Guild Wars 2

Reinn.7436:

It is a usual thing. Since crit-chance can be improved using other means such as fury sustain or getting traits like hidden-killer and such.

The build presented has only a 25% chance of fury (that requires being hit). If it procs, that’s 50% crit with fury for 10 secs. It has hidden killer and two sources of stealth. However, they’re on 30 and 40 second intervals. One of them is the heal skill and burning it for stealth to get the crit seems odd to me. At best, alternating between them without regard for actual healing and if attacking ends the stealth, you get at best one attack every 15 seconds or so with guaranteed crit while burning your heals to no effect.

Playing around with builds (again, I’m basically a noob at this and could be completely wrong), I tweaked the build to use Assassin armor (the question in the OP), Soldier trinkets, dropped DA for Acro, swapped out some traits in CS, changed 2 utility skills, swapped stone for oil, and came up with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMpxplPxwJ8PNhPBtdASwr5OER4DdNDA-TVCBwA12f4oyvFm/kcCAA8EAIq+TK9BTUCu5QAQIABLAA-w

It has just under 200 less power at base, but with all the Might buffs, it goes way over that differential easily. It also has way more crit chance, slightly less health, more armor, and more initiative boosts. I didn’t get too deep into it. I was mainly looking at power vs precision initially. I could also see possibilities for dropping the stealth focus for greater benefits elsewhere.

I’m not so sure about the zerker is better than assassin argument. It looks, to my noobish eyes, like there’s more to it. I’d be happy to hear someone rip it all apart. I’m still trying to figure all this stuff out.

Coronit.9432:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMpyplPx0J8PNBNBtdFGeI4uGlYGaFAA-TliDABuqE0gHAAAm/Q4EAsz+DfoPQgjAgPK/i4QAAj6PECQwWA-w
Made it quickly, you can go for more zerker if you want. (its D/P, but D/D works, too)

I know very little about the intricacies of builds, but I thought it was a little strange to have a Ferocity heavy build with only 30% crit chance. Is that a common thing?

CMM.6712:

Same policy every event same QQ every event. If you don’t plan ahead it is YOUR bad.

Not all of us can log in every day and, for those of us with kids, this time of year is guaranteed to be no-gaming time. Perhaps going forward, in the email that announces the event, they could just be specific. Or is it too much to ask that 5 or 6 words be added to an automated email?

Also, I’m not 100% sure, but at some point in the past, the vendors stuck around for a week or so. I seem to remember my first Wintersday going to a vendor after the event ended and we got back from vacation.

edit: Sonder still has Cobs, Thorn (6 cobs), and Pails (3 cobs)

IndigoSundown.5419:

Unfortunately, MMO’s generally reward via power, skins, or both combined. It’s too bad no one has thought of a fourth option.

I’d rather get something new to DO, than something new to own. Perhaps in addition to the chest, it opens up a new area, mission, boss to fight, or something of that nature. Then you’d get new content, a chance at some good loots or something unique, maybe some things to do that are tough enough to give you a chance at more laurels or AP.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8004967_make-music-box-movement.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Programmable-Mechanical-Music-Box/
http://www.unity303.com/musicbox/

The problem with IA is aiming it. Any contours on the ground make it difficult to aim to best effect. Inclines and rocky terrain basically make it useless.

Zaxares.5419:

To those debating over D&D versions, here’s my two cents as someone who was introduced to it during the Basic era, but really got into it from AD&D 2nd Ed and D&D 3.X.

There’s a balance that needs to be struck. Games need to be “easy to learn, but difficult to master”. AD&D 2nd Ed holds some of my best memories of tabletop gaming, but I agree that it was extremely difficult to introduce newbies to. (Anyone who remembers trying to explain THAC0 to a new player will understand what I mean.) 3rd Ed streamlined a lot of the rules, but also kept a lot of the complexity that allowed for world building and player variation. (Although towards the twilight of its time, I’d argue that 3.5 became TOO bloated for its own good.)

The only real point is that everything that makes up modern MMOs is derivative of D&D. When you get down to it, it was always the DM who made gaming what it was. MMO gaming is nothing more than a loot fest. The story is gone.

DarcShriek.5829:

Black Frog.9274:

Algreg.3629:

Black Frog.9274:

Welcome to capitalism and the gaming market!

95% of all MMO games are just clones of pen and paper D&D. Though I suppose if you’re young and have no concept of RPG history, it might seem pretty cool. If you don’t want people to complain, perhaps you should consider encouraging game makers to stop repeating 40 year old gaming tropes.

you must be kidding? D&D? If that (original) game would have to be pitched today, the presenter would be tossed out after 10 minutes. “Too complicated, people will not understand the system”, and they would probably be right. Even WotC themselves dumb down the game since 3.5 and in the process have turned it into a travesty of itself. I sure WISH game designers would be inspired by original D&D. As for tropes – the whole fantasy genre heavily draws on myth and fairy tales and usually adds some very mediocre writing and imagination to it (yeah, please don´t cite Tolkien, compare his works to real great writers, glorified anglo-saxon myth fan fiction at best). Don´t blame D&D for that either.

I can tell you’re not part of the original D&D crowd. All of the core concepts of RPG and MMO games like, Hit points, damage types, damage resistance, hit percentages, armor, weapon types, character classes, ALL OF IT, comes from original D&D. If it were too complicated and would be chucked out, then this game wouldn’t exist (srsly, how could you say that, in light of the game you’re playing?).

Bring on the day when game designers have a truly original idea.

Actually, it didn’t come from D & D. All those mechanics came from Chainmail. Someone that was actually part of the original D&D crowd would have known that.

I love laying in wait for you guys: D&D was a Chainmail expansion. Chainmail was a wargame, not an RPG, and it didn’t include any of the rules for the core mechanics that we recognize today as the foundation of RPGs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_%28game%29

Leveling couldn’t be any easier than it already is. Between crafting and just running from waypoint to waypoint, it’s laughable.

taxi has worked well for me. however, when someone tags down, the exodus is immediate.

I’ve had good luck in running with semi competent people who don’t need to follow a tag. I’ve also been on some maps with incompetent commanders and jumped to other maps. If you can find a max party of 5 who can spread out over maps to find a good group, you can reconsolidate on a single map and take it from there.

Nox Lucis.8341:

Make it so.

Also,

what’s up with your eyes!?

Algreg.3629:

Black Frog.9274:

Welcome to capitalism and the gaming market!

95% of all MMO games are just clones of pen and paper D&D. Though I suppose if you’re young and have no concept of RPG history, it might seem pretty cool. If you don’t want people to complain, perhaps you should consider encouraging game makers to stop repeating 40 year old gaming tropes.

you must be kidding? D&D? If that (original) game would have to be pitched today, the presenter would be tossed out after 10 minutes. “Too complicated, people will not understand the system”, and they would probably be right. Even WotC themselves dumb down the game since 3.5 and in the process have turned it into a travesty of itself. I sure WISH game designers would be inspired by original D&D. As for tropes – the whole fantasy genre heavily draws on myth and fairy tales and usually adds some very mediocre writing and imagination to it (yeah, please don´t cite Tolkien, compare his works to real great writers, glorified anglo-saxon myth fan fiction at best). Don´t blame D&D for that either.

I can tell you’re not part of the original D&D crowd. All of the core concepts of RPG and MMO games like, Hit points, damage types, damage resistance, hit percentages, armor, weapon types, character classes, ALL OF IT, comes from original D&D. If it were too complicated and would be chucked out, then this game wouldn’t exist (srsly, how could you say that, in light of the game you’re playing?).

Bring on the day when game designers have a truly original idea.

I forgot about that place. It was a thing or something or whatnot, right?

Welcome to capitalism and the gaming market!

95% of all MMO games are just clones of pen and paper D&D. Though I suppose if you’re young and have no concept of RPG history, it might seem pretty cool. If you don’t want people to complain, perhaps you should consider encouraging game makers to stop repeating 40 year old gaming tropes.

emerald and sapphire

Man am I late to this party!

Just a few quick thoughts to stick in my two cents: instanced content and town services will depopulate public areas. That’s bad. Player interaction is good.

I’m not a big fan of the general concept, though I can understand why people would want it. To me it seems weird, you can get everything you need in a town, what’s the upside other than a feeling of exclusivity? Personally, I think that if you want your own guild hall, you should have to defend your own guild hall. Put them on the WvW maps. Treat them like garrisons.

Finally, as a one man guild (mostly for the storage space), if this is going to happen, it’s only fair that I get a shot at everything. Time may be a barrier, but I should still have access.

Too bad I didn’t see this earlier. Haven’t played a whole lot this month.

Nilgoow.1037:

Black Frog.9274:

Please show me GW2’s in game browser. I’d like to use it.

You’ve already used it if you have used the TP. /rolls eyes/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N8tkOi57uR0#t=1626

http://coherent-labs.com/

Newbies these days.

eye roll It’s funny no one is calling you on your claim of knowing about “infosec” while you’ve clearly got a malware.

Noobie “infosec” experts these days…

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I wasn’t even aware there was a daily achievement point cap. . . .

Neither did i

Katreyn.4218:

they still stand out the most for being unfitting for the world.

Early twentieth century airplane helmets, plushy ski hats, sunglasses, victorian era winter wear…

Paper bag hats are pretty much right in line with all the other nonsense. The difference for me is that I’d actually like to have an angry face paper bag helmet for my norn.

Nilgoow.1037:

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

Seriously if you are active online you need a trustworthy security suite. Otherwise you are a danger to yourself and to anyone that has given you any online details lol.

For real get this issue fixed asap!

I’ve been active on the ’net scene for a while, since 56k LOL! I know a thing or two about infosec.

You have got to be trolololing. You’ve got all the ingredients: a ridiculous premise (what connection is there between GW2 and browsers?); the silly phrase “’net scene” (though, I like your brazen style); and the buzzwordy, but meaningless “infosec.” Go back to getting drunk and huffing paint.

Nilgoow.1037:

EVE has an in-game browser and manages to avoid this stuff.

Maybe take a few pages out of their book.

Please show me GW2’s in game browser. I’d like to use it.

warriorjrd.8695:

As somebody already said, and you quoted in your post; if you duel, prepare to get interrupted, if you interrupt, prepare for an unassisted fight. It’s that simple, there is no right way to play the game.

I said it!! ME! I’m the one who said it! Does nobody kittening read!? LOL

mango.9267:

Lol, this thread is giving me cancer.

Does anyone ever read the entirety of anything? I too support the “do WTF you want.” I even say it! Repeatedly!!!!! What I do not support is people trying to use e-honor arguments to defend their point of view. My point in the whole first part of my last post was to point out the ridiculousness of his argument.

I’ll repeat it one more time for the comprehension-impaired (it’s weird that you all cut out the last kittening paragraph, which is the relevant one. ): if you duel and get ganked shut up and respawn. You’re red on a battle field. If you attempt to gank a dueler and get killed, shut up and respawn. You’re red on a battle field.

Whatever argument you have to make boils down to “if it feels good, do it.” So kill all the things. You and I agree, not disagree. It would be nice if people didn’t reflexively post.

Ragnar.4257:

Black Frog.9274:

If you go play on a rink or in a field, the car isn’t going to follow you around without breaking some laws. Bad attempt to extend the analogy. If you keep moving from street to street and a car keeps following you, well, you can do what you want, and so can the person in the car.

That doesn’t stop the guy in the car from being a kitten.

You’re trying so hard to make it sound like “intentionally ruining other people’s fun for no other reason than your own twisted amusement” is totally fine because it’s “allowed”.

Just because something is allowed doesn’t make it okay. Infact, if the guy in the car followed you around for long enough, there would be fair grounds for a harassment charge. Harrasment is precisely this situation; doing something technically legal but with the intent of causing annoyance.

No matter how you spin it, intentionally causing misery to others for no reason is always, always, everywhere in life, a kittenbag move.

It’s strange that you don’t extend your logic to the core point I was making. So, I’ll do it for you: just because you “can” duel in WvW, doesn’t mean you should. You’re taking a queue spot from someone actually committed to the purpose of WvW and you’ve got options outside of WvW for dueling. Your activity is causing misery to that person in particular and to your team as a whole.

If we extend your logic even further and grant that all duels should never be interrupted, what if the server limit of people jumps into a map and does nothing but duel? Do you support that position? Are you in favor of a group of people wrecking WvW players’ fun by camping a map for a purpose for which it wasn’t designed?

Of course, you chose to leave out my last paragraph, which was the one that actually applied. The analogy of the car was a terrible one to begin with and argument by analogy is fundamentally limited. Which is why I made the point: “This whole discussion is silly. Duelers should accept they’re going to get ganked/interrupted and solo players interrupting a duel should be prepared to die alone. It’s pretty simple to understand.” I’m not advocating griefing; I’m advocating having your kitten handed to you in a PvP environment because you’re too busy playing for yourself, instead of your team. It doesn’t matter if you’re a dueler or an interrupter. There’s a war going on in WvW. Stop screwing around and run up the score!

No matter the levels involved, a dungeon is a dungeon is a dungeon. I want more living story, more areas to explore, more new content that is deep and developing. Not another more farm to grind.

Exeon.4358:

Electro.4173:

Paradox.1380:

I am not positive but the person that I seen had it in LA told me when I asked that they got it from the Exotic Trick or Treat Champion bag from the Legendary Monsters.

You mean people are actually killing the champs? I’ve been in the Labyrinth for the past 2 hours and seen all of maybe 6 other people total, all just running around doing small door events while fleeing in terror every time the Labyrinthine Horror comes around. I’m rather surprised honestly, day 1 and already deserted? Figured people would be down doing achieves at the very least. Especially if there’s exclusive loot from the legendary bags.

I’m only doing it with a guild having the map full only off guild members, 2 out of the 3 legendaries are a pain to deal with in a pug run, the candy legendary elemental love his projectiles that knockback and deal about 75% of your health if your zerker, so if you don’t reflect him he tends to wipe the raid.

The other annoying one has the tendency to AOE fear the zerg for 90% of their max health, besides gaining retaliation and summoning small mobs that also have retaliation if not killed ASAP

So doing it with a pug group as you can imagine is pretty annoying unless you only go for the other doors

The secret for the lich is that you need to stack up retaliation/reflect on the zerg. The order of operations last year was, gather at the door, push him into the house, beat down on him along with retaliation and every condition up. When the adds come they die quickly and everyone only takes a portion of the retaliation damage because no one person is focused on them for long. Rinse, repeat. If anyone screws up the zerg retaliations/reflects, then it gets sticky.

I guess not…………

Sorin.4310:

Black Frog.9274:

eyestrain.3056:

A city with blocks and alleyways- DR, Ebonhawke or LA. LA is the only place with a bay. The NPCs in LA are also currently hotly punishing looters after the destruction of the city. The object he wanted he had to steal, maybe from the merchants. He’s two blocks away from the bay, and may have come from near the sewers- So near where the mystic forge used to be. This failed theft takes place two days after he acquires the ghostly item from a merchant.

Lion’s Arch is not on a bay. It’s on a harbor. Google GW2 Bay and you’ll see there are a limited number of “bays” in Tyria. However, one of them is notably in Southsun…

Harbors and bays are not mutually exclusive. In fact, a lot of harbors are built on bays – LA included.

A harbor is different from and separate from a bay. A harbor might be located IN a bay, but they are still different things. (http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-among-gulfs-bays-harbors-and-coves). For our purposes in this thread, what matters is whether John is making such a distinction. If he is drawing particular attention to a bay, then there a limited number of possibilities. If he is just making reference to a body of water that adjoins the sea, then it’s not as useful a clue. The fact that all the karka references work well with the bay reference (though not with the alley reference) may be important. The real question is whether John realizes (or cares) about the distinction.

eyestrain.3056:

A city with blocks and alleyways- DR, Ebonhawke or LA. LA is the only place with a bay. The NPCs in LA are also currently hotly punishing looters after the destruction of the city. The object he wanted he had to steal, maybe from the merchants. He’s two blocks away from the bay, and may have come from near the sewers- So near where the mystic forge used to be. This failed theft takes place two days after he acquires the ghostly item from a merchant.

Lion’s Arch is not on a bay. It’s on a harbor. Google GW2 Bay and you’ll see there are a limited number of “bays” in Tyria. However, one of them is notably in Southsun…

Is there no sub forum for the Halloween stuff this year? Or are we supposed to post under Living World (even though that doesn’t really fit)?

Flowers don’t work with any of the other suggested items and neither do karka shells. So either the other suggested items are wrong or those two items are wrong.

For the record, I also tried both the recipe and the actual potion of http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recipe:_Ascalon_Ghost_Potion. Neither is a legitimate item for the forge.

Worth noting is that southsun is one of the few places with an actual named Bay. Though nothing with alleys (hint 2).

silly suggestion and shame on ANET for considering it at any point. you buy the game, you get to participate in it, whether thats on the forums or on a map.

Duncanmix.5238:

Yes second item is most likely Elonian Wine. Cylindrical, sealed, can see reflection, is favorite of Zomorros.

First item is still harder to figure out.

It’s the first item that is cylindrical. He has it when he fails to get the second item on the first attempt.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

John Smith.4610:

edit 5:
Lemark was in high spirits, it had been a productive week. After a series of failures his luck had turned. He stared at his own reflection in the item, such a trivial thing by itself, but with many, there was power. Zomorros knew it as well, Lemark had seen the desire in his eyes before, this was one of his favorites.

Clearly we’re on the right track as “spirits” refers to “ghost” and “productive” to “money” which a doubloon is . . . so it has to be part of this!

It said ghostly and “sinister.” I don’t think wine qualifies as sinister. If John is a crosswords fan, though, it might be a left hand reference.

Assuming the words are exact match “ghostly” only has a couple of possibilities. “Ghost” extends the number, but not by a lot. It gets dicey if that’s not an exact match word, but I can’t help but think of ectoplasm.

The second one depends a lot on whether the use of the word “bay” was intentional or not and whether or not mention of alleys was specific. There are only a few “bays” in Tyria, and none of them have anything like a city/town with alleys. If it’s a non-specific reference to a body of water directly on the ocean, it opens it up to the southern part of the map. Of the bay options, Quetzal and Ventry both have a number of regular and karma merchants. Of those, Azintli (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Atzintli) has a heritage related item.

pdavis.8031:

Very nice John, you’ve offically piqued my interested with the story bits.

To sum up of what I get out of these clues:
“Lemark wasn’t much of a haggler. the merchant had taken almost every copper he owned, but it was worth it. He was positive this time, no more fakes, no more copies, forgeries or lies, this was it. He could feel it, sinister…ghostly, it felt weird to hold, but he didn’t care, his journey was one quarter complete.”

-Its an expensive NPC merchant item (John Smith: “the mentioning of copper isn’t intended as additional information”)
-It’s part of a guaranteed recipe, not RNG.
-It’s of a ghostly nature.

“Lemark sprinted down the alleyway, an endeavor likely to leave one examining refuse closer than generally preferable, but this wasn’t his first time. He slowed for a moment to glance behind him, merchants still chasing with guards closely behind them. He was surprised they hadn’t given up, they must be very sensitive about their heritage here, the item itself was a bit too everyday to inspire this kind of rage. “Two more blocks”, he thought to himself, double-checking the sealed, cylindrical case he carried. His attempted thievery had failed, for today, but he wasn’t going to lose what he had to the muddy waters of the bay.”

-He is in a city/town/village that is prosperous enough to have both merchants AND guards.
-The place is of a dubious cultural heritage, one that the locals feel VERY strongly about.
-The item is something mundane, yet has enough significance to cause problems, and closely guarded.
-He needs to travel at least some portion underwater to get to it.

It sounds more like the first item is a recipe (written on paper and carefully rolled up so it doesn’t get damaged). The second item sounds like it’s nothing crazy special but that they are sensitive about it because it’s tied to the heritage of the NPCs selling it. Near a bay makes me think Hylek.

I’ve run into variations on these sorts of things because I can’t join TS. I’m deaf. But when you tell people that, you generally get a lot of negative attention, called a liar, etc. It’s disheartening and annoying. It’s made participating in WvW a challenge as well.

This may be a reference to the U.N.I.T. event. It has nothing to do with bags or champ farming (though I don’t know for sure in this particular case). This is an event that has Giants as the enemy at the first part of the event. The more players involved the more Giants show up, up to 7. They aren’t champs or vets. This is the only way to make any progress on the Giant Slayer achievement in less than a several year time frame. Since there are only 3 other giants, all are champs, killing them is time consuming, and they respawn over a much longer time.

If U.N.I.T is killed and the event fails, the respawn time is approximately 6 minutes from his death. If the event doesn’t fail, the respawn time is around 11 or 12 minutes. Not a big deal. But, the problem with the event being successful is that if no player shoots the final container to free UNIT’s master, but instead UNIT frees him, the event bugs, and it NEVER finishes. In the past, there have been some players who troll the giant slayers this way. (maybe I shouldn’t have given them any ideas but maybe ANET can fix the event)

warriorjrd.8695:

If you’re going to use the hockey in the street analogy, imagine a car that just follows you around wherever you try and play and parks in the middle of your area. Just because he can. The hockey players even go out of their way to avoid cars, but this one car just follows them around and harasses them because he can. The players did nothing to him, but the car can, so he does.

Not the greatest of logic. “because I can” won’t get you far in life if that’s your main argument for things.

If you go play on a rink or in a field, the car isn’t going to follow you around without breaking some laws. Bad attempt to extend the analogy. If you keep moving from street to street and a car keeps following you, well, you can do what you want, and so can the person in the car.

This whole discussion is silly. Duelers should accept they’re going to get ganked/interrupted and solo players interrupting a duel should be prepared to die alone. It’s pretty simple to understand.

Dahkeus.8243:

So, it looks like ANet is trying to buff venoms again. This time, they’re just putting a flat cooldown reduction on all venoms.

I can’t find anything about this. Is it an unsubstantiated rumor being used as an opportunity to present improvements? I’d like to read the original information very much.

Where is the information about reduced CD coming from? I can’t seem to find it, but maybe my Forumfu sucks.

The first or second time I tried WvW I ran into some duelers. The guy explained that the place to go for that was the windmill on the hill behind the s camp. I’ve only seen one duel outside of that area. In that instance, the guy from the other server won the duel, moved off back to his tower, but then came with his buddies to gank me when I tried to rez the downed player. I don’t intend to honor any future duel situations in the main battle space.

It’s an interesting video and an interesting premise. It doesn’t do anything for your argument about condi thief being OP. If you aren’t winning the overwhelming majority of the time, it’s hardly OP. What I found interesting about the video is that in most cases, your opponents made no real attempt to disengage and escape, which makes me think they were arranged 1v1s. Mobility and tactical retreat are part of the game too.

I personally have no opinion on whether it’s OP or not. If you wanted to convince someone like me it was OP, grab some weapons and win against the most cleanse-y, AoE spamming, long range weapon classes. Even then I’d be sceptical since it’s 1v1. I don’t see a lot of hordes of condi, SB thieves wiping out zergs in large scale WvW fights. You’d think there would be if it was that OP.

Still fun premise and I’m totally copying part of your build.

mango.9267:

Narkodx.1472:

LOL

mango stop defending these “PvPers” that you embarrass in these videos

I had to watch it again because I am simply so amazed how bad people are at this game

I’m just trying to be fair. For example, I dueled the d/d ele at the end of the video 3 or 4 times, and the fight in the video was the only one I won. It was the first fight, and I caught him off-guard with my playstyle/build. It can happen to everyone, including competent players.

By nature, these videos never do the opponents justice because I only select clips where I win. The opponents clearly make mistakes in the clips, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad players in general.

So in this post you completely invalidate your initial claim “because condi teef isn’t OP.” You selectively chose videos in which you won and admit that anyone who is remotely prepared will either win or retreat. Weird.

Still, entertaining build.

Bob the Janitor.8729:

Been playing a warrior for a while now. I found this is a good build. If you can dish it out, get ready to take it in.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJUQNBMhFakojKPr7wxDORD8DUmfgAYBOXBDeKo6NA-TRSAABF4JAUwJAokyPeUDYr9HAwhAEh5vMV9xClgkCgrhVA-e

So why would you have physical training?

I hear you, but it still seems like the slots/food/whatever have too much overlap and some other cool stuff is lost in the mix. Might is the reason why I’ve been traiting Power of Inertia for so long, but it seems like at 35 a stack there’s a huge chunk of your build being poured into maintaining a boon you can get a lot of different ways. Still, it got me thinking about synergizing a few things.

I’ve been running a crit heavy, life stealing build in WvW. I suck btw, and 1v1 or outnumbered is waaaaay out of my league. I’m little more than a button masher. I basically consider myself DPS machine gun support and interceptor/tackle. But in large scale combat (and especially in closed spaces or other places with limited distance), I can lay down some serious damage. Once I started running it, I found that I stayed alive much longer than previously, even with conditions, provided that I could keep on firing. With high precision and Fury, I get ~90% crit. With the life steal food at 66% and near 100% crit, that means ~40 to 50% of the time I’m stealing life. Add in the Invigorating Precision and Signet of Malice and straight up health is not an issue. It’s also nice that Life Steal gets past armor. However, when the initiative runs out and the conditions hit, I’ve got a serious problem. After looking at your build and thinking things through, I added a touch of Vigor and linked up some benefits for using the Heal skill and will try a new rune set for more cleanse.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZQQRAqa6al8Mp3pNOxwJ8PNRORt9DEALonXxU05REXA-TRDBABlfQAqRzwWKFOSJmh6B0SZwCm4Ca/BAeAAEp+TInBgJUCylSiAAIAcdT+xQKgyFGB-e

In zerg situations, Signet of Malice is a must because you never know how many people have Retribution. But, Withdraw would be good for all other situations. Then I could trade out RFI for something else. Or, with both RFI and Withdraw, I could swap Fleet of Foot for Power of Inertia and add to the Assassin’s Signet (which equals ~5 stacks of POI, is passive, and requires no upkeep).

Now for some shopping.

edit: for fun i also used your doubled pistol sets. i’ve got LOTS of extra pistol sets LOL

I’ve played almost exclusively as a P/P thief (check my posting history). I’m a fan of anyone as dedicated to the set as I am. I know how important dodge is. Buuut…

Here are all of the Endurance boosts in your build:

Heal = 6.5 seconds of Vigor
Heal = 50% endurance replenished
Bountiful Theft = 13 secs of Vigor
Feline Grace = 35 endurance used per dodge
SSoE swap = 50% endurance replenished
Food = 40% increase endurance regeneration

Vigor gives you the max regeneration of 10 per second.

The food would give you a total of 7 per second. But, it doesn’t stack with Vigor, so it’s wasted while Vigor is active.

If your endurance was totally empty and then you did Steal and then Withdraw, you’d get 50 endurance immediately and the remaining 50 over the next 5 seconds. You’d still have ~14 seconds of Vigor remaining. That’s almost exactly how much time you’d have left on your Withdraw cooldown. You heal again, you get 6 more seconds, which extends until your Steal cooldown ends (the times are pretty close), which means that you would effectively have perma Vigor.

With the addition of Feline Grace, you’re using 35 endurance per dodge. With Vigor, that’s 3.5 seconds to get back each dodge. You’ll never empty your endurance under real conditions, and you’ve got to actually fire those pistols at some point, so everything else is pretty much wasted.

With your pistols (I’ve actually thought about doing what you’ve done with swaps and cleanse on both sets), you can swap every 10 seconds. Soldier runes would get 9 seconds. If you kept both sets of guns, but only the SSoE on one, plus the Heal improvements, I think you’d probably have more Endurance than you’ll ever actually use. Then you could take Ricochet, put the SSoE on your second pistol set and and Accuracy on your primary set.

In fact, I’m going to use the ideas you’ve given me here to tweak a build I’ve been working on. I think this may be part of the missing link I’ve been looking for.

It’s an interesting experiment, but it seems to go a little too far with all the sources of Endurance. That may have been what the other guy was getting at. It sure looks like you’ve got enough sources of Endurance that you could get Ricochet and still have more than enough. I would be tempted to swap one of the other sources for something else as well.

It definitely got me thinking about ways to improve endurance. I personally use 4 in acro and the agility sigil to gas up when I need it bad.

turn it into a control. you flip over the enemy while grabbing them by the neck and flipping them to the ground

@Arikyali

I’m not super knowledgeable about builds, but I have trouble seeing the real benefit of Shadow’s embrace. It’s one condition per 3 seconds and you rarely get more than 4 seconds of stealth. Combined with the cooldowns on the stealth skills, that’s not a whole lot of cleansing. I guess it works if you’re simultaneously running away, but if you’ve got multiple conditions and one of them is chill or cripple, it doesn’t seem like you’d be getting a lot out of the trait. I see it a lot in builds, so I’m guessing someone is finding a use for it, but I often wonder if people use it because there just so few cleanses for thieves.

I pretty much only play thief. I’ve been through all the nerfs and I primarily use P/P (i know, i know, i’m a glutton for punishment). A lot of what people hate about thieves and a lot of what thieves hate about all the nerfs could potentially be resolved by revisiting the stealth mechanic.

Instead of total invisibility and thus untargetability, I’d trade it for some sort of “shadow” type of stealth. We would be visible and targetable but making the thief hard to hit (glancing blows). Through traits/boons/whatever, have this shadow ability provide some of the healing and cleansing it so badly needs or perhaps, in the spirit of the glancing blows, reducing duration or damage from conditions.