Guild Wars 2

Lately I have been running into a lot of warriors that run Axe/Shield Greatsword and they are very tanky and they do a lot of damage. I only hit them for around 5-6.5k with a backstab but I have been hit up to 10k with some of their attacks. They also regen for around 400 HP a second which is insane. So how do I kill them? It seems like a very very unforgiving build to play against. One mistake and you lose half of your life. Are their any techniques to use when fighting against them or do I hope I don’t run into any decent player running this build?

For reference I run a standard D/D backstab 10/30/30/0/0 build.
2.3k Power, 2,550 Armor, 15.5K HP, 121% crit dmg

I just think its unfair that a class can be so tanky and out DPS/Burst a thief. :/
#WarriorOP2014

2150 power/ 80% crit/ 55% crit dmg??? What build do you run? Sounds like full glass to me. Which just makes me think that you have trait points in Shadow Arts to survive a condi necro, or you are in the upper tiers of WvW and you just mostly face sucky players.

Interceptor.2653:

^ No, you just have to make the Necro run out of health before you do. Build some health and healing if you want to endure damaging conditions that are covered up by garbage ones, or adjust your build to include more no-stealth omni condition removal, like soup/Lyssa/SS/SoA.

I don’t understand the idea that anything short of completely countering this game’s best condition-applying profession is an inadequate result. ArenaNet DOES have a responsibility to make the Necromancer viable, too, you know, and the chance to win can’t just be “hope for Thief to make a critical mistake”.

I might agree with you that the best defense is killing your enemy before the touch you. But the problem is that tactic requires heavy burst which a non stealth build does not have. Also it doesn’t work if your target is extremely tanky which most condition build are. So your ideology doesn’t really apply to a non stealth thief.

Secondly if you want me to become even more tanker by taking my DPS food and runes for condition removal which would make your idea of “killing your enemy before then can hit you” even harder to obtain.

And I already use SS and SoA which clearly isn’t enough since SS is on a long CD and SoA only removes one condi.

Dahkeus.8243:

You don’t need to remove every condi a necro throws at you to beat them in a fight.

True, you just need to remove the ones that deal damage. Such as poison/burning/bleed/torment/confusion BUT any half decent player knows combos that will mask these conditions behind blinds/cripple/immobilize/weakness/vulnerability.

So Thieves need more condition removal in order to cleanse the conditions that are blocking the damage conditions and then remove those. We have utility skills to get rid of most of the masking conditions but nothing that targets damaging conditions specifically. We have the Hide in Shadows health skill but it involves stealth which just supports the fact we have little non stealth based condition removal.

oZii.2864:

You forgot 3 from shadowstep utility.

Anyway what your asking for will make the problem worse.

Unintended consequence you give thieves access to good out of stealth condition removal tools. Thieves who are heavy stealth built will have them too. Speaking specifically to Shadow’s Embrace it is an adept tier trait. There is no where you can put out of stealth condition removal trait that wont be able to have both. Next unintended consequence that would most likely happen is shadow embrace gets “nerfed” by being moved up to master or gm tier. Most certainly people will make a build that involves the out of stealth removal and shadow’s embrace if it stayed at current tier.

It just seems to me that players who spec more defensively whether that be with traits or utilities should have more survivability and be more defensive. Am I right? Other wise there would be no point to putting traits into that line. If they trait more defensively by getting more condition removal through traits or through utilities then they are giving up points that could go into the crit or power tree and they are losing a utility spot for more offensive play.

A problem does occur when a class can spec into heavy defensive traits and utilities and do not lose any DPS. Cough Warrior cough

But I do see how some noob players in this game would think it to be OP since thief can survive better against condition damage and thieves are still able to dodge and attack and exist in this game.

Ezekiel.1985:

I see where you’re coming from, but wanted to throw out there that with some builds (mine being one of them, and no I’m not posting it, sorry), the idea can become, basically, to out-heal the incoming damage via doing damage. Unfortunately, however, there’s squat I can do about confusion, making it the single most infuriating condition.

I also wanted to point out that our stealth heal cures a few things inherently – IE, you don’t have to be IN stealth for it to work, it does it right away. Not sure if this undermines your point or not.

I have tried builds similar to out healing the incoming damage by deal damage. I don’t know about you, but I find it very hard to out heal burning + poison + bleeds + everything else :P which deals more like 2-3k dmg a second.

And since we thieves don’t have access to stability except for the Dagger storm or runes we can get CC while conditions tick on us and how do you gain health then? Sure you can use a stun breaker but some classes are very CC heavy and very condition heavy cough engi cough

So lately I have been trying out non-stealth thief builds. Damage wise they seem work really well but the only problem is survivability. Direct damage is usually easy to handle with the amount of dodges, evades, blinds, and teleports the thief has, but when it comes to condition damage I am a sitting duck. Thieves have barely any condition removal that does not involve stealth. Withdraw removes cripple, immob, and chill which are annoying conditions but don’t deal damage. Roll for Initiative removes the same as withdraw. And Signet of Agility only removes one condition. This is hardly enough condition removal when fighting a necro or engi who can stack almost every condition in the game on you within seconds and do it very often.

IMO if Anet wants to fix players complaining about thieves, give us condition removal to make non stealth builds viable.

Can we have a source?

AikijinX.6258:

Azawrath.7304:

AikijinX.6258:

This does not show nor prove anything. The clips you had of your thief fights were against easy lackluster thieves that didn’t know how to play up to a thief’s true capability.

Hurtful!
I definitely consider myself an above the average thief player, not the best but easily above average. I was the first thief in the video and I messed up. So does everyone. Doesn’t make me an average player or a bad one.

Everyone just needs to take away from this video is that even if a good thief messes up against an average or good opponent then there is a pretty good chance they will die.

I apologize, I in no way meant to personally insult you, I didn’t foresee you being part of the thief community forums. But to my defense i actually was contemplating putting in, “Although the first thief was by far better than the 2nd thief you dueled” blah blah blah.. Please take no offense my friend.

What a sweet talker! Blushes
I really shouldn’t have taken the comment to heart, I am a thief after all and you need iron skin to survive the venomous comments that we get day to day.
I just had a bad day and I couldn’t shrug this comment off. So no offense taken :P

AikijinX.6258:

This does not show nor prove anything. The clips you had of your thief fights were against easy lackluster thieves that didn’t know how to play up to a thief’s true capability.

Hurtful!
I definitely consider myself an above the average thief player, not the best but easily above average. I was the first thief in the video and I messed up. So does everyone. Doesn’t make me an average player or a bad one.

Everyone just needs to take away from this video is that even if a good thief messes up against an average or good opponent then there is a pretty good chance they will die.

I’ll admit I’m the thief in the first video :P GF by the way. But I really hated how your eviscerate was heat seeking at the end since I shadow stepped out of the way and you did a 180 turn and hit me for half my health :/

I support this video series because it shows that an expert thief can still easily die to someone who is relatively new to the Warrior if they mess one or two stills. ( Also shows the overpowered Warrior :P ) I really hope when people come here to complain about thieves we just show them a couple of videos of thieves being dominated by other classes Having a video of thieves dieing to rangers would get the point across :P

I didn’t even think of that trait! :P And it could also be a combination of the two, and getting a lower steal recharge.
Thanks for solving the mystery!

Has anyone else seen thieves shadow step and shadow refuge a lot more often? In WvW I have fought thieves that seem to be able to use shadow refuge and then soon after they come out of it they use it again. I am wondering if because the +2 initiative on stealth got nerfed, are people using Master of Deception to have a higher stealth upkeep?

God forbid thieves spam #3 3 times for a 2.25 second evade….

Most of the time when I ask someone who they their money in GW2 they say that they “Play the market” So I Googled “How to play GW2 market” and the only useful information I got out of it was to buy low sell high, and how to do basic flipping. The problem is all of the items that I try to flip I can’t sell them or buy them easily. Can anyone recommend any guides, markets, items, or just give advice as to how I can start playing the market? Thanks ahead of time

To The FC who fought in HoD BL from around 10 PM EST to 11:30 PM EST, those were some good fights.

Lately I have been seeing a lot more condition engineers that just spam grenade kit. Most of the time I can handle them because they are pretty glassy and I good burst will take them out quickly. But everyone once in a while I come across a engi that has skill and isn’t just spamming 1-5 randomly. And I have a really hard time with them because they stack so many conditions on me that I can’t clear them enough since thieves have no mass condition removal. Then if I try and clear them I get tossed around and get 15 stacks of confusion on me. Do I just run away because thieves are doomed to lose against any condition build?

I also haven’t seen the map yet but in the Spvp SkyHammer map you can break a panel, get on the edge of it, and then pull someone from the opposite side into the pit. Thieves are pretty good at it because most of the time they don’t see you

Kicast.1459:

Azawrath.7304:

I know that perma evade is still somewhat available to thief but look at how much we have to invest (Sigils, runes, 30 trait points) while other classes just need 5-10 trait points and can add a sigil of energy and be good to go.

Some other class can have access to perma vigor in some manner. But perma vigor is not perma evade.
Real problem is perma evade.

Can you explain? Imo perma vigor does mean perma evade. You need a high endurance rate to evade when you want to.

Arkantos.7460:

2x Sigil of Energy, Rune of adventure …. halllo permavade; again XD

edit: did someone mention that warri with there new buffed evade trait , vigor on stances, succesful F1 skill refresh , make 1.5k till 2k on every dodge roll instantly …. additional to their cc, condispam, high dmg

I know that perma evade is still somewhat available to thief but look at how much we have to invest (Sigils, runes, 30 trait points) while other classes just need 5-10 trait points and can add a sigil of energy and be good to go.

Before thieves didn’t even have perma vigor and to get close to it we needed to spend a total of 30 trait points (10 in Acro and 20 in Trick). But they nerfed our vigor almost by half! So why then do mesmer have the ability to get perma vigor with just 5 trait points in Dueling? I always thought thieves were supposed to be the masters of mobility and dexterity but that just doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Can the steal skill also allow us to borrow skills from allies? Imo that would allow us to become more team orientated. Thoughts?

Hey guys, I have been playing thief basically since launch and I have read many of the guides for thieves and many of the builds, yet I still cannot find the balance found in WvW. Many of the WvW thieves can hit around 8k backstabs, and they are still pretty tanky. So I was just wondering what build are many of these thieves using? Currently I am using PVT gear for more toughness and vit but I can’t hit very high, but the thieves I find in WvW can hit very high and can still survive bursts. Any help is appreciated

Ok thank you for your help

How do I get the dire stats? I look on the TP only to find level 75 exotic dire armor. How do I get the level 80 armor?

Ya it would really help if on steal you transfer two conditions on you to your enemy and steal two of their boons.

I love playing the thief, I like a lot of the mechanics of the thief, including stealth. But I find it boring and repetitive just cloaking, getting to full health and then backstabbing or auto attacking with the sword. Imo it doesn’t take a lot of skill to do that so I wanted to try a build that doesn’t rely on stealth.

Like I said, if a thief heavily relies on stealth then there is no problem, but thieves who want more of a challenge are are trying to use less stealth. As stated before infiltrator’s strike is not worth it, Shadow return has a long CD. I roam a lot so I don’t have allies nearby so Signet of Agility isn’t that good.
Any good condition class can stack a crap ton of conditions on you the second you cleanse.

Ya but that’s only one condition for 5 initiative . It really isn’t worth it.

If you want lots of knockdowns and CDs you should play a engi.

I can agree with you only if you rely on stealth. If you are a non stealth thief, you are going to run into trouble because our non stealth condition removals are on long CDs, or are useless without teammates. Shadowstep has a 50 CD and signet of Agility has a 30 CD and only cure one condition if no allies are nearby. And then withdraw and roll of initiative only cures cripples, chill, and immobilizes. So without steal our class gets messed up by conditions.

Recently condition builds have become much more popular in both WvW and sPvP. So the question is, do you think thieves have enough condition removal to compete with these other builds?

I was thinking maybe a hybrid condition/power build. The short bow offers both, power through #s 1 & 2, and condition through #2-5 The short bow also offers evasive skills with # 2 and 5.

Does anyone know if there are thief builds that focus strongly on the short bow? I use it a lot when I’m in group fights but wanted to know if I could use it with 1v1s.

“Warriors also abuse this rune.
Stop blaming thieves for everything.”

YES! Thank you so much for pointing this out. Engis also use the rune and they have AoE CC unlike the thief. So please stop blaming everything on the thief.

Lol pretty sure I was this thief :P
Mainly its the P/D condition build with S/P offhand so I can stack confusion and then start stacking bleeds. I was doing it last night after seeing a engi use them on Youtube.

Hey guys! I have been playing the thief since the game came out and the majority of the time I have used a backstab build or a P/D condition build. Are there any challenging and fun S/D builds out there? Thanks

I have been playing a thief since September and all I have played since then is my thief. After exploring many of the builds for the thief I have realized that the thief has two types of builds.
1) Glass cannon burst builds
2) Tankyish condition build
The reason why us thieves only have two options for builds is because the only way for thieves do be able to do high damage is to play with berserker gear and become full glass cannon and have 2k armor and 12k hp. And on the other hand the only way for thieves to by some what tanky (but not really) is the condition build which gives thieves around 2.6k armor and 20k hp that relies on evasive skills and stealth. Which is nothing compared to the other classes.

I believe that thieves need a buff to make other builds more viable for the thief. So that thieves can tanky but still use a dagger or a sword and still do direct damage without having to do condition damage.

The trait Compounding Power you can get up to +9% damage if you have 3 illusions up. So I was wondering if I shatter the 3 illusions do I get the +9% damage on the shatter damage or do i get +0% because the illusions were destroyed before the enemy player could be hit with the shatter damage?