Guild Wars 2

Well I never lost to a guardian so far in WvW with S/D. In order to beat me, you gotta roll a thief, mesmer, or possibly a necro. Mesmer and necro both have crap mobility that I can get away without using stealth.

Shortbow isn’t that good for chasing when you have comrades. I always stick to S/D and try to apply constant cripple which works 90% of the time since most people don’t run anti conditions and the constant cripple will allow the rest of the zerg to catch up and murder him. Shortbow won’t be able to kill any competent warrior and will just drag out the inevitable. There isn’t any cripples on the shortbow so that’s why I don’t like using it.

For S/D, you only need to remain in 900m range as well to apply the cripple. Obviously the warrior(s) in question was almost immune to it or used something like shield stance. Either way, they were quite skilled at running and timed their dodges skillfully. In fact, the build I was using is quite good at catching people. (3 shadow steps, spammable cripple, 25% movement signet, swiftness on dodge, sword #2 immobilize + panic strike 4s immobilize on HP < 50% which is insta death usually)

full zerk gear is fine, just tired of people telling you to L2P because you’re not using full zerk gear.

just remove zerk gear from being able to be used in PvE and rebalance the dungeons around that. we’ll probably have a more mature playerbase.

It would considered as getting away if the warrior doesn’t die. Simply catching up is useless, after all.

Another patch another nerf…right on schedule lmao.

Now only lasts 120seconds.

Saw this coming, but still a bummer.

Shemsu.8721:

Excalibur.9748:

Shemsu.8721:

Signet of Agility is one of the few group based utilities we have, it does NOT cure more than one condition EVER. but it will refill endurance AND cure ONE condition for your entire party (or yourself and 4 random zergers if thats your thing)

As to the topic at hand, if your trait for stealth cleansing, and run d/d, s/d or especially d/p, we have pretty good cleanse, close to the best. If you are not spec’d into shadow arts (or spec SA for venom share not stealth) then we have some of the worst cleansing in game, imho

If you don’t spec SA you will be using S/D most likely. Sword #2 is a spammable conditional removal and you still have hide in shadows.

Conditions has not really bothered me w/o SA.

A necro or engi can easily put 6 conditions on you in the blink of an eye, you telling me you spam 2 12 times to clear up? the single cleanse on sword return is a decent side effect, but its not great cleansing as it costs too much init to keep yourself mobile and free of DoT

I’ve never really had trouble with engie or necro. After the recent buff to necro yes I’ve lost to a few necros, I’m still refining my gameplay vs buffed necros right now. But engie is still easy. I can kill them with practically full HP.

Shemsu.8721:

Signet of Agility is one of the few group based utilities we have, it does NOT cure more than one condition EVER. but it will refill endurance AND cure ONE condition for your entire party (or yourself and 4 random zergers if thats your thing)

As to the topic at hand, if your trait for stealth cleansing, and run d/d, s/d or especially d/p, we have pretty good cleanse, close to the best. If you are not spec’d into shadow arts (or spec SA for venom share not stealth) then we have some of the worst cleansing in game, imho

If you don’t spec SA you will be using S/D most likely. Sword #2 is a spammable conditional removal and you still have hide in shadows.

Conditions has not really bothered me w/o SA. I did bring signet of agility for the living story dungeon and it has helped a lot! And I’m sure it helped my teammates as well.

ensoriki.5789:

It also fills their endurance.

Good to know. It’s a solid skill to bring for dungeons.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Excalibur.9748:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Excalibur.9748:

signet of agility only removes 1 condition .

For each nearby ally.
So, one condition for us roamers. Five for zergers. Bleh.

My understanding is that it’s a group condition removal, and it removes 1 condition for each nearby ally so it removes 1 condition for you and anyone nearby. But yes the wording can be interpreted both ways.

I believe it might be both, actually. I’ll have to test it later on. It’s still a relatively new addition to my build, so I haven’t really paid all that much attention to it in group situations. For solo play, it’s pretty much just an “oh kitten” button.

From the wiki:
Passive: Grants increased precision.
Active: Refill endurance and cure a condition for each nearby ally.
Note: Endurance replenishment and condition removal affect nearby allies.

So the note says it removes a condition for you and every nearby ally. So I was right?

Edit: Took a look at discussion. Confirms my own persona anecotal experience. It’s a group condition removal, but only removes 1 condition for everyone nearby including yourself.

If anyone wants to do further testing though, feel free. It’s just it’s NEVER removed more than 1 condition for me iirc.

wiki is usually right.

lol 2 extremes in this topic. on the one hand we got a tough guy saying you suck if you can’t catch a warrior if you’re a thief. on the other hand we got another tough guy saying you suck if you can’t run from a thief if you’re a warrior.

i guess we should have proxyDamage’s thief try to catch kRAVen’s warrior to settle this. oh and one of you stream it live.

I"ve been in groups that never finished this dungeon, some that took 1 hour to finish, 1 that took 3 hours to finish, also one that took 30 minutes to finish. How would that be good for a fractal? You kinda expect to finish 3 fractals in an hour or so. Taking 3 hours to finish 1 fractal would be a disaster.

I thought it’s just the last applied condition gets removed first.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Excalibur.9748:

signet of agility only removes 1 condition .

For each nearby ally.
So, one condition for us roamers. Five for zergers. Bleh.

My understanding is that it’s a group condition removal, and it removes 1 condition for each nearby ally so it removes 1 condition for you and anyone nearby. But yes the wording can be interpreted both ways.

signet of agility only removes 1 condition .

Works even better on guardian. I haven’t really lost any 1v1 against guardians with S/D ever since the larcenous strike buff. They’re so afraid of it that when they see you do the first flanking strike a lot of guardians will turn the other direction and run.

S/D is basically hard counter to any boon-reliant builds, which is the way it’s meant to be so it’s all good.

I dont know about you, I don’t even run into roaming D/D ele much anymore. These days, I see a lot of thieves, mesmers, and occassionally a warrior or guardian.

D/D ele went out of style after S/D got the buff it needed to be a hard counter to it.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

i play in T2 too, and autoattacking with the bow will hit more people (for more damage) than the time it takes to land a cluster bomb at max range.

Auto attack can’t hit anyone in siege warfare. (if you’re on top of a castle and shoot down it will always say obstructed) Auto attack only has 900 range.

But yes, the auto attack is very good and I would always use the auto attack more than the cluster bombs. Now I pretty much stopped using it because if it’s the same range as AA It’s definately harder to connect.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

Uther Deathhand.1570:

Actually Excalibur if a warrior has perma swiftness (which is really easy) than this buff to warriors sprint doesn’t really do anything. Since movement speed is capped at 33% (except for thief traited for stealth run) if you have swiftness on than this doesn’t change anything. However if you can’t keep up swiftness (or a thief steals it )than this does help out.

Yep it’s a big deal since the first thing I do after I catch up to the warrior is steal their boons.

Ah ok, found this in June 25th patch notes. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-June-25th-2013/first#post2280967

Warrior’s Sprint: Increased the movement speed from 10% to 25%.

Interesting. Pretty substantial boost to warrior mobility. This actually makes sense now.

Well how are they better at running away now? Previously only mesmer and thief could get away from me, but it seems warriors are getting there now.

I was running S/D and shortbow. Sword #2 is spammable yes, but to actually spam it would be counter intuitive since using shadow return would be counter productive.

Utilities infiltrator signet, signet of shadows, shadow refuge. Shadow steps might be on cooldown since I blew it to get to him in the first place, then he slipped from me. I was chasing the warriors (1 warrior each, 2 separate times iirc) with 3-4 other people who broke from the main zerg. Though I mean I was obviously the fastest and the other people who tried to chase the warriors had no chance at all.

Either I got totally outplayed or this is a new warrior build that is really good for running away.

Well I wasn’t running D/P so I didn’t have a spammable shadowstep/gap closer. Either way kinda shocking cuz I do run 3 shadowsteps in my build as well as spammable cripple and 25% speed signet.

I want kunai/shuriken to be 1200 range and they fit with the whole thief vibe.

I really feel the 1200 range cluster bomb nerf btw…this was a big nerf. It really limited my options for siege warfare.

First time I let warrior get away from me…and it happened twice yesterday. They seemed to be almost immune to conditions.

Did warrior mobility get buffed in the last patch?

Sarrow.2785:

Oh I can deal with it. I know how to fight and stay alive and I know how I can best contribute without being shown. Its the simple fact that if you led a zerg into another zerg as a thief, you would die during the first pass. Without a commander to follow, the train would shatter, each going their own way. Im allowed to flit on the fringe of battle because thats my job. But if everybody did that, ie, the commander just went down and there was chaos, it wouldn’t result in a win.

Ive followed a thief commander before during a seige and it was the perfect example. He couldnt lead the group into the AoE to initiate the fight because he knew he would die and the zerg would collapse. It was a stalemate. It might work with small group ops or during off peak times, but as soon as you switch the icon on you never know how many zerglings you will attract.

Well if he’s a berserker thief, then I’m not suprised if he can’t lead the pain train. With a more balanced build and dagger storm I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to push into the enemy horde. I do it quite often now and no problems. Even without dagger storm I can be at the frontlines with the shortbow with relatively no risk. Obviously the main issue is people don’t really target me as often as they should, however everyone and their mom will be targeting me once I have the commander buff (which they should remove…makes it too obvious)

Sarrow.2785:

Thief is not a good commander class. A thief survives in Z vs Z by floating on the outskirts of a battle. You CAN NOT lead a zerg train into another zerg train as a thief, no matter how you build. If you want to command, roll and Guardian, Warrior or Necro.

I will not be rolling guardian, warrior, or necro just for the purpose of commanding. I’m also on TC so you will have to deal with a thief commanding

Still, it’s disappointing to hear the old mantra of every class can do everything…and then you have only 3 classes that are capable of doing it…
Hopefully the thief gets some buffs by then to make commanding viable.

psykles.1573:

Excalibur.9748:

psykles.1573:

Excalibur.9748:

You have to really like thief to bring them to dungeon.

I see no reason to bring a thief over a guardian for instance for most dungeons. Anyways, I like the thief though…. I don’t think it’s that horrible, we have a bad rep mostly because all thieves feel like they have to run full zerk.

Black powder can make a full zerker group pretty much invincible on trash pulls.
Shadow refuge is a free revive.
Smoke screen is a smoke field which blocks projectiles on a short cooldown.
No class, not even a guardian, can compete with a thief’s blinds and evades.
Guardians become more useful than thieves on bosses where aegis becomes more reliable than blind and they can keep high uptime on group protection and retaliation.
Not that many guardians do actually provide these benefits in a pug.
Tactical strike is a 2 SECOND DAZE.
The list can go on and on and on.

You’re really not helping our class as much as you think you are. We will never get buffed for PvE if everyone (and only thieves seem to think so whereas everyone else think we’re trash tier for everything except for roaming) think we’re alright….

For the living story dungeon (actually hard PvE content) for example, guardian brings a ton more utility than pretty much all other classes.

You only hear people wanting heavies only but never thief only…

Short version: thieves are fine, learn to play.

Long version
————————

You’re doing even more damage to the class by saying they’re not fine in the hopes that the devs overbuff them. People will see your cries and believe them then hesitate to have a thief in the group.
The devs KNOW the class is in a good place, and so do the players who can utilitize it to its full potential.

A good player will change their weapons and traits based on the encounter that’s in front of them.

All classes in this game are good and useful and if anyone thinks otherwise then they’re either not the most skilled of players, people who don’t/can’t pay attention to what’s put in front of them, or very new to the game still and don’t need any advice from people like you.

I HAVE seen people advertise looking for a thief before, but clearly not as often as heavy.
You know a group is pro when they’re looking for a thief though !

Obviously I only want the best for my class. Other classes already view us as one of the weakest for PvE, ZvZ, etc. Everything except for roaming and 1v1.

This subforum is populated by thieves primarily so it really won’t really change public perception. The public perception is formed primarily in reaction to PuG thieves, and you just know they’re performing badly.

Look here if you don’t know what I’m talking about. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-present-Vote-for-the-worst-Results/first

Yes that is the true public perception of our class, and it’s pretty much accurate. The reason thief class gets nerfed over and over is because of people like you who think our class is fine, then it gets nerfed over and over. Warrior class gets buffed every patch because they always cry how underpowered they are for PvP.

you can stop dagger storm by sheathing your weapon. i learned that recently it’s pretty useful

psykles.1573:

Excalibur.9748:

You have to really like thief to bring them to dungeon.

I see no reason to bring a thief over a guardian for instance for most dungeons. Anyways, I like the thief though…. I don’t think it’s that horrible, we have a bad rep mostly because all thieves feel like they have to run full zerk.

Black powder can make a full zerker group pretty much invincible on trash pulls.
Shadow refuge is a free revive.
Smoke screen is a smoke field which blocks projectiles on a short cooldown.
No class, not even a guardian, can compete with a thief’s blinds and evades.
Guardians become more useful than thieves on bosses where aegis becomes more reliable than blind and they can keep high uptime on group protection and retaliation.
Not that many guardians do actually provide these benefits in a pug.
Tactical strike is a 2 SECOND DAZE.
The list can go on and on and on.

You’re really not helping our class as much as you think you are. We will never get buffed for PvE if everyone (and only thieves seem to think so whereas everyone else think we’re trash tier for everything except for roaming) think we’re alright….

For the living story dungeon (actually hard PvE content) for example, guardian brings a ton more utility than pretty much all other classes.

You only hear people wanting heavies only but never thief only…

Irapi.5937:

Excalibur.9748:

I want to be leading the massive steamroll zerg.

I hate every kind of meta, but in this case I will have to say guardian. I myself would still play the thief for it, and even tough I can survive, people will not like it. If you love your thief as much as I do tough, just run with your guild. They are more forgiving, and they automatically respect you more, even if you stand in the back.

I’ve tried making another character (like elementalist or guardian), but I only get as far as getting them to lv3-lv4.

I’m a thief 4 life, playing another character for commander isn’t in the deck of cards.

I want to be leading the massive steamroll zerg.

I was reading the general forums and apparently the general concensus is that thief is worthless as a commander because he can not be in front of the group directing where to go…?

Is this true, do we have any builds to effectively command a 50 man zerg?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Which-proffesion-for-commander-tag/first#post2365968

You have to really like thief to bring them to dungeon.

I see no reason to bring a thief over a guardian for instance for most dungeons. Anyways, I like the thief though…. I don’t think it’s that horrible, we have a bad rep mostly because all thieves feel like they have to run full zerk.

Yes we need a buff.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Thanks to all of you so far for the advice (except perhaps those who for some reason feel the need to talk down to me like I’m an idiot).

I have questions for many of you, but to start, I wanted to ask…

Excalibur.9748:

You need some better gear it will make you a lot more tankier.

Here’s my gear and I’m not using any ascended pieces at all.

I can facetank a lot of stuff with S/D in dungeons. Like Faux I usually don’t go under half health. I use shadow return when it’s hot and heal and go back in.

What gear would you recommend? I’ve made/purchased some of the best gear I could afford/find/wear.

Where should I get better gear?

My gear and traits:
http://www.twitch.tv/sakraycore/b/426677121

For armor you can buy off vendors in PvE with karma (Balthazar, Dwayna etc). For jewels and trinkets get them from the black lion trading post.

I use signet of agility for the living story dungeon in place of infiltrator signet for the group condition removal.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

This is really staring to bother me. My level 80 thief does quite well in PvE, but whenever I enter a dungeon, I find myself downed, dead, and insta-wiped a frustrating amount of times.

Just today, I spent almost the entire time dead trying to do the final boss fight of the Living Story. I’ve tried everything from food, to weapon combos, to runes, to builds, but I find myself unable to be effective.

I find its worse when enemies do large amounts of condition damage because I can’t remove enough of them fast enough, or long enough.

Anyway, if anyone can give me some advice of a few things I can adjust, I would greatly appreciate it.

Here are some screens of my stats.

You need some better gear it will make you a lot more tankier.

Here’s my gear and I’m not using any ascended pieces at all.

I can facetank a lot of stuff with S/D in dungeons. Like Faux I usually don’t go under half health. I use shadow return when it’s hot and heal and go back in.

No the dungeon is fine. The more I do it the more I feel it’s fine. Just make sure you have 1-2 guardians.

SoS doesn’t work in combat but Signet of Hunt does? Wow that’s not fair.

it’s because you’re using full zerker armor. my thief is usually the last to down in the living story dungeon.

why nerf shadow trap?

you also can’t cleanse blind by autoattacking at air now

Travlane.5948:

other classes have just as much energy…like rangers/engineers. we only have like a couple more evades…. and the thing about our evade is most of them are 1/4 second for a 1 second or 1.25 second skill. so we use the skill and are left open most of the time for free dmg. like death blossom. a very risky skill.

and yes we are a lil more slippery than most but not so much. if i was given the choice in losing all the extra evades that we have than other classes to gain “protection , stability, invulnerability, aegis, blocking etc….low HP pool…crap defense/medium armor” u can mark my words i will trade those 2 or 3 evades any and every day for the other things not sure there is a thief that wouldnt.

but would you trade stealth?

Travlane.5948:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Travlane.5948:

Craig.2403:

Travlane.5948:

Craig.2403:

hackdZ.6352:

None of this is really surprising.

Anyone who’s played a Thief to a reasonably high level should know all of this already, it just irk’s me (as a Thief) that people still complain to the forums every time a Thief 1v1’s them.

“Thieves are OP, Stealth is OP, Backstab is OP!” These people fail to realise that the Thief nerfs that have come since launch have made the class almost useless in every OTHER aspect of the game. In WuvWuv group battles, unless you’re spec’d for Venom Share you don’t really have alot to offer, other than Group Stealth, Blind Fields & Blast finishers on the SB. (Now with nerf’d range)

However, I would have thought Thieves would be up there for exploration at least. So many cool (albeit Buggy) Shadowsteps to take advantage of, and just the general manoeuvrability of the class makes it seem ideal?

Even with the group stealth aspect, a mesmer can do much better with veil. It only takes one veil to stealth the entire zerg. I agree though on the exploration. Signet of shadows and shortbow allow you to travel faster than any other class if you know the mechanics of the teleports well.

wrong. bow is slower than heartseekr. learn theif b4 u make claims like that. many / most classes have a forum of perma swift other than thief/necro……thief has 25% on his signet which is obv less than 33% so wrong again. :P fail man fail

ummm… bow is the same speed as heart seeker, and faster with cliffs to teleport up to. Two heartseekers = 900 range for 6 initiative (assuming no swiftness) and 1 infiltrator’s arrow = 900 range for 6 initiative. And the time it takes for initiative to regen is the same. So unless I’m missing something, they are the same speed, and bow is faster in some cases where you can teleport to the top of a cliff if you know the teleport mechanics well. You also have another 1200 range teleport, and a 900 range (1500 if traited) steal to use on ambients as you’re running. Because of these many teleports you can move faster than swiftness. The classes that do have perma swiftness don’t have the teleports that a thief does making them end up slower.

its about distance. not speed. distance and quantity of uses. you get 2 infil arrows for like 1200 distance vs 5 HS for 45 distance. do the math :P lol ….mesmer has blink….warriors rangers and guardians have many leaps/whirls. necro is really the only slow class. engie even gets like 1700 distance with rocketboots

Well, let’s do the math.

Base movement = 300u/s
+ Swiftness (33%) = 400u/s
or
+ minor Swiftness (25%) = 375u/s

To cover 900u with swiftness (33%) = 2.25s.
To cover 900u with min.swiftness (25%) = 2.4s.
To cover 900u with 2x Heartseeker = 1.5s (.75×2)
To cover 900u with IA = instant

If you factor in pre-cast time and after-cast time, Heartseeker gets even slower.

However, unlike Heartseeker, IA is not affected by speed boost like swiftness. So if the speed boost is factored in, Heartseeker can cover farther than IA for the same amount of Initiatives.

Unfortunately, Heartseeker is also affected by speed debuff making IA’s consistency better in this situation.

Another factor with Heartseeker is the terrain, you can cover more grounds down hill, but unfortunate, it suffers uphill. IA remains consistent in this situation.

In Conclusion, the only deciding factor here is flexibility and consistency that allows better predictability so Shortbow’s IA is much better than Heartseeker. IA also allows you to travel vertically and on different level platform.

I can make a video showing but takes time and experience says HS is 90% of the time better. 2 HS gives 50% more distance than IA for the same init.

make the video.

in any case, IA is definately better for burst.

Better support.

Thief needs substantial buffs, they’re UP.

Linosaurus.1905:

dreadicon.5840:

The problem is this: Living story dungeons which are hard will block casuals from finishing the storyline, not because a casual can’t learn the mechanics, but because a casual only plays a few hours out of the week. The biggest problem with this dungeon is that it is story-related, temporary, AND very difficult. Remove any of those three elements and it becomes casual friendly. Temporary and difficult but not story-related? Casuals can just ignore; they won’t be missing anything that special by not playing. Difficult and story related but not temporary? also fine, as the casual has plenty of time to master it.

I think you are making a very good point here.

Excalibur.9748:

Just need the right party composition aka 2 guardians and it becomes mega easy.

I’m thinking some guardians are more party-buff specced than others. I was thinking this when I did the dungeon with two guardians and it still was hard.

I don’t know how this is normally handled in other dungeons, but.. how do you know if a pug of 5 people has the amount of boons/heals/whatever to survive while standing near the woman at the last boss? Other than warrior x4 +thief being a bad combo.. I don’t know. But I think the requirements are higher here than in many places.

2 staff guardians would be amazing.