Guild Wars 2

You seem to mix mobility and land speed together. They are two different things. I would however, add 25% speed to Pistol Mastery or Ankle Shots, that set lacks both.

Shadow Embrace/Shadow Resilience combined would be nerf. No longer 2pts but six to get a reliable condi removal.

Stealth and channeled skills – this one is not easy to change, think what a ranger/any ranged build could do against a thief that can stealth up anytime such as D/P. Any hard hitting skill on you? Just stealth up and that’s it. It’d be broken as hell.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Video guide, on how to use Infinite Infiltrator’s Strike:
http://youtu.be/o1vW5kfyoXE

x_x bad Menzies baaaaaad

Not talking about the switched off brain situation when a thief doesn’t notice reveal on him and tries to stealth. In my situation, I knew the ranger would use sic em since he did that few times already and had pretty good timing on using reveal just as I would throw SR down.

So this time, I used blinding power since it’s instant, got stealth on me and while in stealth, he put reveal on me (and I was still in stealth). The stealth itself didn’t seem bugged, I saw myself invisible, stealth icon on buff bar and the ranger with his friend didn’t react to me till stealth from BP finished.

Arikyali.5804:

This is just a thought, but what if…P/P was played like a zerk LB ranger?

Wonder if it’s even possible…

I tried that with 6/6/2/0/0 build and zerk gear, not really optimal for P/P but unload hurts a lot. You are a toast if you can’t wep swap and get jumped by zerg or condi bombed.

The effects stack and can proc at the same time.

When I tried it with +40% condi duration food and my usual build (6 in DA), I could keep near perma cripple on the dolyak. Didn’t get time to test it in wvw.

I think the sigil is really nice for P/P. Few months back when I was fooling around in WvW with this wep set, I tried Ankle Shots and the cripple can be really helpful cos most people don’t waste their condi cleanse on it, except some builds cleanse it passively, not much to do against those. But 3s of cripple on 10cd is not enough.

They could either lower the cd on Ankle Shots or add chill proc to it as well.

Would be awesome with the new Dry Top food that gives +40% condi duration and lifesteals on crit.

Sigil of Incapacitation
2s of cripple
5s cd
60% on crits with any wep

Ankle Shots
3s cripple
10cd
60% on crits with pistols

gg Anet, the way to go to make less used traits even more useless.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Care to give more details on your sig? It has always intrigued me.

the krytan assassin.9235:

well, yes maybe i was wrong in saying the word tanky, however whining about the choice of words is just simple minded. Like i explained the abilities the thief has to reduce the incoming amount of damage by evading/porting/stealthing completely takes away the fact that they have poor HP. Apart from that low HP pull it’s all about traiting, every1 who ever played a P/D thief knows that they have immense surviveability because of their traitline. It your own fault if you die if you want to be that guy who roles full zerker. Ever seen/played a zerker ele be4? that’s alot worse then thief (less armor, no stealth and less moveability) and therefore there aren’t alot of persons playing it.

when you complain about your surviveability just roll more defensive LTP by using your moveability+stealth+stuns and slowly work towards zerker again

Yeah sure, lets compare thief survivability cos you played a P/D thief…. that build has insane survability mainly due to dire gear that alone shows your lack of understanding how the class works.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

mango.9267:

3 seconds of protection on reveal is incredibly OP, especially if there’s no ICD.

Being revealed by getting knocked out of Refuge is fine. There are fairly established play and counterplay mechanics to Shadow Refuge.

I think the better solution would be to give opponents the ability to see stealth targets instead of revealing the targets themselves.

This is what I always mention when posting on revealed threads, it would solve the problem when reveal is just an iWin button for the opponent while actually allowing them to see a thief. Even with longer durations, those skills would be fine.

I doubt anet is going to change how revealed works. That is why I am offering an alternative, to turn an iWin into a tactical choice.

That way, players will have to choose between revealing the thief at the cost of buffing them or leave them alone. Besides, Lingering Shadows does mostly what you guys want.

Although you suggested a trait that would literaly do the same, I’d still prefer revealed skills to be changed to invisibility removal skills.

The trait would become a must have for any thief to survive, anyone without the trait would be a toast just like now. Ofc thieves can build for no stealt specs, it still doesn’t justify why 1 utility can shut down so much a thief can do offensively and defensively. My main concern with reveal skill is no condi removal, which wasn’t as apparent when only rangers had access to reveal, with engies now it’s ridiculous.

A player who’d slot reveal skill against a thief with that trait would just waste his utility slot – 6s of invisibility removal is just not enough.

In most cases a reveal is used on me, it is to prevent me from condi cleansing. Either when a ranger is roaming with another player using a condi build or engi alone.

You can see in team fights when enemy uses stealth trap, that thieves just melt, while everyone else can ignore the reveal debuff on them.

mango.9267:

3 seconds of protection on reveal is incredibly OP, especially if there’s no ICD.

Being revealed by getting knocked out of Refuge is fine. There are fairly established play and counterplay mechanics to Shadow Refuge.

I think the better solution would be to give opponents the ability to see stealth targets instead of revealing the targets themselves.

This is what I always mention when posting on revealed threads, it would solve the problem when reveal is just an iWin button for the opponent while actually allowing them to see a thief. Even with longer durations, those skills would be fine.

Fivona.5061:

Ranger is great in PVE, you can adapt in everything.

Full zerker ranged and melee dps.
Full support.
Support pets, dps pets, tank pets.
Tanky Melee dps-support meta.

Anyone calls ranger “scrub” class, They are ignorant or never met decent ranger.

Unfortunately the latter. All those buffs don’t change the fact that average ranger spams his skills as soon as they off cd.

Spy accounts don’t chit chat in middle of wvw map with guildies.

Thief for the best disengage in the game.
Lb ranger if you prefer sniper style.
Engi for the most yolo gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifH9qMo_KX8

I hoped I’d never see a thief build using nomad gear, the stats are good just for ninja nurse build.

I wrote during a fight not during that first DS.

Thief hate, it’s all just human psychology.

A mesmer can down you from full health with one combo. Engi doesn’t even need to use wep skill to down a squishie. Guard gs 5,4 + 2 and few people are downed. The currently hated rapid fire can down you from full HP as well.

Most skills/combos show up in combat log as a bunch of small hits.

Killshot/evis that hit hard as a single skill are not as hated as backstab. You can see them, you can react to the actual attacks. It gives the target hope that he might be able to avoid those attacks. All his utitlies on cd, endurance low, HP low but still he can see the attack coming and try to avoid it.

Then there is backstab.

It’s the opposite of all the above.

Unseen, high damaging attack delivered into the target’s back. It’s creepy and feeds people’s paranoia.

A thief stealths up, you don’t know if he ran away, he could be harvesting a nearby node (I sometimes do while SR is up and that zerg failed to aoe bomb my SR. I don’t waste time). If I do that when fighting someone just as my stealth is about to wear off, ooooo that rage when they see me mining bronze ore while they try their best to kill me.

I stealth up. All that goes through my target’s mind is the backstab. I can tell from how widly he keeps turning around that he can feel my breath on his back. I can deliver my attack now or just wait a little longer or even CnD again.

It’s up to me to prolong the uncertainty.

Backstabbing someone is a play of no honour, of course thieves deserve to be hated.

In a fight with warr, first time he used killshot, I reflected it back with DS then during the fight he ran off to reset his HP, well, that’s what I assumed and then ate his killshot through my DS. Watch for signet of might on rifle warrs.

Stealth is quite buggy lately, although these bugs happen far less than other bugs. Usually stealth drops for no reason (I don’t deal any dmg), I can be standing in my SR, not attacking, nobody pushes me out and then stealth is suddenly gone. No reveal either and enemies see me. Even in pve, once I was stealthing up a party to skip mobs, SR, all good, we moved and 1s later we all lost stealth, no reveal on anyone. Just before the feature patch, in some group fight in wvw, I had both stealth and reveal buffs on me at the same time.

Sagat.3285:

DeceiverX.8361:

Xtinct.7031:

I’ve been getting a lot of haters/qq when I run P/D condi, even from fellow thief’s on my own server.

That’s because the build is cheesy and nobody likes it.

You must be one of the many that refuse to see the spec’s weaknesses and want to faceroll them at least decent players recognize they are fighting perplexity runes and condition food.

Let me guess he beat you 1v1…

I am one of the people that despise condi builds in wvw.Why? Dire and condi duration food, Anet’s lazy solution to get people interested in condi builds. So anytime a P/D condi thief asks for a duel in wvw, I say no. Ofc by doing this I avoid the chance to get better at fighting that particular set but I refuse to entertain anyone who runs to dire/condi food to get kills in wvw.

On topic, yes I still get QQ from other players, usually it’s mesmers and engies that qq most. There is one dragon rank mesmer I sometimes bump into in hotjoin that always chases me around the map or camps spawn and follows me from there (often with 1 or 2 others) and rages in chat.

In WvW, it’s often engies that qq about my unholy dmg or high pvp rank thieves that visit WvW, from them, it’s always whisper and block so I wouldn’t reply back.

I doubt people will stop qq’ing about thieves overnight, some attention is on rangers now but most players still see thieves as the OP class that shouldn’t lose to them.

Just before the patch, I found a team to try tpvp with, they don’t want thief anymore. I haven’t done any hotjoin recently so can’t tell how things are there. In wvw, I noticed a drop in thieves, I guess most are playing ranger now. The rest are P/D condi and at this point I am getting seriously rusty at fighting other power thieves.

I also hate rangers but for their use of knockback in pve.

On topic, don’t sleep while playing a thief, now you can at least avoid most of RF dmg by a single dodge or reflect it and rofl at a dead ranger.

foste.3098:

Do any of you realise that it is already possible to chain 2 backstabs, thanks to it’s 1/4 cast time.

Basically you cast the bs at the very end of stealth so that when it connects you are not actually in stealth, allowing you to cnd for another shot (the trait hidden thief is perfect for this since you can instantly get stealth with steal after the initial bs).

The downside of this is that traits like hidden killer do not work for the 1st backstab since you are delivering it out of stealth.

Try it on the practice golems in the pvp lobby.

Reveal on dmg doesn’t work this way. It is applied according to your stealth state when you DRAW the stealth skill or any skill actually. You can backstab when fully visible, you still gain revealed.

I’d consider sword buffed if they’d change LS to proc on block vs pre-patch sword. Also, CnD should have same dmg in pvp as in pve, no reason to keep it lower after steal nerf and ferocity.

A trait that would potentially allow to chain 2 backstabs, then you add it should be balanced so thieves couldn’t do 2 backstabs … what’s the point of your suggestion?

Why ranger’s and not engie’s?

Dayra.7405:

Nerf the loot of fresh killed people is one thing, but how about the balancing action of improve the loot of people not killed for a long time?

It’s not that WvW is already over-rewarded. And nerfing at one end without improving at the other is a overall nerf.

This is something I’d like to see. With visible bounty mark next to their rank.

Paddy.3985:

Well, the last 3 rangers I’ve fought have ran to the water once they started to lose so… just let em go I guess, just not fight rangers at all? I’m relatively new to this, that sounds… pretty dumb.

Well, they know you will have hard time killing them underwater so why shouldn’t they run there. You can’t do much about it, only during the fight on land, try to sort of pull them away from water? So they’d be too far by the time they want to run into it or save cc skills to stop them from getting into water.

Is 200 (250) extra power really that much better than 10% extra dmg considering any decent dungeon party stacks might?

Arikyali.5804:

If you can’t beat em, join em…-sigh-

I’m about ready to hang up my gorgeous WvW zerker set, the shiny sword, fancy daggers, ascended trinkets, and sneaky stealthy tactics. I’ve done my shopping/farming and got the meta – dire condi p/d.

I do not like P/D – it’s clunky, it’s “skill-less”, it’s slow, and it’s cheese. Dear flippin love, it’s more cheesy than a triple-cheese-lover New Yorker pizza. All I have to do, is press 1 and win? How, who – ok, genius whoever discovered this build, but come on! This is too easy!!

My scariest foes now eat the dirt, and mercy of kittens, how did I not die from that condi-spike? This – this is witchcraft! I am terrified of the possibility that I may forget how to play thief!

Must adaprt to survive, but how far must it go? Is this the future for my poor thief? Accursed to follow the condi meta? Has she no hope of regaining her fluid grace, and must be shackled to this clunky build?

IS THERE NO HOPE?!

…

Nope, not for you or any other people that play a build they don’t like. Just like server bandwagoners, you hop onto whatever wins the fights. Enjoy the cheese scrub.

Delta Blues.8507:

Yesterday I decided to get back to D/D thief for a while (WvW) and just wow… At first everything seemed right.. then i met a warrior who landed a stun on me, I ss away and i got rubberbanded right back. Then I was immobilized and tryed a cnd+steal while immob to get to stealth up and steal just went on cd without doing anything. Then I took an eviscerate to the face for 9k+ (running with 2,6k armor) and that was it.

It really feels like D/D is not getting you anywere. I haven’t played it for months and CnD feels so telegraphed and slow it’s quite sad really. I think that it would be enough to half it’s cast time to make it viable tbh

The class would be in a lot better spot if the bugs were fixed. No amount of buffs can compensate for skills that fail that often.

Steal, kittened up teleports, stealth bugs (tho rare in comparison to the previous 2), weird FS pathing – I though I’d just learn to use skill 3 after the patch only to find that FS either ignores a target or when it visually hits, it doesn’t register the hit to turn into LS (no blocks/invul etc).

P/P can be very nice in wvw until the enemies remember you and equip reflect. Well, I am speaking from T9 pov where everyone knows everyone :P

Sir Vincent III.1286:

nopoet.2960:

Also venomous knife hits like a truck.

You know what hits like a truck? Ele’s and Necro’s downed skills, not to mention Warrior’s second life skill.

Now compare those to Thief’s…case closed.

Imo, mesmer has the hardest hitting downed skill and to confuse thieves even more, it’s called “smoke bomb” in combat log.

Look at it from the bright side, at least you can play in a target rich environment :P

ErionHashimoto.3015:

Jessica Boettiger.2563:

It has been the case for a while now that players who very recently respawned are not worth any WXP. To bring other systems in-line with this, players who are not worth any WXP are now also not worth any loot or XP. We are aware that this also affects sigil stacks, and are evaluating whether we want to treat the stacks the same way: only when a player is worth WXP/XP and loot, can stacks be gained from killing them.

Are there any reasons besides consistency (which frankly is far from a valid reason) that made you implement this change?

A lot of players are unhappy about this, myself included.

I like this change even if that it means less xp/loot/stacks for me mainly because it doesn’t encourage more of spawn loot bag farming when the whole zerg camps a spawn.

Ergolicious.1507:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Ergolicious.1507:

The new cd on the aoe root elite is what’s making me complain the most. Of course the roots are killable…. IF YOU CAN kittenING HIT THEM because sometimes the hitbox gets totally kittened up or I noticed something else: you kill them or blink away and you’re still rooted in place for a good ~2-4 second – which seems to be a bug. Now when there are 3 rangers in the other team, that they all use this elite with 48 cd traited, it becomes QUITE annoying pretty fast.

Teleport only moves you, you have to use condi clear to get rid of immob.

No it actually removes it, most of the time. Elem’s blink, Mesmer’s blink, Thief’s withdraw too, etc. I’m not even sure it’s intended, the whole skill is glitchy as kitten.

LF/Blink don’t remove condis as far as I know, Blink breaks stun but immob is not stun anyway. Thief withdraw is not teleport and one of it’s effects is to remove specifically immob. So far LF/blink and shadowstep haven’t removed immob from me unless ofc the roots expired when I tp’d. Well, what I simply wanted to say, if i tp and then condi cleanse, I don’t have problem of being rooted after tp as you described.

Reinn.7436:

Frenk.5917:

Nah, thief is already in a not very good spot, it doesn’t need to be countered more.

Well, I’m speaking actually for Thieves out there than against them. The previous comment is actually good: a ground-target AoE that removes stealth for a short duration is much better since there is a metagame involved, rather than giving Thieves/Mesmers the Revealed debuff which ridiculously breaks the tempo of their game.

If you have an innovative approach to reworking the stealth mechanic post them here, I would love to hear from you.

I shall quote part of my post from other thread.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

5. The whole reveal issue would be solved if Anet separated actual reveal from losing invisibility, ie, thief deals dmg from stealth so he gets revealed with same effects as now. The current reveal skills rangers/engies have would apply “visibility debuff” which wouldn’t remove any stealth associated effects from thief (condi cleanse, stealth weapon skills, heals etc). Even if the duration on those skills would be increased, it wouldn’t be such a hard counter to thief as it is now and it would give other classes the tools to deal with what they QQ so much about, not seeing an enemy.

As long as any reveal skills or traps apply actual reveal instead of removing invisibility, they will be a hard counter to thieves.

PsiKann.9853:

I am on a EU server.

If you are interested, msg in game “Jaan Toikka” anytime between 4pm till midnight UK time. The account name is different as that’s my Vabbi account.

I not am a “pro mentor” but I often teach new players/run dungeons with them till they get the hang of it.

PsiKann.9853:

How do I find a mentoring person to help me? Is this a part of the LFG system?

Are you NA or EU?

Ergolicious.1507:

The new cd on the aoe root elite is what’s making me complain the most. Of course the roots are killable…. IF YOU CAN kittenING HIT THEM because sometimes the hitbox gets totally kittened up or I noticed something else: you kill them or blink away and you’re still rooted in place for a good ~2-4 second – which seems to be a bug. Now when there are 3 rangers in the other team, that they all use this elite with 48 cd traited, it becomes QUITE annoying pretty fast.

Teleport only moves you, you have to use condi clear to get rid of immob.

For pve leveling if you like power builds, focus on power as main stat, then precision in lower levels. Once you reach those lvls where berserker gear is available get that one. If you want some survability stat too, mix in vitality and avoid toughness.

End game builds depend on what you want your thief to do and the game mode you intend to play in.

Cynz.9437:

Stooperdale.3560:

I was just thinking the other day that I hadn’t seen a thief in high level fractals for a while. Loads of heavies, smattering of everything else, and no thieves at all.

Is ascended armor now locking people down to heavy classes? I made ascended armor for my warrior and took him to 50 but I’m not going to make a set of medium ascended too, even though it would interesting to try my thief at 40+.

i got kicked from group the moment i joined on my thief, didn’t even get to enter the instance…. been doing lv 49-50 for year now….

reasoning according to the group: no thieves

since there is no instance owner anymore, can’t actually make own party w/o risking to get kicked for playing the class :/

Thieves often got kicked on join even before the patch cos 1. Lack of obvious group support 2. Squishiness. A lot of about thief class is active so a mistake often leads to being 1 shot in pve. This makes new players on thief a nightmare in dungeons so people rather kick them then have to deal with that. Group support for most people means boons, boons and more boons.

I used to occasionally run story mode dungeons for newbs on my thief, it was always pain. It took ages, especially with very low lvl toons in party and I often had to finish the boss myself cos everyone died.

Made a guard a week ago, I could carry the group already at lvl 30 in ac story, with 15-25 might stacks even lowbs can burn through mobs like they are nothing, add other tasty boons and you can see why thieves are considered a selfish class in group support.

I guess Anet intended thieves to provide group support via conditions rather than boons but other classes can apply them too. I’d like to see Anet to give us the option to buff party with offensive boons, for example Furious Retaliation could give fury to me and to allies too. Or a new trait with x% change to gain and share might with allies on a crit or crit with sword equipped. Or share might with allies when using Signets of Power (with cooldown so we wouldn’t give 20 stacks to everyone in 1s).

Biggest buff ever – FIX THE BUGS FIRST

1. They could just make blocked hits actually count as hits for the purpose of making LS available, while preventing us from pre-casting LS.

2. What if I don’t always want stealth on steal. Stealth blocking projectiles, just rofl, rangers RF’ing thieves today so why not make their whole weapon set completely useless with spammable stealth.

3. Would love this but I doubt it will happen ever.

4. I’d prefer weakness since I play power builds but I don’t mind anything cos I’d still use bow 4 for the poison anyway.

5. The whole reveal issue would be solved if Anet separated actual reveal from losing invisibility, ie, thief deals dmg from stealth so he gets revealed with same effects as now. The current reveal skills rangers/engies have would apply “visibility debuff” which wouldn’t remove any stealth associated effects from thief (condi cleanse, stealth weapon skills, heals etc). Even if the duration on those skills would be increased, it wouldn’t be such a hard counter to thief as it is now and it would give other classes the tools to deal with what they QQ so much about, not seeing an enemy.

Black Teagan.9215:

@Atalas

Which buffs?
Thieves get only nerfs and every buff caused in a stronger nerf after a few days.

Perhaps he meant buffs to Ripper and Deadly Strike cos you know, underwater combat is sooooooooooo important.

Runewolf.8456:

cause ranger is the shiny new toy, weeding out all the people who where playing htieves just for the perma blind.

I can deal with revealed and buffed rapid fire. Hell, it’s even fun to watch rangers kill themselves shooting into reflect. They are all zerky now so I can kill them even faster. What I simply refuse to deal with it bugged steal and teleports, steal still fails half the times even after that “fix”. Sure some thieves jumped on ranger, most are just tired of trying to make their combos work.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

I’m sorry but if there’s got to be stealth in game, there’s got to be a stealth counter. Thieves can backstab you, evade a little, jump back to stealth, heal and backstab you again. If your build is so glassy that you can’t survive for 6 seconds, imagine how bad other glassy classes are…

And honestly, how many rangers have you seen using sic ‘em. I have only seen me using it and that is when I see a thief or mesmer, I don’t have it on my skill bar 24/7.

(Can’t comment on engi revealed, got no clue about it)

Try reading previous posts before you repeat what a non-thief player says every time.

Don’t forget massive buffs to Ripper and Deadly Strike. We all just need to L2P and incorporate these into builds a bit more :P

If you don’t mind using your elite for flipping a camp, open with dagger storm, the ranged npcs either die or are nearly dead when DS ends. Finish ranged npcs, kill rest.

You can LoS them around a corner, drop smoke screen and aa them.

You can switch to S/P, LoS them and pew pew in BP (easiest imo for upgraded camps).

As in regular pve, the zerkier you are, the faster you can kill mobs. You will struggle to flip anything if you are running around wvw in full soldiers. The changes did nothing in regards to pve content, you deal dmg to ncps with your aa. I use other skills (CnD and aa from stealth) only if want to interrupt their heal or FS to evade their attack.

Aguri.2896:

Wow… that’s horrible. They should really make it so that it recharges whatever type you have the most of. Thanks for responding to my post, now I can finally stop wasting my time with this build…

sigh Oh thief class, I just don’t know what to do with you anymore.

That would be just plain OP.

The previous post shows how oblivious people are to what reveal means for a thief.

He tried to CnD and didn’t gain stealth. At this point he’d have to be totally blind not realise he had reveal debuff on him.

Both his offensive and defensive capabilities are reduced with reveal. His mistake was to stay in that camp, not like he’d kill you with aa/torment before he’d melt to your burst and condis. Stealth trap = 30s of no reliable condi cleanse. That’s why thieves QQ’d so hard when we heard about engies getting revealed. Those 6s are enough to melt to condis.

So why a thief would use SR in this situation?

1. Braindead

or

2. He simply has nothing else to go for him. To an extend, you can ignore the dmg he can deal, he can’t cleanse condis (to use shadowstep for this, he’d have to go back to you and prob just get killed even faster). At this point, dropping SR is all he can do and hope the heals will be enough till condis expire. Thieves that drop SR with reveal on them are often just desperate.

For thieves, reveal is not just loss of stealth, it’s a direct counter to large part of defensive and offensive capabilities.

Ehecatl.9172:

At least for ranger there is an audio cue. The ranger will shout “Sick ’Em!” and the pet will charge you. As for visual, you can see the revealed icon appear where you should be watching for all conditions anyway.

I feel it’s fine the way it is. Sure you might not notice it get applied, but if you don’t you weren’t paying as much attention as you should. As it is now it’s a sneaky way to get the upper hand on a thief who decided to disengage. I’ve seen several bad thieves use Shadow Refuge right after it was applied because they simply weren’t paying attention and got destroyed because of it. If revealed was too obvious when applied I’d miss out on those hilarious moments.

They could drop SR right after getting revealed just because SR has a casting time. If the thief is low on HP, he often decides to stay in SR for the heals it gives. But ofc calling people bad is easier than knowing how other class works.