Guild Wars 2

Solved. It was the drivers HAH!

My laptop specs:
Asus G73JW Laptop
Win7 Premium 64bit (service pack 1)
Intel Core i7-740qm, 1.7GHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M; VRAM 1.5GB
6GB RAM

Hello. I’ve owned GW2 since launch and after a bit of a break, started playing again. However I’ve been getting hard shutdowns at random times during play, whether 20 minutes in or 3 hours in. The times they occur aren’t very graphic intensive either.

I initially thought it was overheating so I removed the dust inside my laptop, forced my fans to 100%, and restricted my processor from going above 85%. However the hard shutdown still occured. So I wanted to make completely sure that it wasn’t a temperature issue by monitoring CPU temp and load as well as GPU temp and load using both GPU-Z and CoreTemp. CoreTemp only showed me 4 of my cores so there could be some inaccuracies if the other 4 cores are overheating.

After around 2-3 hours, the instant shutdown occured. I was using firey greatsword on the spider queen in AC p3 then a hard shutdown occurred. As far as I noticed: the voltage never seemed off, GPU temperatures didn’t exceed 58C and CPU temperatures didn’t exceed 54C. CPU Loads on each core would go up to around 60%. GPU load would occassionally hit 100% briefly but would otherwise be between 40-60%. Graphic intensity didn’t seem to be an issue as I was logging temperatures and load during zerg vs zerg fights in wvw as well as the laggy Svanir Shaman boss fight.

I occassionalty felt the air from my fans and in other places on my laptop. With the fans at 100% at all times, the laptop was fairly cool, even after the last hard shutdown. I’m convinced that this isn’t an overheating problem as these frequent hard shutdowns is a new thing to occur for me when gaming. I think the same issue occured within the first month of the game’s launch but I was able to play the game without much error afterwards iirc. Also that may have just been a game crash, not a hard shutdown. I can’t remember it was a long time ago. I did take a bit of a break within the past few months so I’m betting that a certain patch has broken the game for my laptop.

This is honestly all the information I know but it probably isn’t enough to solve the issue. If there are ways I can help to investigate this further then please tell me. I spent 200 gems on the new content and I don’t want to miss out on it before a patch removes content because of these hard shutdowns. I’m basically running a risk every time I play gw2 right now in fear of a corrupt hard drive.

Places (that I remember) the hard shutdown occurring:
-The vine event in Brisban Wildlands just before the lvl 80 zone to the south west.
-The trap spam event in AC p2 being the bait.
-The long boring burrow kill event during AC p3. Was using ice bow on thief.
-During Spider Queen in AC. Was using firey greatsword on thief.
-Watching a duel in a 1v1 server on the Legacy of the Foefire map.
-At some point during Honor of the Waves explorer.
-Other times I don’t remember.

I attached my complete documentation on the temperatures as well as the usual dxdiag.

All help will be much appreciated.

(I’m not sure if this thread belongs here or in the Bugs section.)

edit:

It seems I’m not the only one with this problem:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Computer-shuts-down-in-minutes/first#post4239073

I’m a little late to the party but it would help if you mentioned how you were leveling.

I’m pretty sure the two traits stack. I don’t see why they wouldn’t. One is crit chance and the other is damage. Mug is a very useful trait since it can be used to instantly proc your bas. venom when you steal. The 50% less fall damage trait is really up to you.

As for the last 10 points, you really can’t go wrong with Thrill of the Crime (Trickery V).

hihey.1075:

DanielGames.5198:

I really should be watching my health and counting down the internal cooldown :P However I find that this trait procs just as I’m casting CnD. So not only am I revealing myself at low health, but I just wasted 6 initiative.

Here are some suggestions that are stealth based:
1) Keep the trait as it is but give the player a 3-4 second boon where hitting from stealth won’t give them the revealed debuff but will still unstealth them.
2) Gain a few seconds of protection the next time the player is in stealth when below a health threshold (has a cooldown).

The first suggestion COULD be potentially broken: assuming a D/D thief, he could potentially proc Last Refuge->Backstab->CnD->Backstab. All this in 2 seconds. And I could already foresee “good” thieves getting the advantage of this. Of course it’s risky, but it would be a borderline OP burst.

Ya the anti revealed boon should go away after the first time but I agree that a good d/d thief would take advantage of 2 quick backstabs. I guess messing with revealed isn’t such a great idea hehe.

I really should be watching my health and counting down the internal cooldown :P However I find that this trait procs just as I’m casting CnD. So not only am I revealing myself at low health, but I just wasted 6 initiative.

Here are some suggestions that are stealth based:
1) Keep the trait as it is but give the player a 3-4 second boon where hitting from stealth won’t give them the revealed debuff but will still unstealth them.
2) Gain a few seconds of protection the next time the player is in stealth when below a health threshold (has a cooldown).

edit: forget the first suggestion. Messing with revealed is bad.

Playing thief is all about execution. They can’t take many hits like other classes but in return they have a lot of high damage potential and lots of ways to avoid damage using teleports, evasions, stealth, etc.

lvl 35 is a little early to critique a build but if your computer specs prevent you from timing dodges correctly then I would invest in some toughness and healing power. My best advice for you is to keep doing what you’re doing and learn when to evade attacks from each boss encounter. Bosses hit hard but you have plenty of ways to evade their devastating attacks. Bosses like the Jungle Wurm might be a different story with a large zerg attacking it because there’s too much crap happening to the boss to see it. Plus those world bosses are boringly easy so just use a ranged weapon.

1: What mode do you prefer
pvp and wvw roaming

2: How long have you been a thief?
I played thief as my main since launch.

3: Compared to when you started, how long can you stay logged on to your thief?
Longer than any other class I play.

4: If you started a thief now, would it be as much fun as launch?
yes. As far as I’m concerned the major mechanics of the thief have not changed that much.

5 : Do you Agree with direction of the balance team?
Yes but not 100%. But in time I think they’ll get there.

Late reply but seeing as no one responded to you I’ll give you some pointers. For WvW thieves aren’t really useful in zergs. It can be done but it’s not something a new thief player could do well imho. They’re more for roaming and assassinating small groups. If being in a zerg is your thing then you’re going to want lots of armour and some health so you can withstand the aoe. If you go zerker you’ll drop like a fly.

Heartseeker and Infiltrator’s Arrow are great tools for roaming across the map.

Power builds make use of s/p, s/d, d/p, p/p, and d/d weapon combinations while condition builds use p/d. Short Bow is great for any build and can be its own focus in a power build. Short bow and Sword are your weapons of choice for cleave damage; pistols as well if traited.

Traiting in Shadow Arts brings a lot of benefits if your build allows you to stealth often, such as cleansing conditions and health regeneration.

Lastly, take note that a few of your teleport skills like Steal don’t break your casting animation of other skills so you can use that to your advantage, example being precasting cloak and dagger.

Hope this helps some if you even check back on this thread :P

On a side note if you choose to level up in pve. You’re pretty much god mode against swarms of enemies if you abuse Blind Powder and cleave with your sword. Beware of the dredge :P

Thanks for the reply Jornophelanthas.

Thanks for the reply Falunel. I guess another question I can ask is this. Has Anet talked about plans of merging servers?

I’m very persuaded to spend real money for transferring servers since wvw is either a little active or completely dead on my server. Paying for the gems for transferring isn’t what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is GW2 changing how guesting works or w/e. Has ArenaNet made any announcements on plans to change the limitations of wvw if you’re guesting from another server? I don’t want to spend the money then a few months later make it a waste because of a patch allowing guests to wvw on the guested server.

My dark skinned purple glowing sylvari mesmer is super serious… wait what? oh no… I’ve made a big mistake!

Ah so it is for the critical hits patch. Thanks for the quick replies

The thing about GW2 is that a class doesn’t fully determine your play style. Your weapon set(s), utility skills, and traits ultimately determine it. As mentioned above, I highly suggest you go into the PvP lobby and toy around with all the class weapon and utility skills to get an idea. I also suggest you look at pve or pvp videos and see if any of those play styles look fun for you.

(Note: I’m currently not on my gaming laptop so I could have mistaken the word unrestricted for something else in the Weakness tooltip. It’s at the very end in brackets.)

I’ve looked all over on the wiki and forums but I can’t find an answer to this. What exactly does the (unrestricted) part in the Weakness tooltip mean? Is that just to indicated that it can affect crits? Bosses?

If anyone knows please let me know. This is bothering me too much.

Ah so it is a pre-release hairstyle. Ty for the help

Nike.2631:

She’s wearing hair #1. The ponytail without the braids.

I initially thought that too. I found that the design looks similar but in the pictures and video her hair looks rustled while the in game #1 is straight. That’s why I also leaned towards #13 since it also looks rustled. It seems like in the pictures and video, the shape is #1 but the texture is #13. Or am I just crazy?

I need the help of a norn appearance expert.

I’m trying to mimic the look of the norn thief shown in the scorpion wire video. There are also two pictures of her as well. I’m pretty sure I got everything but the hairstyle. I can’t tell if it’s a hairstyle that was cut before release or what :/

Picture 1
Picture 2

Here’s what setting I’ve narrowed it down to:
(counting from top to bottom, then left to right)
physique: 5
tattoo: 4
head: 7
hair: 1 or 13

Here’s what I got with her using haircut 13:

Bas.7406:

honovi.7893:

It hurts to read.

Could you explain a little more clearly?

Light grey text on a white background strains my eyes. If the background stayed dark like the rest of the website then it would have been fine. Dark backgrounds and light text is pleasing to my eyes

Soulferin.5236:

My main armor right now.
Human T3 with Anonymity Mask from the beginning + 2x Usoku’s Needle

That looks pretty sick. I’m glad I picked the same mask for my thief a year ago

Here are a few tips that may help you get started.

Venoms are great if you have the venom sharing trait. Shadow refuge is a great o kitten button if you need to res someone who currently has the boss’ aggro. With the help of another person you can safely res a player from death with a full duration shadow refuge. Caltrops is also a great skill to use if you’re building condition damage. Typically you want to use your utilities to increase party survival, not your own personal dps.

Any weapon set is fine for dungeons but I suggest you get a shortbow and/or sword when there’s multiple adds. If you’re building condition damage then p/d d/d are good choices since you can just death blossom + caltrop the adds.

It’s trickier to be a melee thief because you’ll have to do a lot of evading. Pistol whip is good but the timing is tricky since the pistol portion of it doesn’t give you evasion frames. You may want to build a bit more tanky as you’re learning evasion timing then slowly move your way to zerker gear. Some encounters have a lot of unavoidable damage so keeping the tanky gear around isn’t a bad idea.

If you want to use condition damage in melee then death blossoming is a great way to evade attacks. When you run out of initiative you can switch to p/d and apply bleeds at range.

tthaltra.8657:

I just started playing guild wars about 4 days ago and I currently have about a level 13 thief because i thought it looked very versatile throughout the game. Did I make a bad choice?

No. People are just being drama queens. I main a thief and it’s been my favourite profession since launch.

Sifu.6527:

DanielGames.5198:

WhiteRose.6934:

And lastly, the ‘nerfs’ that are going to happen, just get over it. Adapt, get better as a player. Maybe you’ll realize you weren’t as great of a thief as you thought when you can’t stealth at every whim.

“I am extremely skilled. I used to beat everyone, now I can’t beat anyone. If this class isn’t broken how am I losing to noobs? Did I get worse!?!” – Rogue

“No, you were never any good” – Mute

Seriously. After the announcement of the December patch, the thief forums have reminded me of vanilla wow when rogues got balance changes and required more than 2 buttons to kill anyone. The forums were flooded with players saying that rogues were now the worst class. There were 100s of threads with 100s of circlejerking replies all QQing about the same thing. It’s not THAT bad here but I’m seeing multiple threads all with the same topics with plenty of angry replies saying the same thing. I saw some quality topics in the thief forum but they quickly went to page 3 after the patch announcement.

Yes, the Sword #2 and vigor nerfs will hurt. However, I will adapt. Nothing is going to stop me from playing my thief the way I want. It’s not like thieves are the only profession that’s getting nerfed. The warrior nerf on their mace burst is going to help me a ton in pvp.

Part of being a good player is knowing what is powerful and what is not. The same reason you max and min stats to get the best out of the class. If a certain spec allows you to take 1vX, then exploit and ride it out for as long as you can.

The people that never used it are either too stubborn or didn’t know how strong D/P is/was.

And now it’s going to be gone in a month and we’ll see how all these ‘good players’ are going to react :P

Stat wise I see where you’re coming from. However pulling off a Revolver Ocelot is really tricky to pull off so I think it suits that tree well. I mean you’re aiming your bullets at just the right angle so it hits another person. That’s some impressive trick play with the pistol.

The condition damage you gain from 20 in Trickery isn’t completely wasted if you go P/P since the pistol #1 still bleeds. It’s not like you’re going to be able to spam #3 constantly.

With my p/d build I actually prefer ricochet in trickery since I’m using 10/0/30/0/30.

WhiteRose.6934:

And lastly, the ‘nerfs’ that are going to happen, just get over it. Adapt, get better as a player. Maybe you’ll realize you weren’t as great of a thief as you thought when you can’t stealth at every whim.

“I am extremely skilled. I used to beat everyone, now I can’t beat anyone. If this class isn’t broken how am I losing to noobs? Did I get worse!?!” – Rogue

“No, you were never any good” – Mute

Seriously. After the announcement of the December patch, the thief forums have reminded me of vanilla wow when rogues got balance changes and required more than 2 buttons to kill anyone. The forums were flooded with players saying that rogues were now the worst class. There were 100s of threads with 100s of circlejerking replies all QQing about the same thing. It’s not THAT bad here but I’m seeing multiple threads all with the same topics with plenty of angry replies saying the same thing. I saw some quality topics in the thief forum but they quickly went to page 3 after the patch announcement.

Yes, the Sword #2 and vigor nerfs will hurt. However, I will adapt. Nothing is going to stop me from playing my thief the way I want. It’s not like thieves are the only profession that’s getting nerfed. The warrior nerf on their mace burst is going to help me a ton in pvp.

Fanboy s/d elitist here. Permastealth is a silly gimmick and no good thief should rely on it to win fights. Regardless if you can counter it or not, it shouldn’t even be in the game. If getting rid of this gimmick breaks the thief class, and it won’t, then the devs will make changes in the future to fix that. If you have a lot of fun using this gimmick, well you still have a month :P

Wintel.4873:

’Tis a little late, but I guess my asura can apply…name is “Yay” on Crystal Desert.

As she leveled up I’ve taken quite a few screenies of her. I just can’t get enough of those expressions during waving, dancing and laughing <3

I hope that you introduce your asura to others with great enthusiasm.
Hi, my name is
jumps up
YAY!!!!!

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Being vastly superior to other races isn’t the same as being a nerd

NERRRRRRRRD!

Straegen.2938:

Hidden Killer (crit from stealth) is a fine skill in WvW but very weak compared to Executioner (20% more damage against opponents below half health) in PvE.

For a D/D build it’s been theorycrafted that if you have around 63% crit then yes Executioner is better. Otherwise use Hidden Killer. Of course the boss mechanics also play a part in this. Correct me if there’s been new data disproving this. It is a 7 month old thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/TC-Hidden-Killer-or-Executioner

I suggest you give all weapon combinations a try just so you get a feel of some basic thief play styles. I also recommend that you invest points into shadowstep and shadow refuge early on and use them while leveling. You may not find them useful as first but those two skills let you pull of some beneficial things in pvp. Example, your friend just got downed but no one is finishing him off yet? Plant a shadow refuge on top of each other and you both get around 12 seconds of stealth so you can res him and relocate for some revenge. Shadow step can be used to finish off downed opponents with ease since using it doesn’t stop your finisher cast time.

With the shortbow you can take advantage of a spammable blast finisher if you know your combo fields well.

If you invest 15 points into Acrobatics you’ll be a mobile machine.

30 points into Critical Strikes allows you to trait for 100% critical chance with a stealth opener which is really good for dagger playstyles.

If you’re going pistol on your mainhand then 20 in Trickery is a worthwhile investment for Ricochet since it adds aoe to your pistols. Ricochet also spreads conditions which is helpful if you want to keep multiple enemies blinded.

When underwater you can easily take on most enemies with #3 with the spear. It’s a parry/riposte style ability. If you start getting low in initiative while doing this you can always steal since most aquatic enemies give you egg (restores some health and initiative). For underwater skills I use Withdraw and Roll for Initiative as they can really help in a bind.

If you’re guarding an area then mess around with traps. All 4 trap skills have their uses and are always satisfying when they’re triggered.

With pistol on your offhand you can facetank most enemies using black powder as long as they aren’t unshakable.

It’s not in the tooltip’s description but Sword/Pistol’s #3 gives you evasion frames during the second part of the skill. If you can time it right you can evade big damage while staying offensive.

Lastly, Smoke Screen won’t save you from getting 1shot by Eir at the start of the pull in TA SM…

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully some of this is useful

Nefaria.7659:

Overall, found the beginner’s guide was not very accessible to the viewer base they might be aiming for. If you expect the viewer to know all the ins and outs of min/maxing before watching – what’s the point?

A big negative is that It watched like a school lecture; he only utilized the video to show off item and skill tool tips and then just narrated an unstructured dialogue about the profession.

I would have liked to see more depth of the different styles of play – since PvE encompasses Dungeons, Fractals, Open World, WvW, and Living Story. More focus on different weapon and build options (and why); and possibly – where to start with your builds (including trait distribution) and highlight some which players can play with; saying merely ‘condition’ or ‘damage’ isn’t necessarily beginner lingo.

This is also a “level 80 ranger guide” as well. Since, although some of the advice can be filtered down below 80, it focuses mostly on the armour and runes at level 80.

It does give some idea for what people should aim for, but suggesting that beginners pick up full offensive gear and then “not die” seems like a poor choice. I understand that might be optimal gear but its not practical to some of your audience.

I watched this today and you took the words straight out of my mouth. I would have learned a lot more if he showed different playstyles in action using different weapon and skill combinations. I was also hoping for a run down on different types of pets but he barely talked about it. Seeing as pets are the ranger’s niche it should of had a lot more focus in the guide.

irishking.8956:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlUmiOHfy5E+5EB3Dni0m694ri1saFoJA-jEyAouASBAoFgZyioxWNLiGrmBTxSEV7RKiWtQALWDA-w

so this is a quick link to my build i tried out the more popular 0/0/30/20/20 and it just wasn’t for me so i just threw this together and it works wonders for me in TC wvw i run 1v3’s and 1v5’s alot with this build. I’m open to suggestions though if anyone has anyways i can change this to make it better

I was running a similar build like that last night. Traiting for stealth benefits, mug, and 20 sec steal really helps. I’m surprised you aren’t using Shadow Refuge though. Whenever I’m in a 1v3+ I feel I always need to take a breather once in a while.

To make up for no vigor or acrobat traits to increase dodging, I equipped two offhand daggers with onswap energy. I was playing around with smoke screen, venoms, caltrops, and blinding powder as well. Smoke screen gave me the most success since it prevents a lot of incoming damage. However blinding powder is a great oh kitten button to press. I found that I didn’t need skale venom to mask my bleeds most of the time so I stopped using it. The poison and blinds were enough. Caltrops were very situational but were still effective.

I sort of copied this build from another thread last night but here’s what I used.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY6YlUmiOney9E95EB3Dnm0m69osi1saFoJA-jEyAouASBCE9J0ZyioxWNLiGrmBTxSEV7RKiWtQALWDA-w

I like longer stealing range more than the caltrop dodge since I can trick players into chasing me then I can shadowstep to someone who’s lagging behind. I also prefer the aoe blind when stealthed instead of the extra initiative using cloak and dagger. I find it’s more helpful in a 1v3+ situation.

One thing I haven’t tried as using smoke field with daggerstorm in a group of enemies. It would last long enough for daggerstorm to get its full duration.

Zero Day.2594:

Sneak-attack on pistol, right now stacks a bit too many bleeds. The number of times shot using that skill should be reduced from 5 to 2. The normal attack on the pistol should no longer apply a bleed effect

Hey I was having lots of fun with my P/D WvW condition build. Don’t kitten on my parade here

Seriously though why are you wanting condition builds to be obsolete for thieves? Take away pistol bleeds and all we’ll have left is death blossom spam.

Trueshots.9456:

DanielGames.5198:

About Dagger Storm and Shadow Refuge. If you’re feeling ballsy you could shadow step into a zerg, use up all your initiative with death blossom, drop shadow refuge and dagger storm, then shadow return back.

LOL, immobilize would kill me I bet

Shadow Return before you get killed

…

Then proceed to run away like a man.

The only 2h melee weapon that would make sense for a roguelike profession would be the staff. It would be neat to have a profession that used the staff as a melee physical weapon instead of a long ranged magic weapon. I’m not pleading for this btw, but it would be neat to have.

Ya I made some last minute trait changes to make it 10/20/0/20/20 instead. I agree that 30 in Shadow Arts is really useful, I just like being different I guess. The 20 in Critical Strikes was to get the chance to apply 4 seconds of crippled every 10 seconds. The extra crit chance also helps proc the fire aoe I applied to my weapon. That’s my reasoning. To each his own really.

Edit:

About Dagger Storm and Shadow Refuge. If you’re feeling ballsy you could shadow step into a zerg, use up all your initiative with death blossom, drop shadow refuge and dagger storm, then shadow return back.

If I were to roll P/D Thief in WvW, and I probably will thanks to this thread, I’d probably use this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlUmiOXay9E+JFymiK8n8U8VilWBaqTRUFfA-j0BBUAgkFA5QFRjtgRIq8RjVJjIqWpETIgFrBA-w

—Weapons—

P/D because of this thread.

D/D for those times you can’t immediately get away or just want to get your hands dirty. The bleed damage from spamming Death Blossom is also nice if you want to go out with a bang against a zerg of enemies. It may even rally you.

It’s either D/D or bow and since most of my builds use bow I figured I’d make a change.

—Skills—

Hide in the Shadows for condition removal. It also lets you use your bleed stacking opener.

As mentioned above, Skale Venom is really good to mask your bleeds and the torment damage is also great since you’ll be kiting.

Shadow Step has numerous uses and it’s really fun to use in general. It also breaks stuns and removes conditions.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a build that didn’t use Shadow Refuge. It’s just too good.

I’m going with Dagger Storm since it deals bleed damage. Mix it with Shadow Refuge and you’ll be leeching health. Not saying it will keep you alive against a zerg but I still think it’s more useful than Thieves Guild and Basilisk Venom with a kiting build.

—Traits—

I’m going 10/20/0/20/20 with emphasis on pistol aoe and kiting. I picked these traits for the bonuses not the stats. From what I understand, Pistol Mastery (Critical Strikes V) doesn’t scale with pistol bleed damage so I took the extra health instead. I’m totally stealing the poison mug idea since I realised P/D is lacking in the poison debuff.

—Stats—

Just a mix of condition damage, duration, and tankiness.

edit:

If this helps you, my bindings are:
weapon skills – 1-5
healing skill – left side mouse button
utility skills – q, e, r
elite skill – right side mouse button
class specific skills F1-F4
weapon swap – `(tilde key next to #1)

edit2:

Yah I’m changing my traits for poison mug as well. Seems more useful than the stun escape that can sometimes teleport you into a bad place.

I’m shocked that this thread is still going. Loving all the cute asura guys.

I’m currently toying around with this pvp build

dagger/pistol
short bow

stealth heal
power signet
shadowstep
shadow trap
basilisk venom

30/30/10/0/0
Deadly Arts: II IX XI
Critical Strikes: II VI XII
Shadow Arts: III

Focusing primarily on power, precision, and crit damage. Taking the set that increases damage by 10% on players with more than 90% health.

—

My opening combo is to lure an enemy into my trap so they get 5 stacks of vulnerability and puts me in a good position for a signet backstab crit. I ready basilisk venom when the trap is about to trigger.

I use pistol on my offhand for two reasons. I combo Black Powder with Heartseeker to stealth up. I also like having Headshot handy for lockdown and to prevent ressing.

Because of my build’s lack of speed control, I use a bow for ranged damage and teleport if it’s impossible to land backstabs on the enemy.

Shadowstep is used primarily to break stun.
—

It’s a very glass cannonish build but I like seeing big numbers with my opening combo

I really like this picture
!http://i.imgur.com/SWKyGh.jpg!

The cutest asura ever created

Hey look a contest with no prize! Got a cute asura? Present it to us in this thread. I’ll start!

What offhand and dual wield skills would you want an offhand sword to offer? What is the thief missing that can be filled with this option?

For general fights I’ve been successful with dual daggers and pistols. Dual Daggers is really strong against multiple enemies because of Death Blossom. Not only does it make you evade but it’s an aoe with powerful bleed damage. Heartseeker is good for closing a gap and is my goto move to spam when a target is low on health. One strategy you could try is using Death Blossom until you’re out of initiative, then switch to pistols and kite until your initiative regens back to almost full. Withdraw is a good ability to use to gain some distance for that strategy.

Bows are my best friend in aoe fights with a team behind my back. I haven’t done too much research on it but I find Choking Gas then Cluster Bomb a good aoe combo which also debuffs all enemies with Weakness.

I don’t like using swords on my thief. The only time I’d use it is for the immobilize condition.

Just before getting kicked from the server maintenance, my group was constantly wiping on the challenge where the asura sets up 2 essence collectors and you have to defend it from those burrowing creatures. We tried a few strats but always ended up getting overwhelmed. Was wondering if anyone has any tips and strategies for that encounter.

Our main strategy was:
Burst down the first 2 burrows as quickly as possible. Then breeders and the other burrows while killing mobs on the nodes. We could kill the two burrows but would get overrun soon after.

Note: This is not a thread to cry about the game being too hard. Take that someplace else. I think the difficulty is fine.

@PopeUrban

I understand the stacking. What about the field secretly still being there after it’s duration?

Now that the forums are up I figured I’d show you what I discovered with Shadow Refuge. The tooltip says the stealth lasts for 3 seconds but that is far from true. Also, the area that becomes the refuge stays in effect even when the ring is gone. To better explain this, I posted a video on youtube giving you 3 examples:

First Clip: Simply showing that the stealth area is still there when gone
Second Clip: Showing that you can restealth allowing you to get more than one sneak attack in even when the ring is gone.
Third Clip: Showing how long the stealth actually lasts.

I’m not sure if this is working as intended or not but I figured I’d post these here and let the devs decide.

Btw. Love GW2! Just please don’t cave in and make all the content super easy cause people complain on the forums :P