Guild Wars 2

… because burn is high damage short duration? Make it the same as other condi’s (lower damage per tick and longer duration) and I imagine the complaints will drop dramatically.

Of course, those built around burns are dead against that. I wonder why

I fight condi mesmers and sometimes they get the better of me, sometimes they don’t. But it’s mainly condition damage and not direct damage. Burn guardians do decent to good direct damage and high condi damage.

If thieves are supposedly the masters of stealth, why don’t we get reveal traits/skills.
Secondly, why do “stealth traps” only affect the enemy and not everyone?

To be fair… you tripped 4 traps. That’d be 2 x needle trap, the 3s knock-down and the very long range teleport trap; hence the 20 stacks of vulnerability. The needle traps do about 10k damage over 15s when you’ve fully condi food/build/stacked up; you were losing 2400 health per tick I think?

To those saying he used his condi cleanse too fast – debatable. If he hadn’t, he’d have died. What he wasn’t aware of was the cause… They’ve changed thief traps from 1 hour to 3 minute expire i think? Either way, the traps were laid in advance on a pinch point. I do this at camp entrances when trolling.

The problem was standing still after healing; you weren’t to know he had everything off cooldown before you tripped the traps – but if you had dodge rolled immediately after cleansing then the knockdown would have failed. Whether you’d have lived much more remains to be seen.

His traps were off cooldown at the time of activation, so once you cleansed (powerful cleanse) and he’d ported in – dropped the 3s knockdown trap, stole to you for the confusion stacks and more stealth, dropped needle trap – then dodged ontop for more damage and a final withdraw to drop the second needle trap.

You had no chance.

I haven’t used the shadowstep trap, but I’ve done this exact same action to many. Engineers, ele’s, guardians, rangers, mesmers, thieves… they all die; you’re not alone in that.

It’s pure troll. I doubt you’d stand any chance of winning a fight against that thief – not without a hell of a lot of condi cleanse and patience.

Thief traps don’t reveal as they do no physical damage at all. Only one really applies conditions… the others apply vuln due to a trait. I disagree that the trap should reveal, but how about an alternative suggestion:

The trap goes into cooldown once the trap is triggered? That way we can’t pre-lay a trap and when it’s triggered and you cleanse, instantly drop another ontop of you. To prevent placement spam it can have a 3s cooldown on placement (or 4s – to tally with generic stealth skill duration).

Why do I suggest that? Even if he was revealed he can still lay traps and still get away with no issue; you’d have still died basically as you’d have gone into that second set of traps OR he’d have stolen to you and pre-casting a trap, had it drop on you as he arrived. He doesn’t need stealth to do that.

But if those traps were on a 20s cooldown as you’d just tripped them? Well, you’d not have died – he’d have had no traps to drop on you for the second condi bomb. Then again… that’d completely nullify trapper build – and it is fun in a trollish way. People see thieves these days and think easy targets. The amount of bile you get in messages after stomping them, or even multiple, enemies is unbelievable. They expect to win, lose, and then go mental at you. Especially enjoyable at condi builds as they really think thieves are simple-as to them now.

Currently the trapper build allows 2x condi bombs within a matter of seconds (if they prelaid the traps) and that is probably the main issue for any build to counter.

Always fight until the end – even if the team loses the overall battle, you can still win/enjoy or contest your individual fights.

I personally prefer d/d thief, and I have to admit, had some startling success recently as it appears people forgot how it plays!

But it’s short lived…

If you’re REALLY down about WvW there is one, dirty, option. With it you can roam free, safe in the knowledge that you’ll, if not win every encounter, survive every encounter.

Trapper condi thief with dire and condi foods, condition stacks. D/D ele’s usually run or you run… and anything with insane cleanses can probably escape too.

But other than that, it’s a very powerful, very evil, little build. It also doesn’t require perm stealth, certainly not in a 1v1 situation anyway. I spend nearly the entire duration of fights in 1 or 2 vs 1 on Short Bow.

The fact that you can pre-lay your traps in anticipation of a fight (you see them approach after all) means you can be a bit like a spider with a web; I’ve even had players dying from just walking into the traps and not condi cleansing (probably not realising what’s going on as i stay a distance away).

I call it a bit of a troll build… but it doesn’t rely upon pre-trapping. I’ve been jumped by invididuals, groups and more without warning (including two thieves bursting) – only to evade, and turn the tables onto them before winning comprehensively. So it is strong. But it can be slow against multiples as you basically whittle via traps and sb2 and may not have your traps back when they’re busy res’ing their buddy. Then again, that’s what the d/p 4 is for

Is it fun to play? Not really… and you WILL get a shed load of private messages of abuse. Well, either abuse or people asking what the build is and suggestions on how to counter – which i’m only to happy to provide. Since it relies on traps and traps can be evaded it is indeed counterable. Just so far no-one realises it.

The biggest surprise is how long some players are letting those conditions tick for – almost seeing if they can wait it out. Such a horrific decision as they end up cleansing as they’re nearly dead. That means an inevitable easy kill. Check durations/stacks and cleanse asap.

When the final score comes up.

Up until that point it is possible (however improbable) to turn things around.
However, generally it’s how we got to a position where we are losing, recognising what is wrong and players adjusting/adapting to this if pointed out.

If you’re simply bettered by the other team, you’ll probably know within the first 100 points. Soldier on, but outclassed is outclassed unless they’re liable to make mistakes (become fight fixated) through overconfidence.

If it’s all your team getting caught up fighting on a single point; mass capping a single point to improve personal point score; leaving points before they’re capped; fighting a tank 1v1 they can’t win against and therefore wasting time; fighting off point etc – all can be addressed via messages (as long as they’re a) reading them, b) willing to try to change).

I sometimes find it frustrating that you may get a rage quitting whiner who’ll quit within 30s – simply because your score is already down. They think they’re great so blame the rest of the team, and therefore don’t stick around to realise that if the other team win all initial fights and hold the 3 points, it can easily reverse as they’re spread thin; it’s still winnable. But they’ve no brains and quit – which sadly means you’re up against it. Simply changing the who went where could have resulted in a complete reversal but you’ll never know.

meepeY.2867:

Thieves need no damage buffs. Thieves need no Utility buffs. Thieves need defence buffs.

Totally agree – there’s no need to buff damage; we do enough damage. Anyone calling for more damage is still in awe at the ‘one shot kill’ philosophy; time to stop dreaming of just backstabbing to death.

The utility skills are fine imo.

Defence buffs… well, yes, we die mighty quick.

Personally I think 6s of resistance on reveal is too strong (especially since reveal is shorter) and it’d need a cooldown to ensure it’s not abused (aka instant reveal for another 6s of resistance in order to smash a condi class into oblivion).

Personally I just want the old Shadows Embrace back, removing 1 condi on stealth and thereafter every 3s. A damage mitigation for d/d thieves (either give us blind on 5, or increase the evade of death blossom to make it more predictable evade.. or better yet, both) and that’s probably about it.

That and fixing the pathing issues for shadow step, sb5 and more. Especially sb5 which takes the init and returns you back to the start with the sudden (no such path). If there’s no path, don’t take my kitten initiative!

1) Eleandra is joking, but would love to see how condi builds would suddenly think maybe condi’s are OP.
2) It’d transfer 1 every 3 seconds… high damage per tick / low duration condi’s wouldn’t likely get transferred as they’d “tick out” before it procs.
3) It’s a L2P issue – since they’d only get transferred on an attack you can easily evade and dodge those attacks after the condi bomb to make this a non problem… I mean hell – you can see the condi’s they’ve got loaded AND the attack incoming! So L2P AMIRITE? :P

Yes, (3) is a leg pulling exercise. We’re constantly told condi is a L2P issue… evade, dodge, cleanse.

Poxxia, not sure you’re quite getting what I am saying… I am pointing out is where statements are made that don’t stack up, not what your build choices should be.

So:

1) I’m not commenting upon the quality of reveals that classes have (or will have), I’m pointing out that the below two paraphrases are at odds with each other, yet are both being put forward by those complaining about thieves/stealth:

“No-one is going to change skills to address one class mechanic” (reveal skills).
“Everyone is changing builds to address one class mechanic”. (vamp runes).

Eh?!

It’s nothing to do with what you run, we all have build choice dilemmas. It is simply the claim that no-one will change builds to address one class mechanic followed by a claim that most change builds to address a class mechanic.
Now whether people do or don’t change their builds to address one class is their choice. But making sweeping statements as if true but only in favour of “stealth is OP” isn’t… fair.

2) Never said smoke field isn’t strong. They reduced the pulse frequency which was a good thing as it was a bit OP – but honestly it’s the 3 skill that I find makes d/p really strong; teleport with blind.

3) Again, my response wasn’t about your build choices – that’s not my problem. I was responding to the claim that once in stealth its “random cleave” is the only option; it isn’t… unless you build in a way that it is. But your choice to build that way isn’t my concern – I’m pointing out that there are options IF you choose to have them.

4) Yes, and without stealth (since the changes to acro line) thieves would die to practically everything; we have no shields, no invulns, no damage transfers; just blinds.

A lot of complaints about thief are that it’s “overpowered” in some way. It isn’t overpowered, nor is it underpowered. It is time for some to entertain the notion that if they got beaten by a thief then it’s entirely possible the thief is just a better player. I beat and lose to thieves as a thief and warrior. Sometimes the thief kills me with hardly seeming to lose any life. The other day I won 2v1’s where I’m against two thieves – both as warrior and thief. Clearly the ones who beat me just are better. Clearly the 2 I beat in a single fight were worse (a lot worse to be fair).

Try playing a thief and see… you’ll win some, you’ll lose some. The one thing you notice is that when you lose, you lose bloody fast

lordkrall.7241:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Return
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Return
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trickster
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Lyssa
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Purity
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Cleansing
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Generosity
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Hoelbrak
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Melandru
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Resistance

These are all ways to combat condition damage on thief.

The main way to avoid conditions (or any damage) though would be not getting hit. Something that thieves are rather good at with their easy access to Stealth and teleports.

They’re not all the ways – signet of agility removes a single condition (will refill endurance so it’s actually a useful option). Trickster requires dropping boon ripping from steal – a harsh trade off if you’re d/d, d/p, but probably good with s/d.

However, then you need to take tricks – probably withdraw for the shorter cooldown (s/d, d/p works well), otherwise you’re going to be trading one of shadow step, shadow refuge or your stun break/signet of agility for a single condition cleansing trick. I personally wouldn’t… the others are too valuable to me.

But withdraw doesn’t remove damaging conditions – so you need to use something else to clear more than 1 other condition though. Could use shadows embrace. However, shadows embrace only removes 1 condition every 3s, removing the first condition after 3s – so you have to endure 3s of conditions and something to give you stealth. You can take hide in shadows as well, but that won’t remove torment or confusion so no point using any of those to clear it unless there are other conditions masking it that need removing to allow your other means of condi removal getting to the damaging one.

Shadowstep is the best way to remove conditions quickly, but sadly it only does that on return to the scene of the crime. Same for infiltrators – but that requires init as well.

From memory sigil of cleansing isn’t in pvp is it? Generosity – does that wait until you’ve a condition before triggering? Isn’t that reliable is it so would not rely upon it. Lyssa would go well with the basi venom as that’s a short cooldown, so could maybe try it.

It may be better to just try experimenting with build/runes for breathing space – if you’re zerk then you’re so glassy that the cast times for heals and or stealth means you die too quick anyway – and if they interrupt you…

If you can recognise the “condi bomb” moves then start to dodge them it’s a good start. I’m still trying to learn them all too

BlackBeard.2873:

In fact, the power of stealth bursts in many situations has caused the meta to be dominated by vamp runes. Idk how you can claim your class is weak when it is still shaping the entire meta.

Some things just don’t plain add up. On one hand we have people saying rangers don’t take sic ‘em, engies won’t run their reveal and others don’t use reveals because “it’s trash and not useful” so we shouldn’t complain about increased reveals as it’s irrelevant…

And then on the other hand you are claiming people are changing their entire build to counter thieves bursting from stealth?

This ‘argument’ cannot be had both ways!!

stealth is king in burst vs burst … it also gives you, when combined with shadowsteps, unparalleled capability to reset any time you make a mistake, and once you get into stealth, the ways you can be damaged are limited to random melee cleave.

Not true… any form of AoE, especially condition based, and/or traps, marks and more. Additionally, if I make a mistake I’m dead; a LOT of classes have skills that can hit for 8k+ these days – especially if you wasted a dodge and have none left, or had to use your stun breakers to enable a condi cleanse/gap closer. True, my build is relatively glassy so I should probably experiment more – but I’m currently playing warrior as it’s awesome fun.

Finally, in regards to thieves specifically, I have reason to believe that you aren’t a very good thief if you think that all your damage comes from just backstab. Dagger auto-attacks are one of the strongest in the game, and properly using your blind fields to capitalize on this is something every good thief does.

You are aware that people can hit from outside the smoke fields, right? It’s not just drop a smoke field, stand and auto-attack to win.

Consider this: You engage in a 1v1 on-point as a thief vs. anyone. You get low and shadow refuge. What should your opponent do? If he just leaves he gives you the point for free, and you just won your 1v1 without downing anyone. If he stays, you can already be at another point spiking someone down while he stands there, being as effective as if you were 2v1-ing. I don’t know how you can ever say that stealth, which creates such a situation, shouldn’t have any way to counterplay it…

What fantasy world do you live in? I suggest you go play a thief and drop a shadow refuge infront of someone when you’re “low” – let us know how that goes.

To be clear – stealth doesn’t remove us to some magical place out of harms way.

I main thief, but love playing warrior. The advice about timings is great advice if people aren’t aware – but don’t get disheartened if you still lose. This isn’t going to provide you with a win, just improves your knowledge to try turn the tables a little bit in a fight.

But against a more skilled opponent, you’re likely still going to lose. And as with every game, there are always plenty of players who are better out there.

infantrydiv.1620:

Magic Toker died about once in WTS playing Shadow Arts thief vs some of the best players in the world on such builds as Burn Guardian and D/D Fire Ele before the nerf… I think that attests the survivability SA thief both vs condis and burst.

Firstly an individual example does not prove your statement to be true; do you even play thief or just going on a “top top player I hear of”? Could it not be his skill level and knowledge of their classes/attacks that allowed him to survive (I assume win, but…). Are you saying the only reason he survived or won was because he took shadow arts?

Shadow arts provides the ability to regen in stealth, heal in stealth, and to cleanse one of five conditions every 3 seconds – with the first removed after 3 seconds of stealth. Obviously there are other, less condition/survivability related alternatives in that line.

It doesn’t turn you into Mr Invincible, nor make you laugh in the face of condi’s. It will help you survive in the +1 / back capper roll as you simply disengage and move elsewhere without burning all skills to clear condi’s that may be helpful in other scenarios; so that’s very true.

But it doesn’t mean conditions don’t present a risk and/or a significant threat.

Now add in the fact more classes will have reveals, and that shadow arts line may be entirely negated…

infantrydiv.1620:

Just try running:

-Celestial Signet Necro (if you are facing all condi teams, then run offhand dagger as well)
-Shadow Arts Thief
-Shoutbow Warrior
-D/D Ele (Diamond Skin, or auto Cleansing Fire + remove burn on Dodge)
-Mantra Mesmer (with mantra heal and power cleanse)

Thank me later

Oh, SHADOW ARTS – I never knew! If I had then conditions would never have been a problem.

Yes, that’s sarcasm. If you need it breaking down for you as to why it’s sarcastic then… well, i doubt you have played thief.

XPilo.5862:

If you need remove something, remove the 2 tomes of knowledge, they are almost useless.

Some people like me, uses the transmute charge a lot.

Keep tomes, right now I use them for spirit shards. Unless they’re going to make another way to get mystic clovers that’s reliable or actually useful… and that’s not even going near the use of tomes for new(er) players.

Not met condi warriors yet. But yes, nearly everything I fight is condi based. I just want burn to be made like other conditions – reduce the strength, increase the duration.

trytonianYeti.4389:

if this OP spent as much time LEARNING how to counter burning stacks from dodging the skills that apply burns and cleansing at the right time as he does whining on the forums, he’d think burns are underpowered or at least not that of a huge threat

Let me guess, you run a burn build.

Conditions bypass toughness – and then the dire stat on top makes condi builds resistant to dps builds. Celestial means they can do a bit of both quite effectively.

I’m not adverse to conditons, they’ve a place in game and should be viable. But burn IS overpowered compared to other conditions.

I’m sure you see no problems with burns but that doesn’t mean those who are concerned about this should be ignored. However, Anet won’t do anything about it.

Out of interest, those who do run burn builds – why do you? Do you happen to win more with it? Find it easier than other builds?

Most builds i meet in pvp are condi – with burn being the predominant one. The problem as I see it is that a lot of condi application is via weapons, and condi cleanse via skills. Which has the shorter cooldown?

It’s therefore easier to reapply than remove – and with burn being so powerful…

Sigil of cleansing would help. Why is it not in pvp?

Zodryn.4216:

*

• How does thief (not daredevil) fare against daredevil and other classes introduced in HoT. Keep in mind, all elites and even base specs have received significant changes since the last BWE. Please give feedback based on this weekend and not past experiences.

Normal thief against beta classes today…

Utterly destroyed against most classes. Maybe tooltips are bugged, but the Rev appears to do up to 6-8k hits on their (I believe) auto attack hammer? It shows as 2s reuse, does three hits each hitting 6-8k.

Flame gun (whichever class) hit for 14k… it has 5 or 8s cooldown or something?

Engineer elite spec ran with 5 players chasing – we couldn’t kill and their heal was insane. 1v1 got wrecked in a few seconds.

Distinct impression that ‘free to play’ players (assuming they don’t have access to these new things) will be utterly destroyed; no idea how daredevil fares as haven’t created any beta characters. The new classes have been very frustrating to play against and not actually killed any of them at the moment. Whilst I’m not the worlds best thief by any stretch, didn’t think I was that bad.

alchemyst.2165:

The tooltip is wrong. It’s like a 3-4 second slow I believe, deals 2-4k damage. Pretty cool actually, I like it.

If it’s that long then it matches the duration of reveal, which means it’s very powerful indeed.

Slow/chill can turn a fight (I must be one of the few who tries to use the stolen chill on an ele) if it’s a reasonable duration.

1s slow from rev vs 3s daze from guardian.

It is so annoying to see others being corrected and yet this still remains untouched. What, precisely, makes it so difficult to do?

Additional irritants are still losing 6 init when SB5 fails in the shadowstep due to no path, teleport in down state not working as you’re on a surface that doesn’t enable it (or you’re trying to do it over a path that’s supposedly invalid despite being level).

I’d also love to hear why such bugs aren’t being fixed, whereas other classes appear to have lots of bugs fixed. Is it that these aren’t “bugs”, or is thief being intentionally ignored with regards to bugs?

Solution: Don’t use auto attack. Flight time of projectiles aren’t the problem.

ionix.9054:

OK, Summary:
- Thief community thinks it’s OK. It is well balanced. Nothing should be changed.
- If I want more balance I should get out of wvwvw and go to spvp
- Entirely a L2P issue on my part. W/ more experience I should be able to beat them no prob
- Mesmers came up a few times for some reason
- The guy who uploaded the video was mocked for being bad.

Thanks for the responses!

The first tell is “with L2P I should be able to beat them no prob”. No… any class vs another should depend upon ability/skill of players.
Case in point – I run a trapper condi thief – and usually people die. However, a ranger beat me. Significantly. Why? Because they were better and worked out a strategy.

Traps only work if you walk into them. They only work if you don’t bother condi cleansing (i’ve seen a guardian at near death after walking into a trap… probably thought no-one was there, but EASY kill because they just tried to wait the condi’s out).

The ranger interrupted me a treat, used taunt, used sic em etc.

Most players haven’t got a strategy. Most players don’t know what to do. So no, it shouldn’t be “L2P and it’s easy” – it’s “Work out how to counter and then try”.

Just because you lose to something doesn’t mean it needs nerfing. I only win against Ele’s when I attack them with pre-laid traps and they fail to start condi cleansing. That’s usually the first mistake “I’ll wait the condi out”. Great idea… you die.

Why? The problem identified by the original poster is using dagger/pistol to constantly stealth, supplemented by the traps for a little extra. Reality is he doesn’t need the stealth on traps at all… that’s just a nice addition and a fail safe. He could set traps from stealth without trapper runes.

I ran roughly the same build as before with krait runes instead. Still withdraw and needle trap, still worked a treat – just using black powder, stealth on steal and shadow refuge.

The same gameplay mechanic is there – using traps to do the vast majority of the damage, with a little pistol 1 from stealth and pistol 3 to gain the gap.

Your post is almost as knee jerk as the QQ’s being mentioned :P

Met a ranger who wasn’t even weilding a bow – and again, dead heat. He had adapted to trapper thief and was doing very well indeed.

I don’t mind reveal per se, it’s a counter and an evil one.

But what I do mind is the classes that can reveal, but also being able to stealth. Why can a thief, supposed master of the stealth, not have the ability to reveal too?

Why healing signet? Since you drop traps on heal and traps stealth, tricks are reduced – go withdraw. It’s 14s cooldown, stealths you (trap can be laid every 25s so every 2 withdraws back to back) stun breaks, cleanses immobility and a condi cleanse.

It synergizes so well – and withdraw would have certainly helped you in that fight.

I made full condi build based around traps, the same runes, withdraw etc.

Precast your needle before steal, lays on confusion, all the conditions associated with steal and then needle trap – whilst in stealth. First they know they’re engaged is that they’ve got 4-6 conditions…

You can troll fairly hard (e.g. WvW north camp stack place behind a bench near the supply location) by using withdraw and needle trap (so two traps) onto that location and wait for cooldown off. That way when someone runs into it – they get large condi application, preloaded with might and them vulnerability and you’ve got everything available off cooldown.

However, I went p/d than d/p – but may try it.

Major issues are mobility; did you even have a stun break? Withdraw offers one opportunity when synergizing with the traits for tricks and runes for stealth.

Is it as fun as playing my beloved d/d? No… but d/d is hard these days. Is it as fun as s/d? Definitely a big heck no, but I’ve struggled with s/d and regularly get ruined playing it. I’ve refused to be d/p until now, but the blinds are needed to mitigate damage in fights and I can see why it’s the “viable” meta.

The condi build is… viable. If people are putting 3-5k burns on me which I can’t condi cleanse fast enough – and can reapply it faster than I can cleanse – then why should I feel bad about making use of what Anet has provided us with?