Guild Wars 2

D/P is a more difficult but more rewarding version of D/D….

As for a build, Id like to keep mine to myself but Ill roll out with some essentials

- bonus 3 init from Trickery
- Infusion of shadow from shadow arts tree
- Opportunist from Critical strikes tree
- Kleptomaniac

As you can see all these skills are designed around bonus init, this is a very heavy init build and without them you will find yourself starved pretty quickly, especially in longer fights.

Things I would suggest

- Shadows embrace

really good condition removal, gets rid of two conditions usually when you stealth so you hardly need to worry about them.

Play tips:

Cant give too many but make sure you use your BP -> HS to initiate, at close range or shadow shot at longer range.

after your bp/hs combo use steal to get init back

Use BP to stomp, use headshot to stop people stomping from range or bp when your right on top of them.

also S/P makes it easy to keep weakness up without the trait required for DD build.

SP also has the blind puddle….

once I hit 80 I went D/D for PvE though, dissapearing all the time is just more fun, but still stick to my D/P for PvP

Reizo.7625:

Eliteseraph.4970:

My vote is for 1200 Rifles. Or at the VERY least an optional trait to turn shortbows/pistols into 1200 range.

I’m leaning more towards a trait at this point in the game. Another weapon sounds very expansion pack.

A trait would be a quick fix and sort us out really…

I think many of the people who wish for a rifle are fed up with us having so few weapon skills and poor ranged options in general… that seems to be the feeling I get from reading the forum

The Good
- Decent overall dps
- Good burst dps in some builds
- AoE with Sword main hand
- Ability to evade a lot
- Ability to kite
- Can apply Weakness with sword mainhand
- Lots of blinds
- Easy to tag mobs in events with shortbows
- Strong under water melee
- Good escape mechanics
- +25% movement speed sigil
- Great blast combo field finisher
- Good initiation Mechanics

The bad
- Lowest Hp in the game (tied with Elementalist)
- No serious ranged AoE Dps options
- Sustained dps can be an issue in many builds
- Average at best ranged single target Dps
- Poor under water ranged
- Restricted to 900 range (big one for wvw)
- Daggers are single target (apart from DB which is average at best)
- Long cooldown on steal
- Lack of support apart from venom sharing and stealth rez
- Boring utilites (personal opinion)
- Lack of under water elite skill (basalisk venom 1 second stun with a 1 second cast?!?!)
- Class currently encourages gimmicky builds that low skill players can succeed on

erm thats my input

MrRightclick.4769:

What about the free stealth given to massive enemy troops in WvW when the game doesn’t want to load the enemy character models?

plz nerf

this is a whole other issue and happens even on high end systems… very irritating

Stealth lasts 2 -> 3 seconds unless traited where it lasts 3 -> 4

you can only attack once and then it breaks stealth, although due to ping and what not there is a slight delay from the attack to when the thief/mesmer appears

you take full damage from aoe or cone type attacks when your in stealth.

Stealth in this game is much weaker than most rpgs, stealth is balanced

illgot.1056:

are rangers as deadly as Thieves close up?

I’m so glad you asked this

Shortsword + warhorn

use call of the wild for fury might and swiftness,
use hunters call,
use quickening zephyr,
auto attack,
get a sub 4 second kill on the heavy golem…

Seriously good burst

Humorless.1573:

Yes, a thief with shortbow can hit multiple targets for 5k… if very lucky. But it’s a ground target AOE with a long travel time and it cannot be spammed unless point blank range.

Unless you’re refering to trick shot, in which case you’re just being silly. There’s no way that’s gonna crit that high. The average trick shot hits for 500 noncrit, +/- 100 depending on gear/spec/target.

Humorless as he suggest 3 targets and cluster bomb hits as many that are in the puddle I think hes pointing more towards trick shot

With the same spec that is mentioned above the arrow will hit for:
2580 non detonated max crit on heavy golem

2670 detonated max crit on heavy golem if all 3 parts crit

assassins signet doesn’t seem to affect the damage.

Erbun, that was exactly my reason

Everyone has a different play style and things they like to enjoy,

Some of the strongest Theif builds revolve around the pistol/dagger kiting condition damage but they are not popular just because you don’t get the awesome big numbers and your time to kill is higher.

I have a bit of a love affair with black powder and headshot for pvp and pve so I like d/p for pvp and s/p for pve….. I do occasionally do a p/d build for a totally different play style however… although I miss my big numbers

Its not stupid

Perhaps its a little project for you? I don’t have my server box anymore else id offer it to help you organize it to see if its any help

A Theif twitter could work too I suppose?

The problem is that all of us Theif’s play differently and have different ideas on whats good and whats not. It may end up in a debate

The best way to learn is trial and error… practice makes perfect and all that… failing that come and ask on the forum and someone will do their best to help out…

8) use the summoning ulti, defensive golem if your asura, else the theifs. They tank veteran mobs very nicely and allow you to dps safely for all those pesky skillpoints

congrats you are now a pve force to be reckoned with… not quite as easy as ranger, gaurdian or warrior, but not bad

saurus.8290:

thief shortbow

crits for 5k can hit 3 targets

ranger shortbow
crits for 1k 1 target

see the difference?

sure rangers shortbow shoot 2times faster but thief damage is way higher and hit more targets

your class is already overpowered
giving 1200 range to thief shortbow will make it more op

Saurus I dont know where on earth you are getting your figures from but they are just a little bit off

Ill correct you for the figures of my theif and ranger in same gear from the mist

Ranger short bow
~480 hits 850 crits / can add bleed to target, sustains 10 stacks for an additional 500+dps
- full divinity runes,
- berserker amu, knights gem
- short bow with no sigil
- 30/30/0/0/10
- Heavy golem kill time
– From front 8.5-10 seconds dependant on crits holding pet back
– From front 6.5-7.5 seconds dependant on crits with pet
– From behind 6.5-7.5 second dependant on crits holding pet back
– From behind 5-5.5 seconds dependant on crits with pet
- assuming the heavy golem has 12k hp ranger dps:
-front no pet: ~ 1300dps
-front with pet: ~ 1700dps
-back no pet: ~ 1700dps
-back with pet: ~ 2285dps (pet had to be closer as was closer to the golem to be behind)

Theif Short bow
~480 hits 850crits / Hits 3 targets.
- full divinity runes,
- berserker amu with knights gem
- short bow with no sigil
- 25/25/5/0/15
- Heavy golem kill time 18-20 seconds dependant on crits
- asuming golem has 12k hp, dps:
- Single target ~ 630 dps
-Three targets ~1890 dps

please, test things before you come here and complain, and dont forget the range difference.

The reason the theifs damage is just under half of the ranger is due to opening strike giving the ranger a buff to their opening damage and stacking some vuln causing the target to drop faster. Usually the ranger would do twice the dps as the damage is the same and the attack speed is double

Technically can use their utilites in the same way as an Elementalist uses elements and they still get f1 to f4 for utilites…

So grenades, Bombs, elixir gun and flamethrower are 4 more

Ohoni I totally agree with you, Not every attack, Id be happy for just the auto attack

Thief Doesnt benefit from vitality as much as say a warrior or necro.

Also, Your heal heals you for a set amount, no matter which way you look at it, the more vit you have the harder it is to fill your bar, the more toughness, the easier it is to fill your bar with heal…

You are more prone to being 1 shot with a toughness build, but overall I prefer it

Ha Flamu, stealing from warriors and gangkittenpeople in full zerker with orb buff is not helping this thread… however it is very funny

Devildoc I dont mind that

Well, all of that didnt happen at once because steal is on a 45 second cooldown… the theif stole from a warrior right which is his highest dps spin, hes specced glass cannon and hes probably used up assassins signet too.

This means he can do this once every 45 seconds. There are numerous counters to backstab, these include blind and aegis…

Wolfe.3097:

i do wish we could have something other then SB be viable as our secondary.

i hear S/D actually isnt so bad, but it requries a diff way to play.

its just the duel skill is quite bad, the rest of the set has some nice utility.

It doesn’t do much damage, It takes along time to go off and it often makes you out of range for the attack to go off… even if they are standing still…. don’t even try to hit a moving target with it!

It ends up leaving you with a set that lacks burst damage and isn’t great on conditions either.

I didn’t mean to upset you, I assure you I read your whole post.

I’m talking about damage at range purely here, not in melee, our close range damage is much, much higher than our ranged. Sorry If i didn’t make it clear as to what I was referring to but i did attempt to make that clear

(even though our only good ranged damage is unload)

If you want me to break your post down

- Relocate on the wall ie move closer
This makes you easier to tab target and moves you into the aoe spam. On the ground level shooting people on the wall… this makes you a very obvious visual target.

- Your always attacking
This is your play style, The idea of guild wars is to allow every class to perform each role. Ie if your a thief and you want to just sit back and nuke on a wall with everyone else you should be able to. I play aggressively much like you, but that’s often because I don’t have the option to sit back with all my other buddies.

- I’m always moving
Everyone should always be moving, that’s part of just general good play. It just shows you have a clue

- Emptying someones health in 6 seconds
Situational, depends on class and build. I assume your talking about using sneak attack and unload to do this at long range? It is not always possible, depends on if your hitting a warrior or an elementalist… or whether your specced glass cannon or not. It also depends on the other persons spec, although most people are pretty soft right now.

I hope you feel this is a better analysis of your post and my opinions of what you contributed. I just picked up on the stand out area of your post last time and I apologise if I upset you

I prefer divinity, Its just all around nice…. and adds some survivability and damage with the awesome crit damage. As long as your not using conditions divinity is great (it doesn’t add + 10 to condition damage, I’m guessing this was an over sight when they separated condition damage from power)

keep a set “of the traveler” or “of the pirate” for when your doing events too

All classes in gw2 are supposed to be able to fill the same roles

allowing the theif to infiltrate bases would mean they have a special role that no one else could do. This goes against ANets philosophy for the game…. I agree it would be a nice idea but it would never happen.

Concequentially as we are supposed to be able to range nuke like everyone else a 1200 would be helpful, would you not agree?

You seem a little low on crit, I built power precision, items with the “strong” prefix up to level 60 where I changed to a mixture of knights and berserker with emerald gems

1) regear to strong and you will feel more like a cannon

2) fill your accessoray slots if they are not already. Earrings and rings are not expensive from the trade post

3) get rid of your daggers, they are sub par for leveling. Use sword pistol for pistol whip and all default attacks doing aoe/applying weakness which will make you take less damage. You can also use 5 to almost perma blind enemies.

4) get haste in your bar, Its amazing for taking out nasty pulls

5) Use Signet of malice as your heal

6) Always eat food that gives you health regen while leveling. The lowest level one is called banana cream pie

7) put 5 points in shadow arts to get last refuge… this will stealth you in sticky situations giving the choice to re-engage or run away.

Flamu.2319:

Not sure about the extra range to be fair, we deal a lot of damage from both range and melee. Possibly a major master trait, just a flat out buff in range would be too strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBOoyh1yHDc

there are some issues with your video

1 Is I would suggest that theif is level 80, and killing lower level players

2 Right now everyone is trying to build glass cannon on every class so toughness is almost non existant

3 The exceptional damage is coming from his ulti and stealing from a warrior

4 He has a damage buff from orb

Humorless.1573:

Dronin.3957:

How can you get into that range if the enemy is 1200 from the wall… do you jump off into aoe of doom just to plink a few shortbow or pistol shots off before trying to dodge/steath back? because that way your are massively less effective than everyone else on your server.

Relocate on the wall… if none of them are in range, jump off, because they’re probably backing off and your side should just wipe them. As a thief you can get away with this extremely easily. I’m always attacking or moving to a spot where I can during WvW sieges, 900 range doesn’t matter. Ofcourse it comes with some limitations, but they’re easily made up for by the fact that you can empty someone’s HP bar in 6 seconds of them being in 900 range.

Thieves in this game are by no means weak or underpowered.

I think its interesting you bring up the whole underpowererd overpowered argument. I don’t think this thread is here to discuss that, in fact there are loads of threads arguing one way or the other. In reality the main reason people argue thief is so good is due to pistol whip right now.

Myself and others are happy to take a small ranged damage reduction (even though our only good ranged damage is unload) to compensate for a slight increase in range

I think we have enough utilities to drop into stealth at range if you want.

You can use blinding powder for instance as a utility to go into stealth at range if steal is on cooldown…

They Didn’t roll back the Karma mistake, as part of the conditions of regaining access to your account again you had to delete all the items you made in the mystic forge or any mats you gained from salvaging.

This had to be done after you had apologised to ANet and were unbanned and on your first login.

I really don’t want to be mean to ANet, but I just hope that some of the people higher up might get a glimpse of what the general customer is experiencing. GW2 has potential and without feedback its impossible to reach it.

I think rifles has become a really popular theme on this forum recently!

shortbow doesnt stack bleed very well at range due to the long arc of the arrow, which leaves you with poison which is a low damage dot.

I would advise against condition damage really, just use poison and cluster bomb to apply weakness in an aoe then stick to auto attack and cluster bomb with a power/prec approach which will certainly give you a higher overall dps at max range

If you did want to use condition damage then use your short bow in melee?(WHAT??!) because you can stack bleed easier that way due to the cluster arrow not taking 43 years to get there….

Alternatively, use pistols for condition damage, you can stack bleed pretty nicely with your default attack, especially with the quickness proc and using haste, and you can use your spider venom to add poison into the mix…. spider venom + haste + pistol auto attack = a lot of bleeds, and a long old poison

Summarised your post in

Increase the damage/effectiveness of theif skills buy approximately 20 %
Give theif skills increased inititive cost as you use them more/try to spam them

I like this idea…. would solve pistol whip spam and what not being only able to use it like twice

Humorless.1573:

Why are you having problems being in 900 range of anything considering you generally blow all your initiative ASAP and you can dodge A LOT. We’re easily fast enough to get into that range. We don’t need 1200.

And lol at you if you die to a rifle/longbow warrior. I don’t even know how you can die to one.

How can you get into that range if the enemy is 1200 from the wall… do you jump off into aoe of doom just to plink a few shortbow or pistol shots off before trying to dodge/steath back? because that way your are massively less effective than everyone else on your server.

Pistol Whips stun ONLY HITS ONE PERSON… so perhaps the rest of you were poison immobilized etc?

pmnt.4067:

How about that: since 900 -> 1200 is a 33% increase in range, so nerf the damage by 33%. (Btw: It would not be the first time that a class gets hit by a 33% nerfhammer)

But I agree that Thieves should also get 1200 option – even though they are gernerally OP atm.

I’m confused how to why you think thiefs are generally overpowered…

The stand out skill that is causing the most whine at the moment is Pistol whip… now I agree it can be cheap and irritating in pvp and may need a tone down… however it is very important to thief’s PvE which is probably why PW hasn’t been changed, It is also counterable by people using stability or spamming dodge…

Apart from that I don’t see any other stand out skills or specs?

The Thief’s ranged weapons already have pretty poor damage overall on their auto attack, I mean, lets compare the ranger shortbow to thief… the auto attack does more than twice the amount of damage!

But if you have to nerf the damage by a small amount to increase the range then fine, just make it a small amount, thief’s ranged dps is appalling with anything apart from unload.

fortytwo.3485:

Several dungeon encounters are intentionally designed to be not melee friendly. Thief lack of 1200 weapon is a serious hamper.

agree

Daecollo if you get attacked in melee you switch weps….

2500 range would allow theifs to attack constantly from range in WvW and events outside the range of mob attacks or player attacks… sorry…

knock it down to 1400 and it would still be fine

2500 range? are you kidding?

I play a theif, i have also made the post requesting a 1200 range… the most range a weapon should have is 1400… that is the point… sorry but no… change the ranges to 1200 and maybe 1400 on some skills then ill give it a re read

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dronin.3957:

Shall we look at elementalist? DD elementalist can give themselves swiftness, has a 1200 charge, a 900 charge and a 600 charge, they also have a 1200 blink utility, they can also spec for an increased movement speed in air of up to 25%

remember that if you play d/d you are always in mid/close range and cannot switch to a long range wep while in combat. you will usually be around 240-600 depending on the skill used (excluding Ride the Lightning and Magnetic Grasp). also, the utility skill you are referring to (Lightning Flash) is 900, not 1200

the trait that gives passive movement speed (Zephyr’s Speed) does not stack with other movement speed buffs. the other trait (Windbourne Dagger) does not stack with speed buffs either. apparently it doesn’t work at all.

i don’t play as a thief so i won’t say whether you should or shouldn’t have a 1200 skill

Sorry lightning flash is 900 and not 1200, I apologise,

No speed buffs currently stack sadly. But this thread Isn’t to address the Elementalist, or their issues, I was just proving that other classes have options. I’m currently playing an ele because its more fun up to 60 so far… but this is WAY off topic…

1200 range is the standard for some events, some dungeons and certainly WvW

Gryz.8376:

Thomasqk.8209:

Take a look at this awesome guide made by a user named Kirin. It really helped me in dungeons with my Thief.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Kirin-s-Guide-for-Aspiring-PVE-Support-Thieves

OK, I finally read the guide.
A few things I knew, a few things that I hadn’t thought of myself.
Definitely worth reading.

However, as I had thought: we do not have:
1) more ways to heal ourselves besides our nr6 healing ability.
2) no ways to heal party members.
3) no way to remove conditions from ourself (except using a inferior healing ability)
4) no ways to remove conditions from party members.

I feel very vulnerable as a Thief. Combined with the unbelievable damage we take, this is not fun, imho. I don’t mind rocks being thrown at me. As long as I have tools to deal with it. But without any tools, I just feel like a sitting duck.

Try sword pistol, it has a condition removal on the 2 skill which i find essential for pve

I had to wait a while to create this post so I had properly cooled off and could make it rationally. I’m going to apologise in advance for the length of the post.

Dear ANet

Your customer service has been quite frankly aweful with guild wars 2, and I will now highlight some of the reasons why.

1) You had a fantastic beta which went off without a hitch, however you had a poor launch with significant down time in the first week. The forums took along time to come up and the trading post is still not working correctly… for me the forum and trading post are significant parts of the service you should be providing and shows there was not adequate testing or preparation.

2) Your account restoration is appalling. There really is no other word to describe it. You post articles on Reddit stating you are restoring accounts in 48 hours and that is simply not true. Most people are waiting Significantly longer. Although its somewhat the customers fault for a security breach, the way in which account e-mails can be changed needs to be addressed!

3) Your stance on banning/exploiting is very strange. You seem to have no idea what you are doing. You ban the people that buy significant numbers of 21 karma weapons only to realise that you were wrong for this knee jerk reaction and you then force them to apologise to you to get their accounts back. However, people who brought 2k karma level 80s (about the same amount of karma it would take to get a decent level 80 from the 21 karma weapons using the Mystic forge) take no penalty. The worst issue was the making gold from cooking which you banned Kripp for, yet hundreds and possibly thousands of people got away with making a large sum of gold from this.

4) Lack of admin abilities. This is a huge one. ANet didnt implement a system to roll back individual characters? so if someone is exploiting or they have had their account stolen you cannot correct it? This is outrageous and is simply a utility that must be in every modern MMORPG. I know your working to rectify this, however it should have been done before release. The other issue is you can only deal 3 day bans or perma bans, why is there not a 1 day ban for minor infringements?

5) Class changes need to be rolled out faster. In beta you did make a few changes, particularly to the Engineer and Elementalist I remember. I’m sure you have excellent data mining tools in the game, and therefor I’m also sure you can see that some classes are simply not performing as well as others or are forced into using gimmicky builds. Your vision for the game where each class could perform every roll is absolutely fantastic, but the implementation isn’t quite there yet… please continue to work on it!

I’m sorry to complain, but I feel that this is justified and these feelings are shared by many

I hope that my feedback is read, and I hope that ANet will continue to improve the product and the customer service that comes with it over time rather than just sit on a huge pile of money.

The end

Legal action is silly but he is within his rights to argue that GW2 has not provided adequate security to protect your accounts.

People lose their accounts as the e-mail can be changed with no verification needed.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Crica.1503:

go play in another area when the code (if it even exists) kicks in for you…

this is not hard…

I shouldn’t have to manage an anti-farming system to play the dang game. I didn’t buy Anti-Farming System Simulator Wars 2. That’s absurd.

lol…. epic

Make it properly the first time and you have no issue…

however I can understand this with changing taste over time…

Good old SWG image designers… A way to pay to change the way you look could be a good money sink too and no doubt ANet would add it as a gems option

I’m pretty sure weapons cannot take damage

Yeh its a bit of a shame how limited we are,

You can notice that there are a lot of posts asking to give us a rifle mh, a sword oh, a mace mh etc etc…

perhaps we should start a petition?

They basically reduced the damage on some of the key burst skills… Dragons tooth being one that comes to mind….

Sword/pistol

Press 3 and sometimes press haste too…

in dungeons usually shortbow/pistol pistol….
press 1 and 3 on pistol pistol pistol… occassionally 5! and on short bow I press 1 2 and 4!

Shisx.1658:

Sneakier.9460:

thief is more then fine after this tweaks, Pistol 1 wont have its fire rate increased due to how strong Stealth 1 skill is.

The superior rate of fire was given to the ranger shortbow that deals the same damage per shot and bleed when flanking

See the relation/diference betewen the 2?

Superior rate of fire in pistol would mean= nerf to unload + nerf to Stealth 1 pistol skill when using it with off hand dagger

Many thiefs dont want that, mostly phisical damage pistol users like me

About Pistol Whip with haste:
Like most haste combos, they rely on CC you then burst, a CC breaker is a most, if u dont have one, u deserve taking the full burst.

(Ranger Shortbow/Rapid Fire is the only Quickness combo that doesnt rely on a CC but doesnt get close to 100blades nor Pistol Whip in terms of burst)

I dont see how changing the rate of fire on your 1 key would hurt the rest of the skills as they have completely different rate of fires

PW+Haste CC breaker.Because how the skill is designed the only good CC breaker is one that put you at a distance.

I understand the deal with the ranger. Which I agree. Hate + rapid fire usually only one skill use before haste is gone and doesnt require a CC to avoid.

generally only bad rangers use haste on rapid fire, good rangers use it with shortbow auto attack… which makes them do insane damage and add around 15 stacks of bleed :/

what do you use for aoe?

bwillb this sort of works, weapons that arc (bows, fireball etc) tend to have slightly longer range than guns, you can notice it if you go slightly out of range the projectile will still hit as it drops.

it only works a short distance, perhaps an extra 100 units but its still there

The trait synergy is the biggest issue

they need to do away with the attunement rubbish and give us some trait lines that make more sense

CorliCorso.6254:

> I’m confused as to just how many areas Thief’s excel over rangers apart from getting away?

As a ranger who’s trying out a thief character, I’ll throw in my tuppence-worth.

The main difference so far is conditions. As a ranger, it seems to be largely about power – the only way I can stack some conditions is sending my pet in to fight, running round the side of my target and stacking bleed with my shortbow. But after just half an hour with my thief it’s obvious I can stack without thinking about it, and I’m really excited about trying out some condition-boosting gear rather than power all the time.

The second thing is melee. The main thing about rangers is their pets – send in your pet bear to tank, hit your target from distance, job’s a good ‘un. That’s fine against most mobs, but Risen completely ignore pets and go straight for you. Since I, like most rangers, go longbow/shortbow, there’s hardly any options for melee and you have to try and create distance, forcing you give up a utility space for Lightning Reflexes. I’ve not been on it long, but I’ve really enjoyed my thief getting up-close and personal with my targets, absolutely running rings around them. From a distance or toe-to-toe, I feel confident.

Initiative is a fantastic thing. With my ranger, I have a specific order in which I fire shots – not because it’s effective, but because it’s timed correctly with my cooldowns. If I use Rapid Fire, I then have to use something else afterwards. But with my thief, if I want to Unload my dual pistols three times in succession, I can. It’s a brilliant system and I wish it replaced cooldowns for all classes.

I’ll leave my final word for WvW. I’ve not tried it out with a thief yet, but as I say, for a ranger the big difference is their pet. Human players completely ignore pets so you’ve just completely lost your advantage. It’s tedious having to re-spec traits when entering WvW because beastmastery is useless; whereas I imagine anything useful for a thief in PvE is useful in WvW.

that is the way YOU play your ranger…

Try short sword warhorn, its a fantastic melee set… you can also get a huge variety of conditions on a ranger. Lets look at your shortbow shall we? you can sustain 12 stacks of bleed AND poison using this set alone… with traps you can also apply burn among other things… In fact I can think of very few classes that can stack all 3 dots

anyways we have gone way off topic here.

When you have more experience of your thief in WvW and doing high level events your input will be valuable as you can compare between the two