Guild Wars 2

Sometimes when i try to use HS on an Ethereal field, it doesn’t give me Chaos Armor, that’s the only thing I can think of. But might be because of lag maybe? No idea.

Steal fails if you were out of range, so watch the red line below the skill, it will notify you when you are out of range, or when it gets evaded/blocked. Same goes for using some of the Steal skills.

I used to run a bunker build in past, but when i started doing dungeons, I felt that I can’t “tank” like other classes do. Even with 30k health and 1900 toughness I felt my health was burnt down fast when taking hits from dungeon Veterans. Because of the build, my damage was lacking way too much. So I felt like I was useless.

How did I fix it? I switched my gear to power damage while keeping my toughness around 1200. Not too glassy, but the damage scaled up way waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much!

Awe.1096:

Azraeel.1238:

Awe.1096:

Stealth IS a problem and example from other games is a proof. All thieves should think about that. Becouse as someone already mentioned, in some cases the inability to balance stealth properly means that at some point everything else from your arsenal will be nerfed to the ground. I mean, pretty much every MMO I played which contained a stealth based class had that class overpowered at early stages of game’s life and then gradually nerfed due to playerbase outcry.

Not true in many cases.
In WoW, they didn’t hate stealth, but the stunlock.
In SWTOR, the most successful assassins were out of stealth assassins ( DPS gear/Tank Build).
In RIFT, they surprisingly buffed rogues by 50%. FIFTY PERCENT. They were weak even with permanent stealth. However, 50% is too much, which made me leave the game right after seeing the incompetence of Balancing. We never had issues with stealth though.

This is the first game I see where people keep complaining about stealth.

In WoW people did not complain about stealth? At early stages of the game when there were no battlegrounds or arenas there was only world PvP. And rogues were kings in that. Yeah, stunlocks were nasty but this was only overpowering when combined with stealth. Same as burst. People rolled rogues in masses after they realized what they could do in PvP.

As for SWTOR, dont you remember about the massive whines on backstab (or whatever the skill was called) operatives/scoundrels? This was nerfed hard in about a month after game release so go figure.

I cant say about Rift since I never PvP-ed in that game.

This is the first game in which you see people complaining about stealth? Well I cant deny that it is for you. But I would argue hard against this to actually be the case.

Well technically in WoW when Rogues first came out, I heard they were able to tank bosses because of their high agility, which is why they got nerfed. Then there was the stunlock. Stealth and burst weren’t the issue. Being burst down while sitting there doing nothing because you were stunlocked was quite annoying. When diminishing returns were introduced to counter the stunlock, Rogues were fine even with permanent stealth.
Stun Lock Source

In SWTOR same thing, operatives damage was nerfed not because of stealth, but because they were able to stun you then burst you down. The nerf came few months after the game was released, not in the first month.

People usually get annoyed by being killed while stunned, not because they failed to counter a stealthed oponent.

Lily, the idea behind having a high toughness as Conditionmancer is because fights need to last longer than burst builds for the bleeds to kick in. The more you can bleed your opponent without them inflicting much damage on you, the more your chances of winning. Burst build usually engage their enemies trying to do the most damage in the shortest time possible, where as conditionmancer needs sometime setting up bleeds for the real damage to take it. Toughness is there to last that long.

Instead of going one way or the other, maybe he can mix and match between Carrion and Rabid in a sense to not exceed 1500 toughness.

Lxtricky, use this website to setup your character before deciding.

Awe.1096:

Stealth IS a problem and example from other games is a proof. All thieves should think about that. Becouse as someone already mentioned, in some cases the inability to balance stealth properly means that at some point everything else from your arsenal will be nerfed to the ground. I mean, pretty much every MMO I played which contained a stealth based class had that class overpowered at early stages of game’s life and then gradually nerfed due to playerbase outcry.

Not true in many cases.
In WoW, they didn’t hate stealth, but the stunlock.
In SWTOR, the most successful assassins were out of stealth assassins ( DPS gear/Tank Build).
In RIFT, they surprisingly buffed rogues by 50%. FIFTY PERCENT. They were weak even with permanent stealth. However, 50% is too much, which made me leave the game right after seeing the incompetence of Balancing. We never had issues with stealth though.

This is the first game I see where people keep complaining about stealth.

Drop it for what? My auto-attacks, especially in PvE where I get more buffs from allies, ends up doing 4k+. Yesterday I even saw some 6-7k auto-attacks with 20 Might on Melandru.

Few days ago, I finally decided to give the D/D a try. I’ve been using D/Warhorn for so long now just to access Locust Swarm with the build 30/20/0/0/20. I’m not glass cannon since I use Knight armor.

This is the new Necro build I’m currently using:
My D/D Build

I’ve always thought that offhand dagger was actually only meant for conditionmasters, but the synergy between Blood is Power and Dagger skill 4 is just great. In other words, a nice combo would be:
1- Blood is power
2- Dagger skill 4
3- Go in and out of Death Shroud instantly next to your opponent to Gain Fury, Retaliation, activate Enfeebling Blood.
4- Dagger skill 3 (Immobilize)
5- Well of Suffering.

You now have Fury, Retaliation, and 10 stacks of might on you, while your enemy got around 8 stacks of bleeds and Fumble. Next time you go in and out of your Death Shroud enfeebling blood would be still on cooldown, so you can use Dagger skill #5 to replace it.

I usually like to keep the staff as offhand because you never know when you will need to switch to ranged, be it in WvW or PvE. So as you might have guessed already, I pretty much like to do WvW and PvE with this build. sPvP is a totally different story, and doesn’t interests me much.

What do you think of it? All constructive criticism are welcome

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Azraeel.1238:

Yesterday I did WvW on my Necromancer, everytime I saw a thief come out of stealth I immobilized him, and attacked forcing him to put down shadows refuge, that’s when I placed my well of suffering right on top of it, and laughed when they appeared downed moments later.

Thieves aren’t easy to fight, but not impossible to beat. Just like mesmers. It requires some skills to counter them. Just because most probably you stood there doing nothing everytime a thief stealthed, doesn’t mean they should remove it!

That was a very bad Thief.

A) He didn’t escape your immobilize

B) He stood in your wells

That strategy would only work in PvP on a small point. That strategy is completely unviable in WvW. I could literally escape your wells spamming 2 on my S/D, or just Deathblossom spam, or Shortbow 5, then kill you while you’re waiting for tkittenecond long cooldown.

You just forgot one main aspect, 4 seconds revealed. That’s more than enough to force a shadows refuge. I have a level 80 thief, so I know what I’m talking about.

Yesterday I did WvW on my Necromancer, everytime I saw a thief come out of stealth I immobilized him, and attacked forcing him to put down shadows refuge, that’s when I placed my well of suffering right on top of it, and laughed when they appeared downed moments later.

Thieves aren’t easy to fight, but not impossible to beat. Just like mesmers. It requires some skills to counter them. Just because most probably you stood there doing nothing everytime a thief stealthed, doesn’t mean they should remove it!

Auesis.7301:

FWB.1704:

BobbyT.7192:

Wah!!!

Go to Southsun Cove as a guardian, warrior, ranger, ect… and fight a karka. Than try it with a D/D thief and it’s pretty obvious who has the most difficult time / takes the longest.

D/D tears Karka to pieces.

I agree, all you need to worry about is the channeled skill the karka does at the beginning. Dodge it or interrupt and you are fine. Also a little back dodging, then HS will make the karka attack you less.

As for why would anyone take a thief into a dungeon, provided you have at least a support guardian, the thief can do a good amount of damage. But this is for tough dungeons. Easy ones is fine!

Yesterday I wanted to transmute the flower rare backpiece onto the exotic backpiece that my warrior had. Surprisingly enough, I couldn’t move the exquisite ruby jewel. I just want the look, I don’t want to take the stupid stats nor the infusion. They should make it so that we are able to move the Jewel -_-.

1- By far we have the coolest elite in all of the game, LICH FORM!
2- The way the wells and marks glow are unique
3- Jumping into a group of enemies, throw all my AOE, and come out alive using DS.
4- Locust Swarm (warhorn 5)
5- The idea of a Necromancer!

Make dagger autoattack do AOE damage, or decrease the cooldown on Utilities

For maximum AOE, I usually do locust swarm (Warhorn skill 5), throw down two wells (corruption and suffering), and then go into DS and use skill 4. The numbers are nice.

However, I would love to see a little splash damage with dagger, I mean the Axe for warriors… hits all around, and has almost the same single damage as the dagger.

Edit: fixed silly filter thinking warriors ….. hits as warrior s….hits lol

Sunflowers.1729:

I’m just pointing out that your rebuke made no logical sense. Besides, Guardians don’t get everything in one tree. Shout cooldown and shout condition removal, both of which are extremely important, are in another tree. A popular trait build for Guardians is 0/0/30/30/10. 60 trait points devoted to survivability. Of course, Thieves can build something like 0/10/30/30/0, but it’s not particularly common. Almost any trait distribution that takes some form of survivability will put 30 (or at least 20) points into SA (Edit: into SA first. It’s extremely uncommon to put points into acrobatics before SA)

Also, please tell me, how does anything I said indicate that I have an issue with stealth? And even if I do, it doesn’t make your arguments any less leaky.

Finally, I don’t have any idea what your last paragraph is saying. All that I am saying is that you cannot define “overpowered” as being “best at everything”. By that logic, we could buff Engineers to do 5000% damage to players, and since that doesn’t make them any better at doing dungeons (another aspect of the game), then it would not be ‘overpowered’. Evidently such a definition is pointless for anything because it is too simple.

Oh but i said “almost everything” and not “everything”. I know exactly how important the Honor tree line is to be a perfect support, I have a guardian, and run with 0/0/30/30/10. However, they can survive just fine without it as it provides self heal along with toughness, especially if they went for a role different than support. This is just like thieves who need to build into Acrobatics for the extra endurance. Going for both stealth and evade will give thieves more survivability, but way less damage. Anyways, I think the point is clear enough, the trait line is fine as it is, it doesn’t give you everything to be perfect. In fact, Yishi’s build who successfully does 1vX fights, does not have the remove condition when stealthed major trait.

My last paragraph was perfectly clear, you just didn’t want to understand it to try to prove your point. If you buff the engineer that much, then no class out there can counter them, which denies my second statement in what I said few posts back. In pvp, as long as there is a class out there that can kill your class, then it isn’t OP. People need to learn the difference between filling a role, and being OP in what they do.

Sunflowers.1729:

Everything that is needed to survive != Everything that you can. If the Valor tree gave guardians stealth too, that would be amazing. Do they need it to survive? No.

One tree can certainly be OP but the class is not. If we took one thief build, for example 25/30/0/0/15 and (hypothetically) combined all of the traits into Critical Strikes, it would not change the overall build very much. Yet obviously that tree would become overpowered.

And as for general ’OP’ness, you define OP as “being good in* everything* they do”? 100blades Warriors suck in sPvP so I wonder why everyone takes them for dungeons. One class can certainly be OP in one area and not in another.

Please, if you want to argue semantics, do it properly or don’t do it at all.

I still don’t see any meaning in what you said. Guardians got in the valor tree line almost everything they need to survive. So does the rest of the classes depending on their mechanics. Afterall, this is what the toughness tree line is there for! It looks like you just have an issue against stealth, that is so obvious you don’t even need to admit it.

Everyone takes a warrior because most of the fight mechanics in the game are dumb tank and spank, throw in some ranged or heavy conditioned fights, and you will see less demand for warriors. So they do good damage against an NPC that just sits there, you call that OP?

50% more damage is way too much for a class that excels in single target.

I just love how people say something then contradict themselves.

Sunflowers.1729”

I don’t know if there are any other classes that can get everything they need to survive in one single tree. It just has so much good stuff condensed into 30 points (I won’t say ‘everything you could ever need’, because it doesn’t have endurance regeneration)

Then why mention it? They have everything, but they don’t have everything!

Sunflowers.1729”

So yes, I think the tree is OP. Before the entire forum jumps on me and says “noob L2P” or whatever, realize that the SA tree != Thief class as a whole so one trait line being amazingly good doesn’t necessarily mean the class is overpowered.

If an “OP trait line” doesn’t make a class OP, then either the trait line isn’t OP, or the class is so bad, that the “OP trait line” makes it average.

Sunflowers.1729”

In any case, I honestly don’t believe the Thief sub-forum has any grip on what actual ‘balance’ is. Play another class for a while, see how good you have it. We aren’t even that bad in PvE.

I have 4 80s, my main is a necromancer, and I find thieves to be fine. You just have a wrong way of defining balance. As long as a class isn’t OP in everything they do and against everyone, then it is fine.

noobftw.9654”

so this is your logic? “this game got no precise DPS measurements, sometimes I kill an NPC mob in 3 hits, and sometimes the same mob takes more to kill using the exact same strategy.” ? LOLzz, if your logic applies, can I say SOMETIMES a condition 0 0 30 20 20 thief does more backstab damage than 25 30 0 0 15 zerker thief?
What are these bots in pvp there for? decorations?

Lol, if you understood my point this way, then I am pretty sure you have no idea what you are talking about, I am not even going to comment on the lame example you provided. Until now you failed to show me a video of your playstyle in actual combat. You ask your opponents to wait a few minutes until you stack the might up? Even if you manage to stack up to 9 stacks of might, it increases the backstab damage by ~700, still isn’t enough to even consider it a threat. Just give it up with your trolling already!

Hey The Kay.6539, let me rephrase your whole argument with what I have, since it is quite close. I have 4 80s, Necromancer, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. I do play around 3-5 hours daily, and consider myself as casual because I don’t like farming or camping, but instead doing different stuff.

Now to the classes:

My Warrior has by far the best damage, especially in AOE situations, I use 2 axes, and I’ve seen 15k one hits. However, when things get tough, my warrior is squishy as heck because of berserker build.

My Guardian got by far the best support. I can AOE heal, while taking damage. I run with 3 shouts or reflection wall, depending on the situation, and find myself quite helpful for the group.

My thief got by far the best single damage with a lot of fun in WvW. Took me a while to get used to, but was worthwhile. Being slippery in WvW is something exclusive to thieves. I’m currently enjoying playing him a lot.

Eventhough, all of the classes mentioned above excel in one field, I still consider my Necromancer as a main. I just love the class without knowing why. It was with my Necromancer that I got 100% map completion, Dungeon Master, all seasonal achievements, and jumping puzzles achievements. I tried MM, conditionmaster, and power build. Ended up sticking with 30/20/0/0/20 dagger/warhorn/wells build. My autoattacks can crit up to 4k, so I don’t find myself dragging the rest of the group down with damage. When things get tough, I can still take a little beating while backing it up with DS. I even farmed Arah for the set, so I don’t find myself squishy at all. In WvW, I can jump into a group of people, throw wells, and come out alive.

TL/DR: Although all other classes are great at specific things, I still love my Necromancer.

I’m not the one trolling here, I could say the same for you! Next time you accuse something to be OP, at least show it in a viable gameplay. Moreover, this game got no precise DPS measurements, sometimes I kill an NPC mob in 3 hits, and sometimes the same mob takes more to kill using the exact same strategy. Especially if your build is critical strikes dependent. So I still find no logic in your comparison.

noobftw.9654:

hehe, try those two builds on pvp heavy bots and come back with damage number then we shall stalk again shall we?

“d/d does 5.4k against heavy bot w/o popping the shadow signet and 5.7k when popping it. d/p with modest 10 stacks of might does 5.4k w/o popping signet and 5.6 popping. "

Are you basing all of your credibility on fighting bots? -_-
Put on a recorder, go do some pve (world, dungeons) , WvW, spvp while using your might stacking logic, and post it here. Show us how viable this is, then maybe… we shall talk again?

jportell.2197:

Only some of those are actually good… BM and Guard. Warrior shield/toughness still isn’t on par with others they will always lack good condi removal… Mesmer toughness line is sad.. Especially the grand master majors… no ele ever goes into their toughness line unless its just 10 deep. Necro toughness line is taken for the staff traits and that is about it. The necros that do run MM builds do it only for the meat shields and not for the actual group support. Is SA OP? Mayyybbbeeee maybe not… But it is still way way way better in bonuses than half of the classes in this game at least.

You can’t have everything, don’t forget that Warriors have such a large health pool, which helps a lot against conditions. As for elementals, no one denies that they have a bunker build that is very good, whether they spec into toughness or not isn’t a problem. Now for the thieves, talking in general, no one denies the fact that they are squishy, without any boons to back this up, and not much for party support. This leaves thieves with a main role of damage. If they waste points in the toughness tree to only live a few hits in a dungeon for instance sacrificing damage, this will make the class totally useless, therefore, gaining some attack damage while living to sustain it will get them back into the game.

noobftw.9654:

Stacking it out of combat can be tedious for most builds minus D/P, unless you want to waste a shadow refuge, of course. Either way having to CnD 5 times + having to wait 4s each time for 10 stacks of might(you can’t even reach 10 stacks of might with CnD chaining, so I don’t know where OP got his information from) and then catching up to the enemy is rather tedious. By the time I usually reach the enemy I have 2 stacks of might left if I’m lucky. It simply doesn’t work imo, and I don’t know why OP said that might stacking through CnD chaining is in any way OP. It’s very inefficient and simply cannot apply effectively in real world combat.

As for D/P, I don’t understand why someone would waste that much initiative for 10 stacks of might, especially since D/P itself takes up more initiative than CnD.

Using D/P smoke field + leap you can stack 6 might with one smoke screen every 4-5 sec and if you can find a wall and leap against it, you can even get 8 stacks , you can get so much stealth duration from it that when you step back to backstab position you are most likely full initiative again.
Try out 10 30 30 0 0 d/p against 25 30 0 0 15 d/d, d/d does 5.4k against heavy bot w/o popping the shadow signet and 5.7k when popping it. d/p with modest 10 stacks of might does 5.4k w/o popping signet and 5.6 popping. While the peramstealth, cleanse, healing and endless combat reset button provides by SA line is THE best survivability line, even dwarfs ele water and arcane coz of the stealth.
Again I have no problem with SA minor 25 alone, the thing is when it’s combined with permastealth and the erroneous fact that this trait is triggered when you stack stealth duration as oppose to the description “Gain might for 15 seconds when you GO INTO stealth”. It’s quite fine for CnD since it really can’t be spammed and you only gain might when you regain stealth as it’s designed, but it’s just wrong when d/p can spam it while in stealth. Also I am not asking for a overhaul of SA line, but instead I am asking for either move this minor 25 to maybe DA or move the major 30. Having both burst damage (esp from d/p build) and survivability in the same trait line at 2 traits right next to each other is not balanced at all.

So basically a class that has damage as main role, gets a little increase in damage in their defensive trait line…. Thank you for stating the obvious….. Having few stacks of might will NOT one shot people. In fact, almost ALL of the 1vX videos I’ve seen attack without wasting any time trying to stack few might before engaging.

Another thing to show your incompetence, SA is a stealth dependent trait line, and so the minor trait complements it. Where as DA is condition reliant, and so its minor trait line (Exposed Weakness Deal 10% more damage if your target has a condition) is quite good for it. So please just stop there….

jportell.2197:

PearlGore.7419:

jportell.2197:

PearlGore.7419:

jportell.2197:

PearlGore.7419:

30 SA is mostly a PvE spec…

With might runes and 30 into SA you can run around pvp with constant 20 stacks of might… With nothing in SA that is 3600 power easy….

Not sure what your point is.

meaning you can run 30 SA in pvp and be worth a kitten Also you don’t die in a little sneeze.

That does not make SA OP, it makes it a good trait line. One of the best in the game infact.

Yes ANET needs to look at other classes toughness lines… Most of them are pathetic and don’t offer anything good offense and defense wise… SA does both very well.

Don’t try to change what is not broken. Each of the defensive trait lines is highly dependent on the class mechanics. Necro (MM), Ranger (BM), Warrior (Shield), Guardian (Support), Thief (Stealth)….etc

noobftw.9654:

Azraeel.1238:

Let’s see other Classes 25 minor trait in their defense line:
Mesmer: 5% of toughness = condition damage
Engineer: 10% healing is given as power
Guardian: Gain might when blocking
Necro: 5% of toughness is given as power
Ranger: 5% extra damage when health >90%
Warrior: 5% of toughness is given as power
ele: Deal more damage when health is full.

So as you can see, all of them offer extra damage, why should ours be different?

lol, any traits gives you 350+ power and 350+ condition damage while you are unseen and removes condition every 3 secs , regens 300 per sec? Minor 25 and permastealth shouldn’t be in the same trait line.

Just fyi, those stats conversion traits you listed gives you around 60-80 stats and most of them are just trash traits.

First of all, I didn’t even list what each of the classes tree line is capable of. So stating that a defensive trait line actually got some defensive characteristics is IRRELEVANT.
Second of all, have you taken the time to look at all the 25 minor traits in the thief trait lines?
DA : Deal 10% to target with condition (easily achieved)
CS: 10% increased damage when initiatives > 6
Acro: 10% increased damage when health not full (Easily achieved as well)
Trickery: Increase damage by 1% per initiative.

So where do you plan to “move” it to? I’m sorry, but I can’t see any logic with what you are saying.

Let’s see other Classes 25 minor trait in their defense line:
Mesmer: 5% of toughness = condition damage
Engineer: 10% healing is given as power
Guardian: Gain might when blocking
Necro: 5% of toughness is given as power
Ranger: 5% extra damage when health >90%
Warrior: 5% of toughness is given as power
ele: Deal more damage when health is full.

So as you can see, all of them offer extra damage, why should ours be different?

@noobftw, is it just me or did you contradict yourself throughout your post?

noobftw.9654”

IMO shadow arts trait line is way op

noobftw.9654”

I am not claiming thief is op.

If a trait line is OP, but the class isn’t OP, then it makes it irrelevant really to bring it out…

noobftw.9654”

not asking for a nerfing of thief

noobftw.9654”

probably move 25 minor and/or 30 major to another trait line.

That’s pretty much IS a Nerf…

Now, I don’t use that trait that stacks might on stealth, because I find the blind on stealth way more effective to keep me alive. As for healing in stealth, it is a 30 points trait, it should be at least effective otherwise it wont be worth 30 points. As for one condition removed every 3 seconds in stealth, this is actually good for survivability, but gaining two initiatives on stealth might help you burst more. So it ISN’T OP, you need to decide what to choose depending on your playstyle and preference.

Very nice, I guess you are a glass cannon to do that much damage with such a low health pool. However, you just made me feel like trying P/P hehe :P

@BrimstoneAshe, it is true that every class has to deal with block and evade, however, not every class share “cooldowns” with their other weapon set. When it comes to thieves, if you miss or waste initiatives, you have to either retreat, or autoattack.

As for the rest, please finish leveling your thief then share what you think of the class. I’m nowhere near the doom and gloom, I was trying to make a point (read my last post), people replies dragged the discussion somewhere else.

Cheers!

@Griswold, you might have gave a bad example with the “messed up” point. I don’t have issues killing mesmers in WvW, so many clones to keep you stealthed, and missing one Backstab is not like missing a CnD. Because by the time you get revealed you already have recovered few Initiatives from the CnD done earlier. ANYWAYS, your definition of ….OP…. is staying alive the most, where as my definition of OP is the ability to counter all other classes, no matter what their build was, using a single build. Which, you clearly proved otherwise.

@Sunflowers, where did you say that Thieves are good at PvE? EXACTLY!!!! You didn’t! This means that this class is only good at one content, the rest, you end up struggling with. Thieves are good at roaming? Yay! Let’s discredit everything else! And only grade the system according to this, and only this!

Back to my main point, I like to take classes in general, not specific, and grade them accordingly. GW2 is not only about roaming. Heck, you get much more tokens by joining zergs than actually roaming alone. Roaming alone is fun, but doesn’t even stand out to call a class OP.

EDIT: Fixed some filter messing up paragraph.

Sunflowers.1729:

Azraeel.1238:

To all those who say thieves are OP, please roll one!!!!!!!

If you make it past level 30 without getting frustrated by the number of times you died, I’ll clap for you! If you think dungeons/fractals are easy at 80, I’ll salute you. If you think pvp in general is as simple as 1, 2 ,3…. I’ll Bow to you!

Cheers!

I did. They are ridiculous in WvW. It’s as you said, ‘simple as 1,2,3’!

Wait, I mean 5-2-1.

Edit: I don’t mean that I steamroll every roamer I come across because that would just be ridiculous. Obviously there are some builds which will not lose to me, such as bunker D/D elementalists.

However in WvW there is no penalty to running away, so I never die. Just don’t over-commit and you don’t have to die either. We have so many ways to run away that roaming is almost completely risk-free.

Oh for God sake, Dude, are you trying to be smart? You just mentioned us using 3 attacks out of 5, hurray!!! In fact, 4 and 3 are very good situational skills. The 4 will make your life easier if the guy was running away (instead of chain HS when everything else is on cooldown), and the 3 would get you out of tight situations if you were out of dodge and revealed.

Moreover, you forgot about all of the combos you could do with D/D and other weapon sets. Even if you execute them perfectly, you have a HUGE chance to mess up. For example, just missing a CnD or getting blocked costs us 6 initiatives.

Since you totally skipped the pve part (leveling/dungeons/fractals), I’ll assume you found those tough. Which leaves WvW? Just because we can slip away, doesn’t makes us OP, nor ridiculously easy to play. All it takes is one mistake and you are done for. I can’t count the times where I got pulled out of my shadows refuge then instantly immobilized to be burst down by someone else.

To all those who say thieves are OP, please roll one!!!!!!!

If you make it past level 30 without getting frustrated by the number of times you died, I’ll clap for you! If you think dungeons/fractals are easy at 80, I’ll salute you. If you think pvp in general is as simple as 1, 2 ,3…. I’ll Bow to you!

Cheers!

There are two ways you can regenerate health, one is Signet of Malice (Heal Skill), and Shadow Arts traits (Shadow’s Rejuvenation Regenerate health while in stealth). The later one will take sometime before you can get it, but it regenerates a nice amount of health while stealthed.

I think thief was the most class I died with while leveling, especially coming after leveling a necromancer, guardian, and a warrior. All three classes can take beating, but for a thief, I died every time I get attacked by more than two enemies. But things starts to get WAY better as soon as you get access to shadow refuge. That would be around level 30 give or take.

PS: I was a noob with my thief, maybe if I knew all the tricks and tips with D/D I wouldn’t have suffered that much :P hehe. But was a nice experience!

The only thing is that to access one of our main attacks, we need to be stealthed, 30 seconds of revealed means 30 secs of non-backstab attacks. How about giving us a way to backstab outside of stealth? :P lol

To add to the above, you can craft few Valkyrie pieces for increased Health pool.

If you increase the base damage of single target then you will kill any squishy with 1 hit, which isn’t logical at all! Bunkers are meant to last, otherwise they won’t be bunker builds…

To get that much crit damage you need to limit your gear choices to three, Berserker, Cavalier, and Valkyrie. All three got critical damage on them. As for slot upgrades, either use Runes of Divinity (very expensive), a nice replacement would be either Ruby or Beryl Orbs, depending of whether you need health or critical chance. Same goes for accessories upgrades, either Exquisite Jewel Ruby/Beryl. You can exceed 109% with ascended accessories.

Edit to add: Don’t forget 30 in the Critical Strikes trait tree.

The amount of backstab you do depends on your opponent’s armor, and whether they got protection boon up. Yishi does a large amount of backstab because he picks the right opponents at the right time. Oh, and you do even more damage to ascended people as they are squishy as heck.

Getting exotic gear will boost your damage up a lot. For starters you can reach 109% crit damage, and try to keep your crit chance as close to 50% as possible.

The only thing that I hate is when I stealth while an NPC is channeling a spell, and if I turn around to backstab it, the NPC keeps facing me denying me a backstab until it finishes casting. Stealth should break channeling!

Samoleth.5012:

Azraeel.1238:

You have 3 traits totally relying on stealth

Shadow’s Embrace Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth
Infusion of Shadow Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you
Shadow’s Rejuvenation Regenerate health while in stealth

How exactly is this a non-stealth build? All you did was kitten yourself with so much toughness with respect to the amount of critical damage you got.

I didn’t say that i don’t rely on stealth. I don’t stealth to lend the damage.
The best condition remover we have is in stealth, same as the health regen, i would be an idiot to not pick up those traits and go into stealth when i need it.
And yes, please, continue to build up for crit damage and crit chance, i’ll be glad to own you thief power users everytime.
Clearly, if you (no harsh intended) don’t see the point in this build and the sinergy between some traits, i can’t do much to explain.
I also got some videos up on my twitch and youtube channel, feel free to watch them and see how i manage to handle situations.
Ofc if you pretend that this is a burst build you’ll be clearly disappointed

Here’s the link http://www.twitch.tv/samoleth/videos videos are a bit dated due to the fact that i’ve been doing some guild wvw runs and i usually record solo play.

EDIT: about crit damage. You really want to make me believe that 97-109% crit damage is absolutely necessary? Or that a high vitality will save your BP+HS combo from a well timed Headshot? That you can C&D while permablinded by Shadowshot? Come on mate, i’ve tried every build out there, i’m not the casual thief player and i laugh everytime i find a dd burst or valkirye thief. Remember: d\p is more than that over used combo. I’m not talking about a build, that’s easy to figure and to modify if you feel more comfortable with less thoughness and more power, i’m talking about changing playstyle, the way most people play thief.

EDIT 2: Anyway, let’s cut this. Everyone got his own opinions, i’ll limit myself to do as i usually did since today: reading the forums.

I’m against running 100% cannon glass, especially that I enjoy doing dungeons. On my thief, I have 1350 toughness, and I agree that the remove condition in stealth is amazing, as I always use that. I actually run a build close to Yishi, but with few twists to suit me better. But my point was that you have 3 major traits that rely on stealth, so you aren’t exactly a “non-stealth” build, maybe i took it too literary?

Anyways, interesting to know you got a new playstyle going on there, can’t argue about that as I haven’t tried it.

Is it fine for them to use their elite, and not for you? How hypocrite of them!

Deniara Devious.3948:

Thief Wars 2.

lol…. Dude, this sounds so pathetic! Just because thieves are capable of doing few things here and there doesn’t mean the whole game is meant for them -_-. This is the role of thieves, they can scout, roam, and build traps… etc. The rest of the classes got their own uses in different situations….

Samoleth.5012:

Deathspike.1870:

To everyone continuously saying non-stealth builds are viable, please share them! I have tried building one that doesn’t rely on stealth and I get absolutely nowhere, so I went for a Ranger instead (lol). Please, share.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h17.a.1g.h1|c.1g.h14.8.1g.h2|1n.7e.1g.7e.1n.7e.1g.7e.1n.7e.1g.7e|2t.d13.1g.61.1g.61.1n.64.1n.64.1i.64|0.a3.u45b.u39a.0|3t.1|59.5a.5f.5h.0|e

Mind that i fight with 25 bloodlust and an average of 8 might stacks.

You have 3 traits totally relying on stealth

Shadow’s Embrace Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth
Infusion of Shadow Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you
Shadow’s Rejuvenation Regenerate health while in stealth

How exactly is this a non-stealth build? All you did was kitten yourself with so much toughness with respect to the amount of critical damage you got.

The irony when other classes complain about thieves using this trap on them … hahaha -_-

StarNightz.8496:

Well is there a build that work in both pve and wvw?

I personally use my build for both PvE and WvW. I use 0/30/30/10/0. The trait from 10 in acrobatics can be switched around between gaining might on dodge (pve) and lower fall damage (WvW). As for the stats, make sure you have at least 1300 toughness, at least 15k HP, not less than 45% critical chance, and 80%+ critical damage. I use D/D and shortbow just because I’m used to them, leveled from 1-80 using this setup.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Azraeel.1238:

Evade thief? Let’s make a trap that removes all endurance for 30 seconds next … -_-

30 seconds for thieves remember the goal here is to kill us off.

Right, sorry! hehe

Your logic is by far, the worst so far…

1- A thief that takes advantage of the surroundings is a smart thief, not everyone is capable of doing that. Just like a Mesmer can prepare a portal behind a rock, jump into a fight, throw in all his clones, then teleport back behind the rock while the opponents busy fighting the clones…. Then jumps back in, or Elementals pushing enemies into a bottleneck to AOE them effectively, or Necromancer using surroundings to teleport away… and so on…

2- Other games provide “rogues” with permanent stealth, with one or two skills that can push you back into stealth during a fight. However, these same games also provide good burst/stuns that would cause someone to get totally overwhelmed in few seconds. In GW2 you got a maximum of what? 11 seconds (shadows refuge)? to either position yourself or run away.

3- Toning down stealth even more will make playing a thief even less fun. Out of stealth, you are technically less effective than every other class out there. Remember, we aren’t only talking about WvW here, one thing will affect every other aspect of the game. So think before you post.

Evade thief? Let’s make a trap that removes all endurance for 30 seconds next … -_-

Yeah Sebrent, keep comparing classes to validate your moot points. Because all of the classes have the same mechanics to actually be comparable -_-.
[/sarcasm]