Guild Wars 2

cheese.4739:

Geiir.7603:

I’m in favor of either taking away all damage immunity skills of any sorts the ability to contest points, or give those skills and stealth the ability to contest. I mean, if a thief stealths and you don’t decap/cap then there isn’t exactly much space where the thief possibly can be, so how hard can it be to keep pressure on him with AoE damage, cleave or some cc? Just my two cents.

Didn’t stealth contest in the past, and you’d get 1-2 thieves holding a WvW camp against many more foes by permastealthing?

Yes it did, and yes we did. :p

This change is requested for PvP, not WvW. PvP have so small circles that most AoEs will hit the entire capture point. Not saying it should happen, but as long as other professions can be nearly immune to damage and contest, I think it is fair that a thief that are far from immune to damage can’t contest. Doing this would also make an entire trait line viable again.

I’m in favor of either taking away all damage immunity skills of any sorts the ability to contest points, or give those skills and stealth the ability to contest. I mean, if a thief stealths and you don’t decap/cap then there isn’t exactly much space where the thief possibly can be, so how hard can it be to keep pressure on him with AoE damage, cleave or some cc? Just my two cents.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

T raw.4658:

Wait what

Did some just call the 5 6 0 0 3 full signet OP?

No, he called it exploit. xD

How that ever be called OP or an exploit?! You basically put heal, 3 utilities and your elite on cooldown. So if that is dodged the thief is like a free kill… He even say he play thief in PvP, guess he’s talking about WvW and not sPvP.

I have a thief of every race, and Charr are by far my favorite! Ash legion fits perfectly with thief. The only downside are the medium armors generally look like crap, but there are some nice ones out there! I say Charr for thief at least

A and D are changed to strafe. Then I got myself a Razer Naga, which I highly recommend. It take some time to get used to, but when you do you are at a whole new level of play!

Oh, and for gods sake; do not ever use keyboard turning! Use your mouse to turn your character! Key turners are the easiest to kill, by far. And in this game, where movement are as important as it is, you should never do that.

• Because when it launched it was still in alpha, and now it is in beta (this is what it feels like at least)….
  *It take forever to implement the simplest things.
• Matches still start 4v5!
• Not nearly as much balance patches as they need to put out (once every six months won’t do).
• Leaderboards need a rework.
• Bad matchmaking.
• Too few PvP players left in the game.

A good example of how an MMO should launch is Wildstar. Hey launched with more features than this game have now, two years since launch…

Guardian are the most versatile in my opinion. Good team support and survivability. Can go full survival, support or just full dps. Guardian is also in a good spot in all game modes if you feel like you want to try them from time to time.

1) What do you like best about WvW? What keeps making you come back for more? What keeps you interested or keeps it fun?

I love WvW for its chaotic nature. It is a place I go to test builds, gank players, troll zergs, challenge myself or just some relaxation. I love to fight outnumbered on my thief, and I always look for those fights. Trolling zergs with fellow thieves is just as fun as ganking people. Having an entire zerg follow me for good 30 minutes just to jump off a cliff and see about 90% of them follow me to their deaths is beyond satisfying ( Actually happened :p )!

2) What do you like least about WvW? What makes you frustrated about it or makes you want to stop WvW in favor of something else like PvE, PvP or even EotM? (I consider EotM play separate).

When constantly get ganked by superior forces or witness spawn camping. I tend to play all game modes (except for EotM) almost equally so there’s really no special reason for me to not play WvW.

3) What tier are you in?

Not sure really. I play on Gandara and I really don’t care what tier. I get what I want (outnumbered fights, ganking and trolling).

4) Have you switched servers for WvW? Why?

I have never switched for WvW. I started on Seafarer’s Rest, but transferred to Gandara when most of my friends on SR stopped playing. Felt like I had to join some old guildies on Gandara then instead.

Traps in general is something I don’t use. But Shadow Trap is amazing in PvP - if you know your limits. It do unfortunately bug out all the time and has a very limited numbers of places it works - but once you know where it is priceless. I just don’t understand why they can’t change it to function as mesmer portals.... I understand the difference between shadow steps and teleport, but shadowstepping is so bugged that it isn’t any fun...

First of all; there are no water in the current PvP maps, they decided to remove it, so that isn’t a problem.

I think its fine that bloodlust is removed when downed. It is a high risk / reward sigil. If you manage to stay alive and don’t get downed, then you get the rewards. They add a significant amount of power, so I think they are fine as they are.

Build looks good, except for the sigil and maybe rune choice.

Since you have hidden killer on I don’t think you need sigil of accuracy. You are already hitting so fast with your auto attacks that there is a good chance for activating your fire sigil in the process. I would probably go with sigil of air instead for another on crit proc, or you could choose sigil of force for extra damage.

As for runes; how often do you find yourself above 90% health? There are far better alternatives that I would choose instead. We are so squishy that we are above 90% health for maybe the first backstab, then it is usually jumping up and down around 50%. Rune of the Ogre will suit you better and improve your damage overall.

I too would have chosen d/p or shortbow as second weapon slot. P/D may have a small burst from sneak attack – and it may be useful at times, but I find shortbow to be far better.

Edit: This is more like what I’m running.

Edit 2: I would also like to note that Dagger / Dagger is a difficult set to play if you are new to the thief. D/P are easier, but you will become far better learning D/D instead. The trick is to learn how to land Cloak and Dagger, really. Use teleport wisely too.

Liewec.2896:

how it should be:
game starts, players get put on (mostly)random teams,
perhaps it could use ranks and try to balance them as best it can.

if a player joins while teams are even and score are the same, player gets put on random team.
if a player joins while teams are uneven, player gets put on less populated team.
if a player joins while teams are even but scores aren’t, player gets put on losing team.

players can still choose to change to a spectator, but doing so will make it so you cannot join the same game until it ends, even if you leave and rejoin.

the current problem is the one outlined by the OP, whan a team starts winning people will wait in spectator mode to join the winning team, and while this is happening people are leaving the losing team, in severe cases you can have the match ending in a 1v5 because noone else is joining the losing team.

also to the people saying “just do tournaments!” you need to understand, many of us can’t stand meta, imho thats the main function of hotjoin, its the mode where you can get away from most of the meta clones and play with none meta builds yourself, would you really want to play tournaments as a p/p thief? or a greatsword glasszerker warrior? you’d get cursed by your team and facerolled by the meta clones of the other team, sure we still have some meta clones in hotjoin, but there are alot less of them so you get to play the more enjoyable builds and face different ones!

This. I mean, how hard can it be to do this? On the other hand we are still starting matches in arena with 4v5, so I guess we won’t see any changes in the coming year…

They should also add spectator mode to arenas. Like, you can opt to spectate an ongoing match. This would allow newer players to watch the better players and learn from them.

Mompen and Messiah: thanks for the input! I’ll work it into the guide.

Orpheal: all those things are under construction and will be posted when ready. I haven’t made any video tutorials my self yet. I Am not sure if I will do or if I’ll just find someone who are already there (asking for permission ofc!). Probably the latter since it requires less time ^^

ChaosArchangel: I completely forgot to ask for your permission first, but I hope it is okay…? Apologies for that. Thank you very much for the kind words! Your guide was a huge inspiration to me, as you can see. I’ll borrow that indeed! Thanks for the input, I’ll improve on those things in the near future. Glad I could help you too!

Sirrealist: That is absolutely true! I started writing that part before they changes initiative. I’ll fix it asap! Thanks for noticing <3

Jman: Thanks for the kind words! Safe stomps will definitely be there!

Frenk.5917:

Geiir.7603:

Frenk.5917:

I didn’t read it all (still want to, though) but it is not really true that we have no 1200 range weapons. Shortbow autoattack, even if it says it is 900 range, is actually 1200 range (similiar to Mesmer GS #1, which is supposed to be 1200 but it’s more like 1350).

I’ll have to test this theory before posting it in the guide. If anyone else can verify that would help a lot.

Didn’t know about this. But at least on paper, we don’t have any 1200 weapon. Our farthest looks like it is going to be pistols with 1050 though.

Worry not, I did that for you!

On the screen you can clearly notice that none of the supposed 900 range abilities are within range (there’s the “red bar” under the skill image).
Infiltrator’s signet, Shortbow #1, Disabling shot… all out of range.

BUT! I just clicked the auto and it hit. Moreover, I tried it with disabling shot, and also disabling shot appears to have 1200 range. I can’t claim that’s 1200 range because it’s not a video, but trust me, it is. I’ll make a video asap.

Tested this yesterday and got the same results! Thanks for verifying this too, that means that it is true. Wonder if I should write it though, ANet may see it and fix it….

The engine and the combat systems are amazing, but we lack dev presence and features.

For it to be anything close to an esport they need decent ladders, spectator mode in arenas and devs that care.

SkylightMoon.1980:

ens.9854:

Duran.3196:

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Hrm i play FULL zerker DD (lightning flash, arcane wave, arcane projectile, arcane brilliance) and thiefs are my smallest problem (really rarely meet one i cant beat).

Problem are rather Terrormancers, Warriors (due to their insane invul-uptime + revenge if you down em) and to some extent power guardians. (in that order)
First is rarely played on good maps(i.e. not Skyhammer) , second is a problem hence its a very common encounter, third not that common as an encounter can be extremely annoying though.

Although your claims are suspect it doesn’t really matter if you can win ALL 1v1s versus thiefs; they will still down you in a split second and make you a liability in team fights.

Although you can do the same to them, you lack all their mobility and stealth and will thus rarely get the initiative

Thieves are a broken class tbh. At least d/p is. The only reason its such a threat is because it can insanely burst anyone from stealth and constant restealth/reset the fight. S/D is hard to fight but more respectable. d/p is full cheese. It has the same damage as eviscerate with air/fire proc yet eviscerate is a telegraphed animation that can be dodged consistently by a good player while the same is not true about backstab on thieves.

I am very curious as this insane burst you are talking about? In WvW it is something, but in sPvP I rarely see any stabs higher than 5k.

As for celestial gear: I think it is fine. Strength runes are the problem…

Lamuness: Yeah, noticed that too. Gotta fix it by changing some words. I hate the censoring in these forums… >_<

Lucente: Thank you for the kind words! I definitely put a lot of time into this, indeed I did. :p

Hakan: Great idea! I’ll definitely look into it. The thing is that making such a PvP guide will require extensive work since the meta shifts a lot between patches. I’ll see what I can do, though, because that would be really helpful I think. Have seen quite a few posts regarding PvP lately, so it is definitely needed. Thanks for the input!

This, I need this! I don’t mind the grind if it remove all the clutter from my inventory.

I like the idea. What they should do is decrease particle effects in PvP and make animations for Asuras much bigger. A cloak and dagger on an Asura is almost impossible to see, while on a Charr or human you can see it come from miles away… I play an Asura, and I wouldn’t mind a more even footing, because I almost feel like cheating. :p

darres.8203:

The downside of being a Thief:
you forgot

the devs hate you and they will nerf you a little at a time until you quit the game

We do get hit by the nerf bat quite often. But keep in mind that I have played thief since it was first available during beta, and I am still going strong! We thieves have a nasty habit of getting ourself back up after a fall and start to slit throats again shortly after.

Once a thief, always a thief.

Would love it if they made it so all players could customize their own “human avatar” in the mists. And that they fight with this avatar instead of their original form.

This would level it out pretty good. This is coming from someone with 6 Asura characters. The tells and animations on Asuras are just too small to be noticed in team fights, which is giving them a huge edge.

I think the new change are great! They add far more counterplay to the juice. People, especially guardians, are afraid of Larcenous Strike, not Flanking Strike.

This new change make FS cost 4 initiative, so gg to the thief if he decides to “spam” it (which he can do 3, maybe 4 times) and then be left without initiative. For such a costly skill you definitely want to land it now to gain the hard hitting LS.

Nanashi.5704:

Yasha.5963:

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin?.

Not really, but you cant balance 100% of the time around Arena matches. Imagine a new player coming into this game and going into pvp and just getting roflstomped by the blinds being re-applied. It would be a giant turn off, especially when mixed in with all the other broken hot join builds, and a lot of people would be turned off by the pvp experience.
Now before people go “Hurr duur who cares about hot joins” you gotta remember not everyone is going to jump right into Arenas. So if Anet doesnt start to fix broken builds then their pvp base wont grow because not enough people will get past the terrible hot join experience.

This is very true. Hot join are 99% of us started, and it is where new pvp’ers will start. If they only encounter the very unbalanced hot join builds – why would they think it is better in arenas? I know quite a few players who left PvP because of thinking it was like hot join…

I do currently enjoy wrecking hot join builds with my d/p thief though

Frenk.5917:

I didn’t read it all (still want to, though) but it is not really true that we have no 1200 range weapons. Shortbow autoattack, even if it says it is 900 range, is actually 1200 range (similiar to Mesmer GS #1, which is supposed to be 1200 but it’s more like 1350).

I’ll have to test this theory before posting it in the guide. If anyone else can verify that would help a lot.

Didn’t know about this. But at least on paper, we don’t have any 1200 weapon. Our farthest looks like it is going to be pistols with 1050 though.

DeWolfe.2174:

IDK, I’ve tried to play with Venoms but, I’m losing movement speed, blinds, stealth, and regen. I just cant imagine leeching Venom’s being able to give much sustain in large scale fights in WvW.

Now having them using MY stats’s, that’s going to be huge. So, I’ll certainly be testing them again.

The only time I’m using a venom or two are with my d/p build.

Other than that I only use venoms while running a full support build with guildies. Full venom can be very strong with all its traits, if I manage to say alive. The incoming changes will boost that build even further

I am glad they added more counterplay! The fact that S/D now can’t burst on-demand will probably push them more back to critical strikes again. I don’t think it will disappear, but it will be harder to play.

The black powder nerf is just something I can’t understand… Wouldn’t it be enough to just decrease the blind time? I mean, who in their right minds stay inside the field for its full duration?!

Had the exact same problem when I first started my Asura Thief! You get used to it after playing for enough hours, so don’t worry.

Btw; Charr Thief are freackin’ awesome!

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Maybe no weapon at all:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-d9vGO52E

That must be the best thing I have ever watched! Just, wow….

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Holy moly… that is one impressive guide.

“It is also a Whirl combo finisher, but it’s rarely used for that reason.?”
Whirl combo from dagger dagger death blossom can be nice if fighting engineers. Steal, throw gunk then a death blossom or two will get a handful of confusion stacks on them.

Hmm, I have never thought of that actually. I rarely see others use death blossom for its finisher, but as you pointed out; it has it uses. I’ll add this to the guide, thanks!

Edit: There, it has now been added.

There! Just updated the table of contents. That took quite some time due to some buggy code….

That would be a nice start yes.

I do also use some venoms both in condition and power builds. They have their uses, it is just very limited….

I do not play dual pistols that often, so I can’t really say anything on that. But I can say something on ricochet;

It is far from useless! If you are lucky and all shots in one unload bounce all possible times, this means that your effective dps just increased by 400%. The best part is that in a chain of shots, each shot and every single bounce has a 50% chance to apply.

I notice that when fighting two or more players this is huge. If normally doubles my dps or just simply make it so I damage the other player almost as much as my target. For my P/D condition build I am definitely going to use the new and better ricochet.

Venoms are very underrated in my opinion. The only thing I wish for is an increase to the radius of which the aura are applied.

The new buff that it is the thiefs condition damage that has the damage can be pretty strong in a condition venom share build. In WvW you can effectively spread your conditions even harder, faster an longer than ever before with this trait. I can’t wait to test it out with my guild in snake scale roaming.

If my group and another collides I can effectively poison, torment, chill and stun 6 people with ease. This is huge if I am the only one running conditions to boost the party’s dps.

I think venoms are in an ok place, but there is always room for improvement.

I think the change was good for us. It adds more counter play and forces thieves to be more tactical about using the skill. Too many were just spamming it blindly…

They ruined choking gas from stealth :/ oh well, guess it is unfair to stack damage while in stealth, so that is sort of ok.

The nerf to S/D was actually pretty good! It adds way more counterplay and heightens the skill ceiling.

Dagger cleave are cool, but not needed.

Oh well, there goes S/P god mode in pve…. Why nerf a skill in this way? Wouldn’t it have been enough to just decrease the blind time?

Ricochet: AWESOME! I use this trait for p/d condition. I’m going to get so much more hate and tears now! Oh joy!

Venomous aura: for a thief that regularly use this trait as a condition thief: this is just too good!

DanielGames.5198:

Looking good so far. Few things I would add is that Dancing Dagger reflects projectiles and that improvisation is a good choice to increase your damage by 10% when using an elementalist’s conjured weapon.

Just filled that into the guide. Thanks for reminding me!

I’ll keep updating and perfecting the guide during the next week (a lot of formatting).

Cheers!

Chris.3290:

Killshot is a gimmick build designed for one shot kills during non-organized brawls.

I get around 7k-9k with a PVT/Zerker mix of ascended and perception sigil. If I went all zerk with bloodlust sigil I would expect even better so I don’t see the problem here. The ability to single-shot down guardians in the middle of a fight is nothing to sneeze at.

I agree. If someone want anyone assassinated a thief can do it better ^^

It is named “Kill Shot” after all, so we should expect it to hit like a truck.

Thanks for the inputs guys! It’s not easy to remember everything as I write, so I am glad I have people like you to help me make this guide as good as I can! Will add your points when I get back home.

Hmm, I still see rifle warriors from time to time. Maybe not the best set, but the damage from kill shot alone is reason enough to fear them – especially in zergs.

I remember one day running supplies I just saw a warrior sitting there, aiming at me – and I died. He literally one shotted my 13000hp Thief. I didn’t get angry, I just laughed. It was so easy to spot, yet I got hit.

I feel like the skill it self is in a sweet spot. It hits hard, has a good range and has a good long tell to make up for it. I roamed with two kill shot warriors the other day. Best experience of my life! Stealthing them and then watching them kill shot even tougher targets to death was a blessing!

Thanks for the kind replies guys!

Took a lot of time to put together, so I am glad you liked it!

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