Guild Wars 2

I’d trade a stealth elite for a conditions cleanse elite any day

Original poster hasn’t responded.

Yeah I thought it would be a pretty good rune set but that #6 looks like it’s wasted in it’s current state. Trying to aim a dodge for the purpose of hitting someone is just bizarre. Dodging is generally for moving away from danger, not towards it. Since it occurs at the end of the dodge, I just don’t see how it fits the title of the set “Evasion.” Maybe if they swapped it out for something else like a short burst of stealth or some sort condition cleanse (like Fleet of Foot: dodging removes cripple and weakness) or maybe boosted endurance.

thanks again for all the good posts

I never used it in WvW, but I ran a P/P + S/D poison build for PvE for a very long time. Rampager armor, rings, with Rata Sum runes, PTV other accessories and 5/4/0/2/3. (This was actually before the traits changes). I loved it. In WvW, I suspect it’s pretty easy for people to cleanse themselves, esp running in a zerg, so maybe not so useful.

I’ve been P/P since I started playing, so I’m always looking to make the most of them. After messing around in WvW a bit, I’m finally getting over trying to use stealth in conjunction with P/P. I’m working on the following build, which I think may have a lot of potential.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZQQRAqa4Yl8Mp3pNOxwJ0PNRORt9DEALonXxU0ZPMXA-TxCBABbp04IlYGqfQLlBLYiDgnAARq/EyJAYClgnv/QAHEgAAIAcdT+xQKgyFGB-e

The Assassin’s Signet is just a placeholder for now. Choosing something for that slot is kind of hard. I’m very tempted to finally try to use the Asuran Pain Inverter skill.

edit: D/D is also placeholder from previous build. I’m going with S/D instead.

it would appear that if i had looked up the runes, the crippling strike question was answered in the wiki (i was lazily looking at the build calculator stats).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Evasion

“The sixth bonus (crippling strike) is a player based aoe executed at the end of a dodge roll, doing minor damage and able to hit critically
Crippled: 2 s Radius: 180 "

That’s kind of weird when you think about it. Especially if you’ve got swiftness going, you’re definitely going to land out of range unless you dodge towards the target. Perhaps the intent is not to aid escape from an opponent, but to help tackle an opponent who is running away from you.

thanks for the helpful notes guys

thanks for your input. I’m referring to the Superior Rune of Evasion benefit of “when executing a dodge roll, deal a crippling strike to nearby enemies.” I guess if the trait does it, this effect from the runes probably does to.

I haven’t used these runes yet and before I create some I had two questions I’m hoping someone can answer:

Does the rune’s swiftness bonus stack with Expeditious Dodger (1st item on acrobatic trait line)? Looking at the GW2 wiki, it looks like swiftness always stacks duration, but I just wanted to make sure.

Does the Crippling Strike on dodge effect put you into combat (and therefore slow you down)?

thanks in advance

maybe it should be based on an historical assessment of server participation. The bottom line is that smaller servers and servers with lower overall WvW participation will never be competitive. Even with the tier system, these guys have the sense that there’s no point in playing if they’re going to get their kitten handed to them on a regular basis. Why not let all the servers with the worst historical participation and performance merge into a single WvW team?

I encourage you to hesitate while I gun you down.

I think the problem here is that you’re a human. How would you recognize the subtle characteristics that make Asura attractive to one another? And why would the uber intelligent Asura compromise the effectiveness of armor for the purpose of sexual display?

Classic case of Rule 34. Let fake, virtualized characters remain fake, virtualized characters.

I started playing about 3 months after launch, and I’ve been using P/P since day 1. I primarily do open world pve and I’ve done some wvw.

Here’s my current build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZQQRAqa4YlsMpzpNOxwJ0PRxLhs5oK+tWzJB6LKA-TxCBABHpEzQ9DapMYBTcYpUAgnAAN7PQk6PToEkLlEBcSACAgAw1N5vBRAYLA-e

With the upcoming changes, I think I’m going to change it from 4/4/0/3/3 to 4/4/0/2/4, to get Ricochet. I care less about the bounce (which can be problematic in PvE as it can aggro mobs you want to leave alone) and more about the range increase. I might even drop Acrobatics and put those 2 points elsewhere.

With the bonuses to dual weapons and nice stack of available initiative, I can keep that unload going for a pretty long time. I swap out the Signet of Shadows with a poison or the radiation field to enter combat. I swap the Dagger Storm with Thieves Guild for single targets. I sometimes swap things out for very particular instances, like Scorpion Wire for those Inquest agents during the crystal event in Dry Top. I also often forget to swap out SoS, but have found the blindness useful when timed right. It also combines well with black powder.

I rarely swap to daggers. I almost always use the pistols. I like the concept of perfecting pistols for all situations.

With all the dodging, I avoid a lot of damage. It also helps stack the might and keep swiftness up. On low level maps, I can run full speed with SoS, blast down targets with a single burst, and loot without stopping. Which is nice for dailies.

Best of all is the two pistols blazing animation. I really, really wish they’d add a .45 style pistol skin.

My current build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZQQRAqa4YlsMpztNNxwJ0PRxLhs5oK+tWzDB6LKA-ThCBAB8pfAT1fOa/RJmWKDWwkHAPBgkUSMhSQuUKEwJBIAACAX3kBA-e

it seems to work okay for me. I don’t do WvW very often, but when I do switch out D/D for SB and switch to PTV armor. I make occasional tweaks for specific situations in PvE. With a single champ or something, I lose dagger storm for thieves guild. If some expert could tell me if it sucked or not and why, that would be helpful for tweaking. P/P forever though. I’ve used it since day one as my primary set.

Weird. I was just thinking the same thing as the OP. The patch notes make mention of other builds and builds they would like to see get more play, but I’ve never seen anyone actually say what those other builds are.

So, what are they? What are the builds that the devs feel are viable, synergistic builds?

Please, KUTM, Fraps yourself playing a thief in WvW. I want to see how it’s done. Then we can stop with the endless, pointless counterposting from both sides.

Please don’t post old Yishis videos or videos of you doing ganks while camping spawn points.

It sounds like what a lot of people want is this: https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Fleet_options

The eve system includes almost everything suggested in this thread, with a couple of differences specific to game mechanics (colored tags for example).

As a new wvw player, I’d like to point out a few things from my perspective.

1. I’ve been doing it for two weeks and its already obvious that people with commander tags often feel like they own the map. Certainly not all or even most feel that way, but enough do to make it very, very annoying. If there are multiple capable commanders on a map, they should be able to run with their own groups without the constant screaming of “tag down MFer” by whichever zerglord is currently tagged up. I’d like to be able to choose who I follow, so the suggestions related to those sorts of options are good. However, allowing a commander to form a non-guild-specific group and then restrict access to that group should not be allowed. They’re either commanding for the server and have to deal with their server-mates (good or bad) or they’re commanding for their guild and can do whatever they want.

2. As is common in many games, especially first person shooter team games, voice communication is a big benefit. Well, it’s a benefit for everyone but the hearing impaired. Typing on the fly can be difficult for a commander. It’s understandable they’d want the most efficient communications. However, it doesn’t do the hearing impaired much good to be locked out of that venue. But that’s not the only group affected. Many, many people would rather not be in TS (or whichever app you use) to hear the endless jabber of knuckleheads, the self-important/overserious, and, of course, [insert name of monster that commonly lives under bridges]. If you check out that eve link, you’ll see the Broadcast system. This is a command shorthand for various actions. It stands to reason you could come up with one that would allow a commander to issue non-voice commands in a reasonably efficient manner. It doesn’t get you to “kill that particular mesmer” but it could get you to “attack gate,” “attack wall,” “repair gate,” “go for supplies and return to this point,” “next stop is [name of point],” etc.

3. The gold for commander tag scenario is silly. Just add a new item to the wvw skill list labeled Commander and they can pour points into it. Maybe do like some of the items you can buy (x gold + x honor) and make it x points + x honor.

It’s kind of interesting to see this thread sink down to just before a thread whose last update was 2 days ago. In less than 8 hours. Interesing indeed.

I won’t bother to engage the other posters in debate, but since I’m pretty much done playing, I will say that I agree with several of the OP’s points.

I really, really enjoyed the open world event style of content. I told all my friends about it, they all jumped into the game, and we all loved the concept. But once you’ve run through it, it gets less and less interesting very quickly. The same is true of most of the content I ran or sampled. You can try replaying with a different class or whatever, but its not terribly engaging or exciting to do so. “New Content” is invariably the same as old content, just dressed up differently. A quick comparison between Xmas and April Fool’s event content should be enough to make that clear. For me, this game is essentially a grind fest, but with nothing to really grind for.

I retired from the game I used to play and don’t want to go back, so now I have to find another game. I guess its good that Neverwinter is in open beta. That’s probably where I’ll wind up next.

Until I saw this thread, I had never even SEEN the word unique in game or was aware of what it was or what it might result in. I’ve also never seen any mention of the wiki thing either. I guess that’s what happens when your game is poorly documented and players are forced to produce their own documentation in the form of a wiki. It is laziness and cheapness to force that onto the playerbase.

There are some issues for sure.

-#1 is only useful if your target is near death already and it has a chained effect that only works with #3, which is bizarre. The stealth is short already and using #1 immediately breaks it and you’re unlikely to get a second shot at the chain, which means any other use of #3 is out. I don’t think I’ve ever used the chain except by accident.

-#2 teleport is nice, but the targeting issue is a real problem. If you’re in terrain that has any sort of ripple, hill, dips, you’re unlikely to be able to use the teleport at its maximum range and unlikely to teleport to any real effect. Getting out of a static AoE is nice, but if the enemy then takes 3 steps to finish you off, I don’t much see the point of doing it. It works best in group situations where someone else picks up the aggro or where you have the time to teleport out of line of sight and then stealth with #3. But with the targeting issues, that’s fairly rare and if you’ve given your target a condition, its also unlikely to work without someone to pick up the aggro (see 3 below).

-#3 is essentially useless unless there are many other factors in your favor. It used to be mainly to break aggro. But that rarely works now that they fixed the aggression problem where thieves would stealth and the target would runaway and reset. Since it doesn’t break aggro, without someone else to pick it up, it has no point. Oh I guess there’s the chain with #1, for what that’s worth.

Jack of Tears.9458:

Mostly it got changed, though, because people were screaming about how overpowered it was.

Is there anything about the thief that hasn’t been nerfed all to heck?

I wish someone had told me this at the start: don’t bother with crafting until you’ve leveled to 80. Leveling in this game is so fast and the base gear is so cheap/found, that if you spend two weeks leveling, you’ll be 80 and have a pile of crafting materials. Just run from heart to heart, explore/find the POIs and waypoints, and participate in any events you happen to be next to. You’ll level so fast it’ll make your head spin.

I don’t play my warrior much, but this happend to me yesterday. It appeared to be that the target moved between launching and landing the rush. It still knocked him down, but not at my stop point.

I reply to every one of these threads I see. P/P is awesome in PvE. I use them almost exclusively. I even use them when it’s pretty obvious I shouldn’t, just to push the limit. With signet of agility and dodge based traits, I do great, rarely die, and have quite a bit of fun. I’m asuran so I’ve worked my radiation field into my kiting, which is a great way to kill stuff. I’m currently specced 25/20/0/10/15. I almost always lead off with #1 to get the blood flowing and the 10% bonus damage for targets with a condition immediately kicks in. With spider venom, bleeds, and the radiation field, I can weaken many targets simultaneously while then burning down individual targets to clean up.

Melee may do better damage (I don’t know if it does, because I play for fun, not math problems), but squishy theives who go toe to toe in melee are just going to end up dodging around a lot to stay alive. I’ve never seen anyone do a comparison of how much damage melee actually puts out when you factor in the defensive moves necessary to stay alive. If you run around with another player who can draw aggro consistently, P/P is just pure DPS support in the style of the machine gunner on an infantry squad.

giant snakes ftw

+1

This is very similar to a build I’m refining for P/P. Its basic premise is bleed w/ vital shot, poison with spider’s venom, blast w/ Unload, keep up the Initiative and Endurance, use pistol skills for tactical control, and Dodge for evasion/might/swiftness and range control.

In DA though, I use +33% poison duration and 2 stacks of might with poison application, total points 25 to get the 10% damage bonus with conditions.

I also have 20 in CS, and the same second trait, but for the first trait I have +10% pistol damage.

However, for Acro, I only have 10 and the I’m using Power of Inertia (which is yummy with the Swiftness on Dodge). I’m considering going to 20 and selecting Quick Recovery w/ Fleet of Foot and Pain Response as excellent backups.

I have 15 in Trickery. This is the trait line I’ve been giving a closer look lately. Caltrops on dodge and the extra 3 initiative are both great. However, that 3 initiative is mostly only a benefit for the first onslaught, since the initiative regen rate is the same as usual. The caltrops are very handy, especially for a kiting P/P thief, and they work well with the other dodge benefits to render some pretty awesome range and movement control, plus conditions that feed the +10% bonus from DA’s exposed weakness. However, w/ pistols generating conditions is easy and the caltrops require some finesse to be effective (its pretty common for NPCs to avoid them if they’re not already moving in a straight line or if the caltrops aren’t dropped directly on their square). But I do so loves me my caltrops.

Right now I’m considering shaving 5 each off of DA and Trickery and taking Acro to 20 to maximize the benefits of the increased endurance and initiative regen control, which is really the core of the build when you get right down to it. Well, it’s the core for me, since I focus on P/P and evasion. I rarely even switch out weapons to my S/D (personal preference that is probably foolish in the overall scheme of things).

I generally have HiS for healing/stealth/escape, Spider’s Venom, Signet of Agility, and the third is situational, most commonly Radiation Field (Asura), Assasin’s Signet, and Signet of Shadows. When circumstances are such that mobility is a bad idea or impossible (tunnels, enclosed spaces, or aerial/cliffside venues like jump puzzles w/ NPCs), Agility is swapped out for Shadows. For elite, mostly Dagger Storm, then Thieves Guild or one of my golems (Asura).

I use rampager armor and rings, but PVT for all other accessories and the equivalent upgrades for the rings. I use Rata Sum runes, mostly because Eagle is too expensive, but the radiation field is a nice bonus, especially when you can kite someone in circles within its area of effect. Without food buffs, I’m currently at 61% crit chance, which works well with Unload and Opportunist from CS to help keep that initiative up. The dodge/might/swiftness/caltrop/SoAgility combo is very effective against any NPC trying to close range with you. You keep dodging, he keeps missing, limping, bleeding, and eventually dying about the time you stop moving and let him come close enough to loot when he drops at your feet. I also get a lot of pleasure from kiting with P/P and then suddenly switching to S/D, Infiltrator Strike, CnD, 1, 1, 1, Shadow Return, switch to P/P and burn him down the rest of the way while he tries to close with you. I also do a lot of turning and running back towards an NPC and then evading over them to catch them on the caltrops and escape in the opposite direction, i.e. lead the NPC away from your route of escape then turn and run to escape.

I can’t believe this discussion continues. What rational being would be so foolish as to provide the other races with the tools and knowledge necessary to build their own gates? Even if there WERE those capable of making it into one of our colleges, it would be remarkably foolish to ALLOW them to join. Reading over these ridiculous utterings, I’m beginning to think maybe you lot were all at the bottom of your class!

Considering the number free floating, gravity-defying buildings and other architecture we’ve built, the answer is clearly yes.

Astral Projections.7320:

http://dandyfashioner.blogspot.com/2009/09/art-of-color-what-colors-go-well.html
“Take for example: Blue, Yellow and Red. They form a basic color triangle that will match the colors well. This is why you can wear a navy blazer, a red pocket square and yellow tie with gray slacks or khakis and you will look great.”

For real? Blue jacket, yellow tie, red handkerchief, and gray pants? Maybe I have to actually see this combination but it sounds gawdawful. This piece of fashion advice negates that whole article.

http://www.bows-n-ties.com/mens-fashion-tips/uploads/euro-yellow-ties.jpg

Also, Superman would like a word with you.

In fashion and style terms, blue and yellow go quite well together and have been style choices for quite some time. It would appear that YOU are the one with the bad taste, sir.

relevant example: http://dandyfashioner.blogspot.com/2009/09/art-of-color-what-colors-go-well.html

It’s not a matter of taste; it’s a matter of style.

why have classes at all? Just pick from a list of skills and whatnot and create your own “class”. I’d love for my thief to have access to some of the great warrior melee skills like bull rush and kick. Or better yet, that trait that gives a small AoE with your dodge. Boy, the things a thief could do with that alone are amazing.

I’ve had some weirdness lately too. I recently put together a suit of MF armor for roaming. I trade it out with my good armor when I get to champions and such. Lately (i.e. past week or so), I find that when I put it on, the drop rate seems to go down immediately. Swap back to the regular armor and things seem to get better. Just last night I was thinking to myself, its almost like MF stats have been reversed or something. (I do plenty of fighting and looting, recognize the nature of RNG, and understand the concept of statistical sampling. Leaving MF armor on and getting crap for an hour (which ought to be long enough to trigger DR, if thats the problem), then switching to regular armor and getting reasonably good loot, multiple times over many days, is why I say this at all.)

Lalangamena.3694:

want to spend money?
buy more bank and bag slots?

he’s already said he’s maxed it out. reading ftw

I can’t speak for PvP or WvW, but I loves me my P/P in PvE. I often push the limit by never switching to my other weapons, just to see what I can do with it. You can get up to 6 Unloads in a row with the right build. I use 25/20/0/10/15 (I’m still fine tuning and was previously using a venom heavy build that worked great) and the dodge benefits of might and swiftness combined with the Signet of Agility is a lot of fun.

I’m Asuran so I combine it with Radiation Field and I use Rata Sum for armor, so I get the extra Radiation Field to work with. I use the dodge effects to kite spin NPCs in circles within the radiation field while pumping them full of lead.

You can do a lot with the 4 and 5 depending on the situation. I get a lot of mileage with the blind effect; if you don’t get hit, you don’t have to worry about healing and damage. With Hide in Shadows or other stealth effects, you can stretch your Unload-like attacks with the #1 Sneak Attack. Fun stuff. I love dual pistols. Love. Them.

Vekthor.8914:

I love the fact that I cast it often thanks to Rune of Rata Sum.

+1 for that. A venom thief, ranged weapon dream come true. Rata sum triggers to kill melee NPCs who come close to kill us. With my dodge skills I then kite them in circles, letting them bathe in warm, green radiating poison and weakness.

If you can find a non-Asura who can pass the entrance exams, we can talk. And by talk I mean, figure out how they cheated.

it’s worth noting that laurel vendors have a magic find infusion for ascended gear. 20% is pretty darn good, esp if mixed with food, guild buffs, and the armor you’re looking for. It’s pretty easy to make magic find gear. I did mine for leatherworking, with the rare recipes you get from the master crafter. Rares are also a huge skill point boost and help level crafting quickly if you haven’t already. Not too expensive either, esp if you have a nice stock of supplies built up from adventuring.

Danikat.8537:

You don’t need to hit 400 on any of them to get the monthly. I did it on a mix of Huntsman and Leatherworker and on both I’m just over 100. I think you actually unlock the first Master recipies at about level 50 and you can do it using entirely tier 1 mats.

this^^

Aberrant.6749:

Black Frog.9274:

It’s a changeable trait, so you’d need to do it on the trait section of your character sheet. It’s not a turn on/off button on the main UI however.

Trick shot is a 3 bounce inherent to the short bow. It can not be turned off. He’s not talking about ricochet… which is what I think you were thinking of?

Yes, that is what I was thinking of! My apologies for the bad info

It’s a changeable trait, so you’d need to do it on the trait section of your character sheet. It’s not a turn on/off button on the main UI however.

Totally crazy and unnecessary and no self respecting grind master would care. But for us creative types… I like astromancer pretty well. If you wanted to get picky, that’s more star than space, but it’s still pretty good.

Voidmaster (Asura) , (Asura) Master of the Cosmic Realms, (Asura) the Celestial… after thinking about it. Astromancer works very well. Lots of obvious meaning there plus the concept of the strange meld of magic and science the Asurans use. Only downside is the WoW reference.

All the time. Thief with pistols and radiation field are a natural fit. Weakness is also great for reducing the overall mob DPS.

While it’s true that big hits on thieves are a problem, consider making use of Weakness skills. Weakness grants 50% of Non Critical hits are glancing blows (50% damage).

Rusc.4603:

But the correct plural form is “Thieves,” not “Thiefs,” following the rules that govern over other -f words in English, like “calf,” “scarf,” and “wolf.”

Like many other things in English, this isn’t a rule, just a pattern within a subset of words. It’s not true of “chiefs,” “beliefs,” etc. (http://www.scrabblefinder.com/ends-with/f/). In fact, more words ending in F don’t use “-ves” than do. The subset is mainly “-[short vowel sound]-lf” endings and is a direct result of changes in speech patterns from old/middle English, which would have had an extra syllable sound at the end of the pluralized word, e.g. “shelfes” sounds like “shelf-uss” in the middle English and became “shelves” later on. However, even words that fit this pattern don’t always get the “ves” ending— e.g. “Gulf” and “golf.”

99% of my gaming time is spent on a thief in pve. They’re definitely getting hit while stealthed. It doesn’t happen all the time or with every type of mob, but it’s happening. I don’t think the sky is falling or anything. I’m not too worried about the stealth on offense issues. It’s Hide in Shadows that’s endangered.

Part of the main reason I use stealth through HiS is escape and evasion, not killing things. If you’re still getting hit while you’re stealthed and you just healed when you activated the skill, then you end up coming out of stealth having gained no/little health and you still have aggro. If you happen to have picked up a crippling condition before or during your stealth, you’ve now got a very serious problem. There have been a couple of times when I’ve had to make a snap decision that I could no longer escape at the rate I’m losing HP and had to fight it out toe to toe.

Again, most of the time there’s no issue, but in areas with closely packed mobs that include slow/cripple/knockdown type effects, things get dicey quick and dodging doesn’t help when you just pick up more local aggro. I don’t use any of the other stealth defense tactics, but I imagine they suffer the same type of gimp. If the thief can’t escape effectively and stealth doesn’t help with aggro (in pve) or being untrackable (in wvw), then the thief needs more toughness/vitality and/or stealth in general needs needs to be rethought. Perhaps less focused on the concept of visibility and more on being untargetable or auto-miss (like blindness).

This was supposed to fix the issue with skill point challenges and similar events where you’d get the NPCs health down, stealth for one reason or another (for me it was to heal), then the NPC would actually reset to either green (for skill challenges that work that way) or reset their HP very, very rapidly. Every so often it would happen to lesser mobs who’d instantly reset to their start point with full health, probably something having to do with range from their starting spot. If I stealth and keep getting popped, please explain to me the purpose of the traits that benefit from extended stealth. If I’m supposed to be getting extra healing or regen or whatever, but the NPC is still popping me what, exactly, am I supposed to do? Re-trait? Can’t you guys simply put in a delay before they reset green or regen health? 5 to 8 seconds should do it. They can still start to return to their spot or turn their aggro on someone else, just don’t reset the health so quickly or reset green status. That was the only issue.

Using your class’s primary, defining ability shouldn’t be this problematic.

/rant

I would also like to know what’s up with this. There was a big thread somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.

sostronk.8167:

What if your guild only has one member? Is this going to be achieveable?

excellent question. i’ve been wondering too.

I am so tired of NPCs running back to their start point and resetting health every time I use a stealth ability. This is getting really, really old.

innocens.1582:

pass the dutchie pan the left hand side

it’s “pass the dutchie ’pon the left hand side” as in Upon, shortened

+1

(the minimum character limitation per post is stupid)