Guild Wars 2

It’s four years into the game and people still don’t understand thief and it’s mechanics. I’d laugh if it didn’t make me sad. Hell just the other day someone accused me of using macros on one of my videos despite me using an app to record my keyboard during the fights so he could see all my moves.

Hello Thief forums, here with my first commentary video. I go over my build and my choices and then I also into some fight commentary. This is the first commentary and I really appreciate any feedback people have about it.

Video

babazhook.6805:

This exactly. If people think that using a given skill two or three times in a row is “spam” and thus unskilled they are playing the wrong profession and should go play something they feel more “skilled” .

The weapons are designed with INI and multiple use of the same skill in mind. That is what makes theif different. INI management is the skill component not “number of different buttons pressed”.

It’s worth noting though that while using a skill 2-3 times straight isn’t guaranteed to be spam it most likely isn’t the optimal play. And thief definitely has potential to spam, take a look at Gosou’s spam 3 YouTube videos (But actually don’t if you value your sanity, the level of play in them is horrible).

Thieves have the unique ability to be limited by their resource pool, their ability to manage the resource pool, and their own decision making. That’s what makes thief fun to play and when played well makes it imo the hardest class to play and with the biggest skill gap between great thief players and simply average players.

Edit: I completely agree with Ario above me.

A few duels this time with the roaming fights.

Video 6

And another…

Video 5

Well back again with another video, this time a mixture of some solo and group clips from the past few days.

Video 4

Paulie.6215:

Dash is fine.

I agree my only complaint is how it marginalizes the acro “Don’t Stop” trait. And by marginalize I mean makes it totally not logical to take both at once or “Don’t Stop” at all really. But that more has to do with how that GM should be redone instead of Dash being nerfed.

HARDOFREADING.7298:

Just shows how ridiculously broken Dash is as a mechanic…and mind, you I’ve been a thief since the pre-weekend.
The problem is that in order to stay near you, people have to blow all their utility, thereby leaving themselves essentially defenseless.
HoT vs Core is Pay to Win and as soon as Anet chose this as a business model, it’s been all downhill.
In all fairness though, the lack of a dual classing system was another terrible design choice that has led us to where we are…watered down cutter cooker builds that are akin to GW1’s “Load PvP Template”.
HoT was a death knell to build diversity. We don’t even have “fluxes” (a masterpiece tweak of protocol that at least added variation).
On a side note, I did see at least one thing I though was exploitable and pretty cool. Message me in game sometime & I’ll run you thru some of the finer points of it conceptually.

Dash is an extremely strong trait, though I disagree people have to waste their cds to stay with me. In order for me to do damage I have to engage in melee range and does open up for countering the attack. You’re right in that most people blow defensive cds to keep up but in reality it not something they should or have to do.

I wouldn’t blame HoT for ruining diversity. Diversity for every class got ruined by the revamp for the trait system when we went from having the 70 trait points system. Once you became able to fully achieve three full trait lines build diversity has been much worse simply because every class has more or less three traitlines that have excellent synergy and are better than the others. Its only then slightly hurt by how the HoT traitlines are usually one of those lines.

Just another video. Hope you enjoy.

Video 3

Another video of power thief roaming. Feedback is welcome as always.

Video 2

Solid video. Don’t really have any suggestions for it sadly. I enjoy videos without the fancy edits and that jazz so yours was perfect. I’m not usually a huge fan of vanilla power warrior cause I find it boring to play but you’re solid on it. The fact the biggest complaint I have is your choice in GS skin is a good sign.

Best part of the video was seeing Elementalist being chased in the background while you are fighting the two mesmers.

Hello everyone. Just putting up a video of my recent thief activities. Apologies for the rust (just picked thief back up) and the poor editing (never edit on no sleep). Build is in the description. Feedback is welcome of course.

Enjoy!

Video

Back again with what is likely my final video for condition warrior (for now).

Enjoy.

Video

Back again with another roaming video. Just a few minor weapon changes (no stat changes) with the build.

Enjoy!

Video

Gabe.1065:

I’ve been roaming with a build based on yours with good success. Shield rather than torch. I traited Shield Master, Cleansing Ire, and Heightened Focus at first; but I found that your original selections of Dogged March, Rousing Resilience, and Burst Mastery work better for me—especially Rousing Resilience when I use Balanced Stance instead of Shattering Blow.

The only thing I would be concerned about with shield would be the damage loss, especially when dropping shattering blow. It should be a noticeable survivability increase to power damage (though you also lose a condi cleanse from torch 5). If you were only taking shield for the block primarily, maybe trying out offhand sword would be worthwhile too. Block plus a torment stacking ability makes it a nice little hybrid between torch and shield, though you lose that stun.

Honestly I’m going to try s/s now that I think about it. Will lose some burning spike but should give more sustain and greater access to torment.

Essertia.8123:

How does viper compare to carrion and sinister?

Going to be better than sinister for wvw condi build imo. Carrion is good, though in the end you probably dont need a ton of power. If you’re thinking solo up to three man roaming a mixture of dire carrion viper and rabid is what I would do. Imo it comes down to personal preference as to which stat targets you want.

My personal targets are very much dependant on the build I’m running which makes it difficult to make generic statements.

Essertia.8123:

I’m willing to save up and work toward something if the end product is worth it and many tiers above cheaper gear. I tend to WvW in small groups with the occasional zerg so survivability would be best in my case, however, I’m willing to forgo that if the hit to condi dmg is too much. I can adapt. What do you think of builds that use apothecary + viper trinkets?

Depends what you want to do within the small group. If you’re looking for damage apothecary is not a good option since your abilities don’t scale well with healing power for the loss you take in damage. Viper would be good, though you might need to take one or two dire armour pieces to compensate for its squishy nature.

I feel like people overuse “salt.” Someone has an opinion nowadays and it’s always salt.

Truth is there aren’t many players for any class who put out content that has a wow factor. Just how it is. In fairness though, it’s a lot easier to watch video and notice mistakes than to notice them at the moment they happen.

New video, mostly 1v1s and a few 1v2s in there this time. My opponents have been either engaging me 1v1 or engaging me only 1v5+, makes it difficult to find good fights since the build is extremely strong 1v1.

I also made a few build changes, which can be found in the description as usual.

Video

Of course feedback is always welcome.

Essertia.8123:

snip.

You have a budget in mind? I can help you with what I find to be the optimal condition warrior stats but it really is dependent on your desired type of play and what you want out of a build. Also do you have access to wvw badges for buying some of the gear?

Sounds lik you’ve done your research, but if you haven’t yet I’ll shamelessly plug my condition warrior videos, located in a thread further down the front-page.

Condition warrior has a few variations that are viable stat wise.

Davi.4920:

Thank you for this, i’m going to give it a whirl It seems it might do ok in pve too!

No problem! Its been fun for me playing it recently. I legit know nothing about PvE, though presumably it would be good for open world but less so for raids/dungeons if you wanted to be optimal (too much toughness/vit I believe).

Gabe.1065:

Interesting build. Nice play. Your stat choices seem so specific, like you were aiming for some exact numbers you had in mind. Just curious about your rationale.

Thanks. The stat choices were kinda specific to try and reach a few key targets and also cause I was being cheap. I wanted around 35% crit for king of fires, around 2700 armor which would be boosted up from RR, 1400 power for some additional pressure, 24000 hp just to help me against condition builds, and 1500 condition damage because thats the main source of damage.

Ideally I would have more power, but I’m too lazy to really optimize from here.

Honestly the merge combined with the stability change (which I presume increased the calculations needed by the server) has made skill lag much worse than before. Usually I could roam with no skill lag even with huge SM fights going on. Now I’ll get 2-5s delay whenever a fight is going on on the other side of the map. Ping remains below 100 but skill lag has been a huge issue.

Build site is still down sadly, however I did make a few more videos. This one is like the others just a short of montage of clips. Second, which I’ll edit in once its up, is just me goofing around with some DB players in EBG in a single long clip.

Video 1

Video 2

Grayclay.4579:

Did the warrior buffs in this patch make them more viable, or have they always been decent roamers?

I’m bias cause I’ve been roaming on mine recently. But they’re viable for solo roaming at least. Probably fall off at larger numbers unless you go group support though. Check out the warrior forum, a bunch of videos have been put up in the last week. Shameless plug for my own of course.

Davi.4920:

Build would be great and that budget is doable

Build website back up. Here is my build I am now using, though I’m probably going to drop some precision soon for condi dmg. Build.
As for the cost, I quickly ran through some calculations and with buying everything off the TP its around 26.15g with the majority of that being from the armor (around 13g). For a lower budget version, use two sets of geomancy/doom and swap out antitoxin for krait.

Puck.9612:

It’s still definitely a factor for me. But I just don’t value it to a huge extent. It’s fairly well expressed within my ranking anyways. Necromancer can’t get away that easily which really drops it down. Scrapper, Mesmer, warrior, rev and druid all have mechanisms for escape within their builds which contributes to them being good roamers.

Grayclay.4579:

snip.

I should have clarified my comments with classes. I am assuming the best roaming build for each class in a solo setting. For some reason I mix and match the HoT and core names. I believe that for solo roaming berserk is better than core warrior and that makes it tied for second.

Additionally Mesmer is only strong when the opponent has decided to commit to the fight. The long standing strategy of I’m just going to walk away still applies to all but the best condition mesmers out there roaming.

Also my ranking does not factor in the “oh kitten zerg Inc” factor very much. For me it more comes down to ability to take on outnumbered fights instead of the escapability aspect hence why I’ve placed thief lower.

Thanks for watching and the comments! I try to only include footage of “inspired” gameplay. Basically I try and watch it over and if it makes me want to get back out and roam more then I’ll include it. That being said I do include some dunks on other players just to showcase the burst.

As far as the build, it’s included in the video description (except for the most recent one, which I’ll be adding once I’m off work). For the budget aspect, it’s pretty budget friendly. Giver weapons are cheap, sigils are beyond cheap (4s ea), the rest of the gear is a mix and match of carrion and rabid for the armour (available from wvw vendors for gold and badges or from the tp), and jewelry is primarily cheap. If you lemme know the budget I’ll take a look, but I believe my entire gear setup is not more than 15-20g total probably closer to 15.

Appears the build site is down currently. If it’s not back by the time I get home I’ll put it together on a new site.

Puck.9612:

I feel like all the people ranking thief as number 1 for solo roaming don’t actually solo roam on a thief. There is so much passive "save your kitten traits in the game now that a thief can’t really burst people down very fast. Also the loss of guard stacks really hurt thieves, I have literally 1 shot a few. They do well in small groups, but you have to be kitten ed good to be effective solo
I much prefer solo roaming on druid or scrapper. I find them much stronger in 1vX and they still have plenty of tools for escaping.
Condi mes is strong but only if players commit to the fight. If they choose to ignore you it is unlikely you will kill them before they reach safety.

I agree with Puck. Thief is always brought up in these threads as great for roaming but nowadays it’s not ideal imo.

Druid is OK though I find it drops off once it’s 1v2+. Scrapper is a great option, have had great success with it currently. ATM I’m solo roaming with lb sw/t condition warrior and it’s been working out well so far.

Honestly every class has a viable roaming build. For solo roaming I would say scrapper=mesmer > warrior = druid = revenant > necro = thief > guardian > ele

I’m just going to keep adding videos to this thread as I make them. Harder to find good footage the later the match-up has gone on sadly.

Video

kitten guys can NA step up it’s roaming drama game. I’m feeling outclassed here.

Hopefully people don’t get annoyed by me making more videos. Here is another one from yesterday’s roaming.

Video

bLind.6278:

Good fighting. I’d love to run a Burnzerker build in WvW but I don’t know what gearset is actually ideal for it. A mix of Carrion, Rabid and Dire seems like a good idea, but you just lose so much power. I wish Mercenary gear was craftable.

Yeah I gave up pretty much all my power for this build, I was very used to playing with viper in spvp and that power spoiled me. Just tough to find that right balance, but anet did remove most of the truly annoying stuff like diamond skin so it works out alright.

Hello! Just posting a video of my recent roaming in T2 NA with a condition warrior build. Nothing too mindblowing with the build or anything, if you want a look its in the video description.

Video

Any constructive feedback is welcome.

Spawn camping really is a non factor. You have multiple exits that you can go out from and roam if that’s what you want to do.

However from what I’ve seen so far from the match-up that is simply not what DH wants to do. They want to mosey out of their spawn and ppt down some towers and their keeps.

I’ve spent the vast majority of my playtime over on the Sos side of ebg since I find spawn camping boring and because I almost never see any DH bothering to venture out and roam their own side of the map. Even when they aren’t being spawn camped they aren’t there but instead in a larger force somewhere.

This is from a solo roamers perspective so it might be different from other people’s views. But no matter the situation I’ve never felt demoralized or hurt by spawn camping for or against my server. I simply slip out a side and relish the fact I have the entire map to find good roaming fights and not the 1/3 of the map I have currently.

Sazdek.6830:

Charr Engi new meta

I’m not biased at all. >.>

Charr Engi best Engi. I’m surprised they offer the class for other races.

And since I have no life, another video is out.

Video

Sounds like someone needs to learn how to stow weapon their range attacks.

And retal does at most 300 damage more or less. So unless you’re a ft engi who doesn’t stop auto attacking it’s not a big factor.

Since I don’t want to spam the forums with new posts, here is a new video.

Video

Zuko.7132:

and you deleted ur post…

Haha welcome to the WvW community. If you’re proven wrong delete the evidence and pretend it didn’t happen.

In all honestly Maguuma is the best server to be part of when roaming. I’ve transferred 12+ times and I always end up coming back to Mag since its the only server I’ve been on where I can expect the average player to not play like a complete and utter monkey at the keyboard.

Hello again. Back with another scrapper roaming video from T3 NA. Apologies for the fights where I look like a headless chicken. I was tired and got caught between supporting my duo buddy and focusing a target.

Video

Constructive feedback is welcome as always.

Build is in video description.

Honestly transfer to another T3 NA server. Need some more roamers to fight.

Energy wasn’t changed in PvE or WvW

Solid video. Just as some constructive feedback, I’d highly recommend learning/getting good at canceling that acid bomb jump back. Especially when it comes to cleaving downs you often want to use that time for more dps instead of throwing yourself away and potentially out of position (this also applies to when you’re using it to blast a water field). The other thing I noticed is you could do a better job with your heal use to support that other player there with you. Granted a few times he ran away from your heal despite being low, but a few times you could’ve really helped by throwing it down next to him even if you aren’t too low. Along with this, picking up your turret without blasting makes a big difference with the 25% cd reduction. Of course knowing when it’s best to blast it or pick it up takes practice and feel but it really does make a huge difference once you learn.

Just my 2 cents. Like I said solid video, just pointing out some potential improvements.

babayum.1895:

Furious.1283:

So… this is the usual matchmaking I get…

you have recieved 200k damage and dealt 30k in that match on a reaper…

but of course your team is at fault here.

This actually made me laugh. I don’t think I could get 30K damage if I tried. What happened did he only use retaliation for damage?

Hello there,

Just thought I’d post my most recent video since I like to get some feedback on my videos.

Here is the Video.

Sorry for anyone in Germany, some of the audio messed up and put in a song that won’t play there.

Builds for both the warrior (from the first two clips) and the scrapper builds are in the description. Scrapper is pretty standard overall with little variation from SPvP meta build.

Thanks!

Any team with more than two necros is at a disadvantage.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

In legendary, more people are able to adapt to a teammate who is not necessarily performing to expectations. In ruby, this happens way less.

You have to understand this. You cannot just port legendary play style into ruby. It does not work a majority of the times.
The proof in this statement? I have taken ruby players into legendary, and they do not follow what is going on rotational wise.

So ruby rotations=/= legendary rotations

So I believe 100% that you can go to legendary, then on an alt account fail miserably. Because you are doing X when your team is doing Y.

I actually think this is the biggest thing that separates Legendary players from Diamond (and Ruby though with Ruby there are more factors).

I am far from the most skilled mechanical player, however I know how to cover up for my mechanical errors by making proper rotations. Now proper rotations aren’t covered in a set of given rules that anyone can set out for you, but are based on a number of factors.

I think another big thing besides rotation, though it does bleed into rotations, is know your win condition. Zoose said it well in his guide saying that you should know your win condition, but also know that it can change throughout a match. You have to be able to adapt to what is happening around you throughout a match and be flexible in how you approach it in order to maximize that window for the win condition.

A Diamond player knows their role and what their teammates role should be, a legend player knows this, but also knows the limits of their class and their teammates to an extent that allows them to exploit weaknesses in the other team while covering up your own weaknesses.

And yes I know these are all vague terms that lack real foundation, but its just my quick thoughts on the matter. I’m debating doing a few commentaries of recorded matches from legend queues (wins and losses though I might start out with losses) and just talking through thought process and how I approach the game (not saying that its the best or only way, but it is effective) in order to give some more concrete examples.

Honestly take a break. Whenever I’ve lost two or three games straight I’ve taken at least a one hour break and came back. And everytime it’s been a win coming back. It allows you to not get the same teammates and gives you a second to relax so you don’t go on tilt which only makes it worse.