Guild Wars 2

I run burning in a heal/condi build I sometimes run… but it’s from runes of the forge.

Lamuness.3570:

Dustfinger.9510:

Faeyd.5094:

Also, a nice way to unwind is to run a signet burn D/D build and 2/2/2 them as much as they do you. You should see some of the whispers you get.

yes! Show bads why they need to learn to play. This is the answer. Not calling for nerfs to whole classes. This just proves that the ability to bad-spam one skill isn’t just for theives.

What is this Signet Burn build? I’d like to unwind one of these days.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoYlUmCO3cy4E/5Ex2DfKUe6fgs6MoZLB-ToAg0CnIQShkDJDSSksINKYSB

Agree with the OP. I see plenty of thieves playing but they are just feeding other folks glory – Set yourself a goal of only attacking thieves for a few rounds and you’ll see what I mean.

Also, a nice way to unwind is to run a signet burn D/D build and 2/2/2 them as much as they do you. You should see some of the whispers you get.

Death Blossom is great as it is.

So I usually play berserker builds with high risk/reward (favorite actually being 3 signet cheese D/D for the increase in pulse rate). I am increasingly seeing thieves take the role of garden ornament in PvP though… content it seems to blaze in waving swords and then falling over and having to re-spawn over and over.

If I want to relax and play thief while having a beer or two then I run this heal setup that let’s me set a slow pace and still have some fun and is fine for glory. Consider it a training build for new thieves to get used to how intiative etc works without dieing on every single mistake. I make loads os mistakes in the quick vid below, but it shows how forgiving this is.

Downside of course is that your enemy can decide to leave the fight but it honestly very rarely happens that they bug out, even high ranks, and if they do you can keep up with most classes as you finish them off. If you’re on a point they need to try and get you off anyway.

The warrior fight at the end demonstrates how hard it is to kill a good warrior with this but that you can also stay there and have a decent scrap – he does start on less than half health, but hey it’s a warrior (we had a 2v2 at the treb and the two warriors won so I was going for a walk but then they pounced on me and the last guy was a nice chap who duked it out to the end at his own risk and enjoyed the fight himself).

I only captured guardian and warrior fights I had earlier because they are in a good place power wise right now. The principle is the same for any class.

Quick Vid:
http://youtu.be/kLkrqgPschE

Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoY4YlUmiP3ey8E+JFC3DLkpaK/DflugOFXl8B-TwAg2CrIATBmDMDYSwsgNCYFw2jpHA

CrazyDuck.4610:

Asomal.6453:

They are indeed teleporting more, but not because of buffs. Since SR was nerfed, you can’t stay on the fight for so long until you are CCed. So it’s easier to just jump in -> hit you -> jump out. Hence, teleporting more (and the init buffs helps a bit).

Exactly, with the initiative buff it makes this tactic just overpowered. And when a thief does 8k dmg backstab teleports back and forth perma immobilizing with no cooldowns it’s pretty ridiculous. I just tried out a thief build and I owned everyone on the map. Now if I actually mastered that build it would be stupid in TPVP, with that initiative regen it makes them just crazy good in T/SPVP. I teleport all around/doing backstabs with perma immob no one can touch me. And I don’t know what vince is talking about cast time on IR? If it does I didn’t even notice it.

FRAPS or it didn’t happen. Look forward to seeing it.

I said this was an observation over 4 games. Though I didn’t give a specific timeframe… it wasn’t likely to be last year.

The point of the post is why are so many people thieves got a buff.

ens.9854:

Engi/war/necro density increases greatly as you move up the rankings maybe they are just more fun profession for experienced players??

I’m L39 – pretty unfair dropping me into L1 matches.

Black Teagan.9215:

When I play sPvP, and I do it very often, then I see more Engis, Nekro or Warriors and most no thiefs except me.

I am talking about today only post-patch.

LOL it’s true – I play thief 90% of the time these days and saw some folks saying hotjoin was full of them – played 4 games and 50% of the population in all 4 was thieves. Who are these guys?

Agree in WvW it’s not ideal – it’s a learner sPVP build. I alternate between this and D/D triple signet burn max backstab in PvP so I play the bookends of the thief builds It’s rare I won’t come out on top in the bout in terms of glory on either though… they can both farm hard and pile up the points.

You are right on weapon swap – it’s just bleeds. Alternate set on the D/D backstab for me is P/P with bloodlust so I always blind stomp for bloodlust stacks.
#
In WvW I got bored of roaming (bored of WvW to be honest) so all I do now there is I am bored with tournies or hotjoin is run around on 4k+power dual pistols with ricochet and harvest off the back of the zerg. I’ll PM the P/P if you want but people are straight when they say it’s rubbish (unless zerg surfing).

There is an indestructable build that will allow you to build confidence and timing and learn how the other characters attack while you can relax during engagement.

In WvW it’s full apothecary, but go to SPVP and play it cos fights are immediate and you figh every class each bout.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoY4YlUmaPHfy8E+JFC3DLkpaK/DflugOFXlWB-TwAg2CrIATBmDMDYSwsgNCYFw2jpHA

Folks will say you can’t kill anyone… they’re wrong and I’ll post vids if you struggle with it. It’s actually a way of putting bleeds, cripple, poison and burning (rare for a thief) on a foe. Very nice against flavour of the month Warriors who try and stunliock you… you abuse deathblossoms and dodges so nothing sticks and you have 3 panic buttons if you don’t like how the fight is going.

Lead with pre-casting caltrops and then steal DB DB, weapon swap, DB, dodge and then look at how they cope with it.

Death Blossom is awsome.

I’ve been playing heal thief in PvP for a few weeks now and it’s going to be somewhat immune to the nerfs but it does get boring pretty quick. You can get a lot of glory and die something like once in 10 games, but boring is boring.

Leave Deathblossom as is thanks – it’s awsome in current form.

Zoltreez.6435:

in my opinion there is only 1 prob with stealth in this game
the amount of heals they are getting while constantly stealthed.

they have HUGE burst dmg ? fine
spammable stealth ? Fine

but kitten the healing is too much you got him down to almost death ? no prob stealth spamm and full hp again while he constantly opening with Huge burst dmg on you you got him almost again ? stealth full HP again hoops you died now……..

Can’t have all this stuff dude. Burst OR stealth OR heals. Choose.

Good build. Good play.

pantsforbirds.9032:

Hey guys, Rand X Al Thor here, I have a build I’d like to share with the thief community. I’ve posted this in some other threads, but I decided to go ahead and give it its own thread. I was playing on an all thief TPVP team and we decided we wanted at least 2 condi thieves for the team, so i decided to try my hand at making a condi build and this is the result:
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
The build: 10/0/0/30/30
Traits: III /0/0/ III, IX, XII / III, VII, XI
Amulet: carrion
Runes: adventure gets you condi, power, and even more endurance on a heal!
Weapons: d/d with swap to d/d
Sigils: energy/agony and energy/agony
Utilities: withdraw, caltrops, shadow trap (if youre in a dueling arena run ambush and enjoy 3 thieves), shadow step, thieves guild
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Pros:
your evade time is absolutely unbelievable. Because death blossom and dancing dagger are the only skills you will use on this build, you evade the majority of the time you are attacking.

You can spam Death Blossum 4 times (maybe 5?).

When you swap weapons you will get 3 intuitive and 50% endurance back so do so as much as possible.

When you steal you will get vigor, rip off 2 boons to share with allies, and heal yourself while doing direct damage and applying poison to the enemy (with its new 27.5 second cool down this is amazing).

Your heal breaks immob and soft cc like chills, gives 4 initiative and will apply 10 seconds of Vigor. The 10 sec of vigor on heal and 15 seconds on steal will give you massive vigor uptime, which combined with your feline grace trait will make you able to dodge almost none stop.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Cons: Terrible condi removal. Your only condi removal is also your only stun break. Luckily with all your evade you can avoid most stuns and some condi applications. Necros built around aoe condi can definitely prove to be a problem. Or if they transfer your bleeds back to you you’re probably going to die.

I’ve been really enjoying this build and think it has massive potential in TPVP. Please give it a try and tell me what you guys think!

Nice. For me, I really do prefer switching the 30 tricks for 30 shadow so you can deal with necros 1v1… you still have acres of dodges and I also do use D/D and D/D with 3 init on swap so it’s easy wins vs melee and with the shadow investment you can tackle most necros/engis (not all, but you can reset when you get out of your depth vs high skill).

Necro on near point, necro on far point, necro on middle point, necro on treb.

Biggest problem? Everyone investing in condition removal so heavily to try and survive negates all other condition builds for other classes… doesn’t affect necro that much.

I don’t even see any other classes now… D/D eles flashing all over me, rangers pew-pewing all over… guardians bunkering… don’t even acknowledge them… I’m trying to run from all the freaking red circles and green pools on the floor.

Lone,

I’ll capture and post some video at the weekend of a heavy variation that make necros pretty easy. They are the new popular sPvP toon, but you can still D/D condi them down safely with some changes. You really do need condi removal in stealth… so need to give up some of that heavy investment in trickery

D/D and D/D with one geomancy and agony on each… usual 2/2/2 runes.

10/0/30/30/0 rotation: pre-cast trops, wait half a second, steal, DBx4, change weapon (init regen and apply 3 more stacks of AE bleeds) DBx2… Blinding powder, refuge and HiS for stealth access on top of CnD. Dodges all over and all the evades anyway from DB – you’re only really taking condi damage so get that mitigated.

Finding it pretty easy to stack 20 bleeds on all in radius and shake off anything applied to me. Disengage when the numbers get too heavy and it’s just you stood there. Very nice for capping and holding far point or getting stuck into a mass of baddies.

Carrion of course. Ensure 2 extra init regen and init regen on weap swap. I could see the thieves who were trying the same thing to me without the condi removal and without so much init regen to keep bouncing up and down and they died pretty badly.

Pavel.8531:

I actually tried yesterday almost full apothecary set with 10/0/0/30/30 build. d/d // sb
And it’s great in pve/dungeons and wvw zerg running and small scale combat. The minus is, if you get ganged (to be read: “take a fight more than 1v2 with no backup”), your death is almost certain because of somewhat limited mobility and stealth.

I used 6 runes of Undead, 2 dagger sets – 1 set with sigils of corruption (just going, killing 13 mobs then switching to the “fighting” set and running in the fight), the “fighting” – with sigils of agony and hobbling. I wasn’t sure for the short bow, put agony there too, although that’s debatable.

Traits: Mug in DA, Power of Inertia, Pain Response and Quick Recovery in Acrobatics, Uncatchable, Bountiful Theft and Sleight of Hand in Trickery.

Utility Skills: SoM, Caltrops, Roll for Initiative, Infiltrator’s Signet and Daggerstorm.

Basically, the idea of the build is – very high evade uptime through death blossom and dodges, while healing all eventual hits through SoM. I don’t know if Anet thought making DB 4 ini is that big of a change, but it sure feels like one.
Oh, my stats are, when using food for -condition duration(yeah this build is weak vs conditions, that’s why I use such food and Pain Response) and quality tuning crystals and 25 cond stacks – 1716cond dmg, 776healing power, 2628~armor, 16.2k hp(without server bonuses).

I have a full apothecary set for when I want to be invincible, but always run 30 in shadow arts with it. Biggest problem is defensively spec’d enemies walking off bored… but it’s a very trollish spec for harassing groups and tagging zergs.

I was running D/D and D/D swap for init condition build before the patch to get used to it and found it very comfortable in sPvP.

10/0/30/30/0

After the patch it is just nuts….I run geomancy/Agony on the weapons so swaps are for init and bleeds.

Only troublesome chaps are the new necros…. but with 30 shadow arts you needn’t fight anything yu don’t want to anyway.

As title says – this sigil is no longer working,.

One of the servers I looked at when moving away from tier 1 zergfest and long queues. I just couldn’t do it.. the name… fissure of woe. Anal fissures are pretty nasty and I am sure they cause woe. I am sure they actually cause ‘like woe!’.

Sadly I had to go to Gunnar’s Hold… cos I like Arsenal. And don’t like anal fissures.

I spend almost all my time in SPVP but sometimes go out to WvW. You kind of get used to any solo guy in sPvP being tough – it’s why they are roaming, they are good at it and feel safe.

In WvW… even roaming guys explode in seconds.

In sPvP 90% are solid player vs player fighters or at least have enough experience to defend themselves. In WvW it seems the stats are reversed. But having said that… the top 1% of WvW would smash almost any player I see in sPvP so there is a brilliant top end who are insanely good.

Legacy.7360:

This idea of Auto-balancing is a morale ball buster.

When you and your team have gotten a good rhythm down, zerging nodes and the likes, people on the other side get discouraged and of course leave. Leaving someone from the other team to pick up. Doing so really busts your morale to do anything since you “worked so hard” on getting where you stand.

It’s not our duty to pick up for the other team, auto balance discourages it further.

I can care less about taking a win because of the Autobalance. I’m losing out on the Glory I could be acquiring from working as a team from the initial team. This is by no means fair. I’ve left games because I was Auto-balanced to the other side… its just so frustrating.

Now being Auto-balanced once is for one, frustrating… then to be auto-balanced twice in one game is just absurd. This needs some serious attention:

-Removing Auto-balance is on the wish list
-If this broken idea of Auto-balance needs to stay in play then have a cap, 1 auto-balance per game.

In case you all were wondering, yes I’ve just been auto-balanced twice. Hence why this thread and the frustration behind it.

You said zerging nodes like it was a good thing. Not sure you knew you said that.

Well I guess this was inevitable. We’ve had thieves move too fast, hit too hard, spam too much, dodge too much, hate boons too much… and now to make the circle complete… heal too much. I’ve now heard everything.

Make it so the thief doesn’t have to be kitten gymnast in order to land meagre damage on properly spec’d toons. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Caed-S-D-Semi-and-Finals-1v1-tournament/first#post2221454

Engineer can’t beat a thief? This is a bad spec issue or L2P. Engineer instruction video (last two fights, not the ranger ones):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Caed-S-D-Semi-and-Finals-1v1-tournament/first#post2217083

I usually have P/P offhand for Powder stomps and ranged unloads… plus a spare set of guns with bloodlust on them to get 25 stacks fast.

Horrible to see the ridiculous gymnastics Caed has to do to get even meagre damage on them and how easy it is for them to unload huge damage on him.

I run an apothecary thief sometimes when I don’t want to die ever.

Sil.4560:

Kaizer.7135:

I can kill thieves pretty easily on my warrior (which is considered lowest tier for PvP), especially D/D Thieves. The ones I have trouble with the most is D/P, but I can still get em down pretty fast by whacking them outside of Blinding Powder or using Whirlwind through it.

Oh I can definitely take out the ones that want to stick around and fight my warrior instead of running for the hills. What I find irritating is that these players can jump in during a heavy battle, start dealing thousands of damage in a second to someone, and then get away with about no risk. There also exists the fact that a thief can turn invisible and run with almost a 100% success rate whenever they start to lose…only to be waiting around to annoy you, your allies, or your supply. Fighting them in most cases feels entirely pointless.

So if they stay, they die. Wonder why they use stealth and stuff?

Apoth is amazing solo. With everyone stuck in a zerg they can roll right over you AE’ing like crazy and can’t match the heals. With 25 stacks of corruption you can actually get enough damage going too. Yuo can play all day with out falling over but plenty of builds can stalemate you. I just do it everynow and again when I want to roam for a couple of hours without being killed.

EDIT: Build is usually similar to this: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.1|8.1f.h9.a.1f.h1k|8.1f.h9.8.1f.h1k|1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d|1f.66.1f.66.1f.66.1f.66.1f.66.1a.66|a5.0.u53b.k2a.a3|30.d|58.5b.5a.5n.5u|e

TheGuy.3568:

Now one of the builds I play often is your typical PD thief. The thing I have been wondering is how well DD plays in dungeons? I have used it in the past to farm mobs in open world but I haven’t touched it out side of that.

Do both. LEad with DD blossoms/trops etc to get the smack going then revert to P/D for kite/survivability. Geomancy runes for +3 stacks of bleeds when weapon swap and the synergy is nice.

Solved: I was joining a US team not EU.

Posted it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Network-Error-when-grouped-entering-FOTM

Anyone seen it whet you can’t enter FOTM grouped? It throws up a Network Error dialogue box? I can enter solo just fine.

I can enter solo no probs, but get Network Error dialogue box if I try it grouped. Really annoying.

jportell.2197:

style.6173:

People just get upset because d/p is the strongest thief weaponset currently. The instant stealth allows anyone to play it, and someone with any skill can be dominant.

Dagger mainhand weaponsets are just easier to play than s/d, s/p, p/d or p/p.

Its not that they are easier to play… when you run d/p you literally have use of every single skill… p/d not so much pistol 2 isn’t worth it really and dancing dagger is me… The dual skill on p/d is a good kiter but it doesn’t guarantee the opener the way that d/p guarantees the closer s/d is good larcenous strike is nice but the off hand dagger doesn’t help much… s/p isn’t worth much since pistol whip got killed and also you have very small use for blackpowder in s/p because you can make no real use of the combo field. p/p has all the problems of pistols in one. No access to stealth no good burst and no mobility.

Agree with all that apart from the dancing dagger part – it is absolutely mandatory during every rotation for P/D… you need to keep 3 conditions on your target to mitigate their cleansing and cripple is a perfect patsy to be cleansed so your bleeds can tick uninterrupted.

Star peeps – thank you for the info. I hate PvE but will grind this one out cos the backpack is tasty.

Bossing the boss with bossness.

Sadly I think all thieves tend to BE females. Human, female, scantily clad…. wait, what were we talking about?

I want them to do away with all offense and defense and actually make us THIEVES like they promised. We should be able snatch purses and break into your house.

I think you have to substitute jubblies with ears. Imagine if you were a Charr. They get to purr and lick their own butts. Or that was what I expected when I rolled one, how disappointed was I !!!!

Thanks Sacrai, I don’t have to pack loads of magic find gear do I?

Please say no.

I know it drops in FOTM, but it is like after level 10 or something?

Judging by most people I’ve met in GW2 the end game is to make a female toon and try and get it’s jubblies to show and wobble about when you move.

Man do you ever NOT crit? Nice vid – great skill.

A P/P vid, great! Glad you recorded some footage.

I remember going on a silly run with the old haste, haste proc trait and haste proc sigil with the guns out. It was hilarious and I lasted way longer than I should have. Had to zerg surf though, it’s not a solo roamer set and that’s largely what I do so I personally couldn’t keep it.

noobftw.9654:

Faeyd.5094:

noobftw.9654:

alright guys, before bashing me, keep in mind my main is thief and I love the thief game play but this op trait line is ruining it.

I understand anet intention to give thief the best burst and mobility and everything is just busted once this trait line gets in picture.

Minor 25, Gain 2 stacks might for 15 seconds when you go into stealth.
Major 30, Regenerate health while in stealth.

With cnd chaining or smoke screen+leap, you can easily get 10 stacks of might before you back stabbing. This completely breaks the deadly arts trait line. If I have 30 points to spend, if spent on SA, player will get spamable stealth, spamable condition removable if wanted, 1 free binding power, spamable healing and most importantly, comparing to DA, you are gaining 50 power too. Peeps used to still invest at least 10 in DA for mug so thief is really bursty, now when you turn mug from a burst skill to semi-burst+heal, that 10 points in DA isn’t really worth it.

With the currently trait lineup, 30 in SA is almost a must. It gives thief top condition removal, best escape option, top healing (survivability) on top of best burst and best mobility among all the classes. This really breaks it.

anet fix this pls.

Disclaimer: I am not asking for a nerfing of thief and I am not claiming thief is op. What I am asking for is anet looking into SA trait line and probably move 25 minor and/or 30 major to another trait line.

What a tortuous way to get might stacks. Just invest in signet burn build, hit all three with the right signet trait from crit strikes and add thrill of the crime and you always open up with 16 stacks of might and you haven’t had to go blipping around with stealth for 5 minutes beforehand.

to stack up 12 might it takes about 8 secs. peeps are more likely to use that after the opening when they are low on hp. I am not saying tieves being stealthy or having a reset button in pvp is wrong, when this reset button removes all your condition, resets your hp and bring back you with a load of mights which is basically impossible to be stripped (since you are permastealthed) is wrong.
Again, permastealth and minor 25 in SA shouldn’t be in the same trait line.

EIDT: and I am totally fine with signet power builds coz you give up a lot to get that 16 stack, but with SA builds you don’t give up nothing and gains condition removal/healing.

Yeah I think I’ll just take the insta-16 stacks, which apparently is not overpowered judging by your long post.