Guild Wars 2

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What I want is that the golem casts his charge, leaving me to do other things instead of how it is now.

The player should always have control over the charge, I would never use it if the golem just did it.

The charge cast time should just be instant for the necro and maybe give the golem a small buildup. That way necros can use it while stunned as a counter-pressure mechanism. The huge casttime just make the skill clunky and while it occasionally has good moments its better to use anything else.

Lahmia.2193:

I guess each to their own. Playing necro in wvw, daredevil is one of the few professions I rarely have a problem with fighting. I guess you’re talking more spvp?

Good daredevils won’t lose to necros/reapers. The cast times and the evade frames make it a very hard fight for necros. Add in pulmonary impact and you’ve got a dead necro unless they’re playing very well. Equal baseline skill, thief has a good matchup against necro. Most of the time a necro win is more related to the thief being impatient and making mistakes than the necro making plays.

To start off, the build is not a solid build. I can think of legit no reason why someone should take this build over a condition necro (even without HoT) or even a proper power necro (again without HoT). Both those two specs decide to do something well and they do it.

With your build you decided that the best stat to get the most of was precision. By far the most useless stat when you have to pick and choose like in spvp. Fury alone gives you a 20% bonus to that stat, anything going above +900 precision is overdoing it, and even 900 is a bit much tbh.

You opt for signet of locust over a stun break. Definitely questionable, better option would be to use traveler’s runes or better yet just use warhorn for some more control/utility. And then you can get spectral armor and gain some survivability. Your decision to use 3 wells is also probably not a great decision. Even taking consume conditions will improve the survivability of the build without really hurting anything about the build.

Like I said previously though, I see no reason to prefer this over a baseline necro signet condition build or some baseline necro zerker variant. You provide far less damage and less control then a corrupt necro with a warhorn and you provide no ability to instantly change a teamfight like a power necro can.

Now I watched the gameplay, and I don’t want to sugarcoat the fact that the gameplay was horrible. Your use of the action camera caused you to miss all but one of the wells you place with another hitting only because your alarmingly unskilled opponents walk into it. You decide to plague a ranger at basically full hp in a 1v4 by boss, which I shouldn’t have to explain why that is a poor decision. You go up behind keep and toss some skills on point before randomly swapping to dagger and using the lifesteal on air with no target. You plunge directly into the point now and blow all the wells you’ve got onto the point for no reason since the opponents had walked away at this point.

Now play how you want, that is not sweat off my back. But don’t pretend you’re some special snowflake that has figured something out that no one else has. Action camera is not a viable option and a controller definitely isn’t. Play how you want, but don’t try and argue with people about that, its simply a fact.

Warrior is fine as is. Maybe slightly decrease the healing from AH, but even that isn’t a huge deal if you’re dodging their burst skills. Warrior has always had the ability to run away, that shouldn’t/won’t change.

People seem to have the impression that you should be able to go toe to toe with a warrior and come out on top. They don’t take into account that is exactly what Anet made warrior good at. Stances for warrior are both extremely strong and extremely weak, create some distance and kite them out and they are useless.

And before people say you can’t do that, considering I have been roaming on a baseline necro and succeeding against the vast majority of warriors should indicate that all it takes is a bit of patience and knowledge of the classes.

Volume 3 is out.

Video 3

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Two things all new necro players should take from this video;
1) The importance in keeping distance from your target. The video showcases a lot of kiting that the opponent failed to deal with.
2) Importance of not spamming skills for the sake of trying to get a few extra bleed stacks.

Regardless of build, practice these two things with necro and you’ll find win/loss ratio improves.

Probably the two most important aspects of necro right there. Especially when roaming in wvw.

I’ve played this game since launch and I’ve yet to see any “hacking” besides the occasional speed hacking (which is rare nowadays). People usually wrongly assume someone is hacking when they get bodied in fights tbh.

As Puck and others mentioned, warriors have a huge amount of access to resistance and condition removal (Stamina signet/cleansing ire/healing signet/zerker stance/weapon swap). Coupled with -duration food warrior can appear immune to conditions if you don’t understand what is going on.

As far as the examples given by condition mesmers, I would suggest learning how to actually combo properly. Too many condition mesmers think that just randomly spamming shatters and clones is going to win fights against even average players and it simply won’t work, especially against warriors. Healing signet and AH is 800 hp/sec minimum with no healing power which can really negate the ticks of conditions.

Good stuff ice. Helps put those messages into context haha.

YB →SoS→ SFR → SoS → FA → SoS → JQ → Mag → SoS → JQ → Mag → YB → Mag → ??

Moved for guilds, moved for fights, moved because T1 sucks. A solid 3/4 of those were paid for which helps.

EremiteAngel.9765:

You are one of the best necro roamers i have seen!

Thanks, I appreciate it EremiteAngel!

KeyOrion.9506:

snip

I’d say that the reason you find yourself needing to always have allies nearby is because you never bothered to get good at whatever class/spec you are playing. What is even more laughable is that you attribute your losses to the opponents builds. The people who want to solo roam enjoy having to challenge themselves in outnumbered fights. That doesn’t make them loners or whatever you’re interpreting it as.

Back onto topic, necromancers are in a good place right now (or as good as any other class is). They are useful in large scale fights and when played well excel in havoc/roaming. Asking for buffs to necros mobility/survivability is unreasonable and just would succeed in negating the biggest difference between good necros and bad necros aka positioning and timing. You already see the dilution of skill needed to be effective on necro when you look at how many reapers play.

As for the whole [tRex] mud slinging stuff, everyone can have their own opinion of whether the comp is cheese or skill-less. What can’t be argued is that it showcases the strengths of necros and how they can be used in smaller groups.

Another video is out again with core necro.

Video 2

Hi everyone,

Put together a video from yesterday’s roaming as the OG necro. Hopefully you guys/gals enjoy.

Video

The way its currently set up is best imo. It allows for good condition players to use cover conditions and allows for good players to time their removals to remove the conditions they want removed. If you let players set up their personal condition clears it would really hurt the skill cap on both the condition players and the person who is trying to cleanse the conditions.

It isn’t really fair to try and claim CAKE or any guild is the best for small group roaming (EU or NA). One nice thing about small group roaming is that (assuming mostly equal skill/strategy) a lot of the fights between small guilds will come down to the decisions made within the fight and how the fight was approached.

And for people saying people should include deaths in videos, as a video maker I can just give my perspective about that. I will only rarely put deaths into my videos and usually at the end of the videos (or the start). It feels like deaths break up the flow of the video and from my experience very few viewers actually appreciate the nuances and little plays that can make fights you lose worth watching. And usually when it comes to losing a fight when I watch back over my recording I almost instantly identify the mistake(s) that made me lose the fight. While watching lost fight recordings is good for getting better at the game, it doesn’t make particularly interesting viewing, except in special circumstances, ie 3v10+ where you kill 10 and then a zerg comes and runs you over.

Honestly compared to the meta for zergs, the small group meta/roaming meta is much better balanced currently than previously and much better balanced than the zerg meta. A good group of 3-4 can still take out 10 and within the group of 3-4 you have a number of different viable comps you can take.

The issue is you can’t balance around zergs directly through class nerfs imo since then those classes also become useless at small scale.

hypehype.9047:

emkelly.2371:

Glint/Malyx is very powerful. I’m not saying that because i go beat by it, but because i played it, i loved it, but i have to admit that easily stacking 25 torment while loading up on boons, and continually resisting conditions is frightening even from my point of view as the player.

I’ m not sure why it’s not more common than it already is.

cause it loses a lot of stun breaks
(you have to give up shiro and invocation)

You get 2 stacks of stability on dodges. That gets you through most situations tbh.

RedSpectrum.1975:

I like this…not dampening your skill but I’m curious how small zeros have trouble taking out like three people… Anyways I’ve been looking for a hybrid build

Thanks! Haha Its a question I ask myself a lot too. I don’t think Clown nor myself expected to live/kill them all there. Especially since we weren’t on comms and the first fight was a guild group. Honestly the thing that doomed the group that first fight was total and complete lack okittennowledgement that we were a threat and that they needed to commit to the fight and just bowl us over instead of dancing around.

Hybrid builds are nice partially cause the gear choices have so much variety. It really comes down to personal preference (within reason of course).

Condi or Hybrid rev is extremely good in small group wvw play based on my experience. You offer the group resistance and with glint you stack boons like none other. Add in a condi necro to epi off the target you’ve tormented/burned/confused up and you’re set.

Hello everyone,

I put together a video from recent roamings on hybrid revenant in T2 NA. Hopefully you guys enjoy it.

Video

Build

What aspect of the game, pve, pvp, or wvw?

Buran.3796:

Awesome! I was using krait runes due condition duración + the elite effect, but can change to balth or torment. Undead seems a bit weak (only around +100 to durability and condition damage). Not sure about leadership, I’m already using durability in my marauder ser but the leadership ones are a lot harder to get and the only reason due they are used in PvP is due the absence of the durability ones. Anyway, thanx a lot for the advices and examples!

Leadership can be gotten in WvW now (aka the only reason I was able to get them). I personally think they’re superior to durability on condi rev as well. +10% more boon duration, and you’re getting more stats than just toughness as well as giving you the ability to cleanse condis for you and your group. Since your protection uptime as well as resistance uptime are extremely high regardless, durability loses some appeal to me.

Undead isn’t flashy but you’re talking about 7.5% increase in two stats that you’re focused on.

Like I said krait’s condi duration really doesn’t help out condi rev since you don’t have a lot of bleed application available anyways. And imo the proc doesn’t make it worth it especially since balth can be proced twice (well 3x if healing skills didn’t have cds) and torment 1.5 times within the same window. The other two are superior imo for condi dmg and application. Additional options would be Sunless or Antitoxin runes if you wanted to mix -condi duration and condi dmg.

But it really comes down to what you’re planning on doing with the build. If you’re gonna solo roam, both the condition dmg runes or boon duration runes are excellent options. In group roaming, I’d strongly recommend using the boon duration runes since the impact that has on pain absorption is huge.

Mallyx/Glint is the best legend combo in WvW for condi rev atm. Weapons: Sw/Sh and Axe/Mace are the best in my experience, even moreso if you go hybrid and have additional power in your build.

For runes krait aren’t that great since you don’t have a lot of access to bleed. Undead/Torment/Balth are both all for the condi dmg aspect and Leadership/Durability are better for supporting.

I’ve got some videos of me playing hybrid rev in WvW if you wanted to take a look.

Personal KDR would be great. Even better would be titles for killing a certain number of each race/class in WvW. I want my Asura Bane title.

I enjoyed the video overall Diablos. As for constructive criticism I just have a few things (that are really just personal preference).

To answer your questions first;

I personally think the music was good. I like to mix up the music in my videos and honestly if people don’t like the music it isn’t the end of the world. The only music where I instantly mute a video is metal music, but again that is a personal thing. The biggest thing with music is just to make sure it doesn’t block the video in certain countries (aka Germany).

The gameplay was good, no real need to worry about that. If you’re ever concerned about clips not being up to your own standard, the best way to handle it imo is to watch the clips prior to putting them into the video and then again after you’ve put it all together. Sometimes good clips of fights don’t fit well into a particular video or into that portion of the video.

Besides those, the only other thing I have to add is I found the intro to be too long, which is an issue that has become worse and worse with GW2 videos imo. kitten of intro for a 10min video means around 7.5% of the video was the intro. Seems a little excessive imo (though certainly not the worst I’ve seen recently with one that was 25% of the video being intro).

Do take everything I say with a grain of salt, I’m certainly not a youtube expert or anything. Just my initial thoughts.

Keep up the videos!

BeepBoopBap.2840:

Lol so I guess if I don’t care about what you think I stop posting? Wtf kind of logic? Are you and tRex the only people reading these forums?

When I said I don’t care I meant I don’t care if people in this game think I’m childish or a kitten or whatever. I’m an adult enough in real life that I don’t care if I come off as a middle school CoD player in a game. It’s how I have fun and makes winning more meaningful, gtfo with your “respect” “sportsmanship” bs lmfao what you think this is pro sports or something?

k.

BeepBoopBap.2840:

I don’t play a video game or post on video game forums to be a gentleman. I have enough going on in my life that I don’t need validation from guild wars 2 players.

Your opinion is worthless to me.

Then do why you care if [tRex] post their video. If you don’t care about what GW2 players think why bother crying about them posting?

Just some friendly advice man, saying you don’t care or that you have so much going on in your life while still posting kinda gives the impression you don’t have that much going on in your life. Just let it go.

BeepBoopBap.2840:

Lol why do you all keep treating that as a serious win when we played:

2 warriors pre adrenal health buff
1 condi engi that had 4 hours play time on the class

I knew we shouldn’t have fought that day cuz all we would hear is kitten about it lol. I’m sure we are down to schedule a round 3 whenever though.

Haha sounds like chicken to me. tRex ain’t nothing since DH LB 5 and scrappers were nerfed. Find another gimmick then maybe we’ll have a round 3 I guess.

From an outside perspective you’re being fairly childish about it. Take the loss and move on man.

And [tRex] being nothing since LB5 nerf/scrapper nerf is laughable. It takes a lot to earn my respect in this game at this point and they have earned every bit of it.

I’m going to try and look at this objectively (I voted no for disclosure).

The issue in my mind with every potential siege addition that can be deployed open field, is that while in theory it benefits both sides in a fight the same (potentially) it will almost always in reality benefit the larger force more. Large force = more supply to build, more people to soak damage, and greater ability to just nuke down the smaller force’s siege.

Personally as a 1-5 man roamer, siege is a pain in my butt and I dislike it. But I can acknowledge that it could potentially be a benefit for defenders to have greater options open to them in siege placement. Instead of allowing for cannons to be built open field, maybe allow for them to only be placed and built within towers/keeps and with a limit (2-3 for towers, 4-5 (probably more due to the number of gates needed to cover) for keeps?). This would be in replacement of the current standard for the cannons. This would allow for defenders to cover more of the current “weak spots” in defense ie cata spots, without being too overpowered since you would be limited in the number you can deploy. This would require more coding of course, but this is the only implementation I could see having a net neutral impact on WvW, more potential for open field siege will always be a negative impact in my mind.

Lightsbane.9012:

thanks for the replies, sadly none of them really give me much hope lol
really just adds to the fact that the Revenant is an unfinished class..

…Or maybe it just adds to the fact you can’t have everything with every spec?

Condi rev has better mobility than condi necro did previously, but people still roamed on that.

If you want to take glint instead of shiro of course you’re going to have mobility issues. But you have to be realistic with your expectations when roaming. If I’m using hybrid/condi rev I know I’m not about to be able to chase down a thief or warrior if they don’t want to fight. But you’re also a basically unkillable boon/condi machine in fights.

jonathanpsmall.3159:

roaming in t1 good joke m8

^

Honestly though the best profession to solo/duo roam with is the one you’re most comfortable/effective with. With the number of horrible players in WvW you’re going to be able to get lots of kills simply running some sort of reasonable/meta build with any class.

Of course it changes when you start to actually be a roaming group (3-5) where you can start to think about comps and what not.

Ging.6485:

snip

Well of course better players are going to play classes better than bad players. I can point out within the past month I’ve played warrior, thief, revenant, and engi and pulled off 1v4s with each class, but it is more about just having better game mechanics and game knowledge than being a complete master of each class.

What I’m saying is that a good player can basically pick up any class in game and within a day or two be able to perform well above the average player who mains that class. And a decent chunk of that is because much of the game is focused on knowledge of all the classes (ie how they set up damage) and how to do combos yourself. Its all very transferable between classes regardless what you play. Knowledge of animations to dodge, how to count dodges to land your own burst, cooldown timings, common combos for each class, etc are all not class dependent.

Also you’re kidding yourself if you think Condi Chrono and Bunker Scrapper are difficult specs to learn for an experienced player. Both have an absurdly large amount of fail safes available to save misplays, while also being able to spit out damage constantly.

PierPiero.9142:

scrapper is all except complicated to play. 2 kits old engi was complicated but scrapper is really trivial to play …. one of the easiest class to learn

Every class is easy to learn in this game…

Hello again, I put together a video with a few fights in WvW (at the start) along with a few scrapper/engineer tips and tricks that can help new engineer players.

Video

Apologies for creating more threads in the forums with videos, but this one was different enough to warrant another thread imo.

Feedback is always welcome. Sorry about the couple audio issues it simply would not cooperate with me.

Cinder.2056:

Im not the OP XD, i love hammer, so thank you for the build.

Haha whoops! If you wanted to see it in action, (aka shameless plug) Video.

Cinder.2056:

Are there any power roaming build? Not a big fan of condition.

I suppose it depends on what your goal is. Honestly hammer is going to be the most effective weapon for engineer currently in WvW roaming, no way around it.

If you’re looking for a decent power build, I’m bias towards the build I play of course. Build. But it does use hammer.

Outside of using hammer, most power builds I’d recommend would be using grenades which you dislike.

As for your current build, I think the difficulty is when it comes to getting used to how you are something of a bruiser support/damage who does need some setup to be useful in fights. But the support you bring is great overall and does win fights even if you aren’t getting huge numbers.

Decided to roll scrapper again for some small group roaming in WvW. Feedback is always welcome (first day back on the class so a bit rusty). Build is the description.

Video

PadreNike.1803:

If I may make a recommendation, I’m running a similar hybrid build for WvW, if you change your gear to viper with durability runes with a few changes in the accessories you can get power and condi duration much higher at the expense of 5% crit, make sure to change between the sets when you check out the stats as I’m using marauder weps for s/sh and viper for the m/a (ignore the sigils they are inaccurate):
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAse5nnfN2gSuJvQRHlboskyPU4S5IKor8EllTlxe93nPNgEWQNjOKB-TVDFQBqTPQDOIAuTzAJVCSgTAAAeAAsb/BHqMINaIsn6PQRpxuUixgjAw5gDg1qWzaWg1Wbt1GQtSB81wK-w
EDIT: + an extra 10% boon duration too

Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind. Sadly currently I’m limited since I don’t have enough heroics to get durability nor do I have any armorsmith at 400 to make myself viper armor (4 years in game and never bothered to level that one up now it bites me in the kitten ). That was the real reason behind the carrion rabid armor mix. Otherwise I’d have done full viper for the armor like you did.

Euthymias.7984:

Pretty interesting. I was hoping to see a bit more 1vX roaming, but your group play was also enjoyable to watch.
Got a link to your armor/trinket setup?

Thanks. Typically I do solo roaming but was having a blast with some old friends this weekend. Hopefully I have time to get some quality solo roaming in this week.

I’ll be honest I threw the build together in a very short amount of time and I’ll probably still be doing tweaks to it as I get more experience on it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvlAQRAse5nn3geNSuQvJRboHlsP0kS4I6SJ4EtrklTlRNjQKxe93vPNgEWA-T1zCABVcCASRjAKaCm4IAYkyjbUXx%2B9HOSJ2hKBDULAAHEAR0B8t5HcUpQiHAApAgZaE-w

serj.8214:

Nice vid man) its celestial mallyx build or ?

Thanks!

Mainly carrion rabid mix with some vipers.

Hello! Posting a video from my recent time small group roaming as a hybrid revenant. The footage was collected just after I picked up the class again (having not played it since the betas), so apologies for the rust and the misplays.

Video

Feedback is always welcome.

Honestly I’m having some of the best fun I’ve ever had on thief. It’s always been my favorite class but I’ve just been enjoying it more than usual recently.

I primarily solo roam in wvw. I find that there really aren’t any terrible match-ups as power d/p da/tr/dd besides maybe a good condition warrior and even then I can outplay them.

Just really been enjoying the playstyle and everything has to offer recently.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Nice story. You have shown how little you understand how that bunker build works. You throw a lot of assumptions that favors your outcome rather than taking what is based on reality. Your mobility means nothing because you’ll have to get close if you want to take that bunker down, which will be your undoing. You’ll be loaded with conditions as soon as you get in range then it’s gg from there. And no, you can’t kite a Reaper shroud because when this build goes Reaper it means it will finish you off. You have no way to apply pressure because you need to get close to do that. If only you are dealing condition damage, unfortunately, you’re not.

But regardless the point is whether power thief is better than condi thief in these situations. How is your condi thief going to go about taking down a competent necro?

No power build can penetrate that 3k armor and the only way to bypass that is to hit them using condition damage. Even your own power build from your videos, which relies on surprise attacks and burst, will not have any chance at going toe to toe with this build — you don’t even have condition removal in your build. Once you take Chill, you’re SoL.

The very strength of a bunker is their ability to apply massive condition damage while having a lot of staying power due to high health pool and armor — or a lot of healing capabilities.

How do I win with a bunker? Here’s the recent iteration of my condition build.

So you can call BS all you want, but it’s fairly obvious that the BS is not coming from my direction.

As much as I love keeping up this thread, it’s become clear you can’t be reasoned with. I gave a scenario of how the fight ideally plays out and my mindset for the approach and mapped out how I’d play the match-up. And that’s suddenly not what you wanted?

How am I being loaded by conditions? He had marks and that’s it for range conditions and I’ve got three dodges and interrupts to hurt him from range. Along with a huge number of blinds to mess him up when I engage at close range. I’m not saying its always going to be a win but honestly I’m fairly confident that even in a duel setting it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as you make it out to be.

And chill making me SoL? What? Chill and cripple removed on dodge and you think chill is an issue? Do you even play thief?

1.6k isn’t a lot of condition damage and the utilities you gave the necromancer gives it no way to condi spike me assuming I don’t make a big mistake.

3 conditions removed on shadowstep return, chill removal, and torment removal on heal should be just about fine. Again not saying you can mindlessly use it but it’s doable definitely.

And no I didn’t ask how you win with a bunker I asked how you are going to kill the necro on your condi thief. And the build you posted won’t have nearly enough damage to down the necro build you linked especially if he hits his condi transfers. It will be the two of your fighting forever.

This is honestly my last reply. We disagree, I respect your opinion that condition is the only way, even though from my experience it’s not true. Keep playing thief your way and I’ll keep playing it my way. This has taken the thread very far from what op asked.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

We’re not talking about “any builds” we’re talking about bunkers. Typically a bunker will opt to a condition based build where a Thief will die sooner than they are able to take the bunker down.

Here’s an example. How do you kill this build with your power build without dying first.

So you made a build that is never seen to prove a point? Most necros won’t take those utilities but OK.

Regardless with d/p I’d focus on exploiting the mobility advantage thieves have over necros. Necro is plagued with horrible access to stability and that build isn’t using shouts for stability either allowing for interrupts to disrupt the rotation. Save steal for stealing stability in shroud for another interrupt and land the long duration fears once they leave shroud. Kite shroud timing interrupts to land on their ds #2 if possible, don’t stand inside ds #4 and evade the #5. Kite out the plague form because who the kitten takes that and expects a thief to stand there. Try and bait out the fear wall and then move away while hitting interrupts. Keep distance until wall is down then reopen with shadowshot for damage and blind. I don’t think the fight would be even close to impossible, more likely a 50-50 match-up at worst with more likely 75-25 due to which interrupts you land.

But regardless the point is whether power thief is better than condi thief in these situations. How is your condi thief going to go about taking down a competent necro?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

snip

Complain all you want about bunker builds they aren’t unkillable. There are dozens of videos of thieves playing power builds killing every type of build out there. Can you be mindless and just spam vault into them? Probably not.

A lot of people point to scrapper as a bruiser bunker, you can kill it as power thief if you play well. Honestly that should be the class (besides dh which is a counter for other reasons) that gives thieves the most trouble, yet there are lots of videos of it being done. I can post my own videos of duels against scrapper if you want, but I prefer to not post videos of my own outside the threads I make for them.

And I give the advice to walk away from any build you don’t get enjoyment out of fighting. If you’re trying to improve your play it’s not the best call but if you’re trying to get more enjoyment out of the game it’s fine to.

You’re welcome to continue hiding behind the concept that condi thief is your necessary evil that allows for you to kill these bunker builds. And I’m free to call bs on it and say you can kill any build as power thief currently with the possible exception of a good condi warrior, but that trucks pretty much every build.

Would you care to give examples of what builds you struggle to fight?

Natwinter.9234:

Thanks for sharing!

I’ve arrived into GW2 after a long stint as a Warcraft PVPer; some of those skills port over well, but I’m still struggling coming to terms with the various class mechanics and such. The videos are a big help to hone my thieving skills, and to anticipate what’ll be thrown at me.

Thanks for watching!

Gw2 is a tough game due to how it’s so animation focused. I’ve been playing for almost four years and there are still moments where I sit for a second dead wondering what just hit me haha.

Hopefully I can find some duels or 1v1 against other classes so I can go into match-ups and predictions a bit.

Feel free to send me a whisper or mail in game if you’ve got any questions.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You’ll never kill anyone with a power build other than “uplevels” and the “baddys”. You’re best solution is to go full condition damage.

As long as ArenaNet favors bunker builds and nerfing power builds, you’ll just have to find an effective way to bypass all the tanky stats — that is using condition damage built around poison.

Holy kitten is this false. Regardless what people seem to believe a well played power build is still the most effective build for thief. From my experience power thief can kill any class or spec though clearly some are more difficult than others.

As for trapper rangers that are power it’s not a fun match-up since they have that stealth. It sounds counter intuitive, but you want to instantly set off their traps when they use them for stealth since ranger traps reveal them. And since they aren’t condi their damage won’t be that high on the traps. Besides that the usual counter to ranger with well timed interrupts should work fine. Or you can just walk away from them since they’re probably not worth the time.

Blinding powder and shadowstep as must haves. And then I use fist flurry but bandits defense or signet of agility also work well (or better) for the third slot. Blind powder just has such good synergy with d/p and shadowstep is awesome with double stun break plus condi cleanse plus escape or chase potential. Elite bassy venom is just better over impact strike since the change to make it unblockable plus additional interrupts on a d/p build is great. For heal I use withdraw just cause it doesn’t have a cast time and can’t be interrupted. The new skill (can’t remember the name) is also great. The other healing skills simply aren’t worth it.

Second commentary is up.

Video 2

alemfi.5107:

I apparently never played thief when dagger 4 was a real skill. Please tell me more. Did it actually used to do damage? I pretty much assume the skill isn’t actually there. (I’ll use it to slow down someone approaching a point I am in the process of capturing, but that’s basically it.)

PS. I really think competitive gw2 could use a daily skill/trait discussion thread where the community can give feedback on a skill or trait (synergies, use cases, etc.). A lot of abilities are “vestigial” ( I just really wanted to use that word ), and are often just straight up not very good. Thief Dagger 4 is one of many.

Dagger 4 was stupidly strong for a long time. I can’t remember how much the value of the Nerf was but it was 50% or something crazy.