Guild Wars 2

If you’re going to be using withdraw, highly recommend centaur runes instead of Scholar. These runes will give you near perma swiftenss allowing you to be faster while also dropping the speed signet. You can replace that with infiltrators signet- a teleport every 30 seconds +8% movespeed outweighs the ferocity and damge buff from scholar runes.

If you’re going 4 in power think 5% dagger damage >sundering strikes trait, and I think you should replace side-strikes with critical haste trait. Side-strikes is weak trait when its combined with hidden killer, and critical haste gives you (a lot) more aa burst after backstab.

I wouldl also run fire/air on your D/P, and maybe energy/air on sword, or accuracy + air instead of accuracy +fire. Other than that build looks good

Yea Dagger-storm is superior to BV in WvW in most cases. On demand reflect and stability is much appreciated and has been way more useful to me than BV especially post patch. Plus its just more satisfying when using it correctly. I’ve also been playing around with summon druid spirit, sylvari racial. Besides its horrible cooldown that makes it rarely worth it, its pretty kitten powerful, does this aoe immobilize every ~8 seconds and draws conditions

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

So do you think D/P is OP now, or that S/D is as good as D/P ? By your logic it has to be one or the other, and either way you’re high.

Xista.7391:

They take away bags.

Give us boxes.

Get tons of blues/greens.

Got my 5th zerk ring w/ offensive infusion slot 2 nights ago.

thx i guess

Dude at least its a Zerk ring, you should see some of these stat combos I get on the rare ascended trinkets that drop. Most make zero sense.

as far as OP’s build: I think you should really find a way to get 6 in trickery. Bewildering ambush is so kitten good, especially verses thieves, which is the the most common class I fight on my roaming adventures (well now probably rangers.) It’s straight awesome verses any class (except necro) in terms of damage, and a free cover condi for kitten your doing anyway (stealing)..

as counter-intuitive as it sounds, im running P/D trapper runes and NO shadow arts. Going 2/0/0/6/6. Only reason I’m not going 0/0/2/6/6 is to hit the 7 second pistol 1 bleed break-point. I run vigorous recovery, master trapper, and then the only guy on GW2 running assassins equilibrium. In the heat of battle, the 2 second stability during channeled sneak attack is surprisingly adequate to justify a GM. (beats the shlt out of shadows rejuvenation for P/d). With dire gear, endurance generation, and 15 second evading healskill- the only thing I’m worried about killing me is a pull, knockdown, etc.

30 full seconds in stealth during battle with shadows rejuvination will heal you for about ~10,000 damage. One blocked pull/knockdown can help you easily avoid that sort of damage. P/D’s most vulnerable point in any battle is during their channeled sneaker attack, which is right when the trait kicks in.

11 point something k. Not high at all and probably on an up-leveled character as usually only hit for ~9k on lights. That being said my build isn’t optimized for damage and I only have 3 ascended pieces and use power/vitality food because I’m cheap.

There is a thief here DecieverX that posted his build in this thread earlier

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/D-D-burst-build/first#post4433492

it did 20k damage to a guardian. I’ve never seen anything like that since crit damage nerf so hes the guy to talk to about burst lol

The dark side: S/D got kittening neutered. Steal + infiltrators signet is bugged as kitten.

The bright side:

We’re freaking thieves. Our class mechanic is stealing. We’re not some do-gooders like guardians. We’re sneaky snakes with no morals.

In WvW, we’re still easily the most bad-kitten and feared class in the mists. Sure rangers are giving us a run for our money, but no class can ever 1vX like a thief can due to stealth, and nobody can annoy/sidetrack full zergs lie a thief can. Thieves are the GODS of roaming, and always will be, no matter how many rangers or reveals. If I’m feeling particularly social and want to run with a party venom- share is a cool option.

TL;DR: PvP is rough, I feel way more valuable on my power necro, despite them being much weaker verses the oh so common power ranger. WvW however, is absolute paradise, and has always been for me. I honestly feel sorry for other classes in WvW.

Chicago Jack.5647:

vincecontix.1264:

Pd condi build still bad for team comp but great for solo roaming.

It’s one of those builds where you can kind-of fit into a dps support role, but there are usually so many better options to take. Necromancer… Mesmer…

Initially I was psyched over the GS War changes because you can get him on a roamer spec, then put a P/D thief as a deeps support. Have P/D + GS War destroy far point node. Buut then they nerfed GS burst skill.

Word, but people still really sleeping on Venom share, even pre-ptach. I’d say condi venom-share is one of the top offensive support builds in gw2. Maybe the top offensive support for groups of 5 or less. Venom-shared basilisk venom or immobilize are basically a death sentence. also, as far as 1v1s go, venom-share+thieves guild is nuts, albeit gimmicky

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

hihey.1075:

TrOtskY.5927:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

Nonsense.

You clearly don’t play thief, or at least didn’t play it prior to the patch.
They played the build because it was good at what is it was doing. Now the S/D has been nerfed into oblivion and is HUGELY more difficult. It’s not a tad harder to be as effective as before….. It’s impossible to be as effective as before. It’s not because thief attracted noobs (certainly not more than any other class, there are TONNES of easier classes and builds to play effectively than S/D for goodness sake..any warrior, d/d ele, turret engi, MM Necro, Bunker Guard, Spirit Ranger etc etc are all much easier builds to play and are more popular than S/D ever was)

I think the fact that the top players in the world are not using Thief anymore just shows the class is kittened beyond recognition these days.

No. S/D is a “tad” harder. Your inability to precast LS before a fight is the reason why players like you are complaining all over the place about their “supposedly” broken build. I often play with only one weapon just to show how easy it is to play an Acro+Trickery build.
You say that “heh, I don’t do enough damage to kill people fast1111111”. I say: then stop playing Acro+Trickery and go back to Critical Strikes+Trickery or Critical Strikes+Acro.
You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore. I’d say that current S/D is one of the most BALANCED sets in the game: you still do damage, but your burst is lower than before – however, your survivability is great, and your mobility is the best in the game.

I see thieves who miss steal on Guardian using Shelter. I see thieves using Steal when Blinded. I see thieves who dodge when the enemy engi is using Gear Shield.
ALL these players are bandwagoners who jump from class to class, depending on what’s “fotm” and what’s not.

Of course I don’t put “old” S/D thieves on the same plane as D/D Eles or Turret Engis or Ham/Axe Bows, as AT LEAST it required some brain power to do something with it. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the set was WAY too powerful and that the nerfs it got, even though they weren’t what I personally had changed, were done rightfully.

If YOU cannot play a spec it does not mean that the spec itself is unplayable.

IN ANY CASE, the Steal bug was a major issue that I have been fighting against since the July patch.

“You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore”

Yea a whole 4k damage is just too insane! The set is more than just a tad harder to use now. Larcenous strike, which is undeniably the main reason to use S/D in the first place, is now exponentially harder to access. S/D is now sucks in PvP.

D/P is completely fine though, may be the only viable pvp set for thief.

also trotsky, I agree with most of your points, but with he current state of steal and the fact that we can’t LS into steal like we use to, I think dropping trickery for CS traits is the move. No matter what you do though, set will still be sub-par and vastly inferior to D/P. also, steal BT no longer prioritizes aegis/stability, both of which will make your 30 poit SoH useless. aegis feels more common than ever too. a big part of why I went 30 in trickery, besides the kittenedly good traits was the steal cool-down (34 to 21 seconds!). but now that steal is nowhere near as good I’ll opt for raw damage and take infiltrators signet to make up for longer cd on steal

DeceiverX.8361:

The build’s pretty good – like really good, and far better than most of what I’ve seen. I’m one to agree with you on the food sometimes, but it depends on the situation. Definitely run frittes if I’m doing anything more than picking off single targets and want the extra burst for laughs. I personally do not like haste and would suggest furious retaliation instead since haste’s bonuses are often negligible and proc too early in the fight to mean anything.

I dislike SA due to last refuge. Being forced into revealed by a skilled opponent is a terrible thing. I aim for consistency as much as possible. High points in SA imho are crutch/cheesy specs which just raise the skill floor and lower the ceiling.

I run D/D stab with the highest possible burst damage build in the game tweaked and played slightly for reliability. I have some issues with conditions but ultimately try my best to just not get hit. It offers enough bonus health to usually get past a few ticks should I get hit at all. My biggest issue lies in the new PU mesmer scepter builds because HiS does not remove torment and I have no other cleanses and rely heavily on mobility. The success with a lot of training is the highest I’ve had playing any other class/build just because most players cannot survive the initial burst or panic and misplay/try to turtle and sustain beyond that point. Displayed below is my gear situation with the build. I rarely engage with SoS blown and use it as a clutch bomb-avoidance blind if I absolutely have to since the mobility bonus is far superior to the might stacking. Obviously the numbers would be increased further with more ascended gear.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypNOxzJ8PNxLhs9nTr8btuLCA-T1SBABP8AAi4QAc1+jSlbUDALlV4pDYRlgootYhjEQOq+AwJAIAACA38m38m38mFCQwWA-w

Wholeheartedly disagree with you about the trait critical haste. It is much better than furious retaliation IMO, but most WvW builds I see agree with you and opt for furious retaliation instead. Sure, sometimes it procs at inopportune times, but with hidden killer it often procs on my backstab, allowing me to get in a lot of aa chain burst after, really upping my damage. also, while Furious retal isn’t bad, if using hidden killer it is redundant for back-stabs, though still useful. I just really like quickness, and even though its just 2 seconds, it sure adds a bunch of burst.

Btw I like your full burst build, have you tried flanking strikes instead of thrill of the crime? Thrill of the crime likely has better DPS, but flanking strikes certainly has better BS burst. However I can see the swiftness helping to actually land the backstab. (might be one of those reliability tweaks you mentioned).

95% of the time I prefer thrill of the crime as well, but with a full burst build like yours flanking trike may put you over the edge to literally 1 shot people. There is also a food that has 200 power for 30s after killing enemy (mosquitos count!) + 70 ferocity. Definitely worth playing around with (expensive though). I’d be very interested in hearing what you backstab for with that trait/food. Doubt any zerk ele could survive just 1 backstab.

To the OP: Love you build as far as traits/utilities/concept. But with hidden killer/backstab I think sigil of fire is superior to sigil of force. also, that soldiers coat makes me nauseous- replace with valk/cav or zerk! (id go valk for full power ferocity, dont need a lot of precision). a valkyrie coat would give you like +5% crit/backstab damage for the price of 70something toughness, well worth imo

p/d isn’t OP. Dire gear is though

So at first glance I thought shadow trap and needle trap would be the most useful in my p/d build for these runes…. Turns out I prefer tripwire and ambukittenripwire: 3 second knockdown is massive, and so is the additional pressure from the thief from ambush, mainly because of the scorpion wire they throw. The scorpion wire almost always lands because the enemy is trying to focus on me. Running with tripwire, ambush and needle trap with traited cooldown for 3 free stealths every 32 seconds.

centaur runes + withdraw… 33% movement speed +175 power > Traveler (unless you insist on hide in shadows)

caveman.5840:

ok srry for the miss info …. it is ncsoft

but the balance decisions are mind blowing .

and we are not dealing with rocket science here.

small example. of when they added the new traits

can u even name a reason to use assassins equilibrium ……
when we have cloaked in shadow! :S

Yea this is a weird trait…. I still use it on my p/d trapper tho. Since I use full dire on that set I have a lot of vitality and toughness with a 1050 range weapon, the only thing that I have to worry about is crowd control. also with P/d and trap runes many times I wouldn’t be in range to get people with the blind trait, so I don’t use it. also, I feel this trait is best with/meant for pistol off-hand, because our stealth attack is channeled, leaving us extra vulnerable to CC

Caffeine.6724:

Currently am a fresh 80 thief, looking at running S/D in WvW. am running 2/6/0/2/4 as it was recommended by a thief that I played with in a lot of spvp as I was trying to learn the class a bit.

Running runes of strength, fire sigil with battle and energy and battle on offset (sb)

Am curious to suggestion’s at playing this build to its fullest potential. Any combo’s I should know about? im running full valk gear, with zerker trinkets, and I seem to be dieing a lot, is this user error? or more so, my gear?

Any advice is accepted and appreciated. Thank You

Feline grace, which is the 3 point trait in acro, is probably the most useful trait in the entire trait line. If going 2 in acro, might as well go at least 3 as somebody else mentione (combination with the endurance regeneration +40% food.

acro isn’t mandatory in WvW and Sa can work instead, just have to alter play-style a bit. However give the traits you’re using I think you should try:
2/6/0/3/3/, 0/6/0/5/3, or 0/6/0/3/5.

I really like going 3/5 or 5/3 instead of 4 in both acro and trickery to gt one of the 10% damage multipliers, plus I feel the minor is better than the major, at least in acro,

Ragion.2831:

Grumpy.6027:

Yea unfortunality S/D was nerfed to much well sword was so we r looking at new metas for thieves atm since the main spvp build was nerfed. But in the mean time you could go d/p and sb.

Wasnt the nerf just increasing FS initiative cost by one?

they also made it about 3 times harder to access LS, which is the single best part of S/D.

I’m not sure if anybody really aims for 50%, it’s just that using straight berserker gears nets you around 50% (may be just a tad more). To obtain higher crit chance you need assassin’s gear which sacrifices power, and in many builds will actually lower your dps

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Vayne.8563:

Ish.2846:

Vayne.8563:

So spend the 10 silver and 2 skill points to unlock your blue trait. Problem solved. For blue traits especially it’s not that much.

Soon you’ll accept anything if you keep accepting the little things. Don’t you have any principles.

I have principles. However they don’t extend to spending some in game gold on something that once cost me in game gold anyway. My principles are you know about more significant things than the price of a skill in a game.

But let’s be reasonable. The trait books used to cost what? 16g? And no skill points. That was a walk in the park compared to what it is now. When I was a new player, I had no gold, or very little. And not enough skill points to get skills AND traits. I feel very sorry for new players now. They ARE at a severe disadvantage, whether they realize it or not.

What? no! The trait books were like 3.5 total I forgot. The GM was 2 gold, the master one was 1 gold, and the other one probably 10 or 50 sivler.

Just got the trait from the temple of grenth mission after about of week of logging on to check if it was up .

My problem with the new trait system, other than the fact that it completely sucks, is that so many of them require multiple people. I can’t just decide I want to spend time unlocking a trait- no I need to wait for an even to activate, or get a party together to do a dungeon. as most of you know, dungeons are completely kittening dead. I was LFG for story mode for one of the dungeons for over an hour- NOT 1 BITE. if you’re going to make running a completely dead dungeon instance the requirement for unlocking traits, at least scale down the enemies based on party size so I can solo it in under 4 hours.

They’re also way too kittening expensive to buy. 1.5 or 3gold + skillpoints for the GMs? SMD anet, you just assured yourself 1-2 less character slot purchases from me.

Swift.9567:

Uncatchable and expeditious dodger I feel should remain on evade. I didn’t mean make all the on dodge traits become on evade. This is more in the hope of new traits..

sorry I wasn’t differentiating dodging and evading- but yea an “on evade” trait would be great as well. I’d even prefer it to an on dodge trait because you can make the effects more powerful on an “on evade” trait

AlCojester.4316:

I swore that I’d never EVER touch p/d. But holy crap this actually looks so much fun…

It is! Traps and the stealth procs are now a main focal point in my gameplay when I play PD. Really happy anet implemented these awesome runes, hope to see more game-changing runes released in the future as well.

This trait is supposed to give 100% crit chance when attacking out of stealth. While using this trait I was backstabbing people and it wasn’t always hitting for critical damage. I know this because the damage in the combat log was yellow.

Please fix trait. Thankyou.

Swift.9567:

I really like how Mesmer’s have traits that revolve heavily around active play (example: traits that trigger on interrupt), I also like the idea of an evasive thief. The Acrobatics line has a few dodging traits, and they’re nice but really quite passive. So I was thinking why not make traits that trigger on evade.
For example: Power of Inertia is a trait that I feel could really become something awesome, but in its current state is a little weak. Why not make it apply might on evade, but instead of one stack, why not three? An incombat cooldown (say 1 second) would be necessary so that when evading multiple attacks in one dodge, you only get the 3 stacks of might once. Otherwise might stacking would be exceedingly easy in PvE (think Alpha’s ice attack in CoE). Maybe a greater incombat cd for PvP or decrease the might duration…
The main point of these traits is so that they synergise with our weapon and utility skills which have evades, thieves have so many evade skills, so why not have traits that trigger when you evade.
As a side note I also think Assassin’s Reward should heal on evade instead of when spending initiative.

Your thoughts?

Uncatchable is a ridiculously good adept trait for condi specs. Like insanely good. 1k damage + cripple and no ICD for 2 point trait? YES PLZ

However, I wish there was another “on dodge” trait (acro-grandmaster plz) more focused on power builds

Yes, S/D got a huge nerf, but dagger main-hand is still freaking awesome. If you don’t enjoy Condi- don’t play it as D/P and D/D are both very viable.

I personally enjoy both play styles, but I probably enjoy D/D the most, and don’t find it underpowered. If you’re looking to add some interesting mechanics to P/D, as someone else suggested- get trapper runes. Makes this build very unique and fun IMO. also uncatchable + feline grace is fun too!, often times my dodge caltrops do like 30-40% of the damage when I kill someone, OP>

tl;dr You can make P/D a lot more fun if you want IMO, but if you really don’t enjoy it, power builds still very viable. well, dagger power builds are, you might wanna hang that sword up

assassinating people in EotM is fun. They never expect it and it makes me feel dirty.

Jessica Boettiger.2563:

DraganBlack.7864:

Jessica Boettiger.2563:

We will be removing the timer after death before killed players are worth XP in WvW.

is that only for xp or also for loot?

If a player is worth XP, they will also be worth loot. This also affects rallying, sigil stacks, on-kill procs, etc.

Thankyouuuuu. The worst part was not knowing if they died, or logged off or whatever…. actually no, not getting my 5 stacks was the worst part, so thankyou!

It was such a buzzkill to spend 60+ seconds in a hard fought 1v1 only to not have your kill acknowledged

Surprised you didn’t pick up the 2 point 10% pistol damage trait

Open with precast Cloak and dagger into steal (hit #5, half second later steal and CnD should land), then back-stab. People expect this so its really helpful in 1v1 situations especially to have “stow weapon” on a hot-key. hit #5 then stow weapon right after to cancel cast at no initiative. This can cause your enemy to blow a dodge/utility before they need to. Use 4 for those guys out of range of CnD, this will also make the subsequent back stab easier to land.

Now, after you open with the initial back-stab, if its a 1v1 keep the pressure on, you should be able to keep blind up nearly the whole time with cloaked in shadow. More likely than not when roaming though its not a 1v1, and you’ll spend most your time out of stealth avoiding damage. pretty much the goal is to keep stealth blind up as long as possible and of-course backstabbing. If already stealthed and steal/infiltrators is up, you’re going to want to precast back-stab a split second before teleporting so they get hit instantly.

I see you have speed signet, and hide in shadows on your skill-bar. If you don’t mind withdraw (i actually love it) I highly recommend going centaur runes for almost perma-swiftness (also give 175 power) so you can ditch the speed signet. You can replace the speed signet with Infiltrators signet. a 30second CD teleport to your opponent that also stun-breaks in emergency is so valuable on a backstabbing focused thief.

also- don’t be afraid to blow shadow step teleport offensively (even open with it) to land a CnD or backstab. The shadow return portion breaks stun ad clears condis. For the longest time i would blow steal infiltrator’s first, and save shadow-step as me GTFO card which it is still good for, there is just more potential to use it offensively (and return defensively, when using it to escape, there is no reason to use return function)

tl;dr: there aren’t any skill rotations, d/d is about creatively finding ways to safely stealth and backstab.

Sherlock.1607:

yeah I am getting revelaed status, you are right, its because the ricochet, well, the build needs some more tweaking I suppose.

yea make sure you toggle auto attack off, you need to stop autoattacking for like a half second before laying to trap, otherwise, you’ll stealth mid attack animation and break stealth almost instantly. I actually think this is intended, would be cheap if you could get a stealthed auto off and then sneak attack.

However, i think there is a bug (not sure if intended) that someone pointed out and I noticed myself later in practice: If they hit the trap as soon as you lay it, the trap proccing will break stealth

SlimChance.6593:

Cooldown doesn’t matter. The TTK in this game is so fast

0/10

Raven.9603:

Cam Ron.4170:

Make it so that one dodge dodges the whole ability. In it’s current form you need to blow an entire endurance bar to avoid massive damage on a skill with a 10 second base cooldown. To compensate, let rangers cancel their channel

anet plz

Cam Ron.4170:

maybe it doesn’t need to be nerfed, IDK. Im personally not haing a problem with it because I play thief and they still kitten on rangers. I would just rather see a ch

huh.

so it should be balanced, “maybe,” but you “dont know,” you “dont personally have a problem with it.”

1 – why make the thread then? dont answer that, its retorical, something to ponder. just let the thread die its natural death.

2 – some people have a hard time with the new longbow ranger. mostly necros, guardians, and engineers (mayyyyybe some staff eles). You know, those people who were bunkering on points and not leaving and not reasonably killable unless they got outnumbered. Meanwhile, none of the other classes have significant problems killing the longbow ranger. Imbalanced? No. Decent counter to something that previously didnt have a counter? Yes.

1- Out of pure spite, I will make sure this thread stays on page 1 for the next 6 months.

also since there is a 95% chance it gets nerfed next patch based on community reaction, deservedly or not- I was offering a suggestion that would allow ranger to keep their max damage potential on a target that doesn’t dodge or is rooted, etc. while offering the enemy more counter play. I like these solutions better than just knocking numbers down a notch.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m sorry …
Warrior MH Mace, OH Sword, or Shield … blocks it. Endure Pain does too.
Elementalist Arcane Shield blocks it. Swirling Winds. Magnetic Aura.
Mesmer blocks, distortion, iWarden, etc.
Ranger greatsword block, OH axe, sword/dagger evade
…
and so on.

Not to mention interrupts.

Is there counterplay? Yes, loads of it.

Are the top rangers playing Berserker Longbow? Doesn’t look like it … but I’d love to see them do it. Wonder why I’m not though … obviously because it’s OP :-p

I’m enjoying the plethora of squishy FotM builds. I will continue.

You’re honestly probably right. Rapid Fire may just feel over-tuned because rangers were free bags for a while and this has taken me by surprise.

Windsagio.1340:

Cam Ron.4170:

Atherakhia.4086:

What do you do when a Warrior uses volley? A single dodge doesn’t block the whole channel and volley only does about 10% less damage than rapid fire.

If it legitimately needs to be nerfed, focus your attention on things like Signet of the Wild which is a legitimate complaint with this update.

maybe it doesn’t need to be nerfed, IDK. Im personally not haing a problem with it because I play thief and they still kitten on rangers. I would just rather see a ch

I just thought that since everybody was crying about it, it will inevitably get nerfed, so I thought this would be a fair way to do it. Offers more counter-play while allowing the to keep their highest damage potential.

I don’t think it will get nerfed, aNet gets complaints like this every time they do a balance change. It’s sure as rain, and just as meaningless.

I cant think of anything that has gotten this much QQ and not bee nerfed to the ground. Thieves, warriors, dhummfire, crit damage in general, etc. Things get nerfed based on community reaction rather than reason.

How do you feel about strength runes. 5% damage +45% (lol) might duration balanced?

Atherakhia.4086:

What do you do when a Warrior uses volley? A single dodge doesn’t block the whole channel and volley only does about 10% less damage than rapid fire.

If it legitimately needs to be nerfed, focus your attention on things like Signet of the Wild which is a legitimate complaint with this update.

maybe it doesn’t need to be nerfed, IDK. Im personally not haing a problem with it because I play thief and they still kitten on rangers. I would just rather see a ch

I just thought that since everybody was crying about it, it will inevitably get nerfed, so I thought this would be a fair way to do it. Offers more counter-play while allowing the to keep their highest damage potential.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

So you want to shorten the channel time of Rapid Fire even more! Or you want to extend the dodge duration for all classes! Interesting!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Reading comprehension OP. I want the channel time to remain the same. I want rapid fire to miss all shots even after the evasion frames end.

also, #1 egni Na? Lol, that’s like bragging about being the fastest runner in the special olympics. any other easy tasks you’d like to boast about?

Make it so that one dodge dodges the whole ability. In it’s current form you need to blow an entire endurance bar to avoid massive damage on a skill with a 10 second base cooldown. To compensate, let rangers cancel their channel

anet plz

Sebrent.3625:

The fact that as a thief you are having trouble with a glass build astounds me. It isn’t hard for Thieves to drop most glass builds in a quick rotation. You’re the kings and queens of glass cannon.

What part about “as a thief rangers aren’t a problem for me, but other classes are kittened” don’t you understand?

No matter how much you want me to have trouble against rangers on my thief I simply do not. Your lack of reading comprehension skills astounds me.

Every response of yours is you telling me why I shouldn’t be having trouble verses ranger as a thief, when I already stated before any of those rebuttals that I do not.

You say that dodging blocs a “large portion” of the damage. No it doesn’t, if you dodge the first RF shot, you still eat about a back-stabs worth of damage (5-6k)…. and that’s with blowing a dodge. #balanced.

Like I said though, enjoy it while it lasts- you got a full 6 months to enjoy it.

Ragion.2831:

Hey guys, decided to try out thief and I’m wondering what the lowest amount of crit chance effective for high damage is before fury. I believe generally it is 50% but since its thief, is it something higher cause of the lower hp?

If not using hidden killer trait or PvE I’d shoot for around 50%. In WvW with hidden killer trait (100% crit from stealth) I like going for 30-35% chance with some valkyrie or cavalier pieces for some survivability.

Zeta.3198:

Thank you all for your suggestions, at the moment I was thinking of going with something like this
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp7plPxzJ8PNRLRtdIEdvAXDh2PQAEiA-TVCEABLq+DBPAAmUmZwpAoJlG4s/AgKBbTfAAHBgAAHA/23++bgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLDQ+WA-w

The crit chance seems high enough to still be useful for dungeons/fractals and the vitality seems ok to survive a couple of backstabs in WvW, what do you think?

Looks good, just 1 recommendation:

I recommend you use the Master critical strikes trait that gives 2 seconds of quickness on critical hit, instead of either furious retail or practiced tolerance. (replace PT in pve, for WvW either). The 2s of quickness lets you get pretty much a free/extra auto chain in after backstab, essentially adding a few thousand damage to your burst. Sure sometimes it procs when you don’t need it to, but when it procs at an opportune time, you really notice the dps boost. It sounds kittenty (only 2s quickness on 30s cooldown) but quickness is freaking awesome

Sylent.3165:

Ok so sounds pointless in pve thanks. Know what to trait now

Good choice, the +3 initiative will do more for you than 200 revealed power. Especially since the GM minor crit trait gives 10% damage when over 6 ini.

evilapprentice.6379:

vincecontix.1264:

On paper it looks like you might not have enough damage output. I know if I was playing my engi I would rather probably vs a thief running your build than other meta builds. Yes I could see you having decent survivability but I think you lose to much dps which will affect you ability to aid in team fights.

Maybe, Maybe. I’m just so sick of 2/6/0/0/6, and S/D is crap atm.

try 6/0/2/0/6 d/p. Panic strike OP

Zeta.3198:

Hello, so: I’ve been playing for quite a long time and right now I decided to stick with d/d for pve (including fractals) and d/p for WvW, and I decided to make my own ascended armor, so I was wondering, is it worth to go full berserker?

Considering that I don’t die that often as things are now, is it really the best choice? Or is it better to put some Valkyrie stats in it too?

In the end most of the damage comes from the backstabs and the Hidden Killer trait (although in dungeons I do stick with shortbow for long times), which is the critical chance considerable “enough” before going Valkyrie?

Or to put it simple: which part of my armor/trinkets should I make zerker and which Valkyrie for max efficency?

Im not sure whats the most efficient, but Im going zerker accessory and jewelry, valkyrie armor, and valkyrie weapons. IMO its a waste of hidden killer to not build valk and/or cavalier.

Originally I was planning on going less valk and more cav, but you don’t lose any power with Valkyrie but your do with cavalier. Basically I’d go zerkers until @ about 30% crit chance, from there I’d stop building precision and add valk/cav peices. This will allow your backstabs to do same damage as a full berserker set, while letting you be a lot more tanky, and still having OK crit chance when not backstabbing.

I wish there was a Power toughness with fecority with power as the main stat (like valk). The curret cavalier toughness is the main stat. If the main stat was power I’d go atleast half (may be more) cavalier, but since it doesn’t zerk + valk all day

S/D got nerfed to the ground. The second half of #3 larcenous strike is the best part of the weapon-set, and since the patch it is now about 3 times harder access. I wouldn’t bother with it.

D/D, and D/P:

For PvP: definitely D/P- it’s got blind and interrupt and instant stealth. Best PvP weaponset.

For WvW- They’re about tied in my opinion, D/p gets on demand stealth, D/D gets more/cheaper stealth. Like all of the damage comes from backstab so they’re even in that department, its all about what style you prefer in WvW.

a third option for burst (cleaves too)-
S/P pistolwhip + haste + basilik venom. Now this weaponset I am god-awful with and it is very unforgiving. Once you start the Pistol whip animation you cant move and are a huge target so positioning is very important. It cleaves too so it hae the most aoe potential of all thief builds. It’s possbile to down 3 people at the same time in like 3 seconds with this build.

Narkodx.1472:

So you gain all benefits from Shadow Arts traits each time you use a trap and gain super speed for 3 seconds?

Seems quite good

It is! running these runes on my p/d and its the most fun I had with this set in a while. Runes are even worth it only running 2 trap + stun break (the cooldowns are short enough), although I usually run 3.

I think it’s funny when ele’s wearing strength runes and self-stacking 23 might stacks complain about NIGHTMaRE runes.

My backstab infiltrators signet only works 50% of the time now. It teleports 100% of time, but half the time backstab doesn’t land for no reason.

also, I’m getting non-crit back stabs with hidden killer trait. How the kitten is this possbile

attention: dodging only mitigates half of rapid fire.

The reason rapid fire is OP is because if you don’t have block or reflect you need to double dodge to avoid damage where other big damage skills can be evaded in one dodge. They should make rapid fire miss all subsequent shots after an opponent evades, instead of dealing 6k damage to the face as soon as the evasion frames end.