Guild Wars 2

Blur on dodge doesn’t work here. I never realized it supposed to do something ’till I read on wiki that thieves had a special dodge animation. So I created a second thief (human) to check it out.

Blur on evade skills do work yea.

crouze.3078:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

^I personally would like his option more. Except for the loss on stunbreak on use. It’s a great skill for escaping when you get surprised. This kind of forces us to take another stunbreaker just to compensate (for example if a basilisk BS thief attacks you). In my current build this would I have to run with 3 stunbreakers (since two of them will only work after placing them, with one having a potentive use of 20 seconds)

So in regard of the stunbreaking part, i’d prefer having 3condi clear on 50 sec then 2 condi clear on 30 sec

The point of my idea is to use it to engange into a fight and use the shadow return to disengage. Removing the stun break on the first shadowstep prevents you from using it when getting caught off guard.

In return for the remove of stun breaker you can use it more often and have more mobility.

And my opinion is that the benefit doesn’t outweight the risk in this particular example. I prefer having an escape skill when caught off guard then a better mobility. Again, this is just my opinion. If the skill would ever be changed like this I’d probably just adapt but since we’re just theory crafting right now I’m in my right to disagree.
(PS: I like some of the other topic ideas, so nothing personal )

^I personally would like his option more. Except for the loss on stunbreak on use. It’s a great skill for escaping when you get surprised. This kind of forces us to take another stunbreaker just to compensate (for example if a basilisk BS thief attacks you). In my current build this would I have to run with 3 stunbreakers (since two of them will only work after placing them, with one having a potentive use of 20 seconds)

So in regard of the stunbreaking part, i’d prefer having 3condi clear on 50 sec then 2 condi clear on 30 sec

With swiftness on dodge you can keep close enough to keep the enemy in combat, use shadowstep, sword #2, dagger #2, D/P #3 and steal to close the gap. Infiltrator’s signet if you have it. pistol #4 if your enemy uses a gap creating skill (it stops them from getting far). Scorpion wire if you have it.

Having perma speed boost ofc helps a lot but just using your skills will get you near him already. This ofc requires a heavy ini regenerating build cause you’ll be low on ini when you catch him.

So depending on your build, you could take traveler runes to compensate what you lose.

DanH.5879:

[The Burning Poison]:
When you poison an enemy, you also add burning for 1 second.

Sounds like chemical burns! Yay for chemistry!

“Steal is not a bundle; the damage bonus from this trait affects found items that replace the weapon skill bar such as Conjures and Banners.”

Change steal into being a bundle, I’d take improvisation.

D/D and P/P isn’t a good combination
P/P isn’t a bad setup like most people think, but it requires traits chosen specifically for it to make it a setup that is able to challenge other builds (read, challenge, not beat them. Even with the right traits it’s a hard setup to win with).
P/P is a very ini heavy power based setup and requires your utilities too. A D/D 1 combo backstab won’t work with it for example (your utilities aren’t correct for P/P). Stealth heavy backstabber is also heavy ini based which will work against P/P. Haven’t tried out a condi D/D but theoretically you’ll be a jack of all trades since P/P is a power build and this will reduce your effectiveness.

P/P works better with a stun build cause it makes your enemy to pull away from you rather than facing you head on like a D/D setup.

P/D P/P combi, same as condi D/D.

D/P P/P This might possibly work, haven’t tested it myself yet so no comments

S/D P/P Same, it can work, but haven’t tested yet

SB P/P Twice ranged, twice no stealth ability and with only 1 having evade mechanism. Poison field with unload isn’t very spectacular. It could work but I don’t see this being very strong in duels.

Barfoi.9537:

Larynx.2453:

Want to know what I do when I see a thief twirling about? I walk up to them and start attacking because they’re incredibly vulnerable and do maybe 6k damage max over the channel.

If someone tries to tank the full channel from a crit-thief, they’ll need to soak-up 15-20k+ damage. I have yet to see anyone attempt that and survive (well, aside from immunities). If it’s not coming from a crit-thief, however, then it’s probably negligible.

Pistol whip and party around him
Warrior steal isn’t the best steal, but it’s okay nonetheless. Best steal for me is either ranger’s (combined with heartseeker) or necro’s fear.

Not any class chains cc though (except necro fear chain). Im not against the stuns since I run with 3 stunbreakers but just stating that the most qq goes to a stun chain rather than being hit by one stun.

^True, that’s why the game isn’t played in tpvp
Most fun drop I’ve made was on my thief: I noticed I was dying, so i ran over a window and died just half on top of it. The guardian wanted to finish me and ran to me (on top of the window) and started the finishing move. I used my downed shadowstep just before the window broke… I rallied

Amir.1570:

NO ONE was using the CC build before Warrior’s got the berserker stance, cleansing ire, and skull crack buff. NO ONE. Not even Mr. Know-It-All sorrow.2364 could’ve made it work before these changes happened. (Because you are just simple-minded beyond salvation).

Euh, I did .. mace/sword and axe/shield. It wasn’t as good as it is now but it worked.

Setun.4368:

The purpose of a stun build is to disrupt people’s combat flow. Simple as that. If you get whacked by a well timed stun of any kind (skill, luck, w/e), you should pay the price for it.

It’s not being hit by 1 stun that causes so much turmoil. It’s the fact that they are chained. If you happen to have used your stunbreaker before, you have to soak up the entire combo without any opportunity to react. It’s not infrequent that a warrior comes in from behind and uses earthshaker while you were busy fighting someone else.

^no, 30 in cs is not a must. It feels like it if you played it for a while and I was of the same opinion till a few weeks ago. I switched to 30 trickery to test out ricochet on a S/P+P/Psetup. It’s a raw damage based build that agreeable isn’t strong in raw damage but it’s power lies in the S/P doing stunlock and P/P only when you need some distance or the enemy is trying to gain distance.

I agree on shadowstep and swapout utility. I use shadow trap instead of infiltrator’s signet. Just something I got used to after the trap patch. It’s a rather fun utility because it has so many use in different situations

I agree on the signet part

I personally run pirate runes for the bird help and might buff. You have enough condi clear with HiS and Shadowstep (and pain response in acrobatics)

I’d like to duel you once (if you’re on european servers) to exchange some ideas. One small difference with a real P/P user is that my P/P is used in the second half of combat when my enemy is almost dead, not in the first part and only switched when needed.

“Thief with bountiful theft and scorpion wire”
Try it out, it’s incredibly funny to see someone with stability think he has nothing to fear and fall down

Rampage is bad for AoE situations, but for temporarily bunkering a point in pvp it works great. Interpretor above me summed it pretty well. It has lots of CC’s. Only problem is when you face an opponent with acces to stability. If you know he has stability, try to lure him to use it and wait for it to pass before going into rampage.

Serophous.9085:

Mathias.9657:

It’s nothing special, your typical glass cannon build, grab a short bow and S/P then tag one of the mobs, go around a corner so you can ball them up then put a black powder down and spam pistol whip.

kinda figured, but unsure what traits to take or runes and sigils. And I assume pwr, con, precision?

Heavy ini regen for the blackpowder spamming is all you need. Quick recovery with infiltrator’s signet for example should do the job. You don’t rly need anything special like a lot of power or precision, just the harder you hit, the faster the job gets done.
(Condition isn’t needed on S/P, you don’t have any damage conditions)

JinDaVikk.7291:

me dying 1v3 on our point 2 people left, their ranger was then supposed to stomp me. she stops her pet from attacking me and lets me self res in front of her…………. she wasn’t dc’d either as I was talking to her during my res… she was even rank 20 something. she didn’t even realize her mistake until I told her.

Maybe she let you revive on purpose? In casual pvp I’d let ppl self res if I was having a fun fight but got interrupted by 2-3 ppl from my side killing him.

Agreed for shadow return, the return goes on cd way too fast.

Not having those obstacles blocking it would obviously be great. But right now it’s just another dimension in the game for me, to lure the enemy into an open field area where I’m in the advantage (both for the trap as for just stealthing and shadowstepping). But everyone their taste I suppose .. I like playing like this since I also use scorpion wire..

Only works without obstacles in the way. Play it for a while to recognize what terrain allows the shadowstep and what doesn’t (with a while = weeks). Shadowtrap is a necessary utility on my build right now. Works for both offensive and defensive fights.

Yep, S/P build works best in conjunction of another build. Our stuns keeps the enemy from dodging/moving so the other build can put some strong skills down that otherwise are very easy to dodge (like for example: dragon tooth from ele’s).
It’s a fun build to in 1v1, but it truly shines when playing in group.

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dDuff.3860:

Stability is not really a big problem on a guard, but the amount of blocking and damage mitigation is.
Well, may be to open this tank i should use zerkers, but i still prefer soldier over all other amulets on S/P set.

Well, I actually have less damage compared to your setup (I run knight set with berserker trinket). But the biggest difference I can see right now is that I use thieves guild. Once the guardian used his healing I pop my elite. And in those fights that I won (in pvp, not wvw) it’d probably be because of my elite. Basilisk isn’t a strong skill in dmg, rather in utility. I prefer TG over basilisk since S/P already stuns his opponent constantly.

dDuff.3860:

, i find it very common to win 1v1 against any class (except bunker guard – kitten that kitten)

Only use bountiful theft when they pop their stability, and stun them with PW. Use shadowstep offensively and then force them into the direction of shadowreturn (for a second gapcloser with PW). We lack some differences in traits though so maybe it’d explain why bunker guardians aren’t that impossible for me

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cFRRR;0Rwka0V5R-kd0;9;49;0TT2;6178469OoW0U;1CoF2CoF28Ba
This is a build I made half year ago. Not entirely the same, but it seems the theory behind our builds are roughly the same. I use PewPew though with ricochet. Though it was condemned to be an useless weaponsetup, the ricochet with unload actually works pretty kitten well (especially against thieves and mesmers)

Somehow my pulls almost always work when I headshot them first. No idea why.

^Try using headshot before using scorpion wire. They have a passive stuncounter in one or two of their traits.

Myst.5783:

It is hard to find a good look for a medium armor Charr, but they’re a bit of a rare sight which makes them more appealing for me. Charr armor sucks terribly all the way around anyways.

Inquest armour works too. I had that one for a while, right now I have the same as you.

Force yourself to use it for a month. You’ll get used to where you can and cannot use it. With my S/P stunlock it’s a great utility to use when my initiatives are up. Or when they are fleeing.

Instead of rerolling, you could also use the entirely make up kit if you don’t want to level him from 0 – 80 again ..

MatthiasL.5346:

S/p, stun them while they try to stun you ;-)

+1 for saying almost the same as me S/P players ftw

silentnight warrior.2714:

Now thieves: How do you damage someone you dont see? And dont bring the old argument “Spam AoE”. It only works if the thief is weak.

If you have fast reflexes and they were infront of you just when they stealthed, use stuncrack. If it hits, it goes in a 7s cd (untraited I think?), if it doesn’t use your block on mace. If you by any chance run “fear me” in your utilities, don’t use it ‘till you
1) See the thief go into shadow refuge
2) See him use 3 utilities and none of them being shadow refuge.. no use keeping the skill unused then…
If you don’t have fear me and he goes into shadow refuge. Chances are that he’s perpendicular from your line view (simplified as a line straight forward), so you have a 50% chance of hitting him with a single hit attack (left or right in other words).

If it’s a 2v1 or 2v2 and you notice that the thief is targetting your buddy and not you, use your skills on the back of your buddy (Stuncrack after counting to 2, they are probably just behind him now).

That’s how I beat thieves on my warrior at least.. Also guessing their location with well placed attacks helps a lot. Ofcourse you’ll have to understand how the majority of stealthed players run around. The minority of stealthed players will actually know how to NOT run around to avoid being hit .. these are the experienced/good players. But majority of ppl you’ll meet aren’t that experienced and will run extremely predictable.

10/0/0/30/30 is my current build. You get your mobility from shadowsteps. 30 in trickery gives you a fast steal recharge (27seconds without sleight of hand). Aims around heavy ini gain and stunlock. Combine it with a D/P, D/D (or even P/P, still in testing phase but is working rather nice in team right now) to finish them when they hit around 30% health.

Steal with bountiful theft always prioritizes stability rip.

S/P and stun him more than he stuns you.

AikijinX.6258:

I like the concept of the build. But are you aware that most smart people don’t stay in the Pistol Whip. The pistol whip puts you in a vulnerable position. While yes you do have the evades you’re rooted to that one spot. With P/P you have a bit more freedom. P/D- D/P for your kind of build are the sets you’d want to use. But you would be heavily dependent on initiative.

But you can always just move away when they moved out of the whipping part (use a dodge so they don’t hit you). I’ve been using S/P for quite a while now and it still works in duels. Used to run D/D second set (now P/P for fun) so I could surprise them with a backstab when they finally start to get how to avoid the stunning. Now I do it with unload (which works better against those few that try to flee)

dDuff.3860:

So the time of S/P users are coming. Be ready for it!

I truly hope it isn’t, i like being special with my S/P and P/P setup now :P It’s amazing to see how ppl don’t know how to react when they see the 2 builds that are least used on thief.

messiah.1908:

deepkumar.1230:

Dduff liked this build thnks for sharing it And Can you make a similar stun /daze build to suit Pve/Wvw purpose and a vid also of you using it in pve and wvw plz….

this build works fine in wvw also, you can go full zerker if you brave and want to roam ,change for signet of shadow between fight to be faster. hard to play 1vX.

i went for hybrid build with carrion/rabid jewels to get more condition dmg with seconds set of p/d. i basically start with p/d to soft the target and catch him with pistol whip (crit chance 45% (65%) and crit dmg 65% )

1v2 is doable with well timed shadowsteps (#2); but more is hard yeah.
Hybrid build too with more acrobatic and less crit strikes. I have P/P as second set now (testing trial)

gesho.9468:

btw, a question: daze (p/p #4) does work as interrupt, right? im not all clear how various interrupts happen. blind – i understand. but daze, say i daze sone while casting. is cooldown gone? or did i just stop him while dazed, but cooldown will be available for re-cast right after daze is over?

All interrupts puts your skills on a 4s cooldown. So if your daze or stun lasts longer than 4s, you can recast after the cc.
Blind however is not an interrupt theoretically. Blind is making the person miss, so he still uses their skill (it doesn’t get “stopped” but it misses), thus going on full cooldown.

sorrow.2364:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

^Healing signet can slightly be toned down

But honestly, fighting against a healing signet warrior is a fair match, likely very very slow. The only problem you have with a full stealth build, is that he heals while you’re in stealth. Try a non-stealth build and you’ll see they aren’t that op. The tactic against warriors is to keep damaging them. Also, try and get that poison on them, it helps a lot.

Non-stealth build is even worse.
The damage they do is extremely high while the damage you deal to them is low and easily outhealed by the passive regen.
If you manage to evade all of their stuns/conditions/etc, the fight will be extremely slow and will eventually lead to your loss.

You can’t reliably mantain poison the whole time on warrior without sitting all the time on Shortbow, that means that your damage output is considerably low.

I manage to evade most of them, so yeah, the fight is extremely slow, but doesn’t eventually (guaranteed) result in my loss. I win those fights now and then too.

Also I assume you mean the bold edited part? Doesn’t rly make much sense otherwise. I didn’t mean maintain poison, even getting poison on him occasionally works wonders. Dagger auto attack does it, traited steal is able to do it.

Anyway, i’m just saying that right now, it’s a very very tiresome and long fight, but do-able. So imo healing signet can be toned down a little, but shadow rejuvenation is good as it is. A fight between a stealth thief and a healing signet warrior is naturally very skewed because of the basic mechanic of their builds.

^Healing signet can slightly be toned down

But honestly, fighting against a healing signet warrior is a fair match, likely very very slow. The only problem you have with a full stealth build, is that he heals while you’re in stealth. Try a non-stealth build and you’ll see they aren’t that op. The tactic against warriors is to keep damaging them. Also, try and get that poison on them, it helps a lot.

Ye, a better signal would be nice. I tend to notice it since I use it offensively, but still.

No, no, no. Don’t put any viable S/P builds online! I don’t want my beloved setup to be nerfed.

Anyway, I use trickery 30 as well, but 30 in acrobatics too. This gives my high initiative gain to chain stun while having a better dodge availability. Instead of sleight of hand I use flanking strikes to compensate my loss of damage.

Also Power of inertia together with bountiful theft and Shadow trap gives me about 10-15 might stack.

My second weapon was D/P but I changed it to D/D yesterday to see if it has a better synergy.

hihey.1075:

…

I’m sorry I don’t remember you .. I duel so many ppl. What class/server?

^Def not a troll, check his signature, this guy speaks the truth

Relax, breath slowly, be aware of your environment. When fighting for example a 1v1 in open area, even when panicking you have to relax. Start spamming your skills cause you’re panicking will cause you to lose. Always watch for key skills (healing, knockdowns, stuns).

A step further is to also keep watching the environment. See him getting an attack skill up but you’re dodge is on cd? Shadowstep away (or even use infiltator’s strike on a npc). Or more importantly, see a second enemy approaching? Make a decision, kill your target or run away.

It would destroy the shadow trap skill though, which relies on the enemy triggering the trap and shadowstepping to him in stealth with might stack and fury. It’s an element of surprise (like feinting an escape while actually luring him in a trap).

It’d also make “Hide in shadows” rather inferior because it’s supposed to open a breathing space for thieves. Low-stealth builds rely on the stealth for either a surprising element (on backstab for example) or to create a small breathing space. Making them targettable for the first 1-1.5 second would negate that function and technically change them in “non-stealth” builds.

So imho, no

(Intelligent enough answer for you? There are some haters here yeah but I do agree that this suggestion would influence a lot of builds)

hihey.1075:

Anyhow, i can give you at least 4 classes which CAN’T be killed in a 1v1, if specced and played right.
D/D Ele
Healing Signet Warrior
Dire Engineer
Healway Guardian

D/D ele – Don’t have any problem with them (fair match though, after dueling a few times against the same ppl, and repeat with different ppl, 50% win/lose ratio)
Healing signet warrior – Keep hitting, don’t run away to give a breathing space except when stunned (which is telegraphed and can be interrupted or dodged)
Dire engineer … the condi engi with turrets? Not sure what the dire engi is but for my current spec I’ll have to agree with this. They wreck me
Healway guardian – Fights take so long that I end up giving up and running away/bow down and call it a draw

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Quaggan liked to gather pearls in the lake to build quaggan’s weather nodes. Now quaggan has no place to go, three whole quaggan villages have been taken from quaggan. Quaggan is angry, foo on Anet. There is no place for quaggan to quaggan quaggan quaggan quaggan.

To quaggan quaggan quaggan quaggan
In biology terms this is explained as: Reproduction

Stooperdale.3560:

Sorry but you can’t move players without their consent. Griefers could dump players in bad places.

Maybe they get a signal that they can activate (default F) or something .. ofc it’ll have to be a different button since you can’t pick up stuff if grievers use that skill

Well you can use the item in the 26-21 second window between two steals..
But ye, some items are better than others, like the ranger’s healing seed .. combine it with a dagger mainhand and you have 1-2k healing per heartseeker

Dawdler.8521:

Collision detection and friendly fire. It would fix everything.

“Oh no, there is a 50 man zerg chasing our 2 man crew into the tunnel, run!”
“Wait, what are they doing, they just fiddle about in the entrance?”
“The entire frontline is downed and the backline looks like they are dying due to retaliation, wtf?”
…
Only laughter was heard on the battlefield that day.

Seriously, friendly fire for a day. Make it happen ANET.

Friendly fire would cause so much rage quite in this game but yeah, even in the GW2 books (the third one) they talked about ele’s having unpredictable magic that can’t distinct friendly from foe. Make it happen for 1 day