Guild Wars 2

That red post was months ago. Can we get any kind of update on fixing this OBVIOUS bug? I just had my dungeon group that I had instance ownership of randomly kicked out of the dungeon on the last boss, including myself.

I posted in LFG for a 5th party member, and next thing i see 1 guy join, my whole instance reset, and my whole party fell apart.

The best thing i could think of is to give the Thief the thing it lacks most: Stability.

Think about it. 25% hp, blinds nearby enemies, and gives 3 secs of stability to safeguard an escape. I think that it would be awesome and infinitely more useful then the current trait.

The jungle wurm is scaled to give a difficult time to even level 80 players, so it’s natural for it to pretty much obliterate you. your build right now doesn’t matter tbh.

Once you are 80 you should start thinking about how best to build, until then just use whatever is easiest at the moment.

The game is still very active, and qeue times are anywhere from instant qeue to 5 mins maximum. Anybody who is saying 15-30 mins is either full of it or waited in a broken qeue.

I enjoy this game, as do many others. I suggest buying it.

“I lose over and over again because my team is awful and my matchups are awful, there’s no possible way my own gameplay could be improved and I would never even think about looking at my own effectiveness on a team because i know I am better then all of them.”

- The code of the QQ

If you want to be help to your team go trickery. I personally run 0/30/0/20/20 in dungeons. This gives me alot of vigor uptime, lots of dodges, moderate health pool, and lots of boons for me and my allies.

As for weapon sets, you have to get used to swapping for every fight. Some pulls need Sword/Pistol, some fights need Shortbow, and yet others need P/P or D/D.

It comes down to experience and knowing when you should use what weapon sets and utilities. If you have any specific questions i can answer them, i do run all dungeons and top tier fractals with my thief very efficiently.

Either you dominate bad HS thieves and are asking for a nerf just to start a flame war, or you are actually a terrible player yourself and get beat by an inefficient playstyle.

my2c

As the title suggests, while i was fighting the NPCs in the heart of the mists i somehow managed to activate an incinerator effect on my offhand arm…. No clue how this triggered. I do have incinerator in pvp but it is equipped on my mainhand. Just a weird bug i thought i should share.

I agree that they worded it wrong. When i first started, i also thought that “Refill endurance and cure a condition for each nearby ally.” meant that i would have more conditions cured per ally nearby. That is what the wording implies at least.

Should say “Refills endurance and cures one condition on you and nearby allies.”

SoLeciTO.3490:

I don’t really know if it is working . . . but . . . i think is not possible that the percentage can be shown in the stats because it is circumstantial.

You must hit in the back or side of your opponent to work, and there are no fields in the status windows to show this.

It would be good if a dev could let us know if it is working as intended.

I would think that at least Keen Observer would be able to be shown on the critical chance stat. Considering it is a crit modifier that is applied while you are above 90% hp, it should be shown as long as you are above the threshold.

Idk about you, but i lurve my meditation guard.

I still like quick recovery.

If they are permanently stealth, how do you even know they are there?

I usually ALWAYS have both of these traits since i can remember. But tonight i decided to take them off.

The reason being, i notice no change in crit chance on my hero panel, which i have usaully just dismissed as how the traits work, but after thinking about numerous other trait bugs i wondered if i was actually getting the extra crit chance or not.

Honestly i don’t notice a difference when i have side strikes off. at all. So i was wondering if anybody has actually tested this and could confirm whether or not the extra 7% crit chance is actually applied, as well as the 5% from keen observer, which you would think would show up on the hero panel as a crit modifier….

Any help appreciated, thanks.

I read patch notes. Catch a glimpse of: “Shadow Arts V—Infusion of Shadow: Increased the amount of initiative gained to 2, but only when entering stealth.”

What? Why is the word increased in there? Hoping it’s just a typo, because taht trait has always given 2 init….

I’ve been at it for a long time, You can get by with pretty much any build using 30 Shadow Arts. Shadow’s Rejuvenation and Shadow’s Embrace are 100% needed.

The key is to dive into the enemy zerg, ordering your zerg to pile on top of your tag. as you go in stealth yourself in the midst of the enemies backline. Your zerg will come crashing down on top of them while you remain safe for the most part.

Once the battle heats up of course the rest is up to your own skill, but using stealth in thos fights can make commanding very easy. (i.e. I like to get in the enemy backline, throw down SR and take the time to type out my commands.)

I suggest D/D or S/d with 30 shadow arts, alocating the rest of the points anywhere you want. Cloak and Dagger is very easy to hit when you have that many targets so offhand dagger is a must.

Stealth Trap. Wvw Item that is built using 10 supply.

I just put the points into SA. i actually run 0/30/20/20/0. It’s more defensive, but honestly the damage difference isn’t that big and i can deal with any condi class with ease.

I’m going to get flak for my setup, but idgaf because it works for me.

Remember folks: A live Thief always deals more damage than a dead Thief.

I run everything at peak with no hiccups whatsoever in any game type on my i5 3570k ivybridge. I have it OC at 4.2 running on a Z77 mobo

I see. Well whenever you find some good players that you feel compliment your play, just add them and try to run more with them in the future. All i can really recommend, sorry.

Ichishi.9613:

Well for me, even with my rather wide selection of people that know me, I have very big troubles with running CoE and Arah on a regular basis as a thief.

Arah is where thieves shine, i usually run it with 3 Thieves including myself. I run 1,2,3 daily usually with my group, but whenever i get pugs i never have a problem. If the PUGS discriminate because you are just a Thief, then they are probably bad and you don’t want that group anyways.

If they are having a problem with your gameplay during engagements, then maybe you should take a look at what you can do to better your build/playstyle to further the groups goal of completing the run.

Malik.6781:

That’s so funny, you guys just look at this from side. You all trying to explain about class (many of you spends thousand hours of thief gameplay) to devs which is definitely don’t understand and killing whole class with “masssive baff”. Just calm down and let’s see how many thieves will left in game after 10-th dec. Maybe after that, they will realized what’s they have done.

That’s not what this thread is about and that really isn’t furthering this discussion in anyway. Can we please keep future posts relevant?

phys.7689:

Sifu.6527:

JonPeters.5630:

I said it in he other thread but this trait has to get hit hard because it is breaking the profession. We need to push the effectiveness of this trait into base thief functionality. If any other profession had a trait that reduced weapon cooldown by 30% for all weapons as a 15 point minor we would have to balance around that. A single trait shouldn’t be holding thief balance hostage so we will steal from this trait, no pun intended, and impart the savings on to every build via base initiative regeneration.

Jon

What?!?

I don’t understand Jon. You’re saying a 15 point minor that reduces cooldown on all weapon set is OP yet you moved Mesmer’s Illusionists Celerity from a 25 minor to a 15 minor (reducing all cooldown of illusion summon skill by 20% which affect all weapon sets and 4 utilties). That is kittenING OP but nothing is being done to balance around it.

I don’t understand your logic……

to be honest, its not quite as hax, first of all only two skills per weapon set summon illusions, second of all its only 20% instead of 30%. The truth is, it was in fact a trait that you almost had to take, illusion skill, not so much. its nice, but ehhh. Also if they lowered all cast times on illusions, and bumped the trait down, so that it was essentially the same cast time, no one would complain. And by the numbers, they essentially did that with opportunist. its not really .3 ini per second unless you are very lucky, and during specific skills, due to cast time, and crit chance.

the truth is that the ini changes are probably better overall.

HOWEVER, i think opportunist could use some other benefit, that rewards pressure attacks as opposed to stealth or dodging for extended periods

I can get behind this idea as well. If dead -set on the nerf to 5 seconds, how about working on some type of compensation to incentivize committing to an engagement.

Interceptor.2653:

Ichishi.9613:

except that you are by far less likely to get a non-guild group as anything other than zerk warrior or, in much rarer cases, guardian or mesmer (just for the quickness)

In other words, fewer invites from people who don’t really understand what they are doing, and are just riding the Warrior wagon. That’s not really a downside.

Proper pick-up groups will generally want a DPS Guardian and an offensive support (like a Thief or a Mesmer) for their team, in a blue sky scenario.

Yeah i never have issues with groups. There are more times than not that I end up carrying the group either from giving proper advice, or actual gameplay mechanics.

Thieves on a surface level don’t appear to have the same utility as other classes but any Thief that truly understands his class and any seasoned player worth anything knows otherwise, so that concern isn’t much of a valid one.

simonerd.8672:

Its very sad see that behind thief community there are only kids that in game are only good insult otheres players only because they are in a the ledearboard, ihave started the profession of thief for enjoy with all this game, but i have find only sad players as rokha, if this is the thief community a group of kids that can only insult and cry when they die… i hope you will take all a life… i hope anet make somethink abot this.

Wow, great guide, man! Really insightful!

Also, the reason i recommend by build over these top dps builds being posted is that the damage difference is incredibly minimal, but the team synergy and survivability in my build is much higher.

Trust me, your team will thank you for buffing them with vigor/fury/might/swift every steal cd, and you will be happy you brought some extra vitality from acro.

As far as DPS goes, it is still VERY high just because of having 30 in Critical Strikes and a high fury upkeep with Thrill of the crime.

HybridReaper.6724:

Heizero.9183:

Usually V/VI/XI in Critical Strikes

III/IX in Acrobatics (However i will be looking for a new setup for that line after Dec 10th.)

and like i said before V/VII in Trickery.

I also forgot to ask you what skills do you use ?

I use utilites for the situation at hand. I normally run withdraw as my heal and probably 80% of the time my “normal” utlity setup is infiltrator’s signet/Shadow Refuge/ Signet of Agility.

Alright in an attempt to pull the discussion back into the main idea I had: I believe it is still a mistake to nerf it because in order to get any play out of this trait you HAVE to be actively engaged. period. if you are not striking the trait does nothing.

I find it hard to call a trait that relies on a notoriously squishy class to actively engage in open combat to be effective “profession breaking”.

If anything, giving us another reason to say “hey let me just wait until this ICD is up to come back into the fight” is less than ideal.

Also, Jon aside from my obvious disagreement with your decision, i really do appreciate you taking the time to communicate this entire thing.

JonPeters.5630:

I said it in he other thread but this trait has to get hit hard because it is breaking the profession. We need to push the effectiveness of this trait into base thief functionality. If any other profession had a trait that reduced weapon cooldown by 30% for all weapons as a 15 point minor we would have to balance around that. A single trait shouldn’t be holding thief balance hostage so we will steal from this trait, no pun intended, and impart the savings on to every build via base initiative regeneration.

Jon

You can’t really compare it to another profession’s cooldown reduction like that though because all of our skills share the same resource, including onw eapon swap. we don’t have any way to renew our “cooldowns” for example like a warrior would by swapping to his next set and using what is available there.

It would be comparable if you said “Reduces cooldowns on all weapon sets by 30% but all skills share that that cooldown.” Which i am sure nobody would appreciate.

EDIT: for example if i ever wished to fire down through all of the abilities on a weapon set consecutively (D/P for example) i cannot afford to do that. i simply do not have enough initiative. Other classes can, and that really just makes this entire situation incomparable.

Deathspike.1870:

You missed these:
#1: Teleport to target with sword.
#2: Start channeling the stomp.
#3: Teleport back with return skill.
#4: Wait for channel to reach the end.
#5: Shadowstep to target with shadowstep/steal/infiltrator
Sword+Steal being a cheap and viable solution.

I agree, however, that it does not warrant this kind of silly nerf..

Still takes a utility slot or 30 sec F1 ability to get the job done. =/

I doubt it. Just use Skale Venom, or P/D #3 if you want to stack torment. Or even the new torment sigil….

I actually have zero idea what you mean by “Slice n’ Dice”.

Ravoku.1852:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)
Jon

Infiltrator’s Return
First, point 2 is simply not true. I’m becoming more and more convinced that no one actually plays Thief on the balance team. It’s just that class where everyone on the team is like, “Well I’ve been playing my mesmer, been a few months since I’ve logged on my old thief…” plays their Thief for 10 minutes “Well that was nice, back to mesmer.”

Sir, the skill you are thinking of is the utility “Shadowstep”. It has a 50 second base cooldown with a stunbreak on the step and return, with the return removing 3 conditions (because they can’t just lay that right back on and twiddle their thumbs for a few more seconds, right?)
Here are the steps for the stomp you mentioned:
1. Start stomp
2. Shadowstep away (again, the utility skill)
3. Wait for stomp channel to almost finish
4. Shadow Return back just before channel finishes (did I say utility)

Now, its not impossible to do this using infiltrator’s strike, but you would need to:
1. Infiltrate into the downed player
2. Hope player is also a thief, and teleports where you came from
3. Do steps 3 and 4 from the Shadowstep method
OR (WHOA TWO METHODS)
1. Infiltrate on top of the downed player, so your return is at their location
2. Avoiding redundancy, use Infiltrator’s Signet on a faraway target
3. Do steps 3 and 4 from the Shadowstep method

Beyond this, being unable to return after incoming CC (which actually requires to have been set up beforehand, contrary to popular belief) will assure the thief’s death, especially if you have more than one stun. Why, we may die faster than Warrior before “You can make all the mistakes you want against power builds, honey” Signet.

Here’s the thing:
Thieves and Guardians both have very low health pools. Guardian has a plethora of defensive and healing abilities to both mitigate and recover from hits to counter this. Thief is supposed to be the opposite, using a plethora of mobility skills to counter this. Without being able to use mobility to avoid the damage, the thief will die much faster than any other class relying on a hard cooldown stun break because of this health pool

Push for Hard to Catch
Instead of saying this trait is garbage, like many have accurately stated already, I’m going to break it down for you using the G.A.R.B.A.G.E. system.

G.reat for getting yourself killed: it triggers with stability on, is not controlled by the player, AND does not actually remove that which it sets out to protect you from.

A.lready put all the reasonably useful points into that tree. Feline Grace is at 15, this would require 20

R.eally long cooldown compared to what it actually does, which previously could be managed by the player through smart use of initiative management and upkeep of setup requirement

B.oon isn’t that great because it’s only useful for travel out of combat in the context for having teleports and some leaps to close gaps, and stealth to escape

A.ssassin’s reward, which isn’t that great already, would easily beat out this skill in this tier even before the negligible buff. (yeah, lemme just grab some healing gear for my thief)

G.ood boon alternatives to support the thief mobility design, such as vigor, would be given a lower amount anyways in light of the recent vigor nerfs across the boar-OH WAIT, forgot about mesmer vigor.

E.veryone who actually plays the thief have always said how useless this trait has always been, yet here you are, acting like this is some amazing reworked trait when in fact nothing has changed about it functionally.

I end this section with two questions:
1. Did the guy who designed “Tow Line” (Thief spear #4) design this trait?
2. How many more weeks until “Tow Line” is finally renamed to “CC Yourself”?

Conclusion/Seriousness
Jon, after all I have said, I do need to add that most of what you said was very true and well thought out. Specifically, the change to Infusion of Shadow is easily one of the most fair and balanced changes to the thief. However, I can’t just stay silent when some of the points have revealed nothing but blatant neglect regarding balancing the thief to compete in a meta they already have virtually nothing they really do better than other classes. (Distortion stomp?)

TL;DR
Nothing new for people who actually play Thief.

Well, that’s one way to put it.

Woaden.9425:

Bountiful Theft/Boon Ripping
With the reduction in effectiveness of Larcenous Strike, I feel Bountiful Theft must have it’s Boon ripping enhanced in some way.

I gotta go ahead and +1 this. I only use it in dungeons but i have always felt that bountiful Theft should rip full boon duration from targets like LS does. It would make me feel just that much more valuable to a group in dungeons/fractals.

1. Opportunist

2. All game types

3.Either do not make the change at all, or make it to a much lesser extent. (2 second
ICD instead of 5)

4.Specifically this is a trait that rewards continuous striking, which is what i thought
Anet wanted more of from the Thief. Nerfing it to kitten ICD will give more incentive
to practice the entire “wait until my CD is ready to strike again” mentality, as
opposed to " the longer i stick out this fistfight the more initiative i can gain.".

So basically overall i think it would be a much healthier choice to keep Opportunist AS IS considering it is a trait that incentivizes open combat and more aggressive play.

Usually V/VI/XI in Critical Strikes

III/IX in Acrobatics (However i will be looking for a new setup for that line after Dec 10th.)

and like i said before V/VII in Trickery.

I can help you out. Personally i like to run 0/30/0/20/20 for dungeons bringing thrill of the crime and bountiful theft in the trickery line. This grants plenty of party wide buffs and makes you a bit more useful to the team.

As far as weaponsets go it’s situationa. but basically i use as follows:

-D/D for single target melee boss fights
-S/P for multiple mobs in melee range/boss fights that require melee stacking.
-P/P for ranged dps encounters
-SB for running or to use with smoke fields to stealth the group.

If you want to be truly effective i suggest getting each of these weapon sets and learning how to use them to the best of your ability.

If you have any specific questions i can help.

I understand the Changes and agree to a few of them considering the increase in base regen, but how about Opportunist specifically? I think it is a trait that brings that feeling of reward for sticking it out in a fight and it would be harmful to nerf it to a 5 second ICD.

Thanks for the response

Excalibur.9748:

D/D super unicorn will feel it too.

Pretty sure we can all agree it is a nerf to all builds, which is why i made this post =)

Switch.4892:

Not to mention that was the trait that made P/P bearable. Coupled with the nerf to quick recovery I might never use my pistols again.

Yeah, S/P will feel it too.

Renny.6571:

swinsk.6410:

Almost all wvw builds just got huge nerf with infusion of shadow tho…

Except base initiative regen was brought up 33%. It’s already been maths’d that it’s pretty much a great buff.. except for the cheese d/p permastealth guys.

It’s a nerf because of Opportunist. Check your “maths’d” again.

Kicast.1459:

jonwar.4186:

making indiscriminate and completely unnecessary nerfs to a mechanic that is directly tied to our survivability

Tool dedicated to your survivability does not have necessary to be more efficient than the ones for other profession.
You have to understand that perma-evade and perma-stealth are possible providing awaseome defense capability.
The mechanic tied to your class has never been: “being hardest class to down”
With all the DPS you get it must not be the case.

jonwar.4186:

Our condition removal is hardly on par with every other class

Thieves have efficient tools to deal with conditions and are at least far from being the weakest class on this part.

jonwar.4186:

I’d much rather be immobilized and crippled than have stacks of bleeding, poison and burning on me.

So what ? Life is hard ? That is true for all professions you know. Thieves will have a little idea of what can be the life of other classes.

jonwar.4186:

…your developers may consider the Dagger pistol black powder heart seeker as an exploit of your game and if it is, it is your fault for letting it exist for so long

Is it a reason for never fixing it ?
But nevertheless, I am glad to hear now a thief admitting it could be broken.

jonwar.4186:

you nerfed the very thing that makes a thief function…. initiative.

I think this assumption is a little bit exagerated. Initiative regeneration made it possible to have a too much “spammy” and “no minded” profession.
This is in fact a good opportunity to enhance thief gameplay and skill.

jonwar.4186:

you gave me a 1second immobilize on a skill i never use

Time to use it maybe. Again, more decision to take with consequences, less spamm, better game.

Heizero.9183:

^ This. In a world where you can potentially get 14k backstabs, on a naked up-level, while maintaining a health pool of 20k.
Fixed it for you ^

Come on, 14k backstaps are common on full rabid (toughness everywhere) light armors. I have heard also about warrior taking 8k.
It seems that lots of thieves are not aware of the real potential of their professions.

Yes Thieves can POTENTIALLY hit 12-14k on a light armor target if totally geared and traited for it. Meaning full berzerker running a rune set that maximizes crit damage (112% at least) 30 in DA and 30 in crit strikes with executioner on a target below 50% hp. in those situations, I 100% agree. but those situations are few and far between, not enough to call out the whole class about it and especially not able to be done while maintaining an HP pool as high as 20k on a class with the lowest base hp. I am well aware of what Thief is capable of, more than most, so step off of your pedestal.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Heizero.9183:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Smoke bomb performs pretty fairly in PvE, contrary to the above post, only if you’ve traited into Shadow’s Rejuvenation. The extra heal boost from stealth in the downed state is amazing for second winds in low-DPS builds. I just wish that the downed state autoattack would apply bleeding so that condition builds are given a chance there as well.

Wrong smoke bomb. The trait taht gives smoke ind owned is not the “stealth” ability which would help with rejuvenation, but is actually the Smoke Wall that blinds enemies and nulls projectiles. so it really is a pretty useless trait.

That would be smoke screen. Get your traits right.

I misread his post. I thought he was talking about the uselessness of Concealed Defeat which lays down a wall on downed. Last Refuge doesn’t even trigger on downed, it triggers on 25% health, that’s where I misread. -.-

EDIT: As far as Last Refuge go, it’s debatable. Sometimes it saves you, sometimes it dooms you. Concealed Defeat however is pretty much 100% useless.

Sanduskel.1850:

Agree with Chicago. If you think these changes through, they could open up new possibilities that are impossible right now due to perma etc builds.

Yeah! i can’t wait to start using Hard To Catch like they proposed! /cutwrist -.-

Chicago Jack.5647:

Incurafy.6329:

^ This. In a world where you can potentially get 14k backstabs, on a naked up-level, while maintaining a health pool of 20k.

Fixed it for you ^

Husky.8413:

Thief post again sorry!
I main thief. If you are going to make changes to the weapon skills themselves, such as the sword, and just end up completely destroying the reason why people use them (to stay out of danger and keep their mobility up), will you compensate for things like legendary weapons? They take soooooo long to make, and require so much resource and time. If a change like the thief sword is made, I don’t think I’ll use the sword anymore, in that case, rendering my legendary pretty much useless. Will there be a chance to opt to transform the legendary into a different one? The sword isn’t broken, and its the one redeeming trait that allows many players in PVE to survive close encounters in dungeons and not end up being “That” thief that downs all the time and ends up making people not want thieves in the party.

I think you might want to make a separate thread for that response, it doesn’t really have much to do with the OP’s post tbh….

Viking Jorun.5413:

Smoke bomb performs pretty fairly in PvE, contrary to the above post, only if you’ve traited into Shadow’s Rejuvenation. The extra heal boost from stealth in the downed state is amazing for second winds in low-DPS builds. I just wish that the downed state autoattack would apply bleeding so that condition builds are given a chance there as well.

Wrong smoke bomb. The trait taht gives smoke ind owned is not the “stealth” ability which would help with rejuvenation, but is actually the Smoke Wall that blinds enemies and nulls projectiles. so it really is a pretty useless trait.

mrmadhaze.8706:

since i don’t use sword and i dont permastealth i see only a MASSSSSSSSSIVE nerf to vigor and my evasion.

But hey!!! it’s MASSSSSSSSSIVE!!!!!

Made me lul. +1, guy.

haviz.1340:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Okay buddy you are completely right. Everything you say is right. You know what is good and bad for this game. you know it all. Me, many elementalists, and the a-net balancing team are clearly wrong.

you just keep on at it, in your own, little world

Indeed, everyone knows that ele is decent as a Jack of All Trades. That’s why:

• every single serious team in pvp has an elementalist
• every decent dungeon team uses eles because they are versatile, not because they are might stacking bots spamming 1
• every wvw zerg uses eles for their versatality, not because they are water field spammers

Actually every decent dungeon group wants eles because Ice Bow and FGS do so much darned damage =D