Guild Wars 2

We’re still very good at focusing down squishy/low health players. We’re also the best at running away from engineers & necros because there is no way we can win against an equally skilled one right now….

Edit: I still win most of my 1v1’s in spvp running trickery d/p + sb just like before patch. The only thing I changed is grabbing the air sigil rather than the sigil of force (more dps over time). Stay in shortbow and spam clusterbombs vs mesmers, steal the tree from rangers and and clusterbomb in the radius to damage him and heal yourself, use the warrior steal inside of black powder against warriors, interrupt dps guardian’s whirls or dodge away, keep using shadow shot against ele’s to keep up.

There’s tons of tips out there I can’t list them all. If you want to stay s/d give 10/30/0/0/30 a try with ogre runes. Lyssa got overnerfed so you shouldn’t use it anymore. This build has quite a bit more dps and utility compared to the old 10/30/0/30/0 build but it’s a lot squishier so you have to react fast.

Try watching this video:
http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/b/521739728

Caed uses d/p and s/d in there so you can get an idea of what I was talking about.

Hope this helps!

Interesting, I never knew this! I always thought the numbers people quoted on whirling axe were too generous and now I know it was just a display bug on my asura!

Engineer was on the strong side of balanced prior to April 15th. After Balthazar runes it’s 100% UNDENIABLY OP. I’m doing incredibly well with it although my experience with it is fairly limited. Necros and engi’s are where it’s at right now.

I can’t tell you how hard it is to learn thief in spvp because I got good with it while it was much more powerful and forgiving. As the patches (nerfs) have come through I’ve been able to slowly adjust to stay at the top. The learning curve for a new thief has got to be pretty high right now.

I feel that thief is a difficult class to play well. It requires faster reaction times than most other classes and it is quite a bit less forgiving. Engineer is considered a difficult class to play, but I was able to pick it up really quickly. I’m arguably just as good playing engi as I am playing thief even though the time difference is huge between the two.

Thief is still the most fun profession to me so it’s all worth it

Uhtameit.2413:

Lyssa still removes 5 conditions. Do you happen to have more than 5 conditions on you? if so, do you think even the old Lyssa would have saved you?

Now you can’t get stability or activate lyssa prior to engaging or all the boons. There are MUCH better runes available right now, I’d go as far to say they buried lyssa runes this patch.

I’m a thief only player and right now I’d advise against starting a thief. The worsening of conditions and removal of a useful lyssa rune has us down quite a bit.

I’ve noted MM’s as being quite overpowered so far. I thought this spec was getting nerfed a bit this patch but it seems stronger than ever. This needs addressed right away.

I can 100% promise that the NPC’s in the mists are dishing out more dps than before Soldatoscelto. Having played hotjoin for a few hours I certainly felt that damage had increased across the board. I attributed it at the time to all the pve heros coming in running zerker gear and pretty large power creep for certain classes. As a thief I didn’t feel my damage going up so who knows. Either way if this balance stays the way it is then thief just got knocked down the totem pole.

I noticed engi’s and necros being over the top pretty quickly. I thought anet would finally rid us of MM… sadly it didn’t happen. All this powercreep is making it so thieves get practically one shot by condi bunkers.

I’m just thinking back to that interview where they didn’t cover thieves but they said we had some great things coming. Are those great things here?

Not impressed at all… where are the new builds to try? All we got was lyssa trashed and more powercreep on other professions.

lol you said ‘thiefs’

Fun video. I like that build for wvw but I’d get spoiled if I played it. If we ever move away from this tank meta in spvp I can finally give it a chance.

RyuDragnier.9476:

A single thief doing it is just trolling. 5 thieves doing it…they’re wiping that group easily. 4 backstab the same enemy for an insta-down, the last one stomps him. Happened to me in WvW.

LOL! 5 of any profession against a group of 6 uncoordinated low skilled opponents should always win.

I do think that SA builds in wvw are overly annoying to play against though. I’m glad they’re largely useless in spvp.

Applying stealth to the downed teammate counters any stomp and most classes have an ability to stealth a teammate. That being said, OP this thread topic was brought up a lot in the first 6 months of the game and it was thoroughly shown that it is in no way unfair compared to mechanics available to every class. Plus it is very counterable, so learn those counters and stop trying to get others unfairly nerfed.

Decap is still too strong, nerfing AR won’t fix it. That is all.

The first fight told me everything I needed to know. No BP before using whirling axe and HS spam on a warrior using endure pain? I guess I’m not sure why you posted this.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Hype.8032:

Trickery is not well suited for s/d because it does very little to cover up the after cast of the sword skills. Acrobatics provides more dodges than trickery and that difference is make or break for s/d. S/P and D/P do well with trickery because s/p can evade while dpsing (s/d can’t) and d/p compensates with more evades from shortbow (spend most of the time in shortbow not d/p), blinds, and stealth.

This has been proven time and time again.

Or you can do both like I do and others like Arganthium. Trickery with Acrobatics does surprisingly well with sword dagger, combined with the amazingly low CD of steal afterward for extra steps

That build is fine in WvW where you can supplement your damage with food. However, in spvp even 10/30/0/30/0 is flirting with the threshold of doing too little damage for its niche. 10/30/0/0/30 s/d has less survivability than s/p or d/p and less burst to boot, it’s a nonstarter.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV8YlYmaPncS4E/5Ex2jdKUeqVgmdP4q8rKA-ToAg0EFpKyVkpIZR2iGWssYXA

Maybe it’s just me but I spam detonate cluster bomb like I would against other mesmer builds. If you don’t keep dpsing them while they’re stealthed you’ll never take them down.

Steal, throw gunk, shortbow clusterbomb the spot to get chaos armor. If they switch to bombs get the hell out of that area. I use d/p #3 a lot when I’m fighting them with that set. Start in shortbow and with experience you’ll know the right time to switch to d/p for the kill.

Engineers have an advantage against thieves but it’s not a foregone conclusion who will win.

Trickery is not well suited for s/d because it does very little to cover up the after cast of the sword skills. Acrobatics provides more dodges than trickery and that difference is make or break for s/d. S/P and D/P do well with trickery because s/p can evade while dpsing (s/d can’t) and d/p compensates with more evades from shortbow (spend most of the time in shortbow not d/p), blinds, and stealth.

This has been proven time and time again.

Trickery is not the right traitline for s/d. s/p can use it because it evades while doing damage. S/D needs the extra dodges to survive long enough to win a fight.

Watch Anet make fear convert to stability just like corrupt boons.. that way lyssa will NEVER create stability. Or, maybe they’ll be less lame and make poison/bleed convert to stab :P

Copy-Paste fail.

Even not knowing your build I can say the only s/d build I like is 10/30/0/30/0.

There’s no damage with that build. As others said, I think relying on last refuge in this way will provide next to no benefit.

It is almost always better to get a full cap rather than just decapping. You’d be amazed how long it takes some teams to go recapture it while it ticks in your favor.

I figure seeing skyhammer pop up was what caused one of them.

The fault is with Anet allowing the game to start when it isn’t 5v5. I’m not talking about people dropping midway through.

My team actually managed to win one of the several 4v5’s I found myself in but that doesn’t make it any better. It just shows my rank was dropped enough that me and another good player could carry against a low skill opponent.

Had several 4v5’s today…. rank dropped incredibly far because of it. Just wanted to make sure you know it’s a problem still Anet…

The tiger just got its roar put in all this time, claiming the other finishers had more effort might be a questionable statement

Run for the hills! Turns out there are a lot of experts on thieves even though they’ve never played one!

Oulov.7913:

The assassin in Gw1 was almost perfectly balanced. …. but if you took a skill that blocked his attacks or blinded him…. he was an easy prey.

Lol that’s your idea of balance for your opponents… one where if you do one thing right they’re easy to beat. THIS is the general sentiment among the masses and it’s pathetic.

I agree the bunkering is out of control and I’d support a reduction in burst if bunkering got shaved.

I think you’re right OP, this is probably a bug. That being said, thief has been balanced around this for over a year. It would simply be unfair to fix it and leave it at that.

I still support them nerfing the kitten out of PW though

Venom share with thieves guild is some of the lamest crap I’ve ever seen. If it fails do you just run away? Try 5/0/30/15/20 and you can get +100% bleed duration if I remember right. You won’t get any better relying on thieves guild in a 1v1.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Hype.8032:

yep, interrupt that hs through BP and you cost the thief 9 initiative… no cooldown though.

You cost him 3 initiative. He will just use hs again while the BP is still active.

99% of the time that won’t happen because the interrupted HS will carry the thief pretty far from the BP before it is interrupted. Interrupting the HS just before it finishes stops the stealth and costs 9 init… like I already said.

Incurafy.6329:

Hype.8032:

yep, interrupt that hs through BP and you cost the thief 9 initiative… no cooldown though.

This is false, the 9 seconds of initiative lost is a cooldown! That 9 initiative takes 9 seconds to regenerate passively, making it a 9 second cooldown.

This really isn’t hard to understand people.

You’re wrong it is not a cooldown. Look up the definition of a cooldown. What I said is accurate.

I’ve defended thief on nearly every nerf but I voiced out about that BS skill. At least with FS/LS the evade part is separate from the damage portion. You have to risk taking damage to deal it. S/P is way way way too easy to play and that’s the main reason I hate it. Often the best way to play it is to press 3 repeatedly, not moving around, not dodging, just chaining pw on top of pw… could it be more boring? Hopefully they’ll change the skill into two parts and find a way to make it require some measure of skill to be good with it.

That being said, it’s disgusting that a dev made a thread specifically about PW while ignoring all the other issues with the rest of the professions. How about a bit of unbiased decision making?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads pop up with varying feedback about this skill. I’d appreciate it if you guys could toss some feedback in this thread about the skill, and try to be as concise as possible.

Also, try to answer these questions:

• Do you main Thief?
• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  • How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

Additionally, if you feel Pistol Whip is exactly what it needs to be, I would like you to say so in this thread.

This thread is for me personally so I can properly communicate to the designers how you guys feel about it.

Thanks!

Allie,

The root cause is the Balance Team did a flat buff to thief regen several months ago. This made many abilities much more spammable than before.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a spammable aoe ability that evades, stuns and does damage is overpowered.

The right answer would be to go back and tune down thief regen. They didn’t need the buff at all, considering they were all alone in the top roamer spot before the buff.

Given the balance team’s pattern of fixing their mistakes with band-aids, I’d recommend they increase the cost of pistol whip from 5 to 8 initiative.

I don’t play a thief. I play one of those classes that isn’t viable in the Meta because of thieves. (pick any one)

And the fact that you don’t play thief is why you don’t understand the change to initiative. The change to initiative was an overall nerf to pistol whip when the thief has a decent crit chance. The nerf to opportunist more than makes up for the increase in base regen. A lot of people should read the Dec 10th patch notes again because the amount of misinformation about initiative changes is amazing.

I’m glad the devs are actually asking for people to state if they main thief or not. That being said, I main thief and I think the whole pistolwhip animation is too long. I think it should be shortened up (side effect of this is reduced damage and evasion but no reduction in cost). That’d fix the balance issue with it imo.

But even beyond balance, sword and pistol don’t have any synergy. Besides stomping or getting perma blind from the stolen warrior ability, PW is always better than black powder.

S/P is incredibly boring to play and to play against. The only thing worse than missing PW and sitting there swinging uselessly is being forced to play against someone interrupting more than half your skills. To achieve balance PW only needs to be nerfed a little bit but the problem is much deeper than that.

Thanks for reading.

Make a thief! I’m leveling a 2nd one right now so I can have 2 different builds available It’s a really fun class that’s quite different from everything else so it takes a while to get up to speed before you feel confident with it.

yep, interrupt that hs through BP and you cost the thief 9 initiative… no cooldown though.

Comparing quotes from one of the best thieves in the game and some guy I’ve never heard of should tell you all you need to know Use d/p if you want the best chance of winning against skilled opponents; use d/d if you want to destroy a few scrubs in an outnumbered fight (or if that’s the weapon set you like the most… play what you like as a priority).

If you’re in wvw and new to thief i’d stick with x/30/30/x/0 but with more experience at staying alive you can try 10/30/0/0/30 (that’s caed’s and most spvp thieve’s build right now).

dDuff.3860:

Hey, I was using PWhip and it was cool before stun-rounding were fixed!

I was wondering when the hipster comments were going to come out

Having played with it extensively since the patch I can say we overreacted to it. S/D is still livable with it (I do run two stunbreaks though) and S/P is dominant as ever. The cast time does feel really long though and I’ve found that I often need to dodge before using it to make sure I don’t get interrupted. I think it’d be completely fair to reduce the cast time to 0.1 sec or even better, code it like withdraw so it’s instant assuming you’re not stunned. These kinds of changes would just be for quality of life rather than making any build stronger.

However, it would be stupid to split it up between wvw/pve and spvp. The same logic applies in both areas.

Seeing all of you chest thumping trying to talk kitten about builds other than yours is pretty funny.

S/D and D/P have similar skill ceilings (this isn’t skill floor). What makes it even more fun is the type of skill that is required for one kit doesn’t translate well to the other. For example, whenever I go from s/d to playing d/p I do terrible until I re-learn to stay in shortbow more often.

S/P has a very low skill floor and yet a pretty high ceiling. I don’t enjoy the play style behind it so I don’t play it much.

Arikyali.5804:

I don’t want to stealth spam d/p. I use it mainly as a gap closer (my build is pretty unforgiving to the HS spamming) a blind, a quick daze, and I still have mainhand dagger skills. Since taking it to WvW, I think I only used the BP+HS combo once, and that was because I was desperately low on health, with all my escapes on cooldown.

D/D as a main set, and D/P as a swap set (P/D against annoying warriors) It’s awesome, and I can still be classy with wielding the same type of weapon in both hands.

If you only used bp+hs once then you’re losing a lot of damage on the set. Try this trick: precast bp then extremely quickly hit infiltrator signet so that your blackpowder happens right on your opponent. You can then heartseeker into it and if they dodge or use a movement skill to get away cast backstab and quickly steal to connect the BS and mug.

Using two melee sets is quite redundant; I suggest you pick d/d or d/p and use shortbow as the swap

If this is a whining thread about PUGs then really dude… it’s a PUG go smash some skulls and have fun. If it’s a coordinated team with voice-chat then you should be yelling at them instead of making random forum threads.

I’ve had much more success with outside point strats when the opponent team bunkers down mid hard anyways.

I refuse to play s/p because of how boringly simple it is. It needs to require more skill… I really felt bad when playing it. I think this kit either needs the damage, evade time, and overall animation time reduced or the initiative cost increased. If the duration of PW was reduced it’d be less impactful to be hit by one and the overall evasion time would be reduced some. That being said, sword and pistol don’t mesh well together… the whole kit really does need to be redesigned.

Play what you like. That being said, if you want to use the full range of skills and tactics with d/p then it’s usually best to go 30 into trickery. By doing that you still have great damage and enough initiative to do more than black powder and heartseeker. When you do it right you’ll find you have the initiative for a ton of blinds and cluster bombs. You don’t even need to stealth much with the kit…