Guild Wars 2

Remove rank points completely from hot join.

Remove all rewards in hot join. It is a place to test builds, duel and just don’t do anything serious. Add a solo queue without leaderboards that have decent rewards. And for the love of god, fix matchmaking and uneven match starts!

/rant

apocom.3172:

Geiir.7603:

First of all: Dagger/Pistol is perfectly fine as it is. The problem are Shadow Arts, and one trait particularly; Infusion of Shadows. It is the only trait that makes this set work, because it makes it possible to chain 4 Heartseekers in one field. Literally no other build use that trait.

Nope, did not work anymore. You have to trait in Trickery for that.

Exactly! If you put points into trickery to get extra initiative then you lose points in either critical strikes or shadow arts. Any thief that want to kill people with d/p need critical strikes, so it is either survivability through stealth or extra initiative with steal buffs.

My point is that Shadow Arts is the problem, not d/p. It may be one of the best balanced sets for dueling in the game – don’t ruin it by changing it when the problem isn’t with the set. Look at p/d condition. The only reason that set work as good as it does is because of the constant restealthing that heals, blinds and remove conditions. What needs to change is SA. What they have to do I do not know, but it is the only reason thief are such a strong roamer with stealth builds.

First of all: Dagger/Pistol is perfectly fine as it is. The problem are Shadow Arts, and one trait particularly; Infusion of Shadows. It is the only trait that makes this set work, because it makes it possible to chain 4 Heartseekers in one field. Literally no other build use that trait.

The only reason this set is so strong in WvW are because of its ability to stealth on demand. Especially with the Shadow Arts trait line being so strong. I don’t think it would be a huge nerf to the profession, and it would force d/p thieves into using their brain a bit more. D/P are far from OP in sPvP or PvE, so please don’t destroy our only perfect weapon set.

The Black Powder + Heartseeker combo are pretty strong, but it is initiative heavy! 9 out of 12 initiative is used and you only get stealth for 3 seconds. If your profession carries any knockdowns, interrupts or dazes then this is easy to counter. If you don’t carry one of these, then you simply met your counter – no need to get angry about it.

As I said; D/P are fine, it is Shadow Arts that need a rework.

Sagat.3285:

-BP becomes dark field,increases in damage,lesser initiative cost
-Unload become off-hand pistol #4
-Unload is replace by a pistol version of Flanking Strike
-Shadow Shot increase in damage,lesser initiative cost,dagger hit dazes for 1/2 sec
-Last refuge is replaced by 1-sec revealed APPLIED TO YOU trait.

That should end whining from both sides and rumors about stealth being broken or not competitive. Choosing what trait line should be the best is a selfish and unhealthy mindset because no trait line should be a to go to I’m talking about PU and SA if you don’t like them doesn’t mean you have to flame and hate people using them it’s a waste of time it inspires them to use it more duh.

Black Powder becomes smoke field? If so, then it should be a ranged stealth, working like Cloak and Dagger – if it is blocked or evaded then the thief won’t get stealth, much like the Rangers Longbow #3. Just think about it. No longer stealth on demand and it adds some counter play to the D/P stealth. It would also help P/P a lot.

Unload replacing Head Shot? No thanks. The instant interrupt (which has a decent initiative cost) is far more valuable. Abilities are fine as they are on the D/P set. Pistols dual skill need a rework though…

Prysin: giving us access to protection would kitten people off. We don’t need it in top of our shadowsteps, evades and blinds. 5 seconds, why?

Why would you want CnD to be stronger in PvP than in WvW? I feel it does enough damage in wvw as it is now, so why increase that damage in PvP? Why could revert their nerf and see if it is enough though.

At heraldic: yeah, forgot to add that it was including the cast time of CnD (shame on me for forgetting to add that). It is 2.5 seconds actually, but it feels more “right”.

Anyways, I really can not find any reason for it to be 4 seconds. Stealth still can’t contest, so the stealth uptime is usually minimal. I use it to reposition in teamfights, land a quick stab or gtfo. Reverting this would really help in making D/D more viable.

Krait, Balthazar and Undead..

I am currently going with Undead runes because of the added survivability and condition damage (more than with the other runes). I focus on reapplying conditions fast, and don’t have that much focus on condition duration.

My current build.

If you want more burst then Krait and Balthazar are good alternatives. Balthazar are great since you get access to Burning, which is the hardest hitting condition in the game. Paired with Withdraw it is just amazing!

Krait pretty much requires you to work with Basilisk Venom, which I rarely use.

Great guide man! A lot of players need help with this, so glad someone took their time to make a guide for it.

Actually just made a post about this and Cloak and Dagger in the Balance forums.

LaronX.8079:

TrOtskY.5927:

looooool 5-8 second stealth, 10 sec reveal????
What is a D/D supposed to do when not in stealth? What is a D/P supposed to do? So a D/D goes into stealth, is fighting a tanky guardian. Does a 3K backstab…then is revealed for 10 SECONDS? lmao

This thread was created by WvW whiners, it’s so obvious.
Next plz.

Dodge, move and play the game. Are you kittened or do you only play thief and are blind? Thief s if any class already have a lot of active defenses . You got a kitten load of blinds and jumps and you still moan how to survive. What the hell. UHHH … QQ I actually had to COMMIT to an action like every other class. QQ I can’t kitten up and be instantly gone again. QQ my mistakes actually stick to me QQ .
Seriously. Stop. You clearly don’t know how this game works.

Yeah, those 3 seconds revealed are actually more than enough for even the tackiest player to kill any thief.

I guess you agree that by doing this we need to increase the coefficient of backstab? Because dagger sets doesn’t have that much other useful skills than can kill people except for backstab. If this change was to go through, then this would be a normal scenario:

• Thief enters stealth, do a backstab of 3k on a warrior with nearly 30k health.
• Thief run away.

Stealth isn’t op. People just need to learn how to fight thieves. I have no problems on any of my other toons when fighting thieves, so why do you?

Btw: Looks like a lot of professions are getting an ability to reveal thieves. As it looks now we can be chain revealed for 12 seconds, 6 of those seconds are instant cast from 1200 range…. Seems balanced, right?

Hey guys!

Cloak and Dagger
Remember when Cloak and Dagger got nerfed in PvP so that it did less damage? It currently uses a coefficient of 1.0 while in PvE/WvW it is 1.5. I remember that one of the arguments used when this nerf was made was that it was because the combined damage of CnD, Mug and Backstab was just too much – later Anet decided to nerf Mug so that it couldn’t critically hit any more while still leaving CnD in its inferior state.

Can you remember the last time you saw a D/D thief in PvP? No? Me neither. D/P are the current king because of its utilities (blind, teleports, stealth on-demand). Bringing CnD back to where it was would make D/D the king of burst again and it would possibly make it viable in competitive play again.

I for one would love to see this change.

Revealed
Revealed in PvE/WvW; 3 seconds, in PvP; 4 seconds.

Many of you may think that this isn’t a big thing, but just go and try it out, you’ll notice it. The dagger auto attack chain is exactly 3 seconds long, which makes it feel natural to hit CnD right after the last attack of the chain, but this is not possible in PvP.

Anet said that they want the transition from PvE to PvP to feel seamless – this isn’t seamless. If you actively play all game modes then this is a real pain! It just feels clunky and unnatural in its current state, while 3 seconds feel just perfect.

I believe that this is also one of the main reasons Dagger off-hand isn’t viable in PvP. Reverting this change would be huge for the thief! Remember; we can’t contest points while in stealth, which was one of the reasons they did this change (we could contest points before). Now that contesting was fixed I think it should be natural to revert the change and open up new build options for PvP.

TL:DR
Revert the Revealed and Cloak and Dagger nerf.

What do you guys think about this?

I dare say that you would have recieved those insults if you were running P/P too. Some people just can’t take a defeat and therefore just has to tell the player who killed them that he is a bad player and so on.

I tend to just ignore them and if the insults get too personal I’ll just report and block the person.

A thief will always die fast in a group fight if focused, this is common knowledge to any thief. I dare say that D/P should win against S/D if it is between two equally skilled players. D/P can almost shut down a S/D build if done right.

I am really not understanding why we bother discussing this? For me it looks like the OP has already decided that Warrior are superior to Thief in every aspect of the game, and the points we have given him seem to just blow past him or something.

I find Thief far more fun, engaging and difficult to play. I tried Warrior, leveled him to 80 and geared him – the most boring kitten I have ever played.

For me it looks like this entire thread / discussion boils down to “do you think Thief or Warrior are better?”. For me it is Thief. I have no reason to have the OP convert to Thief if he find his Warrior superior. I’ll just keep ganking Warriors in WvW and PvP and enjoy my time in-game instead of trying to convert someone who clearly doesn’t want to be converted. :P

Zacchary.6183:

It was 1 every 3 second, but there is no point in using them since there are much better traits.

Agreed.

Hi Zacchary! I too have been playing this profession since it was first available, closing in on way too many hours… :p

Anyhow, I have seen lots of your work and discussions in these forums, and I agree with most of your posts. I too have been posting a lot in the forums trying to defend our beloved profession, educate players so that they know how to fight us, share some of our secrets and help new players learn their profession.

I can assure you that you are definitely not alone in fighting these hellbent players that want to see the Thief burn and discussing new ideas and builds. I have done so since release and I will keep doing it for as long as I play a Thief.

Cheers man, and keep up your good work for our community!

Yes, yes it is!

It is without doubt the most used trait for power thieves. In PvE, especially boss fights, it is a very good boost to your dps. In PvP, especially in the current bunker meta, it is very strong for bringing down bunkers. Backstabbing someone, landing a critical hit and they are below 50% hp is usually a guaranteed kill, especially with a heartseeker to follow up ^^

I don’t have the exact numbers, but 20% extra damage is a very nice boost.

Don’t forget the 300 extra presicion and ferocity you get for going 6 deep in critical strikes on top of that trait.

Can’t really remember the last time I saw a scull crack warrior. :p

Thief is in a pretty good spot right now. S/D, D/P and S/P are all strong weapon sets that are heavily used in tPvP.

D/P and S/P usually go with 2/6/0/0/6. Mug, Executioner, Bountiful Theft, Thrill of the Crime and Sleight of Hand are the mandatory traits. Runes and sigils are completely up to you and your play style. Hide in Shadows or Withdraw as heal, Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep and usually Infiltrators Signet and Basilisk Venom are the most used skills.

S/D I am not that familiar with, but I know 2/0/0/6/6 and Strength runes with Air and Fire sigils are the meta for that build. Withdraw is the heal to use since this is a spam evades build, so make sure you take the trait that give you Vigor on heal. Other than that it is still Shadow Refuge, Basilisk Venom and Shadowstep that are the most popular skills. Again, keep in mind that I am not too familiar with this build, so you may need to ask others in the forum.

What has changed?
Sigils of the same category (ex on crit sigils) can stack, but not two of the same sigil. Air and Fire sigil have their own cooldowns, before they were shared. Almost all runes have been completely revamped. You can no longer have different runes in sPvP, only one rune set can be chosen. You know have 6 trait points in each trait line instead of 30.

Google GW2 feature patch and read those patch notes, a lot changes that patch, so I highly encourage you to check it out!

If there is anything more, feel free to reply here and I’ll answer what I can.

Cheers!

Edit
Btw; welcome back! I remember you from back then in the forums!

Thief is still a roamer. We are where we are most needed and rotate quickly around the map. The current mets are very bunkerish, so a 1v1 is rarely a good idea for us. Decap far if it is undefended and help your teammates turning fights in their favor by executing low health or glass cannon targets.

Check out Jumper and Caed. Both are amazing thieves that definitely know they place in PvP.

scirocco.9805:

Geiir.7603:

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

Im talking about the million evades and blind, cant hit a theif at all. Well the ranger changes are just stupid, will force all rangers too play glasscannon specs and play kill before u get killed style, no tactical thinking needed at all anymore. It was the survability of group support and bunker specs that needed buffing.

I completely agree that ranger are getting buffed wrong as it will literally kill most thieves within a second and that its team support and fight capabilities should be buffed instead. But you know anet….

You know, the current mets builds doesn’t have both blinds and evades. It Is one or the other. The d/p build most used has just as many evades as all other professions. S/D has high evade uptime but no blinds. S/P are the exception with evade frames in Pistol Whip though.

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

I’m usually only solo roaming when I’m in WvW. I love to meet these havoc groups or small roaming squads and give them a good fight. I like to challenge myself, so I love to fight outnumbered and this is where I can do it ^^

That being said, I don’t meet many other solo roamers…

Dahkeus.8243:

Honestly, I don’t think that a D/D SA build is as bad as people say for sPvP. The meta builds are better for sure, but if you know how to play D/D without camping in stealth and can utilize the blind on stealth trait well, it’s not bad.

A 6 deep shadow arts build won’t work too good in the current meta, but by going 2 points in for the blind on stealth it can be more viable indeed. Having the AoE blind is almost mandatory to survive hambows. Trickery is just too good of a trait line, so are Critical Strikes, so if you think mug isn’t needed then it is a go ^^

The only reason I can think of where 6 in SA are ok is if you are only focused on decapping, but thief is way too good to only be a decap bot. 2 points for blind should be enough in most situations ^^

+1

Please Anet, listen to the feedback!

Liewec.2896:

i noticed a surprising amount of backstab thieves last night,
one hit me for 12k. (on my warrior)
and the cooldown of backstab is only aslong as “Revealed” then you can simply restealth and do it again!
or just spam 6k heartseekers to finikitten

his was in sPvP?! Numbers that high are rare in WvW with all buffs up, and should be impossible to reach in PvP under normal conditions…

magicmanh.1597:

@Dwaynas Avatar – So you’re saying a stock thief build will have all that on steal? I’d love to see a youtube video of you wrecking anyone with a full steal build, I’ve never even heard of something like that before. Seems pretty wreckless, and not that useful either.

Here is what most meta thief builds for tPvP have on steal:

• Poison
• Heal
• Damage
• Instant cast 900 range teleport
• Might, Fury and Swiftness for you and your teammates
• Stealing two boons from enemy and give them to yourself and your team + Vigor
• Interrupt (daze)
• Gain Initiative
• Gives you a stolen skill that is useful
• 21 sec cooldown

All these skills and attributes are from Trickery and Deadly Arts trait line. Steal is incredibly strong when used wisely indeed.

Wonder if a 6/6/2/0/0 with cloaked in shadows could work… But trickery is just too good in a PvP environment! >_<

I run Valkyrie armor, zerker trinkets and weapons and I do fine in WvW. D/D and SB here too. I sometimes run Hidden Killer for that guaranteed crit on backstab, but that just depends on how I feel that day.

I need that health to be honest, because if I fail to dodge an eviscerate I’m done for without it :p

FlawlezZ.3178:

Axelwarrior.9084:

This post is so ridiculous.

You’re comparing a Thief to a Warrior and the worse thing you can say about them is that “They’re boring”. Saying that S/P is not fun because you can’t move while using its strongest attack? HELLO? Have you even played warrior before?

sorry, I mean ONLY attack (except auto attack). warrior has useful whirl skill, throw weapon for some range dmg while running to the enemy, nice moving skill with stun and 100b

yup @nagr.1593 thief is pretty redundant and the only useful support skills are only useful at dungeons (pve), except pvp warrior really outplays thief.

i wish thief had more advantages and wouldn’t have been nerfed so bad. i guess if it wasn’t thief would be more rewarding. the thing with 1-2 useful skills on a set is really a pity. i only got to know of this enlightenment after not playing the game for months, mhh

Thief is pretty strong against warrior if the thief know what he is doing. All the interrupt, blinds and evades can completely shut down a warrior ^^

Remember that thief uses initiative, therefore it has more situational skills which actually requires the player to know when each skill are the best to use, unlike warrior that just blast through his cooldowns in a usually given order before swapping weapons and doing the same. Thief often stay on one set and rely on good positioning, blinds and evades to stay out of trouble and using interrupts at key moments to completely negate larger bursts or heals.

You can say that thief is easy and are just spamming one skill. This is true, for lower lever of play. At higher levels you will find thieves that spam at certain moments but have learnt the other professions telegraphs so that he know what to do at given moments in the fight. Good thieves is a pain to most professions, because they either lock you down or realize they can’t win and run away :p

Mayama.1854:

Shockwave.1230:

Thieves aren’t unstoppable.

Imo the profession simply forces you to be a better player in order to be viable, therefore you’ll find people that actually play thief tend to be stronger players.

Thief players tend to be stronger players? What are you smoking? That class, beside wari, is the most forgiving class in the game. No other zerker build in the game can survive so many major kitten ups. Reset in stealth and survive another kitten load of kitten ups again.

Yeah, what you are saying are valid if we speak WvW, not the meta tPvP builds. In PvP one error against any good player means death.

To the OP:
I usually play d/p, and it is far from unstoppable. Some fights I just can’t win, others are free kills. The strength of the thief in PvP are its ability to rotate quick and be exactly where he is needed within seconds. Good thieves take their time to get a good overview of the situation before engaging, and they often choose the weaker target or any ranged dps. We have an excellent ability to finish off low health targets thanks to executioner (20% extra damage when target is below 50% health). Therefore you will often find the enemy thief just jumping in, giving you a stab and get out. The main goal as a thief is to turn teamfights in my teams favor and then just leave the fight to decap or do secondary objectives.

Against condition necros I’m having a hard time. If I manage to stay on you and keep you blinded I will win, but if you get me feared and manage to stack conditions on me I am pretty much done for. My condition removal are very limited, so I just tend to stay away from you until I see an opportunity to take you down.

Staff, as in a melee weapon, would be so awesome! Like the ideas you got here! Would be fun to have some new combinations of weapons instead of the same old :p

unlucky.9285:

just keep doing what you always do spike stealth run wait spike stealth revealed run wait.. till your enemies defences are all stuck behind a nice cool down wall and then get the auto win………………. all nerfs are welcome with initiative recharging 1 per second… that’s 15 seconds per massive hitting combo..if you spam everything compared to the defensive cd’s of many professions being a lot longer…………….. just on my necro alone

wod 50 seconds all stun breaks 60 seconds

but its anet.. of course they will give you something that makes these new revealed skills redundant I mean they already gave you increased damage from stealth too much healing and too many ways to clear conditions -.-..

So, I guess you haven’t been playing thief a lot these two year? Make us blow our initiative and our cooldowns (you know, we have them too) and we are basically a free target. Initiative is a sort of cooldown, but it is a cd shared by both of our weapon sets, so unlike a necro that can swap to his other set and have new skills waiting, we don’t. We still gotta wait for that initiative to come back.

You know all our stun breaks have a long cooldown too? We have stealth, but that is not a stun break…..

Please, tell me where have we gotten more damage from stealth? If you mean the new trait, Revealed Training, it only applies after we leave stealth (while revealed), so it doesn’t affect our from stealth attacks. Although, there is a way to exploit this by slotting mug, this is only used in tPvP by very few thieves.

Maaaaan. On a serious note though; Sic’em has never been a problem before, so I guess I can handle it. The utility goggles are more of a threat imo.

Anyhow, none of these can catch up with us if we decide to run, so it’s just run and come back after those six seconds. I have yet to have any trouble with stealth traps, so I’ll just wait and see what the future holds for us.

The fact that Yishis got Celestial gear to work on his Thief just proves how good he is…. Looks fun, but I don’t think I would ever stand a chance with that build :p

Glad to see him back though! Awesome player with awesome fights and videos

You have a lvl 80 thief, but you have only played him for 30 min? Please tell me, how did you manage that?

My honest opinion is that Thief are by far the most fun profession in this game. I have all professions at lvl 80, fully geared with exotics. For PvP, Thief is by far the most fun profession to play. A Thief always have to be on top of his game, or he will die. It is a very unforgiving profession, both in WvW and PvP (playing berserker that is). In PvE it is pretty much a walk in the park while wielding S/P. The AoE blind from Black Powder combined with the auto attack chain are making me an immortal god for PvE, except for champions and Dredge.

I remember the levelling experience with Warrior, for me it was boring… I feel like I simply can’t die. I can mess up all day, but survive without lifting a finger. I pretty much never use evades while I’m on him. I agree that the animations look awesome and feels good. But it doesn’t come close to Thief in fun.

Regarding damage; I really don’t notice any damage difference… Thief excel at single target damage, and by this I mean burst. You have to look at the entire package, not only the backstab. You have to see Cloak and Dagger, Mug, Backstab, Heartseeker and the hard hitting auto attacks. All of those equals up to a big number.

NinjaEd.3946:

1. Blind spam on stacks. If they are immune to blind (dredge) have bountiful theft on and steal that protection for your group and just cleave.

2. Stealth to skip trash mobs.

3. Stealth to rally allies if needed.

4. Solo bosses when your group dies unexpectedly.

5. Revive the dead poets society with your deeps.

6. Tag things with sb.

7. Loot.

Best comment in this thread so far!

And I totally agree! I’m currently working on leveling a second thief (mained thief since beta) and I’m doing fine in dungeons. Just go all power, presicion and ferocity, S/P + SB, use food for extra xp and a small damage boost.

Your main role are dps, that’s just how thief are. But you are also a revive bot (shadow refuge is on your skill bar, right?), AoE poison and weakness bot (poison field and 3 points deep in deadly arts), you can blast combo fields like no one else so stack might when a fire field is up and heal your teammates when a water field are up.

With S/P you are practically an immortal god except for when you’re facing champs or dredge. Also, smoke screen against ranged enemies are quite fun. Remember smoke screen or black powder and a whirl finisher (dagger storm) means AoE blind everything = your team takes no damage.

babazhook.6805:

>>ompletely disagree here. D/D is a terrible set for a condi build. There was once a time idiots would stand in your death blossoms, but that time’s long gone.

Absolutely false.

If you are talking 1v1 perhaps but in battles of several aside they do not just move aside. They are focused elsewhere which is also why a thief using CND and backstab can be so deadly here.

I use DB every night and they are not just laughing and moving aside. DB uses less ini then a Cnd and sneak attack and a sneak attack is as easily dodged. You have 5 or six enemy clustered on a wall as they take out siege and battle with your mates they are not going to just move aside when they see a DB coming. If this the case an AOE from an elementalist such as meteor shower is “just waste” as those are more telegraphed and easier to avoid.

Those that burn all the INI on a db are the same as those that would burn it all on heartseekers. That does not mean heartseeker useless.

Again you have two weaponsets. Use them both depending on the situation.

This is why I find this set good too.

Mango:
Only using d/d would be a waste since it is, as you said, easy to counter. I tend to switch to it in certain situations. When facing many opponents trying to pin me down it is very good combined with caltrops on evade. That’s a bleed spamming bot for sure. :p

I’m usually roaming with sb because the AoE poison are more beneficial to my group than spamming bleeds. I also run Richochet so my sneak attacks are sort of AoE which helps a lot in outnumbered situations.

There are one rune that many forget exist; Rune of the Undead. When using dire gear this can be extremely strong! More toughness and condition damage? Sounds good to me, especially when the focus is damage per tick and not duration. If you can’t afford Balthazar, the Undead runes are quite good too.

D/D is also a good set, especially when fighting outnumbered. The AoE bleeds are crazy, easy access to poison from aa chain and heartseeker is a great escape tool.

The thing with p/d is that you doesn’t really need that much condition duration. You can apply bleeds and poison with short intervals (especially bleeds). Torment is also at hand with some cooldown. The reason is that this game has so much condition removal that your conditions are rarely going to tick for their full duration (rarely above 4 seconds really).

What I find is that Balthazar works great for me, since we don’t have any access to burning else. It is the most hard hitting condition in the game and work as a really nice burst right after your enemy has used their cleanse or heal. Smart use of burning, bleed and torment bursting can finish someone off pretty fast.

I like the change actually. The damage is still a nice burst as well as a small heal. It was a bit over the top before imo.

For WvW I run Valkyrie armor with berserker trinkets and weapons. I usually go with Hidden Killer with that setup because most of the damage from that build is coming from backstab. I say it is all about your own preference and how you prefer to play the game.

Ah, I remember the days when there was only a handful of thieves that had realized the power of D/P.

Now, back on topic: It is an incredibly strong weapon set, but it can be countered. I don’t think D/P should be nerfed, because it is a duelist weapon set, so any team focused build / set are going to get their kitten handed to them with this set and a proper player. The only thing that makes it so strong is the Shadow Arts trait line. Without it any d/p thief will have to manage their initiative way better. As it is now it is too forgiving, but I don’t know what to do with it without nerfing the entire thief profession…

They could make it impossible to stack stealth without using utilities. That would make it harder to stack stealth with d/p.

D/P is definitely our strongest duelist set (probably the best duelist weapon set in the game). You have access to on demand stealth, a gap closer with very high damage, a gap closer with blind a good damage, an instant interrupt and a ranged blind + blind field.

The current D/P meta for sPvP are 2/6/0/0/6. Mug, Executioner, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft and Sleight of Hand being the must have traits. Berserker amulet. Runes and sigils are up to you and your play style. Heal, either Hide in Shadows or Withdraw, elite should be basilisk and utilities are often Shadow Refuge and Shadowstep.

I find D/P and SB to be a solid combination.

I too love being a thief main. I’ve been a thief since beta, and will always be.

I don’t feel all powerful, but once you get to know your build and options for more damage, survivability etc you start to realize you can stay alive forever – until you make one mistake.

PvE: thief is very strong (godlike against everything but dredge) and if played right; can be a very good addition to any group. Exploring, dungeons and open world events is a walk in the park once you learn what to dodge.

WvW: Solo roaming is fun, duo thief team (or more) is even more fun! I agree completely with what Ario said, so I won’t need to say anything more on the subject.

PvP: Thief has gotten a bad reputation, but good thieves really stand out! A thief that know his rotations, have good situational awareness and can read the mini map is a game changer in most comps. I really feel like thief is in a good spot in sPvP. We can hit hard, but we die within seconds in a team fight. Any focus on a thief in PvP(except S/D evade) is going to kill it. Therefore we are probably the best roaming profession for sPvP.

I generally feel like thief is in a good spot in the game. Any good thieves will stand out, but it requires that thief to have very good knowledge of builds, professions, bosses, tactics and so on. We always need to be on top of our game, and that is what makes it very exciting for me!

messiah.1908:

@Geiir – tested the dmg with your new trait idea – it is bit higher if you manage your ini right above 5 and also you get bit more condition dmg so your actual tick is higher with 5 bleed stack its more 400 dps for 4 seconds
and the food is good idea too!

gonna search for some hybrid calculation ….

thanks

Now I feel kind of stupid for not calculating the bleeds / torment too :p I’ve always loved the style of p/d, always been falling back to it after some dagger or sword play, since beta really. But I feel kind of cheap playing it with shadow arts and dire gear, so this was a fresh breath for me.

Thanks for the replies and for bringing this build up!

messiah.1908:

you can also try this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqY4al0MpypdPx0J8PNBNBtdGGeE8OLdZLaFAA-TFCEwAGODAMV+la/hO6HAcQAcp+DhHAwWlgkC4htAA-w

with higher ini management you should have above 8% dmg so you lose 200 power and 10% but gain 5% from rune 5% from flanking strike+8% from ini so it compansate
and with food you can have even higher

GL

Just gave this a shot with the seaweed salad – amazing stuff! I swapped Hastened Replenishment for Sleight of Hand. Interrupting their heal and then see the Shadow Shot bounce from my target to his bird and back at him (critting both times it hit him) was just too good. Going to have some crazy fun with this set indeed ^^

I like that you’re really trying to make a power p/d build, and you got it to work! We need more thieves like you that dare to try new stuff and not always stay in the meta. Good work man!

On topic though; the build look really interesting! I’m definitely going to give this a try, maybe without the valkyrie and just focus 100% on berserker. The only trait I’m really missing is Richochet due to the crazy amount of AI in the current meta… But I have no idea how to put it in this build without lowering the damage drastically.

I have a Razer Naga, so all my key bindings have been moved to that mouse now. I really recommend getting one! It’s a real pain when you first get it, but when you get used to it your game is on a whole new level

Yeah, Last Refuge has killed me more than it has saved me. Due to our low health pools it can proc on pretty much any lucky shot from an enemy… The best thing they could do would be to have it ignore revealed, but still make it impossible to attack before revealed wears off or something (just throwing out ideas here). Or make the stealth shorter. Some people want this trait, and I have to say that there have been a few times where it really have saved my kitten , so it would be unfair to simply remove it. Dumbing it down to ignore revealed would dumb the entire trait line down and would force us to play with less awareness.

Maybe making it not prokittenil after the current skill/channel is done would make it viable?

I’m running on a 2012 MBP Retina – top specced back then. All I can say is; go for win7.

The current GW2 Mac client only has support for 4GB of RAM, which I guess she have way more than. In other words, she won’t be able to run the game on medium graphics with a decent fps with the current client… I was so happy back when they launched the Mac client, but I used it for only a month or two until I realized it would always be way behind the win7 client in performance and have way more bugs, so I quickly started rebooting to win7 each time.

I have had win7 on my Mac as a BootCamp installation since I got my Mac, and I have never had any real issues. Apple is supporting this BootCamp installation, so if you encounter any overheating it should be on their warranty – that is at least what they told me when I asked. I am playing a lot of games and have yet to meet any problems on my BootCamp partition, so I say give it a go.

Good luck and have fun playing Guild Wars 2 with your gf (I do with mine)!

I fail to find a real question in your post, or I may be blind? :p

Anyhow, I’m going to guess that you ask how useful a thief is for capping? (Or something like that). I rarely cap on my thief, unless it is our home point or my team have good control in the teamfights elsewhere on the map.

The current meta thief isn’t the strongest duelist, and most of us (besides s/d) rely on stealth to dish out our damage, which in turn doesn’t contest the point. What I usually so is to move around, quickly turning teamfights by killing the weaker enemy so that we get the numbers advantage and then bolt off to far to decap if it is open. I rarely cap far, simply because it take way too much time and is way too easy to decap again (our far is their home, so they can easily run there after a re-spawn)

Just my two cents ^^

Now do one with 25 vulnerability stacks

Vague Memory.2817:

Hmm…let me see why. Playing a mesmer I’ve found that thieves specifically seek me out in WvW (in zergs and solo) and sPvP, because they find most mesmers are easy kills to unexpected high burst damage. Our main attack dps and defense comes from phantasms and illusions, but this is nullified when initially struck from stealth when you have nothing out, and also because them re-stealthing means there is no target to activate a phantasm on.

Also in sPvP I see some thieves only joining battles that are already underway, bursting down whoever has the lowest health from stealth and going onto the next light armour/lowest health player for easy kills.

But the most annoying thing about thieves is it is the only class I have to change builds for (as a mes) to effectively counter them, which shouldn’t be the case. If you are a mes leaning zerker an average to good thief will eat you for breakfast in little time.

So what you are saying is that the thief do what he is supposed to do? Being a roamer and burst profession it is our job to burst down other low health/armor professions or weakened players and then move on to the next target, decap / whatever. We have the ability to turn the tide of the fight or just end an ongoing fight within seconds, why shouldn’t we do that?

You think it is wrong that you need to change your build to counter a thief? Why? Are the Mesmer meant to be a god profession that can defeat everything? All builds/professions have counters. To defeat your counter build/profession you simply need to be a better player – if you are equal of skill then you will die because of build/profession supremacy against you.

On topic:
There are a lot of hate thrown around because the thief is very confusing to fight if you are new. It is also very annoying to die against one. There are a lot of hate for the thief that has been built up from the start of the game when spamming heartseeker was effective and when backstab could nearly one shot people. Therefore people have a tendency to say things like you’re a HS spammer if you used it twice to finish someone off or used backstab. People in general tend to get angry when their “immortal” builds is killed, hence some of their ego died and they don’t realize they either met their counter or was simply out-played and need to get better.