Guild Wars 2

I feel like it has helped S/D compete a little more since that weapon set relies on proper use of your Ini, yes you won’t spam your Skills like other weapon sets and get the full 15% buff right away but as the fight prolongs you will constantly be able to sustain the 15% buff.

It’s cheaper and more convenient than Master Salvage Kits, it is more expensive than Mystic Salvage Kits if you forget about the Mystic Stones needed for the Mystic Kits, it is just the convenience at that point never running out and takes up less bag space and has even more added value if put in the free Shared inventory slot provided with HoT now

Myralien.6754:

I dont think it’s HoT only, as it doesn’t actually have a “portal” enterence, it has a DR style lift portal.

As for only bring useful to raiders… hardly.. it’s an amazing tool for anyone that wants to train a new rotation on a proper pve target dummy that allows you to use your pve gear and gives you access to every class buff.
The only things can think of that it would be nice to have is a selection of dummy food and a healing calculator.

You can’t enter the lift without Hot and the dps golem is behind a portal

roamzero.9486:

Boon spam has been a gameplay safe-haven for a long time now so its no wonder people abuse it. Nearly everything else except aoe-spam has been pumped full of counters (from direct damage to condi damage to projectiles). I wonder if the Thief changes will make a difference.

The Thief changes were a nerf, Larcenous Strike received a nerf when they increased the Initiative Cost, so it’s 6 total now when it was 5 before when it originally ripped 2 boons before Aug 2014.

Making S/D the most initiative Heavy weapon set with 21 total initiative Cost with only an Initiative pool of 12 or 15 traited. If they would balance ini costs around a 12 Ini pool then Thieves would be able to actually help with the prevalent Boon spam.

babazhook.6805:

I just wish there an easier way of determining just how many seconds off steal cooldown that swindlers gets you in a typical fight. I can only go by feel and it seems to me to be around 4 seconds. Any others input appreciated.

I do find that this goes UP depending on what profession you fight. Ie a mesmer allows more evade chances which dovetails nicely into more plasma and resistance. Those condi mesmers are easier to deal with now.

Iirc it was 1% of max duration but with the Patch it reduced it to 1 Second

This is the builds I have been testing.

I have been running the DA/Trick/DD which has been working a bit, will be testing a DA/Acro/Trick build to try and maximize Steal spamming, see if it can be close to viable or not.

This one is Acro/Trick/DD, have been swapping around the Bountiful Theft and Trickster to see which I prefer more, as well as testing between PI and EA in DD.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVn0MBlOhFmCGOB8Phlriq7mmuAwbDGhPY+5z+tH-TJBFABIt/ABnAAAeAAiXGAA

Lord Kuru.3685:

Circular argument much?

How is this circular? Raids are exclusive to HoT, the DPS training area is exclusive to the Raid Lobby, therefore you cannot enter the Raid Lobby and in extension the DPS Training Area if you do not have HoT.

TexZero.7910:

Sarrs.4831:

And I thought the other thread closing would be the end of that.

Except that for whatever reason, it was re-opened.

Take that for what you will.

The other thread is still closed.

slashlizardy.9167:

On this we will disagree red, when I am in the map, I wanna be free to chill out with friends on TS, and to pay more attention to chat that any loose npcs. Especially 2 vets parked right at the spot I need to be in order to jump to a mastery that is prolly gonna kill me anyways. In beta the masteries were alot easier to find and get to.

You are literally asking them to nerf the game just so you can get rewards/progress without actually paying attention to the game

Withdraw or Channeled Vigor, are the most used,

Withdraw instant, removes movement impairing effects is an evade, very low Cd.

Channeled Vigor has very short cast time, restores Endurance as well as heal Short CD, can be trained to restore more Endurance and Shorten CD.

All others have grossly long CDs and cast times.

Some Condi troll build use Signet of Malice for passive only

Percent damage doesn’t show in character panel

Yeah, I have been messing around with it as well as a S/D build

Or they standardized the amount stolen instead of having varying values across different skill/items

MadRabbit.3179:

I don’t get the responses to Lead Attacks. It caps at 15%, which makes Trickery competitive now with Critical Strikes; the damage multipliers in DA are better.

I’m not dropping Critical Strikes for Trickery for a power build.

The only significance it has is the fact that it now boosts condi damage, which gives a second multiplier for condi damage besides Lotus. I think it was needed for condi builds in PvE; I can understand the QQ if you dont like the playstyle in PvP.

Wouldn’t Trickery provide more sustained Damage over DA due to Executioner on activating at 50% health? Looking at this from more of a pvp/WvW standpoint.

babazhook.6805:

Consider pressure strike. That soh on interrupt will put on torment and confusion which is ultimately better then BA.

Distracting daggers works best at close range. A PI with added torment and confusion on a single attack can be quite effective. It weak in the poison and bleed department so I am not sure the added confusion necessarily worth that loss in power without something else condition wise to help out.

While executioner works well and proably best for that build Improv is not half bad here either. There a decent chance of a skill reset and stealing something like fear off a Necro is more interrupts that can work on multiple players. I have gotten some sweet heals off this with draining and what is effectively an AOE torment is always nice.

A lot of course depends on any changes that might happen to stability today.

So more along the line of this? I added Pressure striking and Caltrops to provide more Condi coverage. Possibly change Havoc master to Brawler’s Tenacity to reduce distracting Daggers CD?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZEQNAoaVn0MBlOhNmC+OB8PhFYCz7LsoaDzdwTYLULBEA2NA-T1iFABLqqC76D2TJIw7PswRAYYlH5qETgTAA/qVo/DAAgDBApAWUXF-w

Here is a little build I have been tweaking the last few days, wanted to test a hybrid roamer build using the Perplexity cheese, any input is helpful.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZEQNAoaVn0MBlOhNmC+OB8PhFYCTLBEAyAephzQbYuDeCbhA-T1iFABAv/QuKxYXfwCHBAAOEACcCA0/BAwvaFLqqyeKBHW5BpAWUXF-w

For beginning raids, you can get away with Exotic armor with Ascended Trinkets and weapons, is a good baseline, I would suggest checking out the Metabattle to get a warm and fuzzy about the specs and build you will be running for each class respectively that you will be raiding on. Some pugs will require full ascended but that is the Nature of PuGs.

I did find a way in WvW to get to 92% damage but idk if I would ever try it,

It will also make you immob while it ports you

Hell I’ll do one better, make the Condi clear whenever you use a shadowstep a trait, and make it affect all Shadowstep abilities. Muahahahaha

I never spend time reading what SuperKorean writes but this one gave me a laugh.

So if my maths is correct it would look like this. 1.02*1.04*1.06*1.2= approx 1.349, so it would be around 34.9% now with that in mind if you run Sigil of Force and DD Havok master you can reach approx 51.6% damage increase.

Yes, effects work together, no they do not stack additively, they work multiplicatively.

They just need to make all Divisions lose able, then you would get a league system based on skill

Looks like art work for a Revenant as well so the t3 cultural would fit

Shaogin.2679:

Yeah, I love how any nerfs to Reaper have been conveniently left out here.

And conveniently tries to say Thieves do as much damage as 4 DH traps, when Thieves can be considered the Reapers hard counter. I find it funny since I haven’t seen a thief do 16k in one shot like DH traps stacked lol. People like him make me not take the Forums seriously and only go on to have some laughs.

MadVisions.4529:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Do you think Runes of Exuberance could be good in WvW or stick with Pack runes?

both runes give a decent amount of stat. In wvw i use scrapper runes for more sustan couse you can get decent amount of HP from gear. Scrapper helps a LOT vs power damage wich is the most common there.

Ok, yeah I have been wanting to switch it up from D/P I was running a perplex build and want something different. I will look at setting for an S/D build using Maurauders

I find it funny you give Ohoni a direct quote from a Dev and he says that doesn’t count…. You can never reason with people like that.

Do you think Runes of Exuberance could be good in WvW or stick with Pack runes?

STIHL.2489:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Hmm not sustainable but a lot of my friends and I are still here and so are many more and you can’t say raiders don’t have turn over new players wanton to raid come in all the time and leave the same as casuals so there goes that issue.

and the gearing aspect is a non issue since players can hear up in the required gear for any hard content minus high level fractals by logging in and Buying/crafting exotics from multiple game modes. With other MMOs like WoW yes gearing was an issue that doesn’t exist in this game as been proven with “hard” content ( raid clears in full exotics/ and by 5 man groups.) you don’t need the best in slot gear to compete in raids, and if you try to use the casuals aren’t as skillful as raiders would be another fallacy, since casuals is a title for a style of player not the skill of the player, if you try to rebuttal the gear argument for raids.

I always love these kinds of posts where people start off with talking about how the game needs hard, challenging content for their skilled elite vets, and then do a full reversal to try and say that the content is not really hard or challenging.

It’s harder than anything in game, you guys are the ones claiming it is so hard that it is inaccessible, which the hardest part is learning mechanics and do a rotation of phases, really not that hard but it is hard compared to the 1111 spam you are wanting to be in everything in game, it is challenging if you want the achievements for said content and as always the longer content is out it is no longer challenging because of player experience and developed SoPs for efficient clearing of said content. Hence why you can clear content with only 5 players or in the bare minimum gear required to be effective in raids.

STIHL.2489:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

STIHL.2489:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I am not suggesting that GW2 raiders can sustain the game. Rather, they can help sustain the game.

I hear people say this all the time. But I have not seen anyone generate a convincing point as to why they believe this, or what they base this upon.

Historically, even games that have built a reputation around raiding and providing harder content, can’t sustain themselves in this direction because invariably at some point the content will become too demanding and thus burn out the players.

Veteran Players will change, their life will change, they will need to redirect focus, they will need to realize they can’t invest time into MMO’s like they used, which was a massive attraction of GW2 to many players who had played games like WoW for years, and simply could not maintain that investment. As such, we can see, even from a Juggernaut like WoW, that Raids, and increasingly difficulty content are simply not sustainable in and of their own right.

So I am wondering. How, exactly, will raids help sustain this game, when they have not done so for any other MMO in history?

Raids offer content that appeal to certain demographics, Gw2 having this option of gameplay entices those players to play, if fresh content is released for said demographic they can sustain gaining players while losing players, every game has players comin and going constantly, not providing this option of play would not net players joining to see if they enjoy the raid designs.

And your casual open world easy content didn’t keep players, a lot of players left due to no challenging content, so even that model is not sustainable, the player base has been on a huge decline well before HoT and raids were released.

Actually, casual content is sustainable, due to inherent turn over, you replace casual people, with more casual people. There is no point they need to get to, so they there is no process of turn over to maintain.

Which is the problem with “end game” content, see an End Game Player is not something that comes to a game, it is something that only Goes.

Natural Turn Over will result in replacing an end-game player with a new-starting-player.

Now you can look at any MMO in history, and unfortunately they all pretty much end up following a similar pattern. If they have any longevity at all, they will always start to make “Harder End Game Content” to placate their Veteran Players who have already consumed and beat all their other content.

But, again, due to Turn Over, which is a natural and healthy part of any MMO, they lose those “End Game Players”.

This is where the problems start, they are now forced to buffer those ranks and voids in their wonderful and perhaps expanse end game content with the new players that come in.

Designers become forced to find ways to rush these new players to the end of the game, so that the end game does not look barren.

This always results in new players being literally handed gear, ranks, and everything they need to be competitive at that content, often gifted with items that the existing veteran population had to work for.

They need to fill the ranks so that the end game does not die out, which will happen, simply because Veteran Players are not renewable, you can’t just get more veteran players, You only get new players that you hope to become veterans. But that takes time, and in the meantime, there will be an endless streamof how the “end game” is becoming barren and dead. And that may lead to more Turn-over for the end game players.

So every game is stuck with that problem.

So, what ends up happening? They try to rush their new players into the ‘end-game’ content to stall any feeling of “This game is dying”

but, in doing so, they have to gear those players, and this often builds resentment, and issues of new players, now popped up to max level and geared appropriately, lacking the skill and understanding of the game mechanics, to really buffer the ranks of the departed Veteran Players. Thus a whole new problem arises of vets vs noobs.

Guess who wins that Face Off? That’s right, the New Players, because like it or not, vets are not Sustainable, they have a turn over, and no replacement.

So, what happens, well the new players, really don’t have the skill, to do the content, and since they were up to that point, handed everything on a silver platter, they will often lack the inclination to actually now have to work for anything, opt to move on.

So the game will need to nerf the content, to be accessible to these rushed to cap new players.

Every Game that has had “End Game” Content, has followed this pattern, no one is immune, not even WoW.

Hmm not sustainable but a lot of my friends and I are still here and so are many more and you can’t say raiders don’t have turn over new players wanton to raid come in all the time and leave the same as casuals so there goes that issue.

and the gearing aspect is a non issue since players can hear up in the required gear for any hard content minus high level fractals by logging in and Buying/crafting exotics from multiple game modes. With other MMOs like WoW yes gearing was an issue that doesn’t exist in this game as been proven with “hard” content ( raid clears in full exotics/ and by 5 man groups.) you don’t need the best in slot gear to compete in raids, and if you try to use the casuals aren’t as skillful as raiders would be another fallacy, since casuals is a title for a style of player not the skill of the player, if you try to rebuttal the gear argument for raids.

STIHL.2489:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I am not suggesting that GW2 raiders can sustain the game. Rather, they can help sustain the game.

I hear people say this all the time. But I have not seen anyone generate a convincing point as to why they believe this, or what they base this upon.

Historically, even games that have built a reputation around raiding and providing harder content, can’t sustain themselves in this direction because invariably at some point the content will become too demanding and thus burn out the players.

Veteran Players will change, their life will change, they will need to redirect focus, they will need to realize they can’t invest time into MMO’s like they used, which was a massive attraction of GW2 to many players who had played games like WoW for years, and simply could not maintain that investment. As such, we can see, even from a Juggernaut like WoW, that Raids, and increasingly difficulty content are simply not sustainable in and of their own right.

So I am wondering. How, exactly, will raids help sustain this game, when they have not done so for any other MMO in history?

Raids offer content that appeal to certain demographics, Gw2 having this option of gameplay entices those players to play, if fresh content is released for said demographic they can sustain gaining players while losing players, every game has players comin and going constantly, not providing this option of play would not net players joining to see if they enjoy the raid designs.

And your casual open world easy content didn’t keep players, a lot of players left due to no challenging content, so even that model is not sustainable, the player base has been on a huge decline well before HoT and raids were released.

I bet he’s a Reaper and gets mad that his OP class gets rekt by Thieves. And wants to eliminate the only class he’s not able to kill by face roll.

Because people like to blame others instead of blaming their own inability, DB kills lots of thieves, because the evades last no where near as long as the animation so they are sitting ducks, any immob or CC will kill a thief running this build. But it’s the thief player being cheesy, yet you still have Trapper DHs, Cele Eles, Gunflame Warriors and so on running around but those aren’t cheesy in the slightest.

The reason why there are different teams is so each can push out different content consistently, it’s not the raid teams fault that the other teams aren’t pushing out content as fast, you guys saying they should scrap the rid them nd put them into other teams would be taking away from the people that enjoy that content.

warherox.7943:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

warherox.7943:

Give steal a .25 second cast time. Sadly it would never happen.

That would be one of the worst things possible, and no reason for it.

Seeing how many players combo skills with steal, yes there is absolutely a reason for it. Why be positioned properly when you can just use steal mid cast of your skill?

And you act as though other classes can’t combo class mechanics that are insta cast? Like Mesmer, or combo class mechanics with cast times and skills that are instant like DH virtues and traps? Yeah good argument there

Rednik.3809:

TexZero.7910:

Good thing you don’t have to believe it. However, you inability to believe doesn’t change the facts. We know from the boss himself the full time raid team is no more than 5 members. With some assistance from others sure, no one is denying that. However if you want to place blame on a handful of people then you are misguided when there’s another 200 people at that company and 70 of which are already started on the 2nd expansion. The very source of the problem called putting the cart before the horse.

So please get off your crusading high horse. If you want to state your displeasure for the company / its structure fine, but if you cannot be objective about raids being a good or bad idea why even bother posting ?

And its not about believing or not. As I said, its all about pure facts. We getting raid content and we not getting other content. We getting information about Anet happy with locking exclusive types of items behind raids and NO word about adding anything else for anyone else.
It’s literally “Eat raid or gtfo. What, you don’t like raids or like something else? Too bad, because you not getting anything else. Oh, and we plan to add more raid content, hope you like raids.”

Really no word I believe there’s a big WvW overhaul coming up, LS should be getting an update soon, and iirc HoT had nothing for raiders until a month after launch, yes there has been a drought but they have multiple teams working on multiple projects, i.e. Raid team and sPvP team, all have released content, that does not mean they have been taking resources from other Teams.

warherox.7943:

Give steal a .25 second cast time. Sadly it would never happen.

That would be one of the worst things possible, and no reason for it.

The Shadow arts trait line is one of the most under utilized trait lines Thieves have same with Acro, most thieves run DA/Tri/DD, or DA/Tri/DD or sometimes you get the troll build of Acro/DA/DD or Acro/Tri/DD. And even using the Acro/ SA trait lines in today’s meta their sustain is laughable, with the amount of reveal being tossed around SA is negated almost completely, Acro still doesn’t hold a flame to DD, having both can be very redundant, and having 12 evades is nothing compared to all the passive procs other class for invulnerability on top of there active invuln skills

Baha Thief and sustain this made my month

Only play thief in Raids if you are in a dedicated raid guild/group, since it is mainly dps with little to no utility outside of Venomashare Thief, I would say level your Ele and Druid to be able to have multiple roles as needed, if you feel like it try leveling a Chrono as well, they can provide two different roles in the same Gearset minus Trinkets.

Having the proper ascended weapons and trinkets are essential, you can get away with Exotic weapons. Proper runes/sigils are imperative as well as food buffs.

The biggest thing is to read/watch guides on the encounters as well as your role/class.

MadVisions.4529:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Very nicely done

thx

BlaqueFyre.5678:

D/D and cheesing through Diamond

you mean condi? newer enjoyed that :P gl on legend though!

I don’t care too much for the Condi playstyle, it is effective though and it helps against the more unfavorable match ups, I have been able to take on two Revs at once, which was hard with them both using their Staff 5. I will try S/D out again it was up until recently I never played the other builds that much because I preferred S/D more, but when I hit legendary I will test out your build it seems like it would be a good fit.

Chaotic.9742:

Went through diamond to legendary with this in two queue sessions:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8lCFOhdmCmOBkmilWCb+EuCfhelh2QKSLAcAWAA-TpxCABHfCAq4QAg3+DaVGAgHAw8HBAA

This is very similar to my build and does well for thieves, especially against unfavorable match ups against Mesmers and Revs.

Rivindor.7258:

I’ve had a max size Charr Warrior since early access days and liked him because I felt it added an intimidation factor.

Nowadays though I’m trying to get better at dueling and pvp solo queue and I keep wondering if the fact I’m such a big target is giving me a disadvantage? Is there a reason everyone seems to of transferred over to only playing humans and asura, or is this purely for aesthetic reasons?

As far as I can tell most players play with the standard models active in sPvP, granted it doesn’t work in unranked, and most players prefer humans as a race.

Ricky.4706:

actually, thanks for that ……I wasn’t seeing “invulnerable” in white, it was red – and they weren’t almost down……they didn’t just come up….. they were simply invulnerable, then I saw like 5 consecutive evades, followed up by another 5+ blocks ….

I don’t even mean “Like” a god mode, I mean, actually a god mode, completely untouchable – for a long time… it was quite extreme else I wouldn’t even ask.

What class(es) were you up against, if Chronomancer was involved they can provide distortion to themselves and teammates to grant Invulnerability, they can Blurred Frenzy to evade, then use Shield 4 for a channeled block.

This would give you higher sustain in fights, you won’t be able to burst anyone down for sure, but the constant pressure you will apply as well as the CCs will benefit you, maybe swap Basi Venom for Impact Strike to give more endurance and shorter CD CC with faster stomps.

Katoh.4069:

Deathrubber.3861:

arent u lacking stunbreakers and some heal considering the lack of stealth?

My idea is that with acrobatics as well as the passive energy regen as well as extra energy from sources you would have around 12+ dodge rolls not counting your normal regen from vigor. The stunbreaker that gives energy would be used for escapes, use that and dodge roll 3 time sin one direction swapping to SB5 and get away. Since dodge rolls do dmg with the talent in daredevil, im doing dmg while I dodge etc.

The Signe of Agility does not stun break, it helps with Condi cleanse, only the Infiltrator Signet stun breaks.

I would swap Havoc Mastery for Brawler’s Tenacity, and Swap Withdraw for Channeled Vigor in this style of build, especially with the Runes of Adventure, it will provide more endurance regen. Possibly swap out Skale venom for Shadow step or Infiltrator’s Signet, with out Stun Breaks Condi thief gets locked down to easily ad Dies.

Very nicely done, makes me want to brush off my S/D set, but right now I have been tuning D/D and cheesing through Diamond

I Main one of these D/D, currently there isn’t much you can do as a Rev 1v1, they are able to dodge everything you throw at them, if they just spam all of their Dodges/Initiative away you can win majority do just that, the smart ones will pace their ini/dodges using the poison procs from Dagger auto to Keep up the pressure while saving dodges and DB for you main attacks. Locking them down is the only way to kill effectively quite a few don’t run stun breaks.