Guild Wars 2

Forz.1725:

Black powder stomping is OP though…

Blackpowder is great to throw onto a downed target. But stomping should be done by another person.

Lol infantry div.

Lol @ leaderboards. They mean jack squat. What matters most is how many games a person has played and, secondarily, not having an abysmally low win/loss ratio.

Anet Dev Team: “Hey guys, we heard you like to keep an eye on the animations in the game and not cast bars. So we made it possible to have a plethora of needless crap that you can watch! More is better, right? Enjoy!”

Shakya.6351:

btw how can necro drain like 50% of my life in 3 seconds when downed??? what the hell?

Their downed skill 3 hits like a mack truck. Especially when they are power necros.

If you get bola’ed, ether shortbow 5 to get away. You can try to go for a cnd when they approach then shortbow 5, but thats 12 initiative. Its far more effective to blinding powder then port. Or use shortbow 3 when they burst you. Save your stunbreak for when they stun you. Use the stolen ability to reflect arrow shots of longbow. Avoid using the stolen ability when they are out of their ranged set or are not cc’ed because you are vulnerable when using it. Be patient with your backstabs as a d/d. Don’t be afraid to cnd multiple times; you should be able to afford it. Try to save your ports after you go into stealth. It maximizes move distance travel time while in stealth and is very powerful because it makes you more unpredictable.

Dee Jay.2460:

what do we use to cleanse conditions?

You can ether use hide in shadows with shadowstep, or if you’re uncomfortable with that, you can run lyssa runes as well. Lyssa runes are not really needed though unless you’re running withdraw (which most S/D thieves do).

On D/P, its more like 1-5. Using a blind via shadowshot on a skill that overloads blinds isn’t very good. It’s more effective to interrupt it since most of the time they are channeled skills. Also, interrupting heals is pretty critical to down someone as fast as possible. It’s a setup that forces people to think about what the other person is doing in order to be effective. You can gank people who are already fighting someone real easy, but in a fight where people know you’re there interrupts on heals are pretty critical to down someone fast. It’s why I love D/P: It’s the closest thing I’ve seen in this game that resembles an R/Mo – an incredibly skilled build.

You’re right though. Perma-stealth teefs via 5, 2, 2, 2, 2 are pretty boring.

The rewards are pretty pathetic in comparison to what you can get via PvE; opportunity cost racks up.

If they continue on this path of passive gameplay being the standard meta, then the game becomes shallow and wont have any endurance. There will be a real lack of desire to learn and people will get bored. Why do you think so many people left in the first place? Here , this explains it pretty well.

You are essentially saying that anet should just give up on pvp in this game. You might have this attitude as a pve’er, but I hope anet doesn’t just pack things up and say “kitten it, we’re done here”.

I don’t play engie, but I think it’s so fun and creative and something you don’t see very often in NA. Most of all, it’s skillful – you’re not just spamming nades. Push people off points to decap. If you’re lucky, you can kill someone with condies. If you need to kite around again to gain some sustain via backpack regen + regen boon, then you can do that as long as you’re able to push people back off of the node again once you are comfortable to go back.

Too bad, with all the stab wars get (or lyssa runes; who DOESN’T run lyssa with condi nukes around) and the condi immunity in the game and the condi nukes in the game, it has a hard time dealing with these things.

The worst is when a person before the match starts says, “How do you get points? How do you win?” before a solo que game. Rip team.

Don’t ever use skill 4 (its terrible and just eats up your initiative needlessly) and, in only excluding very rare occasions, don’t use skill 5 (it is also just an initiative drain). The aftercast on cloak and dagger makes tactical strike (stealth hit) virtually unusable. Instead, approach using something like 2 + steal, then use flanking strike, 1 + dodge (only the first hit in the chain though, since it has an extremely short aftercast), and larcenous strike + dodge. Your role as S/D is to provide constant pressure on a target. It is a high sustain dps build able to contest points – which is rare as a thief.

Xeph.4513:

All in all, since I do lack the experience with this patch, I was wondering if we could have a civil discussion regarding the matter, because I am genuinely interested in what the community thinks, since I have been so out of touch.

Xeph,

Balance is a touchy subject. If you nerf damage too much, then everyone will go sustain. If you nerf sustain too much, then everyone will go burst. Right now, sustain is pretty much king with examples of 800+ healing per second via warrior and ranger elite spirit. The best thing that can happen, in my opinion, is for a better (more experienced) testers testing the new patches before any of the patches go live.

I mean no offense. <3

Dahkeus.8243:

if you’re in Solo Q or you’re not in a teamfight with people that can tank like this, then no, you shouldn’t always pass up on stomping.

Absolutely not. It is far more important to make sure you don’t get downed. I am dead serious about this: Thieves. Do. Not. Stomp.

Dahkeus.8243:

For cleave damage, almost anyone else on your team will do better than you will with a short bow. As long as you have your poison field down, let someone else cleave. If someone goes to rez, then yea, you can focus on kicking them, but the beauty of thieves with a trickery build is that you can interrupt while you stomp (steal).

First of all, you don’t use steal to interrupt someone trying to use a 2 skill on you. You use it on people trying to res that person with stab – you are not stomping. Secondly, shortbow 4 into shortbow 2 is enough to guarantee most stomps. Do engies cleave better? Sure, but that doesn’t mean that thieves are magically great at stomping. Even an engie is better at stomping than a thief is. Thieves will always do a better job if they do something other than stomping. Thieves do not stomp in a teamfight. That is not their role There are way too many things that can go wrong.

Dahkeus.8243:

If the downed ally is in the middle of AoE, then a stomp isn’t viable, but to never stomp in a team fight? I can’t say I agree.

Don’t EVER stomp in a teamfight, EVER. That job is relegated to teammates who have some form of stability/invulnerability. Your job as a thief when a person is downed is to make sure no one resses that person. You can do that in multiple ways: You can shortbow 4 the area and cleave with shortbow 2, you can pop a blackpowder down on the body, if there is an engie spamming nades then you harass him, if you see a warrior using banner animation then you interrupt via headshot, if you see someone ressing with stability and your steal is available then you can strip the stab and interrupt. There are SO MANY better options a thief can do when someone is downed other than stomping. Thief’s roll is to deal damage not to take damage. Do what a thief does best.

Dahkeus.8243:

Regardless, another method to consider when you need to get a key enemy down in the middle of a ton of AoE is to Shadowstep stomp.

Then you blow a critical cooldown skill on something that another class can easily do better. There are far better options other than a thief stomping in a teamfight.

Don’t get me wrong, if you just killed someone and mid stomp an ally of his comes by, shadowstep stomping is probably the best thing you can do. But in a teamfight, don’t EVER stomp.

Shakya.6351:

if cast black powder and then steal the field would be far away from me as a reach my enemy with steal…

The idea is to cast them at the same time. You will pop blackpowder at the location where you teleport if you do this.

Shakya.6351:

and with mug if im stealthed and cast steal i get revealed cause mug damage…

Again, use them at the same time. I.E. press both keys at the same time. You will land your backstab and your mug and will not get revealed off of mug.

Don’t ever, and I do mean ever, stomp in a teamfight as a thief in spvp – this is a BIG nono. Thieves rely on their mobilty to survive. The three second “stun” when stomping is a thief killer in a team fight. Instead its more important, pop down a blackpowder and move on to pressure people trying to cleave the body or interrupt those trying to res him via banner or ranger spirit. Also, always try to apply “cleave” poison via shortbow 4 around the downed body. It will significantly increase the res time.

Also, one of the best plays you can make as a thief is when a teammate is down and an enemy is in downed state at the same time. Plant your shadow refuge to invis your ally and invis the teammate stomping the dead body. Most players will ether try and cleave your ally or their friend. Ether way, you’re in a really good position and most likely will be able to res your teammate (via stomp) and down the enemy.

Good point John. Forgot that one. It’s good to make people panic and hopefully blow a few cooldowns.

So, just coming here to say hi.

Hi.

1 & 2) Just different styles. S/D provides point contention and very good pressure, while D/P provides gank/daze utility ability. One is for sustained dps (S/D) and the other is for burst.

3) Any thief vs thief matchup between really good players, the d/p should always win.

4) People actually have been playing S/P after the nerf to S/D. So it’s still in use.

Yasha.5963:

Btw normal (auto) attacks don’t take away blind, you have to use a skill (as far as I know). Maybe that’s the part you want the skill description to clarify?

Any attack that connects to an enemy will remove blind. This is why warrior axe 3 is really only used to remove said blinds. Certain skills will overload blinds (Detonation of clusterbomb, or warrior axe 2) they are great skills to use to get rid of blinds.

Mosharn.8357:

Its time this got what it deserves. No atk skill that has evade should be this spamable. It costs 4 init dodges and cripples. It is stupid how spamable.

Only if immob stacking gets removed, then I’m okay with an increased aftercast time. It’s amazing when people complain about shortbow 3, but don’t complain about people using 3 second duration (about 2 disabling shots for a teef = 8 initiative) blocks to prevent spikes while immobed.

Hello Shakya,

1) The typical way a thief backstabs with d/p is:

Blackpowder => heartseeker + Steal => backstab.

You are correct that this is highly predictable and the good players will dodge when you try to steal to them. If you don’t land your steal, that’s bad news bears. This makes this combo really only good when the opponent is busy with someone else and doesn’t know you’re around – gank them, basically. Instead, consider:

Blackpowder => Heartseeker => Backstab + Steal

Basically you wait in stealth for a bit, then strike with Backstab + Steal at the same time when the time is right. It does less damage, but it’s more unpredictable.

There is also a long range version:

Blackpowder => Heartseeker + Infiltrator’s Signet + Steal => Backstab

Use this ONLY if you need to get to a node very quickly. Activate infiltrators a hair second earlier than steal to pull this off. Keep in mind if you blow this combo, then you’re out on 2 ports which is a huge disadvantage.

There is also:

(While in stealth) Shadow Shot + Backstab

You can trigger a backstab after the pistol shot of shadowshot for a built in port backstab. The trick (at least for me) is to watch for the muzzle flash of the shot before hitting backstab like mad. Once you got it down once, you got it for life. Don’t use this setup too often though. The blind reveals you to the enemy (in a manner of speaking) and they will often dodge after getting blinded – screwing up your backstab. The better players will dodge, about face and whail into you knowing that you’ll get a face stab – which is also bad new bears for you; your backstabs gotta land on the back. Only use this in dire situations when you absolutely HAVE to get a backstab off. It’s great to use on fleeing opponents.

Keep in mind, in order for steal to go off without a hitch, you need to have a direct visible line of sight to the target. If not, you will steal to them, but you won’t “land” your steal. This is why Infiltrator Signet is so valuable: it doesn’t have that feature. You can just insta port to someone whether you have visible line of sight on them or not.

2) Almost always, you want to activate your bassi while in stealth. In fact, anything with a long cast time you almost always want to activate while in stealth. This will not reveal the bassi to the opponent, and allows you to land a bassi hit on your backstab. Bassi basically allows you to get a free hit in onto your opponent – its very powerful, but can be stopped via stunbreaker. Another option is to put it on while approaching a node with another teammate fighting some dude. The dude doesn’t know you’re there so you’re free to activate it out in the open.

3) Don’t walk into AoE damage. Realize that the teef is very squishy and almost a little amount of pressure onto the teef requires them to peel away for a bit. Instead, use your shortbow to the best of your ability. That being said, learn all of the porting spots on all of the map – they are invaluable. If you can’t handle something, don’t be afraid to leave and try and help out at other areas. One of the strongest talents a thief has is to be able to easily peel away from fights. Use it if crap hits the proverbial fan.

4) Not really.

PS: Oh and one more thing, learn how to dodge roll in your shadow refuge – it saves lives. You can also disabling shot the ground if you’re out of initiative. If you weapon swapped to your d/p and you have no energy and your swap is on cooldown, you better hope someone doesn’t knock you out of your shadow refuge. Also, don’t be afraid to spread poison via shortbow 4 when in stealth, it won’t reveal you and it will put pressure on those who are in the area. At the very least, it will put them in combat.

Cush.4063:

Deimos, I may disagree with a lot of what you have to say but I’m not going to lie you make me laugh. I’m not sure if you’re intending to be funny with all the “hehehe, okies, and O_O” but it really does make me laugh and lightens me up so thank you. lol.

I like his diary. It’s adorable.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

What do you think?

I think Warrior has an op stance called berserker’s that you can use to make sure you don’t get blinded when using your fear me. At the very least, I think that you probably shouldn’t be standing in blackpowder and clear any stray blind you might get with a ranged attack before using fear me. I think if you somehow messed up, then you simply got outplayed.

Here is a better idea Deimos,

Try and predict when someone is going to blind your “Fear Me!” before you use it.

One of the best things about this game, and really one of the deepest concepts to it, is to understand some of the core mechanics of the game. One of those core mechanics is piercing attacks.

Let’s face it, piercing attacks are terrible. Nobody uses Mesmer greatsword auto-attack to pierce people. Nobody uses Mesmer scepter 3 to stack aoe confusion. Nobody uses Ele scepter arc lighting auto-attack to pierce targets(at all, really; if anything, just to gain back endurance via trait). Nobody in their right mind would dump 20 points into the Ranger Marksmanship line to take piercing arrows. Shortbow 2 on Ranger is more for just pressing a button other than pressing auto-attack 1 only once for a fight.

The piercing attack mechanic is so circumstantial that it’s practically useless. In fact I think a staff ele is more effective than someone trying to constantly utilize any type of piercing attack. What gives?

PowerBottom.5796:

So? GW1 had tons of lame Teambuilds as well – it was part of the game.

Here is the big difference: A balanced build (with proper use of teamwork) in GW1, if you had the skill, could deal with any cheese. It’s one of the reasons why the game was so great. It got bad in its evening years, sure, but for most of its life this was the case in general.

No. Shortbow 3 is one of the only tools we have when we get immobed (for those of us who don’t run with withdraw). Other classes get blocks, we have to use some type of evade. We can port, but that will only do so much when you have a 4 to 5 second immob on you. We can use shadowstep, but it has a 50 second cooldown and we would be burning it on something that isn’t a stun.

I think Armor of Earth should have a 180 cooldown instead of its 90. Its a stunbreaker, and provides protection and stability for a WHOLE 6 SECONDS!? You’ve got to be kidding me, Anet! Nerf this crap to the ground! Someone might point to the warrior with balanced stance being a natural 8 seconds of stability and swiftness on a recharge of 40 seconds, but to them I say you can’t compare other classes. Checkmate Atheists.

Skynet has taken over anet. There is no need to play the game anymore, the AI will do it for you.

He’s one heck of a decapper. His fav spot in WvW seems to be at northwest tower on a home map. He circles the cliff/guild-lord-pillar-thingy, and just knocks people off with his flamethrower, big ole bomb, and shield- and I mean like 1v5. Its good fun to see him play again.

Kryshade.6075:

[…] in Solo Queue, when your team controls two points it’s best to just defend and not push far point.

What would be more accurate is to check home to make sure no one is pushing, if not then you can go for the contain (secondary objectives can be placed as priority, that sort of thing).

Lopez.7369:

Mesmer and thief are easily the best options. The key to going for far point is being able to go back to the rest of your team when — not if — the need arises.

^This. Any class that has an easy time peeling away from a fight are typically the best classes to push far.

In teamque, you can set up a 3-man push to far to disorient them and plant 1-2 defender able to hold off at least 2 people while the rest move back to the team fights, that takes coordination though and isn’t used commonly in soloque.

Lol at all the people who say NEVER push far and that it’s a pointless endeavor. It’s far more important to travel along paths that reveal the most amount of information about enemy movements, and to know what your class can do well and what it cannot do well, and adjust accordingly than it is to stick with some brainless formulaic tactic.

Josh, I just want to say that I think you’re doing a great job. Really, in my eyes, doing a great job at getting the pvp scene back up to standards. Thanks for being there for this community – much love.

IF ANET LETS YOU GO, I DON’T EVEN

sticky sticky plz plz

Romek.4201:

no – what he wrote was simply " it is stupid OP vs Nooobs in hotjoin but absolut useless in competive play cause it cant contest any node with this perma stealth play"

and hes right with this

when you guys cant understand this than no one rly cares here cause than you are wrong in this forum anyway

bye

no – what he wrote was “heartseeker spam is too good against noobs, therefore it needs to be nerfed; it doesn’t promote skilled play anyway”.

What he wrote was “share venom builds are too good against noobs, therefore it needs to be nerfed; it doesn’t promote skilled play anyway”.

What he wrote was “6 pool zerg rush is too good against noobs, therefore it needs to be nerfed; it doesn’t promote skilled play anyway”.

What he wrote was the elimination of this

ahuba.6430:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Sensotix.4106:

troch cooldown increased? just remove pu from the game its useless in tpvp and really really strong in hotjoin which helps nobody

This is an incredibly stupid comment. It’s a cheese build not playable in tourny play, but should be removed regardless. What a stupid, dumb comment.

This is an incredibly stupid comment. You give no insight to the discussion and no opinion that continues the discussion the thread proposes. What a stupid, dumb comment.

I didn’t think elitism like that needed to be blatantly pointed out other than recognizing how stupid of a comment it was. What he wrote was the very definition of elitism – it’s not usable in tourny play because its easy to deal with, but people shouldn’t be able to play it regardless. My bad.

Sensotix.4106:

troch cooldown increased? just remove pu from the game its useless in tpvp and really really strong in hotjoin which helps nobody

This is an incredibly stupid comment. It’s a cheese build not playable in tourny play, but should be removed regardless. What a stupid, dumb comment.

The biggest tip to survival that I try to make sure everyone understands is that you can dodge roll/disabling shot the ground in shadow refuge.

you ether run withdraw with lyssa runes, or hide in shadows + shadowstep and your rune choices open up volrath. Some people stick with lyssa, others move on to ogres.

First, and most importantly, none of us really know if you’re truly running into a mass scourge of perma-stealth thieves in tpvp (I can tell you, from my experience, they are a rarity – and for good reason). Secondly, most people who play other classes see blackpowder + heartseeker once and automatically assume the thief is spamming heartseeker through blackpowder. Most thieves actually don’t do this, at least to any effective extent, in spvp – much less tpvp. Thirdly, you’re all over the board OP. Heartseeker, at best, does about 5 to 6 k on a target with less than 33% health in spvp; at worst, it does around 2-2.5k on crit and on a target with 100% health. Also, are we talking about open heartseeker spam, or heartseeker spam through blind fields? Open heartseeker spam is easily countered by cripple, chill, immob then ranging the thief and laugh as he wildly flails about in mid-air.

I get it, you’re mad and want to vent on the forums. You have to realize, though, that heartseeker spam in spvp isn’t something that most people have a hard time dealing with – especially in tpvp and moreover with the dec 10th nerf to infusion of shadow. In fact, among “good” players, it is commonly known that shadowshot outpreforms heartseeker in every way possible. Even recognizing that heartseeker itself is a pretty terrible skill because it’s so easily countered and is a heavy drain on initiative if spammed.

Volrath.1473:

I still don’t see the need to spend 30 in trickery… I’ll give it a try when i get home but…
SA will give us access to condi remove on stealth and i don’t feel very comfortable with allot of boons since Necros are part of every team and Corrupt Boons will counter Trickery and Lyssa runes easily.

You must not spvp very often. For D/P, SA-line builds are weak in spvp for a couple of big reasons: they can’t contest points, the fights usually last too long, and (most importantly) they are incredibly selfish builds. The amount of team support you get from 30 trickery is insane. 10/30/0/0/30 is not a hs spam through blackpowder build like an SA build can be, but you shouldn’t (and don’t) need to do that on any thief build to survive.

bumping cuz second page

All is vain

Incurafy.6329:

Arganthium.5638:

I made my own warrior build, now I’m invincible.

No, seriously though. BS’d something, and I can’t tell you how much better I’m doing on a class I’ve played for an hour versus a class that I’ve played for 1000 hours.

Similar experience here, I theorycrafted a roamer in two hours and does practically everything my Thief does but better and with less effort. The only thing I miss is SB, lol.

^

All is vain.

Lol Oraith. I love you, and wish you the best <3.

Offtopic: I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be a “thing”.

The biggest problem with a build that runs caltrops is that an engie can provide point presence better (trapper ranger used to be popular for this reason as well). If you want to have the best capability of doing this type of playstyle, I’d recommend you play engie. They are generally better at 1v1 situations, and great at home and far points.

I would agree, but when it comes down to it a build that supports the team well is usually better than another build which focuses on self preservation. I.E. proper teamwork can deal with a far point assassulter.

Arganthium.5638:

Which is why Cruuk was able to use SA effectively. Though I’m not necessarily sure I’d say that his build provided little team support.

Actually it’s been pretty much covered. There is a reason why we don’t see PU messes being played in upper-level tpvp now, and (before perma stealth nerf) there was a reason why we didn’t see d/p thieves predominantly use cruuk’s build.

To each their own, sure, (most people don’t know how to deal with a good far point assaulter) but this has been pretty much covered.

ethanc.2947:

Here’s an interesting thought though, is not dying and killing enemies enough to be considered team friendly?

It has the same capability to kill things, if not more-so, than Cruuk’s build. Caed just can’t keep two (competent) people on far for the entire game. The biggest benefit of caed’s build is the daze and boon rip on steal. Boon rip isn’t on a first in last out basis. Stability, then aegis, then protection are the top three boons to be ripped off first – these are some of the most important boons to rip (except aegis, vigor is more important than aegis).