Guild Wars 2

Woah. Suddenly it was 1995 and Dark Age of Castalot.

Soon to be Dark of Tankalot.

Soon after to be nerfed so muppets can compete-a-lot.

Hotjoin is a different game to tournament. Just because some people get bent out of shape because they went to a hotjoin once and noone obeyed ‘the rules of engagement for conquest’ does not invalidate what it is there for. It is there for breaking-and-entering, smash-and-grabbing… I-don’t-actually-care-for-coordinating-right-now-cheers.

And it happens to be awesome. Sometimes far more awesome than tournaments that are usually decided before the whistle blows based on classes, specs and failed match system.

This game is a lot of fun. I don’t care for certain aspects… like PvE. I don’t care enough about winning not to run silly builds and try cheap tricks. It’s one of the few games where I can get the kids in bed, grab a vino, log on and smash faces for 15 mins or 3 hours. It’s instant gratification and I like it.

If I run a Lyssa build and have all boons up I’ll look for a Mesmer to steal from so I can have all boons again afterwards.

Best way to see how it is working out is to post some footage of it working well guys – so if anyone plays it a bit, post it up.

It’ll be P/D and it is the hard counter to anything with pets. I’ve had mesmers and necros in particular who are used to killing pretty anything upset about dieing this way, but it is a rock to your scissors and unless you want to try it without clones and stuff you’re going to lose.

Having D/D mainhand and P/D offhand is still amazing. D/D for groups and P/D for 1v1 1v2. Sigil of geomancy on both for bleed swaps, dodge on caltrops, caltrops in skills and most enemies chew on 20 stacks of bleed, a poison and a cripple and the truly immobile will choke down all 25 stacks.

Monkeypooh.7859:

atm seeing lots of thieves grouped up and running around …now solo fight with a thief is fun it ends in death but most with a stealth and a run away but now the groups of thieves are slowly killing small scale wvw….back to daoc and emain gate and stealth wars …tis sad but ture ….one set of steal/backstab/c&d evaded but what about the other 2 lots incoming……rinse and repeat and so one …go go wvthief

You’re supposed to lose to 3 players.

Must have been it.

Had this happen today – smashed it down and it leapt immediately up. No other players in zone.

You know it’s pretty challenging avoiding all you zergs out there. Luckily there are always stragglers trying to catch up.

Very nice vid Woaden !! Enjoyed the fights.

I was trying to get pistols to work recently too (I focused more on damage and escapes), just for some distraction fun. SPVP under any circumstances with P/P as main is tricky as heck because of the lack of room to be dodgy… but the following build put me top of the glory board most of the time (even though I will no longer run it in SPVP).

In WvW it is far easier to manage with all the space available:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.1|8.1g.h17.8.1g.h1|a.1g.h1.a.1g.h17|1g.7i.1g.7i.1g.7i.1g.7i.1g.7i.1g.7i|1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.cg.67|0.p57.0.u29b.f2|39.1|59.5g.5f.5o.5u|e

Tried it again last night – it simply doesn’t work… ‘obstructed’ being the biggest problem when there is no object in the way… and as others said, it still very often just knocks people over at 1200 range – awesome…. not.

LEViTATiON.4350:

Lazarast.6571:

Eles do have higher burst than other profesions if spected so (base damage on spells). Actually they can kill quicker than a backstab thief glass cannon.

Sorry but no.
A backstab thief can kill you in 1 hit.
Something an elementalist can never achieve.

If you want people to take your arguments seriously you shouldnt post things that are obviously false to everyone who plays the game.

Absolutely not. For a backstab thief to kill you in his rotation you have to be full glass and he will have used up plenty of abilities (signets, venom) and hit you with MUG, Cloak and Dagger and Backstab. The base damage of backstab is not the most damaging hit in the game, but a combination of 5-7 buttons can kill a glass canon. What happens after that attack fails because the target hit his dodge or block key is hilarious.

If you’re naturally twitchy with fast reactions go glassier (plenty in crit strikes). If you are used to playing something like a guardian build in 30 shadow arts to provide a skill cushion while you get used to the thief. Play lots of spvp to try out builds.

Looks like slow laurel accumulation… fractals is too tedious.

Fade.7658:

For awhile, I was running Fractals 2-3 times a day, levels 18, 28 and 30 (mostly for a chance at fractal weapon skins). That nets you 3 pristine fractal relics a day, plus 3 chances at an ascended ring and weapon skin (plus the money isn’t bad). In 7 days, you’ll have enough for the pair of rings.

For the amulet, it’s a matter of grinding out the 20 dailies, and the monthly for the laurels.

If you’re guild-less, then your only option is grinding out the 80 laurels needed, plus the 100 ectos. Until they add alternate ways of gaining ascended gear in WvW, I’m afraid that’s about the only way to get the gear.

p.s. You’ll burn out on doing fractals in a short amount of time probably, especially if it’s for weapon skins. After countless runs, I got 1 skin I could use and maybe 4 that I couldn’t use on any alts.

Yeah I tried fractals once and got burned out PvE is horrible. Laurels it is then. Althuogh I do need a darn vial of essence to go backpack buying.

I do the dailys and monthlies (pvp). Any faster route?

Fade.7658:

This is the ascended condition WvW build I run. All the trinkets are/will be ascended (I missing the two accessories, but I’m about to get one of them. You will need to add 250 condition damage from the Sigil of Corruption, as it isn’t reflected in the stats.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.1m.h9.8.1m.h1j|a.1m.h1j.8.1m.h9|1h.7r.1h.7r.1h.7r.1h.7r.1h.7r.1h.7r|2x.0.2x.0.3x.0.2x.0.3x.0.2w.0|0.0.u36b.k26.k23|15.d|0.0.0.0.0|e

The benefits of this build/setup (I run either P/D and P/D or P/D and SB, depending on where I am etc.):

Pros:

- Sigils of energy on both weapons means a lot of extra dodges.
- Higher Toughness and extra vitality in equal amounts
- Melandru runes and Lemongrass soup – conditions slide off you, almost removing the need for condition removal. Fears, snares, roots and DoTs are negligible (-65% duration), and stuns last 25% less.
- Cloaked in Shadow and Instinctual response breaks up the typical CnD ->Steal -> backstab chain, as you stealth on mug-steal and blind your attacker, causing their CnD to miss, and hence their backstab. When you dodge away, you leave caltrops from uncatchable as well.

Cons:

- Low condition duration, 30%. Enough for an extra tic, allowing for 6 stacks to stay up from auto-attack.
- Lower condition damage (1500-1650, depending how much time is spent stealthing). It still tics for 125-130, but you can get a lot more if you focus on it.

This is where I am going template wise – have a completely different layout of plastyle though. Any was of accelerating purchase of ascended gear? I do the monthly like on the 2nd of each month and do the dailys but it is slow and I don’t do PvE.

I’ve added the ascended neck and will add 2 more ascended items.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_the_Deceiver with the condition damage infusion added after.

I once ran 100 attempts of using it and can’t be bothered to dig up the post of the stats but it was something like a 28% success rate of using it.

I think the vid is a great addition to any OP discussion. I’ve played thief a hell of a lot now and can flow through condi and damage builds pretty well. Two of my mates have started playing thieves and it’s been a very rough learning curve for a couple of weeks.

There is a low skill floor due to stealth and Heartseeker, but not really any lower than a gurdian that basically stays up on it’s own. I don’t think the skill ceiling is Elementalist high, but it is higher than the rest and that is why a few career thieves reach the 1vx levels and kitten everyone off.

how do you know your rating?

Hey I’m not sniping the OP at all – I liked his vid – just saying the necro has 3 life bars and it takes time for anyone to burn through them… even the legendarily instakill thief class

Everything got covered quickly in this thread.

Nerf HS was the starter. Quickly followed by nerf Mug. Then nerf stealth. Finally, nerf the entire burst.

Good job kids !

True this. sneaky buggers.

Good vid – somewhat ‘normal’ view of a thief which is a nice change.

I wonder of the necro feels you and your thief buddy were overpowered?

I went and made a cup of tea while waiting for you guys to kill it. LOL

I was in WvW on my thief last night and small scale fights were vs all Guardians, engineers and elementalists. I saw on enemy thief I think in 2 hours – and she exploded hard.

You should ALWAYS spam HS on a trakittenalker who has been badly damaged by someone else. It makes the veins on their head stick way out. This was the intended purpose of the skill.

EDIT: whoops wrong thread.

I’ve only ever solo Q’d – win rate around 50/50. Has more to do if your co-joiners have played tourneys before.

Good impact assessment of the change here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Feedback-from-the-Patch-Note/first#post1797112

I do that regularly to GC’s in SPVP when running a silly build. I ensure I CnD before burning 3 signets so have a full stack of init when I land Mug, might from Thrill of the crime as well so you alway sland with a minimum of 16 stacks. Sometimes for giggles I may stick 20 stacks of vuln on them with a pistol before going into the BS rotation as well.

But it is a silly build, burning SoS as part of the sigil burn does mean they are blind, but it’s still easy to counter. Having said that it does harvest very high glory numbers. If I want to turbocharge my glory I switch to this and smash stuff up.

Not much Asura in here

Stealth should drop on block. Not the whiffs though. Stealth is not sneaking around being unnoticed, it is a powerful magical ability that cloaks all sight and sound.

I love it when someone makes the mistake of getting gobby. They then get my undivided attention until they rage log… which is almost always.

If I’m on thief I ensure it’s 2,2,2,2 that kills them, on engi I make sure it’s 100nades, etc. Just to ensure the maximum veign-busting rage takes place on their part.

Full burst is still viable. It farms noobs in WvW and Glory in sPvP. It is next to get the nerf bat though and that leaves us with the lovely dance around like a complete muppet and do nothing else build. Survive all day long but do… nothing.

Yes that does tend to work in WvW, but so does the endless CnD repeater on the braindead or even having a coffee with one hand while you autoattack on the other hand. Where a thief needs to be viable is against good players in win or lose situations where your actions count… and right now, that is getting a LOT of erosion with each patch.

Xsorus.2507:

ARM.3912:

Dogskins.1259:

ARM.3912:

lorndarken.3702:

words

DAOC was better by far than this game, but it died. End of story.
ps: Darkness Falls came way after Trials of Atlantis. Did you not play the game?

Do you even lift bro? :P

Just playing, lol. But:

He wasn’t talking about the expansion, was talking about the PvP dungeon near PK Bridge in Alb, not too sure about mid/hib lol

Yes, the PvP dungeon under the center of the map(DF) came 4 years after TOA.

You’re thinking of Labyrinth of the Minotaur. Completely different dungeon.

Anyway…DAOC is superior in pretty much every way concerning PvP in this game….GW2 doesn’t hold a candle..

Hell GW2 doesn’t even beat Warhammer Online when it comes to PvP….

Hell even the actual Mechanics of PvP require less skill then DAOC…

I know some will say “But in GW2 you have to dodge” and in DAOC you had to actually Position your self to use attacks worth anything…Hell You had to position yourself period so you wouldn’t be destroyed…Which is the equiv of dodging in this game.

if Mark Jacobs Camelot Unleashed is half as good as DAOC, it’ll still be 4x better then GW2.

This. The interrupt system of DAoC was fantastic. Casting on the run was impossible bar instas of which there were precious few. You also got a lot more back for you investment… the difference between high level RvR toons and low was major.

However, internet whining destroyed DAoC which caused the watering down of classes and spreading the abilities out. People preferred not to learn to play. Sound familiar anyone??

Thanks Steelo. .

“Why can we attack Gates?”

Vista.

Thanks guys. Where do I go to see where all the servers are tier wise?

Should have mentioned: euro server.

Looking for a low pop server that lacks zergs… anything like that out there?

Been spending some time in WvW with chums so decided to finish off the Ele.

I will be duoing/trioing and will need to run interference while they work damage but also would like some soloable skills too.

What suggestions from the ele experts for this kind of play in terms of suitable build?

When I run sigil of bloodlust and get a full stack, burn 3 signets for 15 might and have power food I get to touch 4k attack for 5 seconds otherwise it sits around 3.3k. Valk armour Zerk the rest.

Mythic had a test environment for DAoC where all proposed changes went but it didn’t really stop them making terrible changes.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Or make people who never played before have the worst rating possible. Solo Q is a nightmare atm with all the people with no clue how to play just doing their daily/monthly. This is going to become more common I think.

Laurels in PVP was an awesome idea or I would never get any. I have only solo q’d since they introduced them and win rate has been 50/50. That includes 2 wins vs premades. You do have to endure complete spaz play sometimes, but rough and smooth you know.

Sebrent.3625:

Faeyd.5094:

Actually it’s the perfect illustration. There has to be specs that are simple to play and still get some joy out of or the game dies quickly due to no new players. The fact that the thief is actually far better when played with the stabilizers off is good class design. Now rack up a load of experience on the thief and go back to warrior… bingo, thieves no longer a problem. You have Learned to Play so why is it you think it’s OK for the guy next to you dying to HS spam shouldn’t have to learn to play to stop it?

First, I disagree. Look at the Mesmer class. Go back in our threads from beta. People thought we were a horrible class, weak, hard to learn, etc.. Still, many of us chose mesmer as our first/main character and now look at that community.

Second, There is a difference between “simple to play” and “simple to be effective”.

Warrior is “simple to play”. However, a warrior can’t spam 1 button and continuously close on someone in melee. A Ranger is “simple to play”, but they can’t just spam 1 button to beat another noob.

The problem with the guy next to me having trouble with HS spam is that he is forced to get better to win. The noob doing noobseeker spam is not forced to get better to win. In fact, the guy dying to noobseeker spam may be the better noob, but still losing because they are at the noob level.

So the guy getting spammed gets better and the thief doesn’t. Win. You are evidence of this. Poor thief, not poor spamee. It’s why we all target thieves first… probably easiest to kill unless they are genuinely experienced.

And besides all classes have 5 buttons there… the difference is the gap closer but as the new player bangs all 5 buttons in sequence on their non thief toon they’ll soon gravitate to the one that roots/gap closes/snares/whatever the other guy in much the same way the thief repeats the gap closer.

Permit me to end the debate now though. You see it as a problem, I see it as an enabler for learning and also for new PvP players to actually be effective, but nowhere near as effective as an experienced player. I am waving at you from my side of chasm as we will not meet in the middle.

Sebrent.3625:

Faeyd.5094:

Sebrent.3625:

Against other Thieves I was tearing them up because Thieves don’t like being dazed and I had a closer that immobilized. Weakness and cripple are also an issue for thieves.

Sword thief is a great way to troll other thieves :-)

So it was a divisive question Seb It proves fighting thieves is a L2 kitten ue.

If the ‘class’ was inherently overpowered you should at best get a 50/50 win rate. Yet here you are on a spec that noone considers overpowered destroying thieves who use the overpowered spec… you see where I am coming from?

You’ll have to elaborate because I don’t see how a Thief killing another Thief proves that a thief is not OP. I think the fact that some of those thieves could present a challenge to my warrior but my thief soundly stomped them is a bit more telling.

I don’t think dagger+dagger is OP. My issue with dagger+dagger is it allows a noob spammer to be more effective than an average player trying to make good use of their skills on any other class. They have one skill that turns them, closes gaps for them, and does good damage. Don’t need wasd, get in range and press 2 2 2 2 2 2. If your target isn’t good, you get a kill. That’s pretty dumb and I hate seeing those players get kills against anyone.

I think sword thieves are much more dangerous than dagger. Sword gives up a little of the raw damage of dagger for more mobility, a built-in stunbreaker/condition removal, and a boon removal that hits almost as hard as backstab. The cripple and weakness from the auto-attack is also quite damaging. It makes it harder to fight back with direct damage and harder to leverage mobility.

<edit>
@ Ant Boogy:
Sounds like you fought a thief who was dumb enough to:

• Be surprised that a ranger had traps
• Not use a stunbreaker to escape from KD, etc.

</edit>

Actually it’s the perfect illustration. There has to be specs that are simple to play and still get some joy out of or the game dies quickly due to no new players. The fact that the thief is actually far better when played with the stabilizers off is good class design. Now rack up a load of experience on the thief and go back to warrior… bingo, thieves no longer a problem. You have Learned to Play so why is it you think it’s OK for the guy next to you dying to HS spam shouldn’t have to learn to play to stop it?