Guild Wars 2

Yeah, it works, but it’s a lot more noticable without Signet of Shadows equipped.

Basically, the way run speed works, is that outside of combat you move at 100% speed. In combat, you move at something like 70% speed. In combat with Fleet Shadow (and in Stealth), you run at 120% speed, and with Swiftness, at 103% speed. The universal speed limit for GW2 is 133% (Swiftness out of combat), so Fleet Shadow out of combat in Stealth will only hit that cap and not go to 150%, but in combat it will.

Note that I made those numbers up, but that’s basically how it works.

I assume that Zepidel meant to say hold down your right mouse button at all times while playing.

Two questions for you:

1. How do you turn? By this I mean, do you turn using your A and D keys?
2. How do you use your skills? By this I mean, do you click on them on the bar?

The answer to those two questions will help a lot.

I don’t think you have to sugar coat anything, but instead of saying, “Oh look, someone just posted without reading anything”, it would have taken less effort to just go on with correcting him as you did afterwards.

I’m not trying to start an argument with you, so I’ll leave it at that, I just wish people wouldn’t be unnecessarily snappy.

Wish, dude, I appreciate you publishing your theorycrafting and math as much as the next guy, but you don’t have to be such a tool to people offering an alternative and wanting to join the discussion. So he didn’t read the entire thread, big deal, you could have just pointed him to the post before proceeding to give him the thorough details.

A few more things that can be a lot of fun:

1. Disrupt enemy supply by killing Dolyaks and soloing supply camps on the opposite side of the map from your own zerg, this means that basically all of their supply is gone.
2. Defend your supply camp against enemy roamers, this can be a lot of fun when its you and a few NPC’s against 1-5 people, especially if you can kill them one by one.

A lot of the time the best fun to be had while roaming is o create your own challenges. Defending a supply camp 1vX is one of my favourites, personally. It’s even better when I win and get to corpsejump them. :P

Either of the builds in this thread are perfect for Thief in WvW (and will work in PvE) with D/D, D/P, or S/D as main set with SB as your secondary. The one with Mug is focussed on burst with D/D or D/P and the other on survivability; both are heavily focussed on stealth. Note that if you use S/D you should change Hidden Killer to Executioner in the Critical Strikes traitline.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/2#post2219825

The author of that thread is very helpful and I’m sure he’d be more than willing to answer any questions you have about them.

Finally, look up Yishis team and solo roaming videos on YouTube. He’s a very good Thief and has exellent commentary for learning.

Good luck, and have fun.

Rissou.7213:

I think i have to agree with those other people, more often than not you see the d/p thief win, which they wouldnt if they had any other weapon set.

Even as thief i think d/p is kittenkitten cheap in a good thieves hand.

Seriously? It’s our most functional weapon set, but it doesn’t make a bad player better.

Travlane.5948:

not nerf bp….. but balance it so ther is no PERMA invis. i dont mind LONG invis. but no need for perma…. but the POINT of this post is why is ANET nerfing thieves ONLY for the guantlet. i mean ther is nothign stated. excuse the spelling im on my cell.

I’m sorry, but BP is already balanced. There’s absolutely nothing overpowered about pseudo-permastealth whatsoever and I’m getting pretty sick and kittening tired of hearing everyone complain about it, especially Thief players!

What you’re talking about is a straight up nerf, and a useless one at that. Stick to the topic of your thread and leave the QQing to the non-Thief players who don’t know how to counter a D/P Thief and aren’t willing to learn just how easy it is to do.

3/10, too obvious.

It used to evade and they changed it to reflect because it was too OP, NEXT.

Why the hell would you want them to nerf BP?!

Read this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/New-Thief-I-have-no-idea-what-I-am-doing/first#post2571628

Got to the Heart of the Mists and experiment with the different weapon sets on the golems until you have a decent idea of what weapon set you like best, then try it out in PvE.

Pro tip: The fastest (and most fun, in my opinion) way to level is D/D + Shortbow focussing on condition damage with Death Blossom which will make you as unkillable as your Necromancer (especially if you trait right for it, which is actually very easy as you level, since almost every trait you get is going to directly benefit you if you do it right).

x/P with Power/Crit will also work fairly well on everything but the Dredge, but you won’t have the AoE power that you do with Death Blossom on D/D. Also, playing this and just hitting 5 every 4 seconds and auto-attacking in between is boring as kitten, but it’s up to you.

Good luck, hope I helped.

Of course not, and thank kitten for it! Why anyone would want that crap is beyond me.

I think this is more of an issue with the OP being used to other MMO’s where a heavy with maxed out defensive stats is practically unkillable, rather than just anything else.

Again, the devs have known about this for months, so what the hell is the point of trying to inform them? That’s like trying to let them know that Warrior’s are great in PvE, it’s completely pointless and a waste of forum space.

What’s the point of recording this to “show the devs”? They’ve been aware of this since it was discovered months ago and haven’t done anything about it because it’s not even close to being a problem.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoa8YlUmaPHdy5E/5Ey2jdqC5JuHOlR1UdFwKA-j0yAYrBRTUApCBmQAl8kWTfChtBp1+gQoaBTVSEV7NKiWNA-w

You can replace the orbs with divinity, replace the valkyrie with soldier, and replace all of the trinkets with ascended trinkets that are primarily berseker and berserker/valkyrie.

All you need, anything else is a waste of time. You can also replace the 10 points in acro with 10 points in DA for mug.

I’ve been using this lately and it’s great for boon heavy classes or to control someone while an ally bursts them down, just keep a Shortbow in your inventory for siege/zerg fights and you’ll be sweet.

As for your traits and gear, just go x/30/30/x/x with Hidden Killer and put the last 10 wherever you like, most people go for either Mug in DA or Descent of Shadows/Fleet Shadow in Acro, and then get Valkyrie gear and orbs with Berserker trinkets.

Works like a charm.

If it was the same Thief then it had to have occurred in 3.5 – 4 seconds at the very minimum. If it was two Thieves with the same title then it is easily done.

I am more inclined to believe that it was two Thieves and you just didn’t notice because they were both in stealth (a lack of Cloak and Dagger/Black Powder leads me to believe that they used a utility stealth).

Either that, or it’s a combat log bug as mentioned by Pavel.

Assuming this is in PvP, 5 Scholar + 1 Divinity offers the highest direct damage boost mathematically (someone feel free to correct me if 6 Ogre runes are in fact higher).

You need to have Infusion of Shadow (10 in Shadow Arts) and to aim your camera straight down which shortens the distance that Heartseeker does for some reason… With enough practice, pulling off 3 HS through the field is a breeze. Also remember to never target anything or use HS if you’re in stealth and somebody is close by because you will proc revealed.

Finally, if you hit 5 then 2 straight away you will proc stealth 99% of the time even if the HS hits.

Quit claiming that this damage happened in a second. You already had it explained to you that the Thief hitting you with two Cloak and Dagger’s means that it was 4 seconds at the very least. If you, as an Engineer, the class that troubles Thieves the most, can’t counter his burst in FOUR SECONDS then not only is WvW not for you, all PvP in GW2 isn’t for you.

Post your builds all you want, Trav, but for kitten sake man, stop declaring that they are the best Thief builds. This is the second or third mediocre P/D build you’ve posted and it’s just as bad as the other(s).

Seriously, even your claims that other weapon sets can only 1v1 is ridiculous. Speak for yourself, but I can 1v3+ with D/D, D/P, S/D and even S/P, all using almost the exact same trait allocation. I guarantee I would beat you in any duel with any of these sets.

wish.1027:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

qft

x 359823962 + 1

Why? No… just no…

I’m not going to actually give a post full of reasons why because 1. No, just no… 2. I can’t be bothered 3. It would take me an hour to do a write up on why this is so terrible.

However, I will say one thing:

Your notion that stealth in this game is an insult to stealth is ridiculous. Stealth in this game is how Anet decided to make it. That’s like saying that Guild Wars 2 is an insult to MMO’s because there’s no healing class. This is your opinion, and it’s entirely wrong. You can’t say that “this game mechanic is wrong, this game mechanic only works like this” because a game mechanic works however the kitten the developers want it to work.

No mate, just no.

EDIT: Lol @ your apparent belief that “troll builds” are somehow useless or unfair and not to be taken seriously.

frans.8092:

gesho.9468:

i’m practicing backstab thief and stealth. i’ve seen some thieves maintaining perm in-combat (spvp) stealth no probs. i’ve tried everything but still not quite there.

best i managed so far is combo in d/p:
blackPowder(p5)+
heartSeeker(d2)+
goBackInLingeringBlackPowderField+
heartSeeker(d2)

…and recycle. this gives what, 8 sec I believe?

Black Powder
Heartseeker
AboutFace (180 turn)
Heartseeker
Heartseeker

All you need is the Init on stealth trait and +1 sec stealth trait to be able to maintain stealth indefinitely.

This, although 15 Shadow Arts doesn’t work with the combo and never has.

BrunoBRS.5178:

offence.4726:

Nothing is considered a loss , untill you get STOMPED.

that’s the thief way. if you’re not lying dead on the ground, you haven’t lost, no matter what you resorted to.

If you run away because they’ve beaten the crap out of you then yes, you’ve lost, regardless of whether or not you got stomped.

Cyhann.2609:

Wastrelz.8235:

Yeah, some non-targeted AOE might help a little, since a P/P Thief will get totally pwned by any stealth-build thief.

What? No!
Just use 5 and stand in the circle, and then shoot at where he might be~
Really those are not the Problem if you play p/p.

Do that and I’ll stand outside of the ring and auto-attack you down. The field isn’t large enough to stop people from meleeing you from outside of it or it’d be OP, so it’s horrible for countering any melee player who knows about it.

I use the following for maximum damage (the runes offer the highest direct damage combination mathematically when combined with the traits and sigils):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUm6NHdy5E/5Ex2jdKUe6fgs6MoZLB-TsAg0CnIqRxljLDXSuscNKYZxkCA

Sometimes I’ll swap to D/P, depends on the mood, but both work well as long as you know the combos.

If it’s a proper duel (/bow first, or established via chat that it is) then I will never run and I will stay until one of us has been stomped.

If it’s just an open world 1v1 fight where two roamers have met, I’ll run if I get low enough, and then hunt them down and try repeatedly until they are dead. I’ve had many great fights that way, and I’ve improved my skill dramatically by repeatedly fighting superior opponents.

To answer another question, yes, I believe that if I run during a 1v1 open world duel that I have lost. They beat me, I was forced to get the hell out of there or be stomped. The fact that I return creates a new fight each time.

I wouldn’t think that it had changed from 25/30/0/0/15, nothing has been buffed significantly enough elsewhere to make it anything else (besides using Shadow Trap over Signet of Shadows).

They should just reverse it, it’s obvius that it was only done so that shortbows are consistent across both Thief and Ranger classes (and until a dev ever bothers to grace us with their presence to explain some of their decisions I refuse to accept anything else as an explanation).

This build can be used with S/D, D/D, and D/P, take your pick of which weapon set and enjoy:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaPHdy5E/5Ey2jdqCJKuHOlR1UdFwKA-jUyAYLBRiCIZBiIAk+KiGbfoIasqFMVJRUt3oIa1A-w

NOTE: If you’re using S/D, change Hidden Killer to Executioner. Also, you can optionally change the 10 points in Acrobatics to Deadly Arts for Mug for that little bit of extra burst on your steal and to guarantee a Basilisk Venom stun.

Travlane.5948:

tired of hearing really dumb threads like this. what does it affect if a thief can stay in stealth for a 1 hour with 1 skill for 1 init? nothing….. doesnt affect team score in spvp or anything in wvw. the ONLY thing it might affect is 1 v 1 and THAT has no place in this game. so again another dumb thread with pointless QQing.

I usually disagree with everything Trav says, but this, so kittening much this * infinity.

Thieves could be given a 60 second stealth utility with a 1 second cool down and it would be just as useless for actual objectives as any form of stealth stacking. The only thing it would be useful for is open world PvE and practically no class has any trouble there because of how easy it is.

morbidillusion.2759:

The real problem with Thief is that ANet never addresses the actual issues people have with thief. Today I got opened on by a thief for a 2500 mug + 7500 CnD + 14000 backstab with 2600 toughness (as a level 80 thief).

You would have 2600 armour, not toughness, and that’s really not that much. All that means is that you have soldiers armour and 30 in Shadow Arts. Considering you’re a Thief, you’re not supposed to be able to soak damage. Also, Guild Wars 2 is about active defence, not passive, so don’t expect any class to soak hits. Finally, unless you were naked and the Thief had high might stacks, those numbers aren’t possible.

morbidillusion.2759:

Instead of nerfing the actual BS with thieves they nerfed literally everything else.

Actually, BV, CnD and Mug have all been nerfed, and tbh, I haven’t died to the BS combo in months, perhaps you should rebind your stun breaker to something easy like middleclick (you do carry Shadowstep for your breaker, right?) until you get used to using it when you get BV’d.

Until somebody can explain how a Thief in stealth is actually negatively affecting objectives in WvW/PvP for anyone but his own team, stealth stacking is 100% balanced and does not need a fix.

end;

TsukiNoEi.4570:

All above
Do you really tested before you leave the comment?

You can get +50% movement speed in&out of combat
just move together with someone in swiftness and you will see

Don’t give wrong informations again please

Agreed, I use Fleet Shadow in WvW and I frequently outrun other roamers while I’m stealthed and they have swiftness.

Aether McLoud.1975:

There hasn’t been a single MMO to date where the stealthy burst archetype was balanced. It just isn’t possible.

You’re right, Thief is currently underpowered and needs some damage buffs to bring it back up on par with the other classes.

Like Xmtrcv said above me, you basically answered your own question. Snare a Thief and they’re dead regardless of what build they’re running.

Also, just to clear something up, a Thief using D/P for a pseudopermenant stealth isn’t able to burst people down in seconds, ttheir damage isn’t that great. Secondly, they gain stealth by using Heartseeker through Black Powder. If you stand in it then they can’t use it to gain more than a single 3 second stealth.

What do you want to do in WvW? Roaming? Zerg battles? Party roaming? All 3?

ARM.3912:

Ordamus.1978:

Hi just like my title states I am trying to decide on either playing a thief or ele. After the patch I am just curious which is better for pve for doing fractals, farming, and some WvW.

I wanna play a more melee role not sure how well ele does that compared to thief. I like thief except I started one and their survivability at low lvls is very poor. That or I am just playing wrong lol.

Ele I enjoy as well but I don’t like switching elements every 10 secs gets really annoying.

Thief kills things, moves quickly, and can escape anything.

Ele dies, and dies some more.

Why is that a choice for you?

Ignore this guy, he has no idea what he’s talking about and appears to be stuck in the month post-launch where Elementalists were considered the weakest class.

hyjaxxx.1584:

Im firmly convinced that every single employee of Anet plays a thief. of course the thief community will scream otherwise..but until missing,being dodged, or blocked takes a thief out of stealth…i will continue to believe that the class is being coddled by the devs.

I’m not going to go into why you’re wrong on every count, but trust me, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We have only ever had less than a handful of posts from devs, and one thread created in attempt to put all of the QQ in one thread so that our forum might become as useful to fellow Thieves as other class forums.

Sadly, nothing has changed, the hundreds of pages long thread has disappeared under the flood of QQ and it’s unlikely we’ll ever get a dev respond to any of our serious feedback or suggestions. It has never happened, and I doubt it will any time soon.

6/10 for effort, but you came across a little strong, too obvious for any experienced Internet roamer.

Blnt.

Travlane.5948:

underwater RFI gave you like 2000 distance and same for withdraw almost. now its both at half. but only withdraw is in the notes. wtf?

They missed one a note, big kittening deal. A total of 2400 range is still easy escaping.

Craig.2403:

Alex.6940:

Do damage numbers appear in your combat log if you hit someone in stealth?

No, but if it is a chain attack, you will notice the chain progress. Also, if the skill has a visual effect that takes place on the target (most noticeable is ranger’s entangle, which leaves binding roots on the target) it will appear where the thief is, letting you know where the thief was when that skill hit the thief.

99.9999% sure that they do show up in the combat log.

Leave it as is, your gear setup is already very efficient. If you have more than 15k hp you can put some of those Zerker pieces back on and mix them to keep 50%+ crit chance and over 15k hp.

Why 15k? No special reason, it’s just a good round number for a Thief.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Here is the gear iam using.. and the gear i have been 3 hitted in.
I whould think that 2.5 k armor + 20 k hp, whould be enough…
(edit: it only look like 18.9k on stats. but its actually 19.8 on life bottle/screen).

But it seems that Armor classes in this game are just cosmetics.
I have like 600 – 800 more armor than my elemental, wich is using light…
Now thats just plain weird.

Maybe i live in a different reality…
But i honestly think that heavy metal armors should protect a hell of a lot more than cloth.

in GW2:
my Heavy, metal armor.
is helping to protect me the same as if i whould use recycled toilettpaper…
it doesnt seem to help for schit…

Who does the whole tought processing at A-net ??
Who ever it is, he/she must live in a very very very strange reality.

Just on a side note:
My 1 hand weapons, do the same dmg as my BIG kitten sword and super sledge hammer…???
In my reality, people made BIG 2 handed weapons to inflict a TON more dmg per swing…
My test against lvl 80 wolves. found in wvw. iam traited for rifle. nothing else.
my 1 hand axe. auto crits = 1.800-2.400.
my 2 hand great sword. auto crits = 1.400 – 2.000 umm… wtf… its less… ?? !! ???
my 2 hand hammer. auto crits = 2.400 – 3.100. now we are atleast on the right way…

Lmfao @ your level of Toughness, my balanced Thief build has more than that!

You’re a glass cannon Warrior who got burst down by a glass cannon Thief. Only thing I can say is L2P.

Please just stop spamming our forum with your crappy threads. Seriously dude, it got old long ago.

Elementalist Owner.7802:

Same for me.. This error is not on my end, as my internet connection is running very smoothly for everything other than GW2.

Here’s a tip ANet: if you make people pay for your game, let them play it.

How dare you insinuate that Anet is doing this on purpose. It’s childish, unnecessary, and completely illogical.

Here’s a tip: before blaming someone or something, make sure it’s likely to be intentional first.

I usually only laugh if someone runs from me or I manage to drop someone who overextended from the group that was trying to kill me and/or my roaming partner.

I find that nothing gives me more rage adds/whisps than laughing on a corpse before proceeding to corpsejump them. <3

Fenrir.5493:

Incurafy.6329:

Fenrir.5493:

Homonavn.6348:

DanH.5879:

the only thing thief is good for, is trolling the wvw players via roaming (1vs1 surprise attacks)
glass builds+stealth= win or withdraw

what you see is what you get

Thats kind of what i think aswell. And it does look like fun to roam and surprise someone with a 5k backstab or something. And use like a perma stealth build and keep like 10 players busy. I have seen that happen alot. Well, its going to get nerfed most likely, but still

More like 10k+ backstab and instagibing some people.

You have no idea what you’re talking about, quit exaggerating.

---

OP: Getting your Thief to 80 is definitely worth it and is a lot of fun. You won’t be too useful in zergs compared to any other class but roaming and small skirmishes are our strong points.

For your build, go valkyrie armour and zerker weapons/trinkets with 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 with Hidden Killer etc and S/D + SB or D/D + SB and you’ll have the time of your life.

Oh yeah… tell that to this kind of threads:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-Backstab-Picture/first#post2185307

Im pretty sure thats more than i suggested.

You mean the thread with faked, exaggerated numbers that I already commented in? Good job with that one, try reading next time.

sorrow.2364:

Jack of Tears.9458:

And they shouldn’t be able to, they got their strength and weaknesses, we got ours. If it’s just a matter of feeling cool, if the Thief has to run away because ya beat her down to almost nothing, you still won.

Win is subjective. In fact, if the thief manage to run away:
1. He isn’t locked to respawn time to be useful again to his team. He would probably run to another node in tPvP/sPvP or he can just wait to re-engage with more manpower.
2. He doesn’t give you badges and he doesn’t have to pay the repair costs in WvWvW.

I can’t really see how this can be considered a win. Psychological win, maybe?
To my point of view, Thief won.

1. If a Thief runs in PvP then you have won because you forced him off the point and you cap it for your team. This isn’t up for debate, it’s fact.
2. If a Thief runs from you in WvW then it’s because you’ve beaten the crap out of them and they now realise that they won’t survive if they stay. From a fight perspective, you won, they can’t turn around and beat you all of a sudden. From a design perspective, Thief is the class that does it best, and they are designed to be able to do so. You don’t need to get badges or give them a repair bill to win, that’s just ridiculous.