
Cripple 300-900: 5s
Cripple > 900: 7s
Combo Finisher: Projectile
Range: 1,200

-> Flashing Blades (3 initiative)
Shadowstep to the thrown sword, blinding foes at the origin and destination.
Blind: 5s
Radius: 120
Range: 1,200
Breaks stun

Sword MH:

Eagle Eye (5 initiative)
Twirl and evade, attacking in rapid succession at foes around you while reflecting projectiles. You can move while spinning.
Damage (4x): 900
Combo Finisher: Whirl
Evade: 1/2s
Range: 130

Dagger MH:

Float (2 initiative)
Bounce back, evading attacks.
Evade: 1/2s
Combo Finisher: Leap

-> Sting (3 initiative)
Pounce forward, dealing heavy damage with both weapons at once to adjacent foes to your target. Each hit returns some endurance.
Damage (2x): 800
Endurance gain (2x): 10
Combo Finisher: Leap
Range: 450

Pistol MH:

Ignition (5 initiative)
Parry the next attack with your sword and shoot through the sparks to ignite them, burning targets in a cone.
Damage: 250
Burning: 2s
Block: 1/2s
Range: 450

Qaelyn.7612:

Auesis.7301:

Any Thief PvE build that isn’t based around DPS is a joke and should be ignored.

LOL. Gotta love blanket declarations from people who think that whatever idea they come up with is the only possible good one.

Nobody would ever come up with new build ideas if they followed that sort of attitude.

Well, it’s true. Thief support building is garbage. The only good thing we have going for us is damage potential.

You want support, take Deception utilities and SoA. That’s all you need. Other classes are far better at supporting the group and don’t sacrifice over half potential DPS to do so.

Any Thief PvE build that isn’t based around DPS is a joke and should be ignored.

Why is this thread up again?

Your personal morality cannot dictate a game played by millions of other people who obviously do not share the same stance as you for the most part.

Sorry. Go away.

Sanduskel.1850:

Sons.5493:

When will you realise NO ONE takes you seriously Sanduskel. Please give up.

That’s okay. You aren’t my target audience, lol.

Do you even have an audience?

Vampirism Signet + Retaliation + Pistol Whip.

We should start recording how quickly a Thief can kill himself. My bet is around 3 seconds.

eekzie.5640:

Auesis.7301:

So don’t buy it. Request new skins. Do NOT request changes for existing skins. Your opinion is not the be-all, end-all of the discussion. The world does not revolve around you.

People can choose to wear the skin just like you can choose not to.

I love the delusion that cultural armor is in any way prestigious, too. Plus, as the gold->gem rate rises, gem store armor will soon be more expensive than the cultural armor.

Not buying it doesn’t solve the problem. Your ‘’do not request changes’’ is simply you feeling entitled. The armor change I viewed to you does not undermine the armor in any way. It simply removes the indecency.

You’re being too short sighted with thinking that it is simply a choice that is being made regarding this armor set of whether or not to buy it.
I already told you it is not. I will never get the armor set.

But the level of immaturity that is explicitely adhesive to the design of an underboob is one I do not wish to have in a high-standard game.

Actually, it is you being entitled. You want a replacement to something already established and that lots of people want and like because you don’t like it. What you view as a simple indecency might be the drawing factor for a significant portion of people that buy it.

Ask for an alternative that you can buy and use, but do not ask for the original to be literally replaced with a new design. This is a rather simple concept.

My girlfriend is actually one of the mentioned examples of customers who bought the skin specifically because it was revealing and she liked her characters form fitting the gear, underboob included.

Again, it’s only your opinion that it is “indecent”. What you view as “indecent” is not the same as what other people think. You want to know what I label “indecent”? Go play Scarlet Blade, or just look at the website for more than 3 seconds.

Asking for variations is okay. Asking for replacements when people have already invested, no matter how small the change, is NOT okay.

Eight. One of each class.

Cyhann.2609:

skyd.9678:

CD?
I’m not at home

45 seconds would be too long, right?

IceVyper.6810:

Auesis.7301:

No. You don’t like it, don’t buy it and ask Arenanet to make more armor instead of trying to force them to change existing art.

You’re just being self-absorbed and inconsiderate to other people. Other people have spent considerable sums on creating their aesthetics. I don’t care how you feel about the taste of the armor. Existing skins should not change just because you’re a prude.

More options, not more alterations.

My significant other plays this game almost as much as I do, and she has this skin on two of her characters. She loves it. People have different tastes. Learn to accept that.

I am by no means prude, as you are not trash for liking this armor. If people want to look at underboobs, there are plenty of other places on the internet where you can see that and more.

Also consider that people should not be kept away from the highest tier human medium amor just because someone decided to put in game a design that belongs in a 90’s sleazy magazine.

It’s clear that you did not actually believe your first paragraph. You are insulting both my companion and I in your statements.

It has got to the point where you are totally oblivious to the notion of choice. You just want other people to conform to your morals, and you want to warp the game’s content to please you and only you. I’m done trying to reason with you people.

eekzie.5640:

Zerole.7306:

My wife is trying to decide which medium armor user she is going to make just to use that skin.

Those that don’t like it are welcomed to their opinion, but changing the armor to your particular tastes is rather self absorbed.

Do you go into clothing retail stores and request that they change the style of clothes you don’t care for?

Not so much a choise in taste as far as style goes. More that I don’t feel right that a company would willingly advert this level of tackiness through the most expensive and on top of that prestigious armor.

I honestly don’t care about the armor. I find it ugly all together. That doesn’t mean the game should lower it’s standards to armor styles like those in Tera.

I totally agree there should be coquettish armor styles to choose from. But this kind of armor passes the flirtatiousness level and in itself is tasteless.

So don’t buy it. Request new skins. Do NOT request changes for existing skins. Your opinion is not the be-all, end-all of the discussion.

People can choose to wear the skin just like you can choose not to.

I love the delusion that cultural armor is in any way prestigious, too. Plus, as the gold->gem rate rises, gem store armor will soon be more expensive than the cultural armor.

Remove sharing of venoms altogether. It’s forcing venoms to be mediocre without investing 50/60 trait points to share them to allies.

Instead, buff the venoms HEAVILY, and allow the benefits like Might or Leech to be AoE without the need for sharing. The venoms themselves would not be shared in this instance.