Guild Wars 2

jkough.7316:

Shared venom is the best thing to come out of this update and condi thief is where its at now for thief imo

No- best thing to come out of this patch for condi?

Trap runes.

2 words:

O

P

Rangers are really annoying right now,but at least its PvP so you can get in their face easier. This longbow epidemic is much more annoying in WvW, where groups of 2-3 rangers will insta-down you beofre their name loads above their head.

Too bad both classes I play don’t have any blocks or reflects, I don’t know how to deal with it in a berserker build. (my dire thief is fine of course).

I don’t know if they’re “OP” yet, but it sucks getting lit up from 1500range

D/P is absolutely fine, just dont stomp anymore. S/D is clearly weaker and may just get completely overshadowed by D/P, or maybe I just need to l2p and adapt to changes better. Definitely not effective as i use to be yet (if ever). I haven’t played P/P enough to have an opinion of this set post-buff.

tl;dr: DP is fine
jury is out on S/D, definitely weaker, possibly viable

everything else as always been crap compared to these sets on PvP.

In WvW however, new trap runes + dire gear is absurd at the moment.

Lightsbane.9012:

Roe.3679:

Lightsbane.9012:

Xae.7204:

Lightsbane.9012:

Xae.7204:

I’ve been doing some serious drinking Thinking.

I’ve reached a startling conclusion that makes some sense.

The biggest problem with Necros is that Staff.

It is a boring weapon that doesn’t fit into a Power or Condition build, but everyone takes it because it is still pretty good.

Necros need a second 2 Handed weapon. Or we need a way to “focus” (GET IT??) Staff into either Power or Condition weapon. Replacing one of our ahhh… Subpar Talents with something that Dramatically changed all the Staff Skills might work…

we flat out need more ranged power options. i’ll take a frisbee at this point.

Right. Staff is great.

But staff is not great enough to be Necro’s Only 1200 Range weapon, only Two Handed Weapon, only “AoE” weapon and still work with all Condition AND Power builds!

Nothing can do all of those things. And nothing SHOULD do all those things.

staff is 80% useless for power builds. I do not care about any of the conditions on it.

Poison, chill? AOE fear and a big hitting condi transfer?

Mark of blood isn’t that great but the rest is still useful. Personally I like it better than axe, although I’d assume that’s different for others.

poison and chill i can do without since if someone wants to chase me it’s gonna happen
aoe fear i surprisingly don’t use much, since i am a frontline necromancer in wvw fearing targets away from me means i can’t kill them(exception being death shroud fear, that’s incredibly useful)
the condi transfer is why i said 80% useless. it’s the 20% of the skills staff offers that is useful…granted when i’m stationary.

In addition to the 3 condi transfers, it offers by far the highest staff damage and is the only blast finisher on any set. Absolutely awesome skill.

Lightsbane.9012:

Xae.7204:

Lightsbane.9012:

Xae.7204:

I’ve been doing some serious drinking Thinking.

I’ve reached a startling conclusion that makes some sense.

The biggest problem with Necros is that Staff.

It is a boring weapon that doesn’t fit into a Power or Condition build, but everyone takes it because it is still pretty good.

Necros need a second 2 Handed weapon. Or we need a way to “focus” (GET IT??) Staff into either Power or Condition weapon. Replacing one of our ahhh… Subpar Talents with something that Dramatically changed all the Staff Skills might work…

we flat out need more ranged power options. i’ll take a frisbee at this point.

Right. Staff is great.

But staff is not great enough to be Necro’s Only 1200 Range weapon, only Two Handed Weapon, only “AoE” weapon and still work with all Condition AND Power builds!

Nothing can do all of those things. And nothing SHOULD do all those things.

staff is 80% useless for power builds. I do not care about any of the conditions on it.

It’s AoE so its good for picking up bags when not in a party, that’s why I often bring it in my power build. Also, putrid mark is freaking amazing.

That being said I’m dropping it so I can have axe and dagger weaponsets. Axe for opening range/generating LF, dagger for the dark path+dagger auto chain combo of death

What build were you using?

Besides the previously broken Lich Form, every variation of my power spec has been buffed. Dagger cleave, HUGE axe buff (the auto change was BIG, 10% damage on 2 is OK too), DS interaction (works before as bugged, cant switch mid stomp, but it was near-impossible to pull of the bug during lag/large scale fights). But possibly the best change of all? Swiftness buff on scepter and Banshees wail bug fix! Now I get to drop SotL AND move 8% faster.

The elite nerfs were disappointing, but I switched from Lich to flesh golem and doing great. Sounds like people are disappointed they didn’t OVERTUNE us like they did to lb rangers.

In WvW my life blast hits zerker heavies for 5.1k with exotic weapons/armor and ogre runes. (Im guessing I can hit 6k with ascended and strength runes+few might stacks) It also pierces so does absurd damage in zergs

If you tap it, the animation is a lot tighter and faster, giving you less evasion frames but making it faster/harder to dodge.

When holding it for a second, go get more evasion frames but it’s more telegraphed (like it is now). This would add fun (IMO) and versatility.

Not sure if that’s possible with this games mechanic’s/engine or whatever (not a tech guy) but I would love this change.

alchemyst.2165:

Actually I was thinking about trying the evasion runes. I think they would work great, but for my playstyle I’d rather have more swiftness uptime and more power. Honestly though I think they’d work great. You might lose some dps though, since you’re getting ferocity instead of power and power > ferocity but I’m sure there are ways around it.

Love the build, I like it better than SA build for small scale battles.

And why not strength runes + might on dodge/endurance regen food? I think that’s the superior setup for DPS.

Also, you may want to consider assassin’s equilibrium trait, I’m certainly enjoying it

Anybody try these yet? they looks freaking nuts. on the wiki there is no cool-down on the stealth and quickness…. Is that really the case? If so, I’m switching out my krait runes and going nuts with these. Str8 OP I can’t wait.

Walker.3056:

S/D is has less damage now? YES.
S/D brakoen, not viable, bad even in top pvp play? NO.
You just need to change your game style. damage now comes much more from AA chain than LS. My tip is keep pressure with AA chain. use FS only to dodge! one more dodge!! or u can use it as offensive tool if the target has some great ight stacks or stab.

Yea its weaker but after playing with it more it may still be viable. What I do now i open cnd+steal D/D style, try to get daze, then 3 (pause: they always dodge right after daze) then LS. Nowhere near as bursty, and not sure if it’ll end up getting completely outshined by d/p, but its a little better than my first impressions of it

I need those trapper runes. I see the recipe on TP, do I have to buy it then craft it? They’re account bound? I dont get it.

How much do they cost to craft besides the recipe? Thanks!

OK so when I made this thread it was during the steal bug. I didn’t think they would fix that because other steal bugs have existed and still exist 2 years later, I thought this was more of the same.

DP is back and feels about as good as ever. BP nerf is fine, mostly use that for stealth anyway, use 3 to blind. I’m glad we’ll have at least 1 viable set.

S/D even feels a little better since the steal bug, but still kinda weak. Lot of people will just dodge the flanking strike + steal so I’ve been opening with CnD instead and geting an early daze/blind. If you get the daze it’s a guaranteed landed FS (almost), so I think this is the new combo now. Takes a lot longer than the old LS+steal burst. What S/D is missing from prepatch is BURST. The dps isn’t horrible, but the burst is few and far in between as you get way less larcenous procs. I don’ think I’ll be using it, but the jury is still out I’m giving it another chance

tl;dr Sword feels weak, rest is fine. Buff sword auto chain so S/P is more viable too

Surprised people actually think skill gating behind levels is to make things less confusing for new players. It’s clearly designed to make the early leveling experience really boring, so players purchase boosts, gems-to gold-to mats, etc. to bypass the boring kitten leveling experience.

Tim.6450:

Cam Ron.4170:

yea i do. steal is our entire class mechanic on a 35 second cooldown, it should be versatile.

What about initiative and stealth attacks, are they not part of your class mechanics?

Cam Ron.4170:

My point was that i play thief and necro, and necro is about 10 times better than thief is right now, yet the necros are complaining as much or more.

And on what do you base that assumption (game mode, builds, data, … )? I’m quite interested.

first off- good point to googlebrandon above you with the i feel" edit. its just my opinion.

also good point about stealth and initiative. fair enough.

but theif downright sucks with this steal bug. i dont have hard data, just an opinion based on my experience. if any zerker thieves wanna battle my necro hit me up

T raw.4658:

Faeyd.5094:

Now I wonder.

Will the endless crying about thieves finally, finally end?

Somehow I doubt it

Nope i was out today and killed an engi 1v1

Post patch? Pics or didnt happen

Chicago Jack.5647:

a t s e.9614:

Yea its even the worst zerker class besides from warrior maybe. Even at doing what they are the best ( killing zerkers) they suck now.

Over nerfed cuz of bads. I cant see the teef wtf please nerf.

I haven’t played with the new patch yet

Lol, you’re in for a very rude awakening.

NeXeD.3042:

As far as thieves go do you really think it was fair you could steal and attack at the same time that also led into an unblock able attack that stole boons and then just disengage instantly… where the kitten is the counterplay to that.

yea i do. steal is our entire class mechanic on a 35 second cooldown, it should be versatile.

My point was that i play thief and necro, and necro is about 10 times better than thief is right now, yet the necros are complaining as much or more.

ArrDee.2573:

hey man thanks for responding. idk what vee wee is but i tried playing turret spec on my engi but i read that it’s a bad build and man they were right. the only people i could beat were people as new or as bad as me.

Seriously thats how bad NA is at GW2. anyone who plays “competively” is a joke

veewee if your playing solo q just switch to turret spec. but seriously i agree. they level gate the pve kitten and dont do rank gate pvp, which makes more sense because its harder to learn. matchmaking also is weird. i get matched against top 100s all the time and im not good

Ozie.4176:

ahahahaha hahahaha heheheahahahah good joke. Thief worst class. Nice try.

who’s worse?

Vavume.8065:

Rage Dog.7618:

And you being a D/D, this bug will not affect you much as steal hs combo isn’t ever used as the obvious CnD steal combo is better. But it is a bit rich of you to say this is a broken mechanic seeing as your whole build is built around the steal CnD combo, which apparently isn’t a broken mechanic?! .

Yes C&D steal is also a BROKEN MECHANIC imo, guess what, I never use those mechanics and never have, they should also fix it that the C&D steal doesn’t work too. You seen my vids, you can see I don’t use broken mechanics. And really lol to think that my build is built around it, I play without using that cheese.

Cam Ron.4170

so you’re suggesting that its intended that steal go on CD because “out of range” when using steal at point blank range combined with heartsekeer.

if you think prepatch was broken and now its fixed, you dont understand what the word “broken” means in english. probably the dumbest post i read all day.

It’s been broken since release, imo. Only anet can tell us if they intended thieves to use these kind of mechanics, personally I don’t think they did. I’m not suggesting this is a fix, but I can tell you that I find it hilarious that every thief that relied on this way of playing is now crying on the forums.

Wait you dont precast abilities before steal? lol garbage thief. you should check out some youtube videos to learn the class mechanics better

you think thats bad? try d/p to see how buggy steal really is…. Or if youre really brave- try to play S/D thief shivers

why would i quit necro? i feel strong as kitten

i was plannin on using flesh golem after seeing skillbar that my fire+air+spinal shivers proc wouldnt instagib someone in lich, but nope, charge randomly got hit harder

As somebody who plays thief and necromancer exclusively, this is ridiculous. necro is in about a 10x better state than thief right now. necros mad because we didnt get enough buffs? axe got insane buff, axe auto AT LEAST 25% damage increase, dagger cleave, interracting in ds , and kittenty elite nerfs (golem nerf wtf?

great patch for necro? nope, but at least we didnt get absolutely gutted like thieves .

if you want to argue necro doesnt have enough build divrsity/too many weak skills and trait- i agree. But as far as their power level is concerned they are in no way weak or close to it

Vavume.8065:

Rage Dog.7618:

I said ‘play properly’ not play, it is highly frustrating when I’m trying to combo together a chain of skills and due to a bug it says ‘out of range’ and puts it on full cooldown. And V I didn’t know you were the kind of guy who flames people

How is using broken mechanics “playing properly”? do you really think anet intended thieves to be using hs steal combos? I personally hope this is not a bug and instead a fix because this should never have been possible in the first place. I am not flaming anyone btw, my comment was meant in general, ANY thief that cannot play without using broken mechanics is not a good thief, IMO.

so you’re suggesting that its intended that steal go on CD because “out of range” when using steal at point blank range combined with heartsekeer.

if you think prepatch was broken and now its fixed, you dont understand what the word “broken” means in english. probably the dumbest post i read all day.

Kitt.2567:

nope. warrior, or probly guaridian traditionally, is currently worst class cuz they got nerfed 2 times continuously since april patch. also have real evidence that warrior population in top100 has decreased a lot as compared to era before april patch. Now war anf guardian has lowest population placing top100, it is fact. currently thief on team arena of NA called Magic Toker is top1 in teamq so this topic does not make any sense all. dont estimate and guess based kn flase info or just assumptions, rather, use real evidence and proof like me when you really estimate something.

I am bad at GW2, but I will destroy any thief in the game 1v1 with my necro right now. (prob any class tho) And of the top 100 is BS, have you seen the W/L records of some of the leaderboard? Where did you find that data for class breakdown of the leaderboard? Leaderboards are account bound not character bound so I don’t even believe you.

Also, did you just suggest that Guardian may be one fo the worst PvP classes?

Just be glad you’re not a thief…. Seriously I see more necro complaints than thief, meanwhile they are way stronger than thieves right now in every facet of the game. I only play necro and thief.

edit: Actually all the necro elite nerfs were absolute rubbish. Lich needed to be toned down, but they didn’t scale the damage back high enough to make up for removing the power gain. Also- Flesh golem nerf? wtf? Since when was this a problem?

Despite the elite nerfs I still think they’re pretty strong

Dahkeus.8243:

style.6173:

Dahkeus.8243:

Exedore.6320:

Dahkeus.8243:

Hooray for kneejerk balance rages on patch day!

Seriously though…it’s a bit early to start the rage.

No it’s not. Spend an hour in sPvP and you can clearly see how blatantly overpowered and game-breaking ranger longbow and greatsword are.

My friend and I played for a few hours last night. It feels like a third person shooter with all the rangers. If you can’t avoid the Rapid Fire for whatever reason (like if their pet CC’ed you), you’re dead. It’s not some well-executed skill chain; it’s one button at 1200 range. If you aren’t dead from Rapid Fire, it’s okay, they’ll just auto-attack a couple times and finish you off. Or better yet, if you’re anywhere near melee, you’ll be hit with Maul for thousands of damage.

The only saving grace is that most rangers are people who never played the profession before and have no clue what to do when you avoid Rapid Fire and attack back.

Try to defend it; you can’t. Rapid Fire is more damage than 100blades ever was, in less time, at 1200 range. Sure, skilled players can avoid it 1v1, but the average player is going to be completely frustrated by it. And even skilled players will fall victim to it in group fights.

^ Case in point, lol.

“The sky is falling” posts like this drop every patch…

and often times people are correct. If you’ve played for a while, you’ll remember thieves at launch, D/D ele, spirit ranger, mm necro, hambow, decap engi, and turret engi all having issues at some point. The end result? All those got nerfed at some point (except turret engi which keeps getting buffed)

And sometimes they didn’t! Remember when they said that the S/D nerf would kill S/D (happened at least twice)? Remember when people said that Power Block would make mesmers OP? Remember when people said that Diamond Skin would make eles invincible?

lol, go try S/D thief now

style.6173:

That said, you’ll still see some thieves in tournaments. The most skilled of thieves will still be valuable to the team. It is just that they will overcome the limitations of the class. There is no easy mode spec.

If they don’t fix the steal bug, I highly doubt it. Or the team that brings one will get pooped on. If they do fix it- my guess is D/P will be the only viable set.

Of course I could be, and hope I’m wrong. Hoping its an L2p issue on my end… anybody got footage of themselves overcoming the thief nerfs and wrecking? Because I was feelin pretty useless yesterday in soloq. LFHope!

I haven’t tested P/P enough yet, but every other zerker set at least blows donkey balls. S/P got nerfed and it was already not very strong. Steal bug probably won’t get fixed and ruined d/p. For D/D builds #5>steal still works, but D/D is trash for pvp. And S/D is the laughing stock of the Mists right now.

If/when (they haven’t acknowledged it that I know of) they fix steal I think D/P will still be pretty good, but right now Thieves stink.

I’ll be shocked if we ever see a sword mainhand thief in another tournament. Plz someone tell me l2p with inspiring post-patch S/D or S/P gameplay attached. I need hope

Wow, +1 Amon. when I saw your post “They destroyed S/D” or whatever before the patch hit I thought maybe you were overreacting and its’ still be playable.

You were right I was wrong. This weapon set is absolute garbage now, it’s sooo hard to do damage. I never realized how often FS missed! It also might be one of the most telegraphed moves in the game.

They need to revert the #3 changes OR give a huge damage buff to the auto chain. This set doesn’t do enough damage.

ArrDee.2573:

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

Vee Wee can assure you that out of the thousands of Engineer players out there, there are literally 0 Engineers in the world that are effective high level turret Engineers!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Engi still faceroll though. Slap on celetial ammy and let your hamster run on the keyboard. My pet gerbil is an engi main and has a 62% win rate over 500 games

Dakota.4591:

. And the method of activating the stability, combined with its short duration, even considering the upcoming ‘improvement’, is really not that overpowering for an adept minor trait.

I think stability on a 1 point trait, despite it’s clunky activation, is OP

sinject.4607:

p/d is ridiculous in wvw thanks to it taking advantage of dire gear, perplexity runes, and condition duration food.

they’re still incredibly predictable though. negate their burst/rotation just like any other burst-reliant build and you’re golden.

when initiating, most p/d thieves will get in range and then precast cloak and dagger, steal to you, immediately pistol #1 from stealth, and then use shadow strike. you need to negate steal specifically, doing this either through blocks, evasion, or invulnerability; this will effectively throw off their entire rotation leaving most players scrambling.

why you need to negate steal:

• it rips two boons with priority listing, stealing the best two if you have more than two (trickery master major)
• it inflicts 12-14sec of poison (deadly arts adept minor)
• it inflicts 5.25-5.50sec of weakness (deadly arts master minor)
• it inflicts ~1k of direct damage and heals for ~2k hp (deadly arts adept major)
• it inflicts 5 stacks of confusion for 8-10sec (trickery grandmaster major; slight of hand + perplexity runes OR bewildering ambush)
• it interrupts and inflicts daze, even through aegis thanks to boon rip (trickery grandmaster major; slight of hand)
• gives the thief vigor 11.5sec of vigor (trickery master major)

when precasted with cloak and dagger it also:

• inflicts an addtional 0.7k-1.4k of direct damage
• inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for ~7sec
• gives thief 3-4sec of stealth

and if they have any venoms active that instant combo will also inflict:

• 2 stacks of torment and vulnerability for 7sec (skale venom; most common venom)
• 3sec of chill (ice drake venom)
• 16sec of poison (spider venom)
• 5-6sec of immobilize (devourer venom)
• 1.5sec of petrify, 3sec if they use residual venom (basilisk venom; very common elite)

that aside fighting p/d isn’t all that difficult. stay out of melee range so they can’t use cloak & dagger and shadow strike, prevent them entering stealth as much as possible, and avoid their easily avoidable stealth attack. simple strategy but it works very well: staying out of melee range and avoiding their melee attacks denies them access to stealth and heavy damage, and preventing them from entering stealth via distance and other means denies them the strong sustain that shadow arts + stealth offers as well as their only strong source of ranged damage, their stealth attack.

also, it’s a good idea to be as mobile as possible. this plays into what i previously mentioned as p/d suffers from poor mobility and a lot of players don’t bother to cover that weakness with utility teleport skills like infiltrator’s signet or shadowstep as they tend to opt for shadow refuge, blinding powder, signet of shadows, or venoms. if you can move around a lot, do so.

Most P/D setups use Krait runes and Bewildering ambush instead of perplex+ sleight of hand. Also, many use Ricochet instead of bountiful theft which should make 1v1s more manageable.

That being said you’re completely right in that it’s still all about negating that opening steal.

Luke.4562:

@Cam Ron:

What you can’t get is this.
1) the Necro is in a sick state, in design, skills, traits and build variety SINCE RELEASE; maybe some build allows you to faceroll or win with the right stars alignment, but that’s not enough after 2 years of development in relation to other classes.
2) most of the hate comes from the fact that most of “us” have been playing since release and in these 25 months the changes and the efforts which were made to fix the Necromancer were pathetic or unwanted:
3) most of the changes were unwanted, totally lackluster and showed an extreme incompetence and lack of a precise aim. They’ve been an extremely slow try and failure with no regards for the consequences.
Example Dhuumbfire. It just lead to the nerf of other traits with no balance in exchange. They just had to make the Necromancer seem viable for that tournamet that was rolling that months, after that they slammed the nerf hammer.
4) They showed to not care of our Feedback even if we had work hard with theorycrafting and also they trolled us badly multiple times. Check Signet of Vampirism. You troll a part of the angry community instead of aknowledging your errors.

This UNFINISHED list of fails this policy made is enough to be angry and to foresee what’s boiling in the pot.

In the end, they don’t care about Necromancer players, it’s just a percentage of customers they don’t care of till the rest of the boat floats and their $Engine keeps on rolling.
Instead of testifying they couldn’t make Necromancer a good class and avoiding to make it functional in their new game (2 years ago), they just kept it as a low effort work just to make more people and Necromancer fans buy the game to enhance their earnings.

We are the small fishes in this Arena-Net.

True, there are some utterly useless skills and traits like SoV, and 2/3rds of the blood magic trait line, but to be fair every class has these problems of skill being totally impractical/useless. (so many god awful thief utilities).

So I agree that Necros certainly need more build diversity, but the “meta” specs are quite strong and fun IMO. Hopefully there are some blood magic buffs that weren’t mentioned on Skill Bar

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cam Ron.4170:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cam Ron.4170:

I’ll likely be using this trait on my P/D dire build, let me explain why-

A P/D dire build going 6pts into Acro…what?

Why not? After Trickery there aren’t great offensive traits for P/D, so might as well go for additional survivability. So it’s basically Acro vs. Shadow Arts. (right now I use 1/0/4/3/6, most of the value in Acro without Assassin’s equilibrium is in the 2nd and 3rd trait)

The only reason why you would want to use Dire set is for you to NOT put points in either SA or Acro. It’s not either/or — it’s neither.

I prefer vigorous recovery to remove conditions on stealth, (overrated trait, its 1 condi every 3 seconds, in most cases you remove a just one cover condi like weakness) I prefer Assassins equilibrium to shadow’s rejuv/resilience (after patch), and I prefer feline grace to any SA minor. They only trait in SA I like better is blind on stealth (best adept trait in game?) instead of pain response. After 9/9 I’ll probably be running 2/0/0/6/6 or 0/0/2/6/6 just for the blind on stealth. (Though probably 2/0/0/6/6, posion on steal is just too important (moreso than mug)).

What a waste.

For some reason people think acro is only good on S/D. The evade spam is real on any weaponset. Kind of surprised they nerfed s/d set instead of acro, which imo is pretty OP (better for power builds than p/d due to trait #5 10% mroe damage when endurance not full)

Just to clarify. If you want to evade spam, all you need is 3pts into Acro. If you want Vitality and Buff duration, you use all 6pts.

The only reason you would want points into SA is for the condition removal, which is accessible with 2pts.

You’re better off with 6/0/2/0/6 build with your P/D Dire set to maximize your condition’s effectiveness.

I actually prefer blind on stealth to the remove condition on stealth for SA. And sure, I’d rather have the condition duration than the stats from either SA or Acro, but besides the panic strike trait I really don’t like the other traits in that line for condition builds.

That being said, even with in my opinion inferior traits, it may be worth going power for the condi duration stat alone. Appreciate the response.

If you’re main priority is Dungeons/Fractals I’d strongly recommend going full berserker gear. Power builds are much more efficient for PvE, and even for WvW or PvP I think either full condi or full power is better than a hybrid set up

By going hybrid you dont get your money’s worth out of traits like axe mastery (better with full power) or dhuumfire (better with full condi obviously). Power damage is based on 3 stats so it’s really kitten if you don’t go all out power.

That being said I’m only speculating and never tried hybrid, but I thinking choosing power OR condi is much more efficient for necro.

Lightsbane.9012:

Rym.1469:

Axe #1 could use range boost to 900 and it would be better.

Overall, small tweaks, but nothing gamechanging. People who already use Axe get something more, people who can’t use or don’t like this weapon will shrug and ignore it same as before.

they need to just make axe melee since thats where they really want us anyway.

I’d actually prefer a melee Axe with higher damage. I want the axe #3 skill, but I use dagger instead for the auto chain damage.

Strength or Hoelbrek with might on life blast. I’m using Ogre because I’m broke but strength runes are certainly optimal for damage

Really don’t understand all of the hate. I play thief and necro exclusively, and honestly: I believe the necro is in a better spot than the Thief is. In PvP they’re about equal now. In WvW power necros are insanely good zergers, and condi necro’s stomp out most specs in a 1v1 with ease.

Now, I understand the disappointment if you’re a PvE ocndi necro- then life is tough. However, I think both power and condi specs in WvW and PvP are quite strong. The DS buff is pretty huge and I’m going to love the dagger cleave.

Sure we’re not as faceroll as engineers but I think the Necro is in a pretty balanced state.

I’m actually really excited to hop on WvW with D/WH necro after patch. I’ll be dropping “Close to Death” for “Banshees Wail”, which will give me perma swiftness (+8% movespeed upgrade from old builds) AND free up a utility slot which I may replace with the improved spectral armor.

babazhook.6805:

Understood. Really the only traitline that I feel important to keep as is would be the CS line. The rest are going to bounce around.

I might end up with 1/6/0/3/4. That poison on steal is just something I am loathe to give up as it inhibits the heals of so many builds. Of course I then give up sundering strikes or mug.

Thats actually a really good idea, for condi I made that switch (1/0/4/3/6)

babazhook.6805:

>>have you considered 2/6/0/3/3? I feel like the 3rd point in acro (feline grace) outweighs anything offered by the 4th point

I will be wanting the skill Ricochet. The extra range will be helpful in the P/p build and I want to see how much more life I can garner from IP with those extra hits.

.

Yea, I’d go 4 in trickery as well, but I think the 3/3 split is better than 4 in acro 2 in trickery

babazhook.6805:

>>st a heads up, you can’t have a 2/6/0/4/4 build, that’s 2 too many points. Just pointing it out so no one gets confused and thinks they can use a build like that.

oops . Meant to type 2/6/0/2/4 The 2 in DA i have been moving to Acro back and forth trying to see which works better. The poison from steal seems superior.

Basically two of them points are pretty flexible and I try and find the best fit.

have you considered 2/6/0/3/3? I feel like the 3rd point in acro (feline grace) outweighs anything offered by the 4th point

Oh god- this trait. I hate it so much. Why give 10% damage to freaking bundles when we don’t even have access to bundles? I understand we can pick them up, but I find it really stupid that they just threw this on a thief trait.

They should let stolen items count as bundles or replace it with something that makes more sense

As far as the useful part of the trait, it’s OK I guess, but I never use it. I could see it working best with a venom build running 3-5 venoms. The reason being is that often times you open a fight with steal while your venoms are on CD. My other utilities usually aren’t on cooldown when I use my opening steal.

darres.8203:

oh yes
a tank is totally what I wanted to play whenever i think about thief
or a venom sharing support

you’re right, let’s make all thief traits optimal with Berserker gear. This will give players a lot of options and variety.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cam Ron.4170:

I’ll likely be using this trait on my P/D dire build, let me explain why-

A P/D dire build going 6pts into Acro…what?

Why not? After Trickery there aren’t great offensive traits for P/D, so might as well go for additional survivability. So it’s basically Acro vs. Shadow Arts. (right now I use 1/0/4/3/6, most of the value in Acro without Assassin’s equilibrium is in the 2nd and 3rd trait)

I prefer vigorous recovery to remove conditions on stealth, (overrated trait, its 1 condi every 3 seconds, in most cases you remove a just one cover condi like weakness) I prefer Assassins equilibrium to shadow’s rejuv/resilience (after patch), and I prefer feline grace to any SA minor. They only trait in SA I like better is blind on stealth (best adept trait in game?) instead of pain response. After 9/9 I’ll probably be running 2/0/0/6/6 or 0/0/2/6/6 just for the blind on stealth. (Though probably 2/0/0/6/6, posion on steal is just too important (moreso than mug)).

For some reason people think acro is only good on S/D. The evade spam is real on any weaponset. Kind of surprised they nerfed s/d set instead of acro, which imo is pretty OP (better for power builds than p/d due to trait #5 10% mroe damage when endurance not full)

If they changed it so: “Last refuge no longer gives revealed debuff”

It’d be a pretty good trait. This has been one of the most complained about thief traits, I’d be surprised if it’s not changed in the upcoming patch

First of all, being that its a Grandmaster trait in a trait-line that grants +30% boon duration, it’s a minimum 2 seconds of stability no matter what. (after 9/9 of course). I’ll likely be using this trait on my P/D dire build, let me explain why-

With dire armor, 15sec cd heal, and 33% vigor uptime, and feline grace, I’m able to eat a couple hits and evade a lot of damage. SO this means CC pulls/knockdowns are what always seems to kill me rather than general attrition. Also, with d/p, you can now safely stay in range for a #3 after unloading a full sneak attack.

I think in terms of survivability for a d/p thief- this trait will help me a lot more than shadow’s rejuvenation, shadow’s resilience or assassin’s reward. Shadow’s rejuvenation heals about 1100hp for 3 seconds spent in stealth. However, if I get CC’d it usually leads to them putting 5k-10k damage on to me- Think about it: if you get caught in a hammer warrior’s CC vortex- that’s probably at least 10k damage (especially if he isn’t alone). If running stability you have a greater chance of avoiding the combo entirely, if running shadow’s rejuvenation, it would take like 25sec spent in stealth to heal for that!

I think if it saves me from even one CC during a fight itll do as much or more than Shadow’s rejuvination (or resilience), and it could potentially save you from multiple CC’s. (especially the “Pull” CC into a zerg)

All I want on the bow- Increased projectile speed of #2. The only time I ever use this is point blank cluster bomb to the face. If I’m not point black I never use this skill, and I only really useit for style points, even if full blown condi. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong but its so unreliable if they’re more than 200 units away. rather, save ini for 3,4,5. EDIT: Actually, it is the only blast finisher on our weapon set and it has no CD, so it has its uses outside of point-blank, but some velocity would be nice

Oh and fix the shortbow #5 bugs/teleport bugs in general. I’m not sure if its a latency issue or teleporting issue in GW2, but sometimes I’ll teleport and it will register as 2 #5s resulting in a lot of wasted initiative.

So would it be OP if they increased the #2 velocity by 25-30%? I’m pretty sure its the slowest projectile I’ve seen in GW2