Guild Wars 2

This guide is for doing it on the hardest difficulty [Tier 4] with a thief, which is actually pretty easy once you know what to do.

Zerk gear will definately work; I used a mix of soldier/valkyrie/and berserker gear and still had more than enough DPS to burst the plunderers down. S/P and scorpion wire will make this a piece of cake. You pretty much just need to stand at the back and reel the plunders in with scorpion wire then use pistol whip once to kill them. Infiltrator strike if by chance one is still not dead.

Note: Let the third plunder escape so none of them spawn on the right side.

http://www.twitch.tv/sakraycore/c/2636414

Legit way without skipping 3rd plunderer:
http://www.twitch.tv/sakraycore/c/2636747

except for waiting the timer out.

Except for waiting the timer out (obvious)

Now do it vs heavy golem

Master of Timespace.2548:

Potent heal, gain regen, remove three conditions and gain stealth. How rookie friendly do you want this class to be?

It’s so potent it heals like 50% of how much healing surge heals.

Should remove torment too. +1

Ricochet to 100% would be a massive buff for pistols for sure. That would make it better than shortbow or at least competitive for ZvZ. I mean it would do more damage with unload…but less survivability.

Raidium.3916:

This sounds like an indirect attempt to nerf D/P, its the only weaponset that maximize the use of spamming heartseekers for stealth.

It’s also a nerf to S/D builds that use flanking strike consecutively to strip multiple boons at a time (nothing else to use with dagger #4 nerf). and to P/P builds that spam unload (literally nothing else to use). and to underwater builds that spam #2 because there is nothing else to use after the nerfs. in short it will kill the thief class.

A better solution would be to buff the other weapon skills so there is a REASON to use other skills on that weapon, instead of limiting the usage of the only skill on the weaponbar that is actually useable.

bhagwad.4281:

Zeke Azul Falcon.5176:

snaplemouton.1294:

I am not trolling no. It’s hard enough to to write a post full of rage about stealth (I hate stealth in every PvP game that incorporate this utterly annoying concept of being invisible)

Ghostwolf.9863:

Not necessarily.

Staff with runes and wells, direct counter to melee thieves.
The blinding well in particular is really annoying for dagger offhand thieves.

In condition builds chain fear and burst.
Minion builds are also pretty tough to fight as thief.

I’m condition heavy, but aside from having to use my utily wall, I need life force to go in death shroud for my fear.
And fear barely last long enough for me to land a hit.
I guess I’ll give a shot to the staff even tho I hate it with a passion, I guess the radius buff might make it more enjoyable.
I thought about the blind well, but on a 50 seconds CD he counters it with any stealth that isn’t CND.
And actually, the only time I nearly killed him was under my plague spamming bleed and blind, but then again he stealthed with one of his numerous stealth (He also had the ground AE stealth utility) and blinked with his bow… somewhere.
Also, I hate minion master.

Do you know if thieves can still perma stealth?

its better you should ask in Necro’s forums not thieves because it will sound like your really trolling, Necros are not designed to go 1 on 1, thats thieves specialty. You must remember that CnD can be used from any where to ambient creatures and all.

and yes there is still that stealth but i wont call it perma.

Every class should be equally good at 1v1 if they spec for it. If they can’t, then that class needs to be improved. 1v1 or teamfighting – each class should have the option to be equally good with either.

Well currently thief is worthless for team fighting. Maybe that should be improved first?

Maugetarr.6823:

I have an idea to “fix” the heartseeker spam. Why don’t we raise the damage values to their original levels so that heartseeker under 33% would be the finisher its supposed to be. No more spam.

+1 that would really cut down the spam

I’ve been trying to work on that getting zerged out of the blue. I generally pop daggerstorm now then cancel it immediately then roll then spam infiltrator arrow. [In this situation shadow refuge = insta death, popping hide in shadows doesn’t help at all since you still get rolled by the enemy zerg despite stealthed, and not cancelling dagger storm = you get rolled by the enemy zerg albeit slowly since you move too slow] Usually works if I’m at tail end of the zerg that is about to get rolled by the opposing bigger zerg. The enemy usually moves not too fast, but what hurts is stacking multiple CC effects on you which renders you helpless. Stability definately works to overcome it.

But yes I agree that I roam freely without much worry. For the most part, I don’t die if I don’t overextend.

Dragnela.6532:

D/p is harder to master. S/d just dodge evade.. dodge evade.. hehe

So you’re saying S/D is easy mode because you can just spam Flanking strike for the win?

Dragnela.6532:

bobross.5034:

Not sure about how good the ele is, but Jumper is a top notch thief. The ele dies quick. Jumper does a voice-over and claims his build is actually very strong vs d/d eles. He does a lot of videos, so you might want to check some of them out on twitch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwGYPWMDLd0

Incidentally, jumper’s build is powerful, but very steep learning curve – I certainly don’t feel comfortable running it.

S/d is just a troll build, should be taking out almost every class in 1vs1..

So S/D is the troll build now, and not D/P perma stealth troll or P/D troll build?

This would kill the thief class, for real.

Devs don’t play thief since it’s so underpowered. They only play OP classes like warriors and guardians.

Marduh.4603:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s an unfair comparison and you know it. Like I said above, you can’t take TS out of context of a Sword/Dagger build.

• Larcenous Strike: Increased the initiative cost to 2.
• Shadow Return (Infiltrator Strike Toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.
  What next nerf? Unblockable status is really not needed. Everything else will be overnerf.

Unblockable status is definately needed. That would be a huge nerf if unblockable removed because it would not be so good vs bunkers anymore and that is bad because S/D is supposed to be a hard counter vs bunker.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Travlane.5948:

ok so i run p/d last 2 weeks in wvw and now with the addition of torment on shadow strike i dropped blinding powder for infil signet and scale venom for shadow refuge….obv not as balanced butwanted to see how a duel would go.

first 7 seconds of one particular fight : CND——Scale venom +Sneak Attack——dodge roll his attack——shadowstrike—-steal (2 sec stun 2 boons vigor at 1500 range)——shadow strike——infil signet——-shadowstrike——— GG

this cause in that 7 seconds or so he had:

3 x stacks of vulnerability
8 x stacks of bleed (rounded down as some ended)
2 x stacks of blind
1 x stack of Poison
9 x stacks of wsTorment (550 per sec per stack. 550 more if moving)

fight was over quick….trick is to obviously time the gapclosers same way you would CND/STEAL combo but slightly faster.

idk thought it was interesting.

It’s hard to believe that to be a duel since whoever you are dueling didn’t even try to defend themselves. :/

ikr….so funny. probably against a heavy armor golem in heart of the mists?

Travlane.5948:

idk why 1 v 1 is always brought up. overpowered basically means that in an instance where most classes would perform like X ….this class performs well above that and with relative ease. There is little drawback to playing such and anyone without any skill can play such. its not just numbers or 1 v 1. if u look at it….necro/guardian is OP in group / zerging but underpowered in 1 v 1. same with thieves. used to be OP in dueling but waaay underpowered in groups.

well being op in group/zerging doesn’t really get you more bags while op in 1v1 allows you to roam around without worry. i know thieves don’t really worry about this, but how would you feel if you knew that you would always lose to X, Y,and Z classes in a 1v1 and can’t even run from them? The compensation would be that you offer more to your groups but you don’t get more bags?

If rangers don’t want the stealth, we thieves will gladly take it. We’ll take it on dancing daggers or what have you.

Even though I’m the last person to main S/D in WvW, it works fine for me. I don’t even have more than 5 points in shadow arts. I roam freely, can get away when I want, accomplish what I want to do which is get lots of bags/WXP in zergs thanks to the shortbow I pack and able to solo stuff like sentries, camps, frogs etc. It does well for 1v1 and skirmishing with a small group which is obvious since it is a skirmishing weapon. It does what I need. Obviously you probably need more skill to roll with a low-stealth build but honestly I haven’t really used any stealth builds because I don’t really like that kinda playstyle.

I mean yesterday I was roaming…with 2 warriors, 1 mesmer, and 1 guardian. Everytime they wiped I got away…easily. I even killed people and then escaped. I basically got away twice from FA mini-zerg and the third time I killed this same warrior 3 times (rallied 3 times -.-") and still almost got away from the zerg. Thief escapability is awesome even without D/P perma stealth.

seems like it’s okay for PvE for glass cannon thieves. Authority uses it in his latest PvE build

Why are you starting to hate it?

Prysin.8542:

stof.9341:

You cannot use P/D #3 in a rotation. Not easily at least. You need to be in melee range to use it and when you do, you’ll not be in melee range anymore. It’s a situational escape tool after all

go P/D and P/P

CnD, backstab, Shadow Strike, switch to P/P and use the #3
easy burst combo. Gonna eat alot of initiative though

you don’t have backstab with P/D

if they trait to 9s cooldown, won’t they have 50% stealth uptime assuming the cooldown starts when they start teh stealth and not when it ends..

OP!!

sinderhella.5680:

Remorseless: This trait now reapplies Opening Strike when the ranger gains stealth or kills an enemy.

To me this says WHEN they get stealth which says that someone has to stealth them i.e. the Thief. Nothing says that they can stealth themselves…….

Hunter’s Shot: This skill no longer applies vulnerability on each hit, but now grantss the ranger stealth for 3 seconds.

3s duration 12s cooldown, they’ll have 25% stealth uptime at no ini cost. and best of all it’s 1500 range.

Are you people really underestimating the utility of jumping off really high cliffs?

As a thief I would kill to be able to jump from the top of a cliff to escape. At least you still got your spectral walk to do that…

Besides, are you really whining about your survivability nerfs? I mean you were almost tankier than a guardian…I don’t think that was meant to happen. So I would these changes will be good to equalize the OP class (necro) back to fair levels.

able to kill any other class in a 1v1 with ease would easily make your class known as being OP to the other classes.

knockdown is even better than stun xD

I think the QQ about S/D thieves stopped after last update’s nerfs.

Travlane.5948:

so u press HIS during dodge?

Yes. press it right after dodge while you’re still dodging.

Travlane.5948:

really i figred it gave you about .25 secs tops….still leave HIS open
but idk ill go take a closer look

i dont know how much time it actually gives, but the combination of queueing HiS during dodge and the short invul after the dodge makes it pretty much impossible to intercept.

Travlane.5948:

@excalibur…huh? how doesthat help HIS>? they can still hit u while HISing

If I had to guess I’d say the dodge gives you maybe 0.75s dodge after the dodge which would be enough time to chain the HiS since you can queue HiS during dodge so it will start right after.

PS a trick I use to get a reliable HiS is to dodge roll then chain HiS. I don’t think HiS has ever failed for me when following a dodge roll. But yea otherwise it can be interrupted.

well neither S/D or P/D are all that common for roaming in WvW to begin with. I mean I don’t think I’ve ever run into another S/D and that’s the first and last P/D I ran into while roaming. Ofcourse I don’t roam all the time either.

I’d say dagger thieves are definately a lot more common for roaming at least where I’m at (Tarnished coast)

So I guess I can also say I’ve never lost to a P/D thief even though I only ever encountered 1 xD

I also use sigil of earth as a cover condition so pretty sure you won’t be able to remove immobilize. Though I can say if the sword user spams flanking strike that’s just wasting his ini which should be used for IS instead. There is literally no boon to steal and nothing worth evading.

Sneak attack does not need to be dodged….can just take it and if the bleeds stack to critical mass then just shadow return. Either way, we can just agree that both of these specs are totally niche for WvW roaming…you probably won’t see either.

On the other hand, I run into a lot of D/D and D/P thieves. I don’t really like to engage other thieves, and they don’t like to fight me either so usually what happens is we just kinda run off…. I mean for D/D you just need to dodge the CND and for D/P you can just leave them while they’re stacking stealth so pretty hard for another thief to force me to engage.

I ran into a P/D thief while roaming as S/D one day. The P/D thief got the jump on me…got me to about half HP i used hide in shadows to regain full HP i ran a bit he followed so I decided to engage. Then it basically comes down to the timing of infiltrator strike. Always have it up so you have on-demand condi removal. It was a pretty close battle I mean I was losing HP and he was too since I was abusing infiltrator strike for the condi removal, immobilize and I guess probably panic strike kicked in and I locked him in for the kill. I also got hit by mortars like twice but I still beat him in downed state.

Anyways, probably wasn’t the best P/D thief but don’t really see what else they can do. The only condi removal I used was just IS and HiS.

Note: I didn’t notice caltrops so he probably used a venom.

Winterfell.8915:

Updated 21/07
New video Tournament:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5UrNQcOV7c

Good video. Watched it twice, about to watch it a 3rd time.

Why is so much PvE needed for a legendary?

rmBossa.4621:

The only disadvantage thieves have is a lack of stability. But as long as your timing dagger storm right and your group comp is built well you should be fine. (also steal from a mesmer every chance you get) You can make up the rest with your build.

With the right spec/gear you can fight well within melee range to be spamming cluster at your feet and hitting full aoe cap each go. The damage you dish out is matched by no other class. Keep in mind the true advantage to the blast finisher isnt ‘pre-stacking’ might before an encounter but all the aoe finishes you get mid fight buffing/debuffing the group around you.

Unless of course your talking about blobing megazorgs then why even ask? any class/weap would do. But even then trick shot is the best auto attack in the game so in skill lag your still winning the fight with that pro 1 spam.

Is trickshot really the best auto attack in the game? I thought guardian staff AA is better? And besides isn’t it the same thing as ranger axe AA?

no pigeon hole please.

Travlane.5948:

i will also say that d/p is equiped enough to get away from almost anyone.

How does D/P get away from people who know what they’re doing? Just stand on the black powder lol it’s pretty obvious and they’re screwed. Same matter with shadow refuge for that matter.

infiltrator’s arrow, hide in shadows, and shadow refuge is more than enough to run from a zerg, and you don’t even need all 3. usually i’d just wait for them to come for me but they wouldn’t cuz they see i’m a thief they just move on bro.

I use dagger storm too (though I hear shortbow AA does more damage). But it has a cooldown.

You love killing me in a zerg? Good luck with that, roll backwards, evade shot, evade shot and I’m way behind frontlines :P

With shortbow you can get lots of bags in zergs. now people say that’s just tagging you didn’t do anything. actually you need to do a certain percentage of enemy HP to get bags iirc. you can’t just hit and do no damage and still get bags.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/I-think-the-tagging-system-ruins-Dynamic-Events

Any bags I get with the shortbow in a zerg is well deserved, it’s not like I just leeched those bags.

Discuss.

what was his and your stats at the end of the game?

Handin.4032:

All you thieves out there now know what it felt like to be a mesmer back before the confusion nerf, or before the portal nerf Just take your beatings, hope anet doesn’t wack your class in the nuts with the nerf-bat like confusion, and just move on From personal experience, posting on these threads saying your class is perfectly balanced isn’t exactly making anything better, eh? :P

It’s not perfectly fine, it’s the worst class or one of the worst classes in the game according to the community and needs quite a few buffs!

Geiir.7603:

Jscull.2514:

EZ mode class- allows bad players to feel like they can compete.

Put the same player on a warrior/guardian, and see how good they are in open field without stealth. TERRIBLE.

No-stealth Thief saying hi! I’ll challenge you to make a thief and see how EZ mode it is… The most squishy class in the game – by far. We are a profession designed for one thing – eliminating our enemy, and that fast.

Guardians? I created one, and I eat thieves for breakfast… Guardian is imo the easiest profession in this game. Never have PvP, WvW and PvE been so easy -_-

Guardian and warrior are the EZ-mode classes; no-stealth thief is hard-mode, I’m sure he hasn’t played one to know though!

sword/pistol + shortbow when leveling. you should be able to fight enemies 10 levels above you.

Dahkeus.8243:

Excalibur.9748:

1) Shadowsteps and shadow returns works properly….does not clip against objects. Using infiltrator’s arrow works 100% of the time to get you places, ie can be used for jumping puzzles
2) put back the stunbreaker on shadow return and revert lotus poison nerf oh and put back cluster bomb to 1200 range.

Agreed with 1, but for 2, I’d probably have change Last Refuge changed so that it only blinds nearby enemies when hp reaches 25%, but doesn’t stealth you (so you don’t trigger revealed).

I think that would be fair.

You could just change it so the stealth from last refuge doesn’t trigger revealed or leave the trait alone because it’s really useful for certain builds.

Nikkinella.8254:

Excalibur.9748:

Nikkinella.8254:

That could work. I’d also be fine with a sigil 60% chance on crit to cause revealed on whatever you hit. They do have sigils that have a 60% chance to remove boons, so why not? It’s situational just like the boon removal sigils that barely anyone uses. And you’re keeping yourself from using a more useful sigil by having something like that just to deal with thieves. But I for one wouldn’t mind keeping an extra weapon with one of those in my inventory for when I come across a trolling thief who just wont go away and keeps coming back and being a nuisance.

There is already an item that causes 100% chance to cause reveal. It’s caused stealth disruptor trap. Use it and enjoy it. Stop the QQ.

those are not reliable and in the 4 seconds it takes to set it the thief will either run away or stab you causing you to waste the supplies and the trap not to be set. And any thief with half a brain wont step on it. If they step on it while not stealthed, it still triggers but doesn’t cause revealed. No, i’d rather have the sigil or a trait, or utility skill that does it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth_Disruptor_Trap

If you hit a thief that’s not in stealth, he/she will still get the revealed buff. It’s good enough to deal with thieves, have you even tried using one?

Dagger storm is far from useless I love it. Maybe it doesn’t work for your build.