Guild Wars 2

Amazing thief build from dinhjk:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1oic60/thieferis_the_snare_king_thief_proof_of_concept/

“Pros:

• Good Control — Stun / Immobilize at least one target on a ~3 second CD
• Immobilize — If you want to immobilize your target, you can try to aim for a +50-100% condition duration build which will get you 1.5s-2s second immobilizes on your target.
• Good Armor-Negating damage — Perplexity runes offer us the ability to stack 25 confusion easily. This is 3-4k damage whenever the affected target “acts” even if it is to clear the condition. Since it lasts 15 seconds, you can be sure they’ll hurt in one way or the other. (Having your enemy do nothing for 15 seconds is good control as well wink)
• “Perma” Confusion — Stunning every 3 seconds for 5 stacks of 15 second confusion means 25 stacks of confusion indefinitely.
• Surprisingly good health pool for a Thief (16-20k)
• Should have anywhere from 3-20 stacks of might
• Good access to vigor/dodging"

How do you guys feel about this thief build in wvw?

Was this posted here? I wanted to know what you guys think of this (this is not my content):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1oic60/thieferis_the_snare_king_thief_proof_of_concept/

Here’s a synopsis (there’s more in the link, you’ll want to click on it):

With the new WvW league out and Oct 15th patch notes, I wanted to create a fun Thief build!

What’s one of the first thing that sets a Thief apart from other classes? Initiative.

Thieves are capable of reducing their weapon skill cooldowns by an obnoxious 50% or more. Here’s a demonstration:

If a Thief can normally maintain a skill every 6 seconds, with the proper setup, this can be dropped down to 3 seconds or less. (For every weapon skill.)

If a weapon skill costs 4 initiative, you could normally use it 3 times every 16 seconds, but, with the proper setup, this can be reduced to 3 times every 8 seconds.

If a Thief were so inclined, they could stun or immobilize a target every 3 seconds over the long run. (?!?!!) With the proper setup, you can stun or Immobilize a target every three seconds.

Where would that be fun to use? (I’m thinking in the WvW zerg!) If they have stability and can’t be stunned, then immobilize their kitten. If they can be stunned, then confuse the kitten out of them.

With the Oct 15th build arrived and patch notes read, I present my quirky, but entertaining, WvW Thief build.

Role:
Crowd Control
Stay alive.

Pros:

• Good Control — Stun / Immobilize at least one target on a ~3 second CD
• Immobilize — If you want to immobilize your target, you can try to aim for a +50-100%
  condition duration build which will get you 1.5s-2s second immobilizes on your target.
• Good Armor-Negating damage — Perplexity runes offer us the ability to stack 25 confusion easily. This is 3-4k damage whenever the affected target “acts” even if it is to clear the condition. Since it lasts 15 seconds, you can be sure they’ll hurt in one way or the other. (Having your enemy do nothing for 15 seconds is good control as well wink)
• “Perma” Confusion — Stunning every 3 seconds for 5 stacks of 15 second confusion means 25 stacks of confusion indefinitely.
• Surprisingly good health pool for a Thief (16-20k)
• Should have anywhere from 3-20 stacks of might
• Good access to vigor/dodging

Cons:

• Only one stun breaker (Chopps edit: how is this a con? Seems awesome to get a stun break with this build!)
• Minimal access to condition clearing (Alleviated by -40% condition food and evading/positioning)
• No “burst” damage — We’re using a P/P build with sub-optimal Power/Precision/Crit Damage
• The best “burst” we have is CC — We can stun 5 times (25 confusion), immobilize 5 times, or combination of the two in less than 5 seconds.
• No access to swiftness (But at least has 25% passive movement)
• No access to blast finishers

I love how in that thread, OP says “cons: only one stun breaker” hahahahahaha. In addition to all of that in fact he gets a stun breaker too is astonishing. How is that a so-called drawback???? rofl

Considering thieves will be doing this now:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1oic60/thieferis_the_snare_king_thief_proof_of_concept/

I think guildwars2 has lost some direction, sadly.

In that thread, OP discusses how a thief can…

“Thieferis, The Snare King build Pros:

• Good Control — Stun / Immobilize at least one target on a ~3 second CD
• Immobilize — If you want to immobilize your target, you can try to aim for a +50-100% * condition duration build which will get you 1.5s-2s second immobilizes on your target.
• Good Armor-Negating damage — Perplexity runes offer us the ability to stack 25 * confusion easily. This is 3-4k damage whenever the affected target “acts” even if it is to clear the condition. Since it lasts 15 seconds, you can be sure they’ll hurt in one way or the other. (Having your enemy do nothing for 15 seconds is good control as well wink)
• “Perma” Confusion — Stunning every 3 seconds for 5 stacks of 15 second confusion means 25 stacks of confusion indefinitely.
• Surprisingly good health pool for a Thief (16-20k)
• Should have anywhere from 3-20 stacks of might
• Good access to vigor/dodging"

That looks really freaking scary! Wow, ANET. Seriously? haha. thats just so funny

Lunchbox.9543:

There was supposed to be: “# changes to some of the Ranger weapons.”

I can only find notes pertaining to Maul, and I just figured since this was a big balance update and all, there had to be more since that wasn’t the only problem.

You’re forgetting the fix to Barrage’s condition duration when traited with Eagle Eye.

Have you tested it? And has anyone tested Nature’s Voice? I’m bored of doing QA because I got better thing to do with my time.

kiwituatara.6053:

Chopps.5047:

kiwituatara.6053:

Durzlla.6295:

Really? They buff support into being extremely viable on EVERY OTHER PROFESSION and then for ranger what do they do? Give us a wimpy kitten pet heal compared to the monstrous heal that Guardians, Necros, and Eles (will be a flood of smaller heals unlike the other 2). Sure, you buffed Vigorous Training, big whoop, you only did that cause you nerfed our other source of AoE vigor (which i’d argue was far better).

And oh god!! How dare you give rangers a half way decent condi removal for taking one of the weakest pets in the game (bears)! Cause we all know 3 condis instead of 2 would have just been WAAAAAAAY too strong, i mean god forbid someone took a bear AND empathetic bond! It’d almost be like a bunker was immune to conditions! That’d just be really OP!

Well on the bright side, my ele was buffed big time! And my engi and mesmer got buffs too, looks like i’ll be maining my ele afterall because it’s clear that anet doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to ranger. I mean for kittens sakes, they couldn’t even find Companions Defense in their preview, and this is the SECOND time they’ve blatantly lied about buffs for us.

Perma aoe fury with Red Moa and concentration training \o/

Are you serious? it is not perma fury!!!

? I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not XD

You act like it’s free. You have to go 10 in nature magic (concentraing training) and 10 in beastmastery (commanding voice) for it AND take a red moa. Ranger just doesn’t have that kind of points to spread around without diluting a build.

Durzlla.6295:

Haudruff.7804:

…or is it removing the bleeds one applies on mobs? oO

Oh god…. someone please test this… i wouldn’t be surprised if this actually happens…

It does not remove bleed stacks from an enemy.

Confirmed: broken. Doesn’t work for birds either, I tested that specifically.

kiwituatara.6053:

Durzlla.6295:

Really? They buff support into being extremely viable on EVERY OTHER PROFESSION and then for ranger what do they do? Give us a wimpy kitten pet heal compared to the monstrous heal that Guardians, Necros, and Eles (will be a flood of smaller heals unlike the other 2). Sure, you buffed Vigorous Training, big whoop, you only did that cause you nerfed our other source of AoE vigor (which i’d argue was far better).

And oh god!! How dare you give rangers a half way decent condi removal for taking one of the weakest pets in the game (bears)! Cause we all know 3 condis instead of 2 would have just been WAAAAAAAY too strong, i mean god forbid someone took a bear AND empathetic bond! It’d almost be like a bunker was immune to conditions! That’d just be really OP!

Well on the bright side, my ele was buffed big time! And my engi and mesmer got buffs too, looks like i’ll be maining my ele afterall because it’s clear that anet doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to ranger. I mean for kittens sakes, they couldn’t even find Companions Defense in their preview, and this is the SECOND time they’ve blatantly lied about buffs for us.

Perma aoe fury with Red Moa and concentration training \o/

Are you serious? it is not perma fury!!!

kiwituatara.6053:

Glad you’re catching out all these tooltip error chopps. Theres soooooo many of them.

I only count three so far. In my opinion, there should be zero errors. One is more than a enough.

Trait Bugs

• Vigorous Training is broken

Tooltip Bugs

• Sword tooltip incorrect (does not appear to remove bleed)
• Sharpened edges tooltip incorrect
• furious grip tooltip incorrect

Utility Bugs

• sic ’em still overrides pet utilities
• signet of the wild transform (signet of the beastmaster) does not allow interaction with porcine drops, stomping, or elementalist weapons

Pet Bugs

• Have to stop and cast to make the utilities work when no target is selected.
• Expertise training interaction is bugged or else tooltip is incorrect
• fern hound heal amount is incorrect

Boomstin.3460:

Oh god…
Can’t they get anything right?

I have tested it. it works, but the tooltip seems incorrect. Preliminary testing shows an activation rate of 60% chance on crit.

Sarision.6347:

Can’t imagine that they would literally increase the fury duration and not swiftness duration too, and why would they want to do it anyway?

Why would they give necro’s burning? Why would they give guardians fury? Compared to those changes, this seems minor.

Says 0% chance ?

Has anyone tested this?

Sarision.6347:

Pretty sure the tooltip needs fixing.

Why are you pretty sure? Didn’t they just overhaul the tooltip system? I’m surprised anything is broken after they hyped up their new dynamic tooltip features. That was a major press item for them. Really, I thought they’d nail this one.

Yeah, I tested it and can confirm: it’s still broken. It means you cannot use environmental weapons from porcine or elementalists while transformed, among other things such as stomp denial due to the transform (is this really intended?).

Henner.1209:

if something its broken with sic ‘em it’s that it will get cancelled if you give any other commands to your pet, so it doesn’t work together with many F2 skills..
but why should they fix it, instead they give it a useless stealth detection.

It’s not “if”. It is broken in the manner you describe, no doubt about it.

Henner.1209:

its says spooter increased precision by 117, wasnt it 150?!..

I am seeing 150 on both my pet and myself.

Still cannot pick up a conjured weapon (from porcine for example) while transformed with signet of the wild and the marksmanship grandmaster signet of the beastmaster. Is this intended behavior?

Can anyone confirm whether you can stomp with the transform?

I confirm: sic em is bugged. If you press “Sic Em” and then stealth your jaguar, the stealth overrides the sic em buff. So you still have to cast things in the proper order. Really this is a huge problem because it’s not clear to people that this happens. It’s never clearly explained anywhere. You could use this combo and not know that for a while. So, just a warning out there, be sure you don’t cancel if you use it.

Just thought you should know

Tooltip in traits window says 9s

combat testings shows 5s

What’s it supposed to be? 5s like always? Because a 9s furious grip would really be nice.

Seda Khold.5428:

Near positive that’s not a change.

Yeah you can still evade unblockable attacks. I’m not sure if I’ve seen entangle blocked before.

Test it, let me know what you guys find out. This is a new change as far as I know that for some reason never made it to patch notes. May have always been there though. Let me know what you think

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Don’t forget hallowed ground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it’s not bad, but i still prefer purging flames with two shouts. my guard is specced for 90% boon duration anyway, so another 20% is kinda superfluous. 14 seconds of stability with VoC and SYG on a low CD is more than enough. so i still dont see a reason to use HG in my support build.

Your allies might not have boon duration. You have to go 20 into a tree for 20% boon duration or take runes with boon duration. I mean, that’s going open up a lot of things for teamplay. And in wvw? It’s going to be huge. Watch: everyone will have it on their bars when zerging.

kiwituatara.6053:

Viccenator.8503:

After I read the patch note, I wanted to at least try it out, but it seems Vigorous Training isn’t even working as it should be … Or am I using it wrong?

Are you in combat? LOLLLLLLLL sorry just reminded me of the patch preview

Indeed you must be in combat. By the way, anyone know where companion’s defense is?

No you misunderstand. You prevent the thief from stealthing by targeting him and casting reveal.

It’s hard to get excited about this patch, I agree. Hopefully there’s some stealth changes in our favor.

That’s how we all expected it to work. If it’s broken, it cancels other abilties. Can someone in the know check if its really broken? OP is new around here.

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Warhorn is actually pretty good with a sigil of earth due to 16 rapid attacks…

But ya expect the warrior and guardian calls from wvw commanders to continue. Guardians just got huge insane buffs to hallowed ground and another ability. They give +20% boon duration while in hallowed ground and – condition duration aoe somewhere else. If you’re a guardian, you should be loving this patch already.

my cleric support guardian is basically going backflips right now. i can cleanse 12 conditions in an AOE from myself and 4 other people (used to be only 9) while outputting close to 20k aoe heals over a few seconds.

Don’t forget hallowed ground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skady.5916:

This perma-fury talk is so sad…. You have to kitten up your dps, use healing boon-duration runes + non-dps pet to achieve that. I guess I can now officially say that I switched to Ele after crafting 12 legendaries for Ranger and im sad to say that I’m having such a blast…

Ele can solo execute 6+ (six, you read it right) blast finishers on fire field withing 10 sec of fight, each blast finisher also gives aoe fury for 10 sec (60 sec total). After 30 sec of fight im capped at 25 might stacks, my team sits on 17+, if you add up guardian or warrior for might or another ele – we all capped at 25 might stacks and real perma fury (1min 30+ no 26/28 bullkitten). All of this is a part of DPS rotation in DPS build – im not sacrificing anything. Also if kitten up happens I can insta switch to water, heal twice for 2K AOE + give regen + remove 3 conditions (almost insta), I can stay in water and heal for more but it usually is not needed even with bad pugs

Its just so sad to see how other classes can do real support while Rangers are blind enough to discuss “26/28 fury uptime”. These issues have been brought up on forums many times by experienced players. The only way to draw real attention to them is to abandon class completely. DO NOT PLAY IT – let Arenanet see their own metrics. According to their last metrics Ranger is 2nd most popular class – they obviously think that Ranger is perfectly fine.

They clearly do not acknowledge any real problems, thats why we do not see any group oriented buffs to rangers. Last two ranger buffs – stealth on LB and reveal on sickem – niche kitten for solo play/roaming.

Ya, I’m right there with you Skady except I’m only 2 legendaries deep. Maybe someday the devs will learn what the ranger traits are (companions defense is 15 in WS to start). Lol

Coarr.3286:

the core of wvw is what the ppl like to play. i prefere small group where personal skill matters instead of brainless zombie follow the boss mode

Couldn’t agree more

Warhorn is actually pretty good with a sigil of earth due to 16 rapid attacks…

But ya expect the warrior and guardian calls from wvw commanders to continue. Guardians just got huge insane buffs to hallowed ground and another ability. They give +20% boon duration while in hallowed ground and – condition duration aoe somewhere else. If you’re a guardian, you should be loving this patch already.

Vol.5241:

Class forums are terrible. Every class thinks they are the worst and that every patch nerfs their class.

Sure, there’s qq but I bet I could quickly find counterexamples to your claim very easily. There’s a lot of good information in profession forums. You just have to wade theough the swamp of negativity, pretty much like every forum of gw2.

Edit: Top ranger thread right now is an anti-QQ thread. See what I mean?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/I-love-you-guys/first#post3025678

Listen, we’re lucky if the devs can even find companions defense. Let’s not go too far here.

Sic em will land the reveal instantly on your target (unblockable and cannot be evaded). Does that help? I’m not quite sure what you’re asking.

NargofWoV.4267:

So they didn’t mention anything about Ranger Weapon #’s being adjusted like they mentioned earlier in posts here on these forums?

They took a swing with maul and it landed 5 stack vulnerability and a 1600 noncrit with very little power traited (not sure what he had equipped but it wasn’t a lot). So I think we can safely assume Maul is going up. As for the rest of the abilities, no one knows yet.

Pretty much everyone plays warrior, necro, or guardian. The rest of the professions are played to a much lesser extent.

That’s a good question. Even if you can’t, it would be relatively easy to chain the reveal if you pay attention.

BlackenX.7386:

Surly there is no Dev playing Ranger
Watch the stream,
They cant even find “Companion’s Defense” in the “Big Runes” Traits
(Of course they wont)

And they don’t even know this Trait only can be triggered during combat
Because Thief’s Swiftness and Might do not have to, right? lol

Sick ’em is sick, do not talk about it.

Ya that was awfully sad and made the devs look extremely clueless.

Coarr.3286:

we still have perma fury, might, swifness and reg for the group, heavy cc, good dmg without loosing to much surviability. totaly op kite skills ( yesterday we had a group fight ( we 5, them 10 ) i kited 5 ppl while my mates killed the first 5. after that we killed the rest.

ranger is in much better shape then everyone in this forum seems to realize

healing spring will remove 1 condition every 2 seconds ( huge buff again condition spikes ). horn 5 for additional 1500 group heal, pet blast finisher for another 1500 …. look at the ranger as a ranger and not as an archer.

Since when does
Ranger have perma fury? Fury is relatively hard to get. You have to take certain abilities, pets, and weapons for it. Now that guardians give fury, ranger fury is worth even less in my mind.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Thieves already have a 3 second reveal affect if this effect stacks with the sic’em effect then I think its more than enough. They also said that everything wasn’t covered. So before we jump for joy or get bent out of shape or everything in-between lets just wait for the full patch

So you’re saying there’s a chance for a Juvenile Tequatl?

Yeah, I agree, Vox Hollow. OP will want to take red moa and a devourer. Why red moa? Aoe heal and fury. Drakes are good options too.

Durzlla.6295:

Chopps.5047:

Ya, durzlla, I’m right there with ya. How much do you think the immobilze change is going to hurt? Because in my estimation, ranger does not have the escapibility required to attempt to immobilize and kite enemies after tomorrow. It seems ANET is pushing us in a shouts/beastmaster direction even though pet damage was reduced enough to make that build a nonstarter? Also, the extreme lack of stability ranger faces is a massive problem, regardless of the stun sigil round up problem that’s being fixed.

I guess there’s not much to do but try to be positive and wait.

It’s going to be us getting kittened repeatedly in PvP until they give us some decent, and reliable condi cleanse, or at LEAST a movement imparing effect cleanse…

On the bright side, my ele is going to be even more elusive than he was before, and is going to be a lot of fun if conjures are getting as buffed as it seems like they are going to be…

Ya, dude, did you see those buffs to staff? I was imagining you jumping up and down.

Ya, durzlla, I’m right there with ya. How much do you think the immobilze change is going to hurt? Because in my estimation, ranger does not have the escapibility required to attempt to immobilize and kite enemies after tomorrow. It seems ANET is pushing us in a shouts/beastmaster direction even though pet damage was reduced enough to make that build a nonstarter? Also, the extreme lack of stability ranger faces is a massive problem, regardless of the stun sigil round up problem that’s being fixed.

I guess there’s not much to do but try to be positive and wait.

I have two concerns: 1) immobilize now stacks in duration only 2) tab targeting now focuses on the ranger and necro

I believe these two changes will hit rangers harder than ANET anticipates. Unless there’s some other surprising changes we don’t know about, I feel like rangers will still be a novelty in wvw and show quite a bit less sustain in tpvp.

I also believe many fields rangers have access to are a bit limited in area. Hopefully more than the longbow barrage is addressed. Anyways, I guess I’ll log in tomorrow to check.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Decklan.7540:

Clockheart – No amount of tanking gear is going to save you from his kill shot. Also condition damage is bad when pulling as if you are a class that procs a burn (necro, engi) then the hologram generally dies before it gets anywhere near clockheart. Once again, dodge roll appropriately and DPS him down after exploding a hologram. Zerker gear once again wins out right.

Actually…I’ve survived his kill shot thing. Never went into down state despite taking all of the hits. Sure my HP was around 1000…but you get the point.

I do feel they need to fix this problem with DPS the best way I can think of…make enemies take crap damage from DPS but full damage from conditions, with the HP adjusted so conditions are the only real way you’re going to take down the creatures. Make half of the enemies DPS take-downs, and half condition take-downs. And then make it so the bosses switch ‘weakness’ constantly throughout the battles. There, you’ve made conditions worthwhile.

A good idea in theory, but what about LFG? Assuming he had that change, now it has to make sure there’s a mix of condition and damage players in a pick up group (LFG is now designed into the game so they are trying to provide a level platform for everyone to play in).

Also, there’s the issue of people that only have berserker armor and now have to farm new armor. I’m sure they don’t want to hear those complaints either.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Don’t you kind of think a glass canon build of no less than three separate entities is kind of pushing it for a guy whose not even really sure what his traits do yet? o.o

Well, yes and no. I’ll explain my thinking.

First, I wasn’t advocating glass cannon. I suggested knights trinkets, signet of the beastmaster, and signet of stone, and 5 in Wilderness Survival for the extra dodge. That’s not glass cannon in my book but you might have different criteria for that term.

Second, it won’t take too long to get good experience with some dungeons. Eventually he’ll be at a level where he understands the mechanics of the game well enough to drop the knights trinkets. By then, he’ll want berserker gear anyways if he’s into PvE.

That all being said, you can defeat dungeons without armor or trinkets as has been shown recently by popular players. So this means that in reality, what armor you wear doesn’t matter so long as you’re capping out might, fury, frost spirit, spotter, and vulnerability.

That’s just my opinion though. For me, I like lots of critical hits in PvE. In wvw it’s a different story. Rangers are sort of pigeonholed into a narrow niche of playstyles in wvw and tpvp. Hopefully tomorrows balance change fixes that.

Everyone who is not rT gets a lot of crap in the dungeon forum lol