Guild Wars 2

One moment, I’m trying to find my tiny violin.

In all seriousness, please try to improve your play before you try to ruin another class. A lot of people only play one class and nerfs based on posts like this isn’t good for the game. People quit when their class is needlessly nerfed.

Direct damage is superior in nearly everything. Skill floor is lower for condition builds imo. If you think d/p has low damage you’ll absolutely hate condi thieves. D/P+SB with proper gear and traits puts out huge damage. Don’t go full zerker though… valk armor and berserker jewelry is a pretty good split. Tanky guardians are hard for everyone to take down though… just a fact of life.

Be careful about taking the first piece of advice you get here… there’s a lot of questionable stuff going around these forums. Hope this helps.

Yeah those are the 3 I play… mostly 10/30/0/0/30 d/p though. I’m not patient enough for the first one :P

Good stuff. Cheers.

To actually answer the OP’s question… use either lose condition on stealth or blind on stealth (it’s a judgement call), then use 2 init on stealth, then shadow rejuvenation. In acro you want 2 init every 10 seconds and the other option is preference as well. Might on dodge, vigor on heal, move faster in stealth are all good. In trickery you can choose a long range steal, caltrops on dodge, or even thrill of the crime. The last trait would probably be bountiful thief.

There are a lot of options with that build. Personally though, a similiar (but better) build is 5/0/30/20/15. This let’s you get +100% bleed duration (8 second bleeds). Runes should be 2 krait, 2 centaur, 2 afflicted, rare veggie pizza for food, and sigil of agony on 1 weapon. +45 from runes, +5 from traits, +10 from sigil, and +40 from food.

Hope this helps

Edit.. search on youtube for wild bill. I don’t think things have changed much for p/d since he popularized it.

Cruuk uses SoM on a d/p build and he does well. I’ve used a similar build with good success but I still like HiS more overall.

I tend to agree, it seems like the intent of HiS was to remove damaging dots.

Arganthium, I’d be curious to hear more of your logic behind your build crafting. I understand what you said about calculating a value to determine a build’s effectiveness. Do you start with any minimums? Say for example, if you want to be a far node assaulter then you’ll need X dps over time to be likely able to win that 1v1 or as a bunker do you need X defense to be successful in that role?

I like dps, I make no effort to hide it. Typically when I’m picking a build I start with a minimum level of offense and then figure out how to make the best of remaining defensive capabilities. That’s why I like 10/30/0/0/30 for d/p + sb rather than the old 25/30/0/0/15. I calculated (with assumptions everywhere) that they had pretty similiar offensive output but the former had more utility/survivability.

I don’t doubt you when you say this build has a higher multiplier than the 0/30/0/30/10 s/d build but that isn’t proof of being superior. We have to define what role we’re comparing the builds against. I mentioned a fight with a guardian before but I also saw you participating in drawn out team fights where you held your own; it’s obvious you’re a good player and this build has potential.

Hope this wasn’t too long winded.

You should have let that warrior go around 8 min… I felt really bad for him haha! I thought you played really well. If I can offer some constructive criticism I think you were too quick to move into heartseakers. A few more autoattacks when they’re ~40% health may have served you better.

That being said, I play 10/30/0/0/30 in spvp and I love it. I haven’t found that it scales to wvw as well so I’ll give you props for making it work for you! Have you tried 0/30/20/20/0 or 0/30/30/10/0?

Arganthium.5638:

Hype.8032:

I’ll give this a shot some time. You should know that you selected assassin’s retreat rather than vigorous recovery though. Watching one of your videos it was pretty clear you didn’t have the dps to take down a guardian, that’s definitely a down side. This seems tankier and more meant for team fights.

Btw, your little public quarrel w/ jumper isn’t interesting to the rest of us.

First, thank you for reminding me of that trait. I had seen it and promised to change it, but I ended up forgetting after I didn’t know how to edit builds originally.

I find your other comments highly interesting. Of course, if we’re talking specifically about a bunker guardian, then it is true that it is difficult for me to take down that guard. That being said, the truth of the matter is that, at low levels, the marginal benefit of offensive stats tends to outweigh that of defensive stats. Bunkers are flawed in that they take so many defensive stats. However, they also make the opponent take more defensive stats than might otherwise be preferable as well, which gives them the slight advantage of essentially rendering your defensive stats useless. This is why zerker thieves are going to be better at taking down guards. This build is more designed to keep points contested, hold out until reinforcements arrive, or assist allies. This is not necessarily a soloist’s build, and I don’t personally believe that soloists are very good for team strategy. If that’s what you’re looking for, good for you; just swap the amulet and you’re set. Otherwise, though, know what you’re talking about before you speak.

And I didn’t mention anything about my quarrel with Jumper, and, as you said, what “quarrel” there is is minor. I made a joke relating to Jumper creating his own build guide, and your attempt to flame me for it is somewhat rude, to be quite frank. Not to mention quite childish and immature.

If this was the only time you were hitting below the belt I might agree with you. I’m sure you remember the thread where you called him out however. I’ve found it distasteful and lacking tact. I, and I’m sure others, have taken you less seriously because of it. However, you’ve been made aware (assuming you didn’t already know) so I’m done talking about it.

I’ll take build threads over nerf threads any day. I remember questioning how this trait/stat layout could put out any damage at all when you mentioned it earlier so I’m glad you put this together.

I’ll give this a shot some time. You should know that you selected assassin’s retreat rather than vigorous recovery though. Watching one of your videos it was pretty clear you didn’t have the dps to take down a guardian, that’s definitely a down side. This seems tankier and more meant for team fights.

Btw, your little public quarrel w/ jumper isn’t interesting to the rest of us.

Travlane.5948:

@hype…. btw you dont have to state u play d/p. i assume everyone is lol. kind of a given….90% chance anyway

The point was that dagger autoattack has numerous small damage swings, each receiving its own retal proc. The other obvious point was by using a melee set it requires being up close and personal to deal that damage.

So, by showing I play a weapon set that is fairly well countered by retal it gives more weight to my opinion that retal damage shouldn’t be nerfed. Make sense friend?

I play a d/p thief as my main but I’ve played all the other major thief builds. Retal guards are annoying but not overpowered. I think retal is fine as-is… get better rather than trying to destroy other people’s builds… it’s bad for the community.

If it bother’s you so much use signet of malice… that’ll drop retal dmg by 50% or so.

Thieves get some cool toys no doubt… that’s why I enjoy playing one. However, they need everything mentioned in this thread to be viable. How else can a build that only has 14000 hp, no toughness, and requires melee combat be successful? Any thief that builds tanky loses such a huge % of their dps that it just isn’t worth it.

Look where thieves got torment… p/d #3… it requires melee to trigger and CnD is nearly always the better option given the choice between the 2. The other option is a craptastic venom…. both those combined are absolutely dwarfed by DS#5.

I beat most thieves playing on my necro and beat most necros playing on my thief… funny how that happens huh?

Maybe I’m off base here but it feels like the phrase, “u mad cuz u bad” applies here.

Your proposed nerf is ridiculous and unmerited.

IMO you should use your shortbow a lot more often. It seems like most of the big team fights you’re just standing on the edge watching everyone else fight. A few cluster bombs can be huge for your team.

I enjoyed the videos though, thanks for posting.

I was able to get the title slayer with hotjoin only. Turns out I got that title before 200 match wins on my main. So level of effort shouldn’t be the issue with giving a hotjoin title at 200 wins. They could easily split the titles/achievements out so that tpvp matches don’t count towards hotjoin ones. Hotjoin is geared towards more casual players, 2000 wins would be a very high barrier and I’d disagree with it.

If I run I lost. Then again, I also take it as a challenge sometimes to see what kind of bad situations I can get into and then find a way to come out alive. No point in porting back home and paying repair costs while roaming if you can help it. Sometimes I just string a small group of enemies out until better odds come along and then I take them down.

You get “champion ________” after 150 tpvp games according to the wiki. Isn’t 200 spvp games reasonable for the poor man’s version of it?

Without S/D it’s not easy 1v1. I always figured that the cost of our amazing ability to disengage was that we can’t stand toe-to-toe with several builds. It honestly doesn’t bother me that some tanks are too tanky for thieves to take down solo. However, maybe I’ve just run into a string of bad ele’s in spvp lately but I’ve taken them down fairly easily with d/p + sb 10/30/0/0/30.

There’s always Jumper’s s/d build if you can’t stand walking away from tanks

I was quite surprised to see that we can get a title for X match wins in Tpvp on a specific profession but there is none available for achieving the same feat in hotjoin. Why can’t I have the title “Shadow” on my thief after 200 spvp wins? “Champion Shadow” is already reserved for tpvp so there’s no crossover.

Nice video, I liked the music. Pro-tip, you can edit out the footage of you getting lost on spirit watch In my opinion, that combination of weapons is more for dueling than team fights, but I know it can be a lot of fun.

Try inf signet instead of scorpion wire… it’s a lot more reliable and does pretty much the same thing (gets you and the enemy at the same place). With that weapon set you can pull off the CnD, steal, weapon switch, backstab too.

Curo.2483:

What is the logic behind this balance? I’ve been repeatedly killed by thieves in 2, yes count them TWO hits in WvW tonight. What is the logic behind giving a class the ability to immobilize me, then 2-shot me, all in the span of less than one second, from stealth. I’m running full level 80 exotic soldier (PVT) gear, 21k hp.

I didn’t read all of this thread because it is a waste of time. You died from full health in 2 hits yet the backstab only hit for 12k? Backstab is the hardest hitting attack, so what was the other attack to take 9k from you? This is trolling, you don’t even mention zerker trinkets in your original post to make it sound like you actually have armor… which you clearly don’t.

After a 12k backstab you’d still be above 25% health so the most you’d see from heartseaker is 7.5k…. same with cloak and dagger…. so how were you 2 shot again? The only people who get hit for damage like you describe didn’t build their character correctly.

In WvW I run d/p + shortbow and I most often run 0/30/20/20/0 w/ divinity runes and a mix of zerk/valk/cavalier/soldier. I use hidden killer rather than executioner so I can keep a lower crit chance (more toughness and vit) and still have big backstabs.

I don’t run perma stealth… I rarely gain stealth more than once from a single BP; a lot of the damage from this set comes from auto attack and blind is much more powerful than you might originally think. I have a bit over 100% crit damage, 45% or so crit chance (not counting traits and fury), ~2500 toughness and ~16k hp.

In spvp I run d/p + sb 10/30/0/0/30 w/ ogre runes… I’m thinking of taking that build into WvW as well.

Until you get more comfortable try black powder to HS, backstab, one auto chain, then back to black powder + HS. The more time you spend in stealth the easier it’ll be for you I think.

GL!

Thanks for the video Jumper, I know I found it informative. I’ve played this build before and I don’t come even close to the level of play you’re showing. Keep the videos coming!

OP, a balanced thief will have ~100 crit damage for x2.5 multiplier on crits. You can get 2.5-2.6k armor and 15-16k hp with that. Thief’s defense is dodge, evade, blind, and stealth; it’s all active on your part. You can’t play a thief like your other characters, but once you learn your limitations you can have a lot of fun. Get used to using shortbow though… it’s clutch in most builds. No need for perma stealth when you’re always faster than your opponents.

Anyways, if you can put the time in to learn the class I’d recommend taking it to 80. Besides killing newbs I’d claim that thief takes a lot more to learn than say mesmer or elementalist.

Edit:
I forgot, if you feel squishy while leveling (I know I did) try running pistol main / dagger offhand. Stack condition damage and precast caltrops then steal as it activates. Once you learn the class better the power builds become better imo.

I run d/d + sb or d/p + sb in WvW. Keep your head on a swivel and be fast with SB # 5 as well as shadow step and you’ll never die. As an added benefit you can land those backstabs you’re looking for

Atherakhia.4086:

Hype.8032:

Atherakhia.4086:

Uh no…

You build the thief class up. You give it more health like the Ranger or you give it access to tools to help it remain viable outside of stealth. Things like protection, stability, etc. We already know ANet is considering boosting the Thief’s auto attack damage to help with the sustained fight.

So your solution is to make the thief more like a guardian? All these ‘fixes’ just make the game more bland. Keep unique classes unique. Also, back to the original topic, no one uses shadow protector because the other traits like 2 init on stealth, blind on stealth, or remove condition on stealth are so much more powerful. So he’s crying about a trait no one uses…? With only shadow rejuvenation my thief heals for 342/s….. hardly impressive for 30 points.

I forgot to add that a lot of the other professions can heal as well, such as Guardian, Ranger, Ele… the difference with them is they can also attack while they receive that passive healing… Thief is just helping the opponent recharge his cooldowns in the same situation.

Giving a boon to one class that is already given to another doesn’t somehow make the game more bland or the one clkitten unique. It’s simply a tool. The playstyle of the Thief class is already quite unique. If anything, your complaint should have been that making the thief remain visible so often would make it more like a Warrior.

The end result regardless of approach should be a balanced game. Having played tons of MMO’s in my lifetime, I have to say that GW2 has probably the absolute worst implementation of the ‘stealth fighter’ I’ve ever seen. And it shows by the number of complaints aimed at the class. And they’re not random crying from uninformed players. The people are right… this class can be overpowered. People who play it know that simply nerfing what they want nerfed will leave the class useless though.

Far better to fix the issue akittens source and improve the class as needed rather than nibble at the fringes until you really do have a boring, one note class.

I can tell you’ve thought about this but I can’t agree that making the thief more like the other professions is the right move. Does protection fit with an agile low health high damage class? I don’t think it does and neither does Anet judging by how they built it.

Perfect balance isn’t what we want.. slight imbalances keep the meta changing and keep it fun to play. I love stealth but I would accept changes to the class if they continue to lessen its viability. However, adding stability and protection sure as hell isn’t the right way to do it.

Atherakhia.4086:

Uh no…

You build the thief class up. You give it more health like the Ranger or you give it access to tools to help it remain viable outside of stealth. Things like protection, stability, etc. We already know ANet is considering boosting the Thief’s auto attack damage to help with the sustained fight.

So your solution is to make the thief more like a guardian? All these ‘fixes’ just make the game more bland. Keep unique classes unique. Also, back to the original topic, no one uses shadow protector because the other traits like 2 init on stealth, blind on stealth, or remove condition on stealth are so much more powerful. So he’s crying about a trait no one uses…? With only shadow rejuvenation my thief heals for 342/s….. hardly impressive for 30 points.

I forgot to add that a lot of the other professions can heal as well, such as Guardian, Ranger, Ele… the difference with them is they can also attack while they receive that passive healing… Thief is just helping the opponent recharge his cooldowns in the same situation.

I play a P/D thief and I don’t know of any way to accomplish what you described. The life regen in stealth isn’t all that much… it adds up over a long fight but nothing like you described. As someone posted above me, it seems like the OP is excessively overstating the amount of the healing or the thief was cheating. 3 warriors should have easily been able to chain stun/cc a thief like that. This build usually suffers from a lack of stun-breakers btw.

Cheers