Guild Wars 2

Pretty much the standard S/P build currently.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAsKlYmTOJdi/cCZ7RFqT8k3DyasMLtC0EA-ToAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNKYSB

Compared to 25/30/0/x/x, it has more sustain and more utility, slightly less dmg.

Why are attacks you don’t see coming blockable anyways? And most of all a successful backstab?

I wouldn’t have a problem with aegis revealing, if a successful backstab from behind was made unblockable. Thieves already need more counters vs. block spam, since having high block uptime equals pretty much invulnerability against thieves.

Let’s BV that guardian ! Oh aegis! Wait til it wears off.. oh 5 days uptime.. oh…
Meanwhile the Scepter/focus + GS guardian:

There’s always room for honor! Besides in an outnumbered situation where I’m prepared to do to anything or kill anyone who attacks me, no matter race, gender, class or level.

In 1v1 I tend to let worthy opponents live, unless they are asura, in which case I give them a slow and painful death.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The visual daggers from dagger storm aren’t actually the attack. The hits aren’t random at all, so if someone is standing in the area and does nothing to avoid any hits, all pulses will hit them.

It’s a massive burst, no doubt, but it’s easy to counterplay and even the squishiest ele won’t die only from that burst.

Teach me about thieves once you have 3k hours on one.

The daggers are non heatseeking, and randomly threw around with a random chance to be targeted at someone, there can be times when none may hit at all and times when you get hit several times, they are more likely to hit the closer you stand to the thief obviously. And even then you may not get hit by a single dagger if you’re lucky.
A lot of the daggers are visual effects yes.

The skill alone wont one shot someone no, but classes without protection and aegis, invulnerability, and poor stunbreakers = Thief, dies pretty much instantly if he gets locked by the charge and the necromancer combines it with putrid explosion and a rune or 2.

@KlausKNT.9302: The thing here is, it got both a knockback and high pulsing damage.
No other skill that can be channeled and concentrated in a zone channels both at the same time. And knocking back once per target would be enough anyways and prevent gamebreaking random things.

@Rym.1469: Obvious? The golem stands still for 3/4 seconds? Then charges you with a sound, and if he’s next to you it’s already too late once you hear the first frame of the sound. Even warriors Pin Down is more obvious than that skill, and that one is getting nerfed. From distance, yes it’s more obvious, but anyways good necromancers know how to land it with low rate of failure.

Avigrus.2871:

~6000 damage for a move only performed in one specific situation – not something that can be done regularly – it’s a once in a blue moon sort of a move.

I don’t see the issue either… particularly given some of the damage most classes can give out by hitting regular weapon or trait attacks… 16k for Eviscerate springs to mind…. not that I’m suggesting nerfs, just pointing out that this really shouldn’t be an issue.

Yeah… No issue that someone with 26khp (+15k LF) and 3k armor under the right circumstances can burst someone with 15k hp down in below 3 seconds, in a poorly telegraphed and unexpected manner I might add.

I have no problem with warriors hitting me for 12k killshot, and 9k eviscerate.
And fresh air elementalists with their thing.
Necromancer Lich Form with its high dmg, Death Shroud with its 3.9k lifeblasts, bone minions putrid explosion critting for 4k.
Thieves with their 11k dmg backstab combos.
Mesmers with their 14k+ shatter spikes.
list goes on.

But getting occasionally bursted down by a bunker in 3 seconds feels broken.
Sure, it’s not a reliable spike combo, but it’s way too strong those few times it happens,
It’s already strong and punishing to get hit by a charge and not easy to dodge or avoid unless the flesh golem is far away.

If I were to decide, I’d put a targetwise internal cooldown on the knockback and keep the dmg, I feel something else would break its concept.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The tradeoff is that the Flesh Golem can’t cause that kind of damage if it doesn’t pin you against the wall. Keep in mind the necro has no direct control over the Golem’s position, so a far more specific set of circumstances have to arise for it to do that. You really can’t compare Dagger Storm to that.

But this specific set of circumstances is not something rare, and it’s something experienced necromancers take advantage of. Especially in maps like Battle of Kyhlo and TotSS it may easily happen at many tight spots.

I might also add, the thief doesn’t have any control whether the daggers from daggerstorm hits or not either, but even if they all hit they can’t cause this devastating damage, especially not while wearing soldier amulet.

7954 dmg, might also have left something out.

Ya, got that.

Though I wouldn’t be writing here if I could kill a necromancer not being aware of and standing in the middle of my Daggerstorm in 4-5 seconds, while wearing soldier amulet. Should be a trade-off somewhere right?

So ya, this happens quite often when fighting necros.

Basically, when standing near an object or a wall, a necromancer tapping charge
can lead to a stunlock and certain death.

And not to forget the high damage they may cause to trebs or gates.

What we see here is 6820+ raw damage.

//upset thief.

The hambows strength is:
Highest sustained condition removal in the game.
Highest passive sustain in the game.
Highest access to hard CC in the game.

The hambows weakness is:
Vulnerable to classes with high burst on low cooldown.
High condition spam on low cooldown.
Classes who can frequently apply poison and have high sustained damage.
Soft CC’s.

Would improve ground targeting a lot across the board.

+1

Thieves.

While playing any of my classes.

Thieves: Bees, they come in and are totally annoying, sometimes you don’t even see them but know they are present, you can avoid their sting by baiting or walking away, and once you land a successful blow they die.

Warrior: Rhino, they ignore whatever you throw at them, but once they get violent they hit hard.

Elementalist: A rabid dog, they rush in with frenzy, and once you land a successful blow they put their tail between their legs and run.

Rangers: No idea about the class itself, but the player behind it is often a monkey trashing the keyboard with its bare hands and laughing when it kills something in the process. Some are actually more towards human.

Only ones I can think of

Hello Lobsters, I’m sorry to hear about your broom.

For potential nerfs please submit to this thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Nerf-Wish-list/first

Gallows.4318:

Torment is easy to remove if you use use your skills in the right order.

nope.

Well, I’ll formulate further, it’s easy to remove if you put 10 points in shadow arts which is costly or play S/x, but otherwise it’s not if someone throws up additional conditions next to torment.

The main reason I never stuck long with builds having less than 30 shadow arts is because I neither have the damage to burst someone down quickly nor the sustain to live long enough to outdamage theirs.

It’s also very hard to keep pressure on someone with a dodgy D/D build, which is the main reason I never go more than 10 into acro if I do at all.
0/30/20/20/0 would work best with D/P imo.

But for D/D the only ones I’ve found somewhat viable are:
25/30/0/0/15
10/30/30/0/0
0/30/30/10/0
30/30/10/0/0

I would want to have condition transfer on infiltrator’s arrow, blind and transfer 1 condition to a random target within the reticle.

Within S/x and stealth builds, condition removal is good though.
SS – 3
IS/IR – 1
HiS – Damaging besides torment
Withraw – Movement Impairing
Roll of initiative – Movement Impairing
Fleet of foot – Weakness and cripple
Pain Response – Damaging besides torment
Signet of Agility – 1
Shadow’s Embrace – 1

Runes of Lyssa – All

What I think is lacking most and a huge weakness currently is the lack of removal
of torment, which I tried to explain and get forward here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-Thief-vs-Torment/first#post3517501

// Thief – D/D and free of shadow arts.

Rangers overall pose a larger threat than most classes if you’re not aware of them and hence they go down smoothly when attacked, just like staff elementalist.

Add spirits and they don’t even go down smoothly, but down they have to go.

Quoting myself.

From my personal experience, I really love D/D, it’s just a bit more challenging and requires more effort to stay competive than D/P. It also requires a good team.

25/30/0/0/15 – Mug, Dagger Training, Side Strike, Practiced Tolerance, Executioner, Thrill of the crime. Scholar Runes, Sigil of Air and Force on Daggers, Bloodlust on SB.

Utilities: HiS, optional, Infiltrator’s Signet, Shadowstep, Basilisk Venom or Daggerstorm.

Use D/D to make quickwork of squishy players (staff ele, thieves, mesmers, necros, zerk rangers) or when finishing off others. SB to keep pressure on points using choking gas, AA and clusterbomb, SB hits like a truck in this build. Having good knowledge of the maps also makes teleporting a lot more effective. Majority of your survival is positioning (move behind your target, disengage to avoid taking fatal damage), disabling melee-assistance from settings will improve usage of positioning. Shortbow for additional dodges and teleports.

Most important, stay mobile, never waste time. Uncontest/Capture far if it’s unguarded to make 1 of the opposing players disengage, quickly rush to whoever is guarding close when it’s needed and don’t stay to stomp unless necessary.

Also look for gaps in the opposing players defence before going in for the kill,
look out for protection, invulnerability, blocks and stability when using BV.

Yoh.8469:

Esp since the Thief has multiple means to gain Initiative directly, which cannot be said of cooldown.

Weaponswap?

aspirine.6852:

Rule number one in game discussion, if you do not agree call the other a noob……

Atleast you can go into stealth when you get hit by that torment stack, unlike many other professions. My thief has almost 20k, I do not care if you want to run without the health pool to deal with heavy condi damage. You do know that condi damage is the current meta in small fights do you……

How does going in stealth because I get hit by a stack of torment help the fight?
That you call stealth so kitten op, proves you know nothing about the class.

I’m not even touching the shadow arts traitline anymore, because I find something every other class has access to way more powerful; positioning and proper use of dodges combined with skillful use of teleports and mobility.

And also since you brought it up:

20k hp on a thief.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQBQCZrQF29AAAAAA-jExApvioxqXwUmER1ujioVDA-w

20k hp on a warrior
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQFADCAMF+B-jUxAYLgkXR0Y1LYqSioa3BGA-w

The biggest difference is (except that the thief has 30 points in acrobatics and full valkyrie) that the warrior has the means to sustain this high health pool, thieves haven’t. So thieves not bumping that many points into vitality do it for a reason, it’s not optimal, you waste lots of dps for a healthpool you can’t sustain, having great dps and burst is a part of the thieves survival, if you hit like a wet noodle you are more likely to get bursted down quickly.

@Sizzle: As I wrote, there’s more counterplay to avoiding torment from other classes having access to torment, the problem is warriors impale. And my main idea is not to bring that one down. I would rather see thieves receive some ways to deal with it.

@Brutal: That’s not the case here, as I described, the cost to clear it or deal with it is way more expensive than it is for the warrior to reapply it, and with every other lethal condition flying around it’s not even certain that you will get to the torment stacks with your condiclear.

Here you can find some numbers: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQFgsCFPMRBEkCNsKOKSilA-TgAAzCpIaS1krJTTymsNB

Hide in Shadows has a 30 second cd, the warrior is still able to get nearly 2 full impales off before the thief is able to pull off another HiS.

And fyi, I wouldn’t take the time to look from several perspectives if I just played thief,
I know very well that changing the ability on warrior would break other things.

aspirine.6852:

Torment is fine against thiefs. It is suppose to be anti mobile professions.

Is it anti-warrior then? Many times I cba to even bother looking at conditions on my warrior, they just disappear with my general rotation.

And while playing thief if I trade everything for damage, how come I can’t even take these warriors down to 40% blowing several 40+ sec cooldowns and they do nothing to counter me.

While they down me with a 15 sec cooldown ability, balance at its finest..
Feels completely broken to fight them.

I agree that torment should be strong against mobility, but by no means it should be a 1 button kill and nearly uncounterable.

Agreed, feels like a waste to of time to ever use the LB auto attack.

vanensang.1389:

No to any thief buffs. The classdesign is hilarious and inconsequent enough.

While dealing 80% of someone’s healthpool as damage with 1 single button, with a class with 20k hp, 3.2k+ armor and loads of regen, on a 15 second cd isn’t.. It’s broken.

I’m not here because I seek any buffs to thief, I’m here because the issue I’m adressing is gamebreaking. I believe a fix to this issue in particular wouldn’t be a buff, it would be something to create balance at a place where balance doesn’t exist.

And I agree that the torment buildup of Impale should be faster to make it more bursty against players with cond removal over time, but making it all instant would at the same time be a nerf since it would be easier to cleanse.

Dee Jay.2460:

They really need to nerf +40%/-40% Condition duration food and reduce the ability to stack various different types of Conditions.

But the upcoming change to Sigils is just going to exasperate the issue rather than mitigate it.

Combine that with the changes to Crit-Damage and it’s just going to get worse.

Thieves really need some of their traits reworked in light of condition spam. Fleet Foot for example should remove one of all types of Conditions on dodge, not just Cripple and Weakness

Agreed to that, might be mistaken but isn’t fleet food also triggered while not having any conditions on you?

My biggest problems with torment has been in sPvP and tPvP, can’t even imagine the damage it would cause in WvW with cond duration food + higher cond dmg.
And as the strawberry on top of the cream, we cause little to no harm to them, with our burst barely taking away 1/3 of their health pool, which they regenerate quickly with healing signet and adrenal health while we are pretty much a 1 button kill to them.

Shortly, it feels broken how powerful torment currently is against thieves,
Sword-offhand warrior mainly, since torment is easier to counter on other classes.

Example:
For instance, warriors sword offhand can apply 5 stacks of 12 second torment on a
15 sec cd. To cleanse it we either need 10 points in shadow arts, shadowstep (50sec cd) or sword mainhand, Signet of Agility, which are all costly alternatives, and doesn’t always do the job since warriors are in most cases able to apply Cripple, Immobilize, Burn and Bleed next to torment if they run LB + S/S..

So in most cases, getting hit by a single impale results in a loss of 5k health if I’m standing on the same spot letting the warrior freely hit me, or if I blow cds and initiative teleporting away without moving and waiting for the torment to wear off, although the warrior is able to dish out another impale straight after the first one wears off. And if I’m moving and trying combat the warrior it results in a loss of ~11k health, which is quite a lot for a 15k health pool.

Possible fixes:

1. Simply some better way to cleanse it, Hide in Shadows and Pain Response are both good candidates, and seem intended to remove damaging conditions.
2. Increase thief health pool.
3. Reduce the duration of torment on every skill which possesses that long duration.

Some counterplay to the poison field, not really a big hit and it was needed, I wish the poisonfield would last for longer though. Engineers poison nades were hit way harder imo.

Mesmers wont be able to mindlessly spam clones with dodge,
Warriors pin down will be better visible, engineers net turret will have shorter immobilize duration, eles will be slightly buffed which they need although it’s not their sustain which needs a buff, the bugfixes to ranger were good, some minionmaster builds will be slightly less sturdy and dumbfire will receive some changes which I have mixed feelings about, the main source of vigor for guardians will be cut in half.

Fake for sure.

This never happened, thieves can’t be beaten.

~cough~

Nice vid though, shows pretty much that thieves are facerollable by a basic warrior build that doesn’t even hit hard compared to other warrior builds. While being fairly tanky you can achieve an average of 3.5k eviscerate non crits, while maintaining around 40% crit chance and 100%+ crit dmg with axe. A build with around 2900 armor and above 21k hp one shotting thieves not investing enough in survival. #Balance #lol #omg

From my personal experience, I really love D/D, it’s just a bit more challenging and requires more effort to stay competive than D/P. It also requires a good team.

25/30/0/0/15 – Mug, Dagger Training, Side Strike, Practiced Tolerance, Executioner, Thrill of the crime. Scholar Runes, Sigil of Air and Force on Daggers, Bloodlust on SB.

Utilities: HiS, optional, Infiltrator’s Signet, Shadowstep, Basilisk Venom or Daggerstorm.

Use D/D to make quickwork of squishy players (staff ele, thieves, mesmers, necros, zerk rangers) or when finishing off others. SB to keep pressure on points using choking gas, AA and clusterbomb, SB hits like a truck in this build. Having good knowledge of the maps also makes teleporting a lot more effective. Majority of your survival is positioning (move behind your target, disengage to avoid taking fatal damage), disabling melee-assistance from settings will improve usage of positioning. Shortbow for additional dodges and teleports.

Most important, stay mobile, never waste time. Uncontest/Capture far if it’s unguarded to make 1 of the opposing players disengage, quickly rush to whoever is guarding close when it’s needed and don’t stay to stomp unless necessary.

Also look for gaps in the opposing players defence before going in for the kill,
look out for protection, invulnerability, blocks and stability when using BV.

Xyonon.3987:

And how do you handle condition removal?

Best way to handle conditions is to not get inflicted by them in the first place.
But it’s not always possible to avoid them so these are some good ways.

for some steady removal:
Infiltrator’s Strike>Infiltrator’s Return
Shadowstep
Signet of Agility

bleed, burn poison:
HiS

movement impairing:
Withdraw
Roll for Initiative

I usually roll with Infiltrator’s Signet along my utilities, really helps catching up with someone or escaping, + the ability to perform “pre-cast CnD>”Steal">BS" 2 times is really good for D/D. The most important thing when fighting warriors is keeping constant pressure while also performing great positioning, be sure to disable melee assistance, it makes a huge difference to D/D gameplay. When melee is difficult switch to SB and keep the pressure up with AA and gas field for poison, a warrior running a build like that has poor condition removal if you successfully kite him, making him aggressively blowing mobility skills to catch you would be his undoing.

Personally I grew tired of SA builds in WvW, after rolling 25/30/0/0/15 a lot lately, and I completely love the playstyle and I’m able to keep good pressure on even the tankiest of targets. The lethal damage, the quick gameplay filled of adrenaline, I love it.

And seing numbers like these on 2 downed uplevels and 1 lvl 80 lying around in my poison field just makes me smile, it makes me feel love !

25/30/0/0/15 and 10/30/0/0/30 are both my favourites.

First one:
Be flexible, switch traits depending on what you need, thrill of the crime from trickery if your group doesn’t have access to high fury uptime already, otherwise flanking strikes. Might on signet use is good if the situation allows you to use multiple signets, otherwise steady traits like dagger training and 7% crit chance from behind are good options. Traits that increase dual wielding only affects skill #3. Executioner will allow you to dish out maximum dps,

P/P, S/P, D/D, SB.

Second one:
With steal on steoroids you can grant your group good fury and vigor uptime, also this one is great for keeping boons off enemies. With frequent steals you also have some extra sustain from mug from deadly arts.

S/D, S/P, P/P, SB

1. S/D and D/P are the mainly used setups in spvp and tpvp in both EU and NA.
2. Mainhand dagger has higher single target dps, and good burst with backstab, poison, and an ability for executing and mobility. Also a teleporting gapcloser with a blind and good amount of dmg if using pistol offhand. Sword has powerful but slow AA, condition removal and the ability to teleport in and out of fights, flanking strike a decent dodge that is chained into a boonsteal of 1 boon or with pistol offhand Pistolwhip for a steady evade and burst. Where they both perform better is really situational, I’d say Sword has a slight advantage overall in spvp if used to it’s full potential which is not easy to perform.
3. Depends on the skill of the thieves, I’d say the D/D thief has a slight advantage under the right conditions. And it’s surely easier for a bad Dagger mainhand thief to kill a bad Sword mainhand thief.
4. The amount of of S/P thieves has increased in both EU and NA lately, many of them are highly experienced thieves who has played every weaponsets at some point. Or simply thieves who want something special apart from the casual gameplay, A well-played S/P can perform on same levels as other setups.
5. P/D has nearly nothing to contribute with in pvp, slow damage and to survive and deal damage you are forced to enter stealth to perform a sneak attack to stack a decent amount of bleeds, and when entering stealth you are unable to contest points.
6. D/P and S/D perform best overall 1v1. But all weapon sets have their stronger sides 1v1.

Source: Mosharn.8357
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Short-bow-evade-spam

What: Shortbow – Disabling Shot
Why: It costs 4 init dodges and cripples. It is stupid how spamable. No i did not lose to it. Its just a stupid thing to have. Every thief that fails hard with his/her back stab whips this out and goes 3333333. Its dumb and can be easily spammed

Solution: Remove the dodge and just leave it for the cripple.

1. PvP and WvW.

2. Almost for a year.

3. All the time mostly, switching to engineer, warrior or mesmer while doing tpvp sometimes.

4. Since no brain builds, pets, condition spam and permablock+blind guardians currently rule spvp and tpvp, think not. It’s very challenging to kill any of them and without all my experience it would be really unpleasant to play thief in pvp this current meta, a rank 5 minion master can lock me down and destroy me in 4 seconds without knowing anything at all about my class, if I’m not playing 100%, while I know everything about theirs, this is not balanced in my eyes.

5. Overall yes, but as long as there are these meta builds that are far more superior compared to other builds, variation is missing from pvp. Many condition builds gets way too high burst and defence at the same time, I can kill things just as fast or faster while playing condition necromancer mindlessly spamming conditions while also having really high defence compared to when I play a thief with 15k hp and maxed out on direct dmg. And thieves still need an additional damaging condition for their condition builds, torment and the way it’s implemented was not the answer to that since you pretty much choose between bleed and torment currently.

Condition removal is quite costly on all classes.
besides on warriors who can remove 4 conditions per ~8 seconds, also granted full immunity to them, and in WvW “immunity” to movement impairing conditions.

But I do agree there need to be more ways, one thing I would love myself is to transfer 1 condition to a random target within an area you hit with Infiltrators Arrow.

Hide In Shadows should remove torment.

Pain Response only trigger when afflicted by any of the conditions when below 75%, also remove torment and 25 sec cd.

Getting 5 stacks of torment on you as a thief is too lethal atm.

Arganthium.5638:

“Professional” as far as you can be professional in GW2.

Not sure why you’d run 25 DA with S/D, tbh.

Condition Duration and Control, possibly Venoms too.

Tried variations of DA S/D builds myself and found it fun to have quite good uptime on cripple, weakness, poison, vulnerability and have long immobilizes. The damage output suffered a bit, but not that much. But it however feels quite lacking and I end up back in the Critical Strikes line.

Easlay.3297:

same here, but with same class
found a lvl 80 necro running around and backstabbed him for 9k (i had only food, no bl or stacks).
then found another lvl 80 necro but my backstab was only around 6k.
Now, since my stats didn’t change, is up to your build and buffs

Now that’s just stupid, it’s your own fault you hit the first one for 9k.

I used to play 10/30/0/0/30 – S/D + SB

Main reason is that it reduced steals cooldown significantly, and allowed me to chain dazes nicely, also it allowed me to destroy 2 boons on my enemy (since the share is crap), granted me and my teammates vigor, fury and swiftness. On top of that I could get both mug and +3 initiative while maintaining high damage. The build needed high situational awareness and good reflexes.

I’d play this one if I got more interested in S/P, but after the nerf to IS not sure about playing it on S/D.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

There are so many counters: Fear/Knockback/Immob/Blind/Chill<-ESPECIALLY chill that you can utilize to prevent getting killed by it. Then once the spammer is out of initiative they’re pretty EZ kills.

Allow me to add:

Fear, Knockback, Knockdown, Stun, Daze, Blind, Immobilize, Cripple, Chill, Teleport, Aegis, Various Blocks, Invulnerability, Barriers, Dodge or Skills With Evasion, Stealth, High Armor + Protection, Barkskin, Various PvE elements (like minions, clones and pets), Death Shroud, Plague Form, Tornado.

klemen.8439:

…… unlike the typical d/p build which requires you to either spam 2, gain stealth or switch to sb to port away but all of that usually ends in getting CCed and being bursted before being able to port away¸.

Then why are you proposing nerfs to that set?

D/P and S/D or 2 completely different playstyles with completely different counters, D/P is a chaser while S/D is exactly what you described. Blackpowder, Headshot and Shadowshot allows the thief to effectively engage in combat without having to dodge around or stealth, and there are situations when you don’t go in with that weaponset and effectively use the SB from outside the cluster for the poison field and clusterbombs and auto attack.

Whatever you tried to suggest here would break the weaponset and skill-ceiling of it even more, and make thieves die even more, forcing even more of the remaining good thieves to play warrior, mesmer or engineer.

Heartseeker grants the Dagger mainhand thief mobility. Perma swiftness is a huge sacrifice on a thief, even 25% movement speed is a huge sacrifice. And a spammable leap finisher, it can keep you alive in tight situation spamming it in a water field.

Sure I get annoyed while playing PU mesmer, when I’m having some relaxing 1v3, and actually have cds, and some rank 5 thief who just bought the game comes out of nowhere and spams 5 heartseekers in a row and I die. Same way as I’m annoyed when I get a random signet of spite out of nowhere from some rank 2 necro when I have all condition cleanse on cd. But well, all classes have something to carry them and an “I win-button”.
But Guardians and Warriors are currently easy to play once you set up a good build, took me a while to get the grip of a casual shatter build on my mesmer, but didn’t even take me 2 hours to learn Hambow as good as someone who have mained warrior for 1000+ hours, sure I’ve played a lot and my past experience contributed.

But the skill and effort required for a D/P thief to kill a good hambow warrior is far beyond what’s needed for a good hambow warrior to kill a D/P thief, if the thief does a single mistake he gets locked down and it takes about 4 hits from the hammer to down the thief, though if he’s specced into shadow arts it takes an additional hit but it wont land because of Last Refuge, only time it actually saves thieves. ^^
But well, Shadow Arts and tPvP.. Even PU mesmer is more useful in that case.

Not sure about calculations whether 5 might or 5 vulnerability is better.

But this one should be somewhere close to highest possible backstab in spvp, executioner would increase it further but I find that trait irrelevant if it’s the first strike that should one shot.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmKO3cy3E/5Ey2DfSoIKvCgl2DaqlYQA-TsAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNKYBxkCA

Shadowstep I always keep for the condition removal and the extra mobility. Other option would be Roll for Initiative.

Shadow Refuge is really great for team utility, but when going solo I feel shadow trap outperforms it with same things + additional things, only thing missing is the combo field for blind or lifesteal. Other options in this slot is Smoke field or Blinding Powder.

I think it works out just fine. Afterall it’s diffcult for ranged weapons to attack stealthed targets as it is, ranged attacks can also be LoS’ed.

With experienced players; Thief vs. Ranger, I believe any of the both can win, it’s all about who uses their class, surroundings and experience and does least mistakes who wins.

Inexperienced rangers will however have huge problems against thieves.

Hat from badges, the rest can be found for karma.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conquest_armor

This set is however not obtainable at al in PvE, Some pieces are, but not the hat and the shoulders which are really awesome:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Stalwart_armor

Zodian.6597:

Okay here we go, complete guide to modern meta thief.

1. Go D/P backstab build (10/30/0/0/30)

2. Learn your rotations

hide spoiler

• Backstab rotation: Bass venom-> Black powder-> heartseeker+steal (steel mid-heartseeker)-> auto attack in the back.
• Vs. Casters: spam auto attack + 4 in downtime between backstabs (precast backstab animation into steal if you get stealth without your black powder combo)
• Vs. Melee: spam auto attack + 3. depending on wep sets, you’ll wanna use blind as a spam or as a gap closer. Eg; you see warrior swap to hammer, hit 3 every time the blind wars off between attacks; very easy to do since init regen buff. Against a staff mesmer just use it to close gaps (they usually don’t have anything that you’d really wana blind when they are in staff).

3. Learn your 1v1 matchups

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• Necro: they give you a long kitten fear when you steal, you can blind their fears, and their heal is long cast time (easy interrupt with 4). Some ppl complain about this matchup but imo thief does well against necro.
• Ele: They have low health pool, open with backstab rotation and just blind up when they go earth attunement, spam 4 when they go water attunement. Backstab as often as possible, their steal skill is a massive slow and makes landing backstabs super easymode.
• Guardian: their steal is a huuuuge daze, get them to around 1/2 hp by dropping a blind field and just auto attacking, then steal – daze – auto attack until daze wares off – then auto attack and daze spam with 4 until they are dead dead. You might not need black powder against some guards, but if they are rocking a hammer it’s usually a good idea.
• Mesmer: A good mesmer will usually outplay any thief, they have immunity to damage on command with sword 2 and f4 and blink on 8s cd + they burst for like 1/2 our hp. If you’re in hotjoins, you can usually get away with just spamming 3 and auto attack though.
• Warrior: Easy matchup for thief. all you have to do is spam 3 when they go hammer or mace or LB and you win, straight up. Drop black powder if they go gs, you can also precast black powder into steal and then use that axe aoe to do dps and spam aoe blinds. Watch their hp bar for berserker stance buff (it looks like this) -it will make them immune to blinds for short period (like 8s) -just kite or drop shadow refuge during this time period, it’s easy to play around if you’re patient.
• Ranger: This is a long fight, basically just use steal off CD, drop the tree when you get around 50% hp and heartseeker through it. You can choose to spam 3 or just drop blind fields and auto attack, but it’s SUPER important that you save enough initiative to interrupt their heals with 4. You have a lot of control over the fight -you can basically reset it every 20s with steal, but so can they if you let them heal.
• Engineer: Like mesmer, a good engineer will usually be pretty tough for a thief to deal with. You’re gonna wanna ditch this fight in ranked games.
• Thief: so good news is that most thieves you’re gonna meet in spvp are pretty bad. Just keep pistol 3 up for the majority of the fight and you’re gonna win. If they go stealth, drop a black powder and stand in it to blind their backstabs. Whoever lands most backstabs usually wins (takes like 2).
  Heartseeker: Just use for combos, it sucks for damage.

4. Learn your stomps

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(pretty basic stuff here)

• Drop black powder before you stomp a: Guardian, Engineer, Warrior, Necro, Ranger (they all have interrupts in their downed state that can be blinded with pistol 5).
• Prepare to shadowstep mid-way through when you stomp a Thief.
• Do not stomp Mesmer until they use their invis. Also, do not stomp Ele until they burn mist form. Just auto attack them until they burn these abilities.
• In 1v2+ scenarios, drop black powder and stealth off it with heartseeker before stomping. You can use 4 to interrupt if they try to heal the downed body.

5. Be mobile; SB5 for vert mobility.

6. NEVER play evade spamming cheese builds. If you touch these s/d or d/d builds you will be dead to me. Good luck!

I’m around 1000 games on thief in spvp, I bounce around the top 400-1000 of NA ladders and I’ve played with or interviewed pretty much every competitive d/p thief in the NA scene. I’m not throwing this in to brag, it’s just so you know I’m not some random troll.

This is a short and great guide how to play D/P effectively in spvp, should be in its own topic and sticky.

+1

And yes, most thieves go down like butter, it’s so rare to find a skilled thief these days.

Deadly Arts, many thieves love to put 10 points here for mug, the extra damage and the small heal is really useful. Going further in would either be for a glassier type of build using dagger training or the buffs for venoms for a bleed and condition build using venoms and bleed duration, venoms can also be used for direct dmg builds.

Critical Strikes, this is where to go if you seek heavy amounts of damage,
traits to buff signets, convert precision to vitality, fury when targets go below 50%, 7% crit chance from behind (useful when taking executioner), and lastly the decision between hidden killer and executioner, executioner outdps hidden killer, but hidden killer can give a nice kick in short fights like when fighting other players in WvW, since it allows you to convert some of your precision into defensive stats.

Shadow Arts, this is where to if you wanna go further into the benefits of stealth,
blind on stealth, condition removal on stealth, regen while in stealth, also SA allows more specialization on venoms the lifesteal provides heavy burst, and venom share provides you with group utility.

Acrobatics, this tree focuses around being, well.. Acrobatic and hard to hit, going 15 points in here lets you pretty much dodge 3 times in a row, and good traits are vigor on heal, fleet shadow for landing your backstabs, pain response as a protection to condition burst, blinding powder on fall is sweet in WvW, Quick Recovery is quite ok for some extra ini regen, Quick Pockets for some controllable ini regen.

Trickery, 10 points here will allow you to gain max damage from your backstabs, and the buffs to steal this tree provides are helpfull for your group, and long reach will give you a long gap closer on steal quite situational, Riccochet is a nice trait for pistol builds, uncatchable is really nice for kiting players or npcs.

Some common ways to setup traits:

Direct Damage:
10/30/30/0/0
25/30/0/0/10
/0/30/30/10/0
/0/30/0/25/15
10/30/0/0/30
Condition:
0/0/30/30/10
0/0/30/20/20
5/0/30/15/20
5/0/30/20/15

Probably forgot something wrote it pretty quickly.

What do you do in a dungeon and what build do you use?
Deal heavy damage, die.
10/30/0/0/30 or 25/30/0/0/15
D/D, S/P, SB, P/P

What role do you fulfill in WvW in both roaming party’s and Zerg vs Zerg?
Solo or duo roaming, kill small groups, distract zergs.
In zergs, deal some small amounts of dmg and put poison up, deal some heavy dmg every 90 seconds, use blast finishers from time to time, and ofc avoid dying.
10/30/30/0/0 & 0/30/0/25/15

Do you feel your class, the Thief is just as effective as other classes?
In sPvP it’s an extremely effective class if used right and circumstances allow the thief
to be used to its full potential, this is all about high mobility and being at the right place at the right time and dealing heavy damage effectively taking down strategic targets. In zergs the class is at its bottom and in dungeon it’s mid tier.

Did you swap weaponsets? If so from what previous set to which current set?
I effectively play and switch between D/P and D/D + SB (builds up top), from time to time I also play P/D. I used to play various S/D builds, 60% of my time on thief I was playing S/D, I don’t doubt it’s still effective if played right.

Do you feel underpowered, balanced or overpowered compared to other classes?
Our strong sides overpower other classes just like other classes strong sides overpower us. Overall I feel it’s balanced, with the right build and weapons for each encounter I can outplay most classes just like they can outplay me. It takes a good thief to kill me on my engineer or mesmer, and that’s acceptable.

What stats combination on your gear do you think is the most effective now?
As glassy as possible and played right is still most effective as it has potential to kill everything, as well as potential to be killed by everything. My alternative is
PvT weapons, head, chest, legs, and rest zerker which is really effective for group fights and 1vX.

Zero Day ftw, his posts are always worth reading

Incurafy.6329:

Thief +15 Acro + III in the 10 point slot of Acro + Withdraw + Roll for Initiative + Signet of Agility + Signet of Shadows = the fastest orb carrier.

Try it some time.

Or log a warrior and have 20k hp, 25% movement speed, highest armor in the game, invulnerability, immunity, block, bull’s charge, sword and gs movement skills.
Edit: and forgot stability.

I have a special build for whenever spirit watch pops up in solo queue,
sometimes I cap the orb with the whole other team attacking me, cuz kitten balance.

Warrior Watch*

Skyhammer says itself.