I want to support Setsunayaki in this. I’ve never been a damage-pushing player, but unfortunately almost every kind of support except massive boon spam and quickness ressing is completely useless. Most of the fields in mass battles cannot be seen. Stealthing allies in a midst of combat is practically useless. Any kind of sharing (venoms, auras) is severely limited and cannot be controlled. And absence of single target support except ressing is just sad.
Edit: a bit of off-topic and I already said that, but would be nice to have long-cooldown mass effects (rune of monk (6) for example) be a little bit more friendly?
(edited by Ichishi.9613)
summons will always try to follow the summoner so kiting is always effective. If there is a valid reason for you to be alone against a thief without a clear advantage your best bet is any kind of obstacle that can force both thief and npc move a lot and can provide some protection against backstabs. I, as a venomous aura thief, can tell you that if for some reason I am forced to 1v1 and I will be willing to and will manage to swap basilisk with thieves guild – you probably won’t be able to move until your death.
Lesson is – either don’t go alone or at have some countermeasures. Rock, house, camp guards and even single veteran point defender can save you from this
Healing powa + toughness + sword/pistol + venoms is what I do in PvE. thats 30/20/20. You have perma weakness on mobs, you have crazy amounts of heals through signet of malice + venom lifesteals, and you basically need just to autoattack and pop venoms when health is low. For anything you can’t outheal with passives theres aoe and single target blind to spend initiative on. Big nasty things are to be interrupted with 4th skill. For single targets switch sword for dagger for a more reliable heal and weakness. If you are not lazy and willing to press many buttons and time your actions shortbow outperforms any other weapon combination as long as there are at least 2 targets with crazy heals, evades, aoe
(edited by Ichishi.9613)
revealing is only triggered if:
1) thief leaves stealth by attacking
2) thief leaves shadow refuge during its duration
in all other cases revealing WILL NOT be triggered (and that how it should be)
venom should be carefully thought over. Basilisk venom SHOULD reset its duration, not stack it. But devourer should stack duration.
Wasting venoms into thin air and most (yes, absolutely most) skills do not apply venoms at all. All this combined makes venomous aura trait and whole idea of support thief very sad.
Also, not really a thief issue, but it really got me that after days of farming sup monk rune (6) bonus has an unmentioned cd, rendering a good addition to already not so good support thief wasted 50% of time. I would have never considered taking an upgrade that I cannot rely on. Either I get aegis on every Basilisk venom, or i don’t want it at all. So please, if removing cd is not an option due to balancing, clearly state any such information on all runes (Lyssa has same issue too)
well if it comes to “touching” like in the name of the topic id really prefer steal alone not to be touched ever. At the moment it is really a most fun, useful and is the trademark of thieves as it is. Porting without breaking the cast is what I consider the leading point of thieves “mobility”.
And to add to what EasymodeX said – for a combo to be instant thief will have to port to your BACK.
Okay I’ll make it as short and understandable as possible before I leave this topic completely.
1) There is a problem with rendering after stealth, not with the stealth itself
2) Backstab is the ONLY thief skill that benefits from assasin’s signet
3) Backstab is the ONLY thief skill that benefits fully from 100% crit in stealth talent
4) There is a problem with people. I know I cannot expect same I could during GW1 prime from people, but please. ANET really reads this and listens to everyone. So please, if you want to say anything do that like an objective report of an issue. With facts, numbers and other things.
Because people come here, complain “i haz 2k tough and 20k hp and get oneshot”. I am at freaking 1850 tough in greens and 13k hp and I don’t get oneshotted by anything even remotely. Guildies with some remote investment into defensive traits and gears just laugh at this kind of statements.
you know Kholer in AC? You know, if you get pulled by his ability and don’t have a stun breaker you’ll be killed instantly? NERF HIM
I hope there is enough people here that can understand the analogy
pistol whip is okay, except the part between landing stun and starting to evade. Its just damage nerf that had more impact on pve than pvp.
Aside from shadow form, there was no skill too stong in pve in gw1. And the rest of balancing was always about HA/GvG not random arenas and alliance battles.
I see more problems in wvw with scoring system, with the fact that such important things as caravans can be killed with zero effort with any kind of any leveled lone character and camps that can be captured by 1-2 players once buff on claimer is gone.
I am yet to experience problems with my own or any other thieves’ op-ness in WvW
Stealth. YES RENDERING IN WVW IS BUGGED. But seriously. One of the key features of GW2. If you can show off your skills and flashy aoe’s in a middle of a town why can’t you do a pair of swings / fields around if you if you suspect thief to be near. Or ask nearby allies (if theres none, look at point 1) to “UNLEASH HELL IN DIRECTION”. Without a bug, gw2 stealth is the least op stealth i’ve ever seen in any mmo.
Going to point 3. Lets start with that epic hax backstab damage. So my backstab crits squshies for about 2-3k. Now that’s really op. Considering it is my greatest damaging ability and at the same time only offensive use for a stealth on a stealth specced thief. Oh and I actually need to be at back of my enemy and to actually crit (with my 4% crit) it. Considering I can only get in stealth with 8 ini points combo or by jumping of a cliff. Certainly in need of a nerf.
Now there are other thieves. Glass cannons, signet, might stacking, precasting CnD (actually, shadowstep that did not interrupt actions is the only thing gw1 lacked and the most awesome thing intentionally introduced in gw2) and mugging people with over 30k total damage in some seconds.
Now lets see. A thief that dies (or at least gets really sad and discouraged with his build) from few random things thrown his way made his way unnoticed by you and the zerg/guild/party near you into a range of a steal, by some incredible luck his steal teleported him right at you back so he could just press the signet button to kill you. Well, its not suprising these days. Considering we managed to build with 10 random people 3 ballistas in 1000 feet range behind a zerg hitting their rams (heads) into the gate without a single rock thrown our way.
Seriously. You can probably count the amount of skills that you cannot use while moving in this whole game on one hand. So this point being – if you are not moving – you are either casting an unmovable skill, sitting in siege thing or doing something wrong. Considering You SHOULD HAVE noticed thief before he could port to you I cannot imagine how hard it can be to start moving and turning around (if for some strange reason you werent doing so before). And hold you finger on a dodge button. Not on a pewpew skill.
Now I want to sleep more than to write more so I will continue after. Do note that I am here because for somehow I am suddenly killing mobs in pve 15% slower with one of the weapons for absolutely no reason. And I would hate to lose the only offensive use for my stealth and my only DAMAGING move beside cluster for the reasons like 1) people running alone on WORLD vs WORLD map of mmo oriented for teamplay 2) caring about deaths/kills in a OBJECTIVE mass pvp where you can be ressed instantly with no penalty
3) not paying attention (tunnel vision aka ambush backstab in melee range with a ballista)
4) not moving in a game that does no penalize you for doing so (if you consider yourself too bad to dodge/move away from few things, you could at least FACE backstab)
5) crying and begging and complaining everywhere and forcing ANET (they have a bit of a trouble with realising the difference between gw1 and gw2 communities) doing unneeded things.
P.S. I am not defending those op thieves. I am not denying thives’ strengths.
I am protecting thief as a versatile class that can be usefull and fun in many situations with many builds. I am claiming that this class does not need nerfing but is in a proccess of tuning.
In guild team I play with (1-2 parties mostly) I’ve never experienced lone or small bunches of thieves no matter how awesome they are to pose any difficulties other that actually killing them (that noone should really care abbout). I do not want my thief (that somehow is not killed by those cannons even with my noobishness due to a late start in game) to be denied of that little I still have in terms of offense because of some or many simply better and better geared that simply do not understand the rules by which WvW should be played and evaluated
(edited by Ichishi.9613)
I finally got to the forums (thanks, hard-working A-net people) and though I play a thief, I did chose this proffession long before GW2 was out, and only due to the fact that Rt/A is my most precious experience from still as epic as ever GW1.
I would like to note that I never liked pure damage builds, and even if I played one I’d be sure to create one from a scratch.
So currently, I am a support thief, venom shares and +1 to venom ticks, gear is all cleric. I’d even go as far as to say I am a newbie, since I didn’t rearrange hotkeys with the exception of 3 – turn around button, look back button, dodge button.
First thing I want to share as my opinion – even if GW2 is much more solo-friendly, I was never meant to be a game with any sensible XvY fights, where any of X and Y is any number lower than 5. This bring me to a first point – if, at any time, you are in any of such situations – you or your opponent or even more likely both – are doing something wrong. Of course, it cannot be always avoided. But if you are facing a situation where you, for example, are alone you should realise that there is noone watching your back. And you should AT LEAST look around yourself constantly and even better, switch your weapon set/utility skills to defensive ones. Because if I (4% crit rate and ~1600 power with zero damaging traits) can run a minute after you, switching my skills for a fight with you, change weapons and traits and bring you to half hp with zero stealth skills before you notice me, I can imagine what can trained glass cannons do to you. Since the start of serious WvW business I never experinced letting thief get into the range of steal unnoticed. Unlike mesmers. I am sorry, but if you cannot spot a person that needs to cover at very LEAST 2000 feet to come in range in an empty area, you deserve to die because I is you who takes up spots in que instead of people that are better. This covers the SUPRIZE part of the opness. Moving to next one.