Guild Wars 2

They could make only lvl 80 areas available to prevent killing lowbies and to actually fill the maps. Not sure if there are enough pvp oriented players even with megaserver system.

Personally I’d like a new lvl 80 map for pvp. There isn’t much to do on regular lvl 80 maps except for events that require a huge number of people. Imagine trying to kill any of the bosses in Orr temple events in pvp mode.

New map could have objectives/events that could be done by a single person or very small group of people. Up to five people could party up (that would prevent them from dealing dmg to each other). I think if the max size was limited to party size, that would prevent people from zerging over smaller groups/individuals. Events/objectives would give players a reason to go to particual places. Just like in wvw, many fights happen over taking a camp/tower or when moving from one objective to another.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Actually this would be really cool, particularly if Anet charges a fortune to move there, and then charge an even bigger fortune to leave that server. That way we can get all the PvP wannabe posers into one place where they can take turns admiring each other, flexing, and taking selfies.

Unfortunately they’ll all come back to the forum complaining that their server is dead.

Your pvp frustration left some deep scars on your logic.

Wing.4297:

Veckna.9621:

That depends entirely on what you plan on doing with it.

I’m more of a pvp person, which do you think works better?

You should try both sets and see which one works better for you. S/P has black powder and interrupt, which are nice but overall your main dmg comes from PW and you’d have use your teleports to land PW. S/D has more mobility and I’d say it allows a more varied playstyle than S/P.

2 sets, both zerk, different runes, tons of weps since I switch weaponsets a lot and I have some just for pve too.

If you like thief, get a tag for thief, there is no point playing a class you don’t enjoy playing even if that class is more suited for commanding. Try S/P + SB.

Reverence.6915:

It’s more the ‘fairweather curse’ that’s causing it. You’ll find when you’re in an easy matchup that there’s miraculously more players on your side. Funny how that works

^ this. Most people like easy fights. They always disappear when the power of 1111 pew pew is not behind them.

DeWolfe.2174:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

You put 6pts into SA and complain about someone having double your dmg.

Going to agree and add that it illustrates how power scaling is a bit broken in the game still. How investing 15%-20% more into the power stat equals 200% damage output is pretty broken. Certainly putting 15%-20% more into toughness doesn’t reduce incoming damage by that much, nor healing, nor condi damage, etc… etc…

The game already favours bunkers in pvp oriented game modes – consumables/point capture and even traits.

There are other mechanics for dmg negation than pure stats – thieves don’t put 6pts into SA for the extra toughness but for shadow rejuvenation.

Some builds are already nearly unkillable even if I run full zerk, I barely scratch them. If my dmg would be only 15% higher with zerk traits, there would be no reason to put any points in power. Everyone would bunk up even more, and we’d just walk around wvw and get bored.

To add to it, OP compared dmg of his build to someone who most likely had a build with power runes and he could have guard/bloodlust stacks. It’s like comparing dmg of rares and exotics.

TheBandit.7031:

Sorry they should all be infiltrator. I know it’s not 100% zerker, but dealing more than double the amount of damage that I can do seems a little ridiculous.
I’ll try changing my runes, I was a little iffy when I bought them. The problem I have with bloodlust is you lose all the charges if you enter water, swap weapons, or leave the area. And I do all those a lot.
In my final build my crit damage is 221% and power is 2100.

You put 6pts into SA and complain about someone having double your dmg. For dmg, runes with power as main stat are a lot better than precision. If the guy was full zerk, that’s 300+175 extra power than your build, he’d have 350 more if he had full guard/bloodlust stacks. Of course it makes sense he hits a lot harder.

Ger power runes, don’t go for ogre or privateer, any spawned mob is just a headache.

Your thief buid is not full zerk that’s why you hit less and the other thief could have guard/bloodlust stacks too, they add quite a lot.

With the armour your engi has, the dmg you took from the thief sounds right.

Charak.9761:

if they exit combat they can waypoint or game quit giving you no credit and a way out of that location.

This happens when I am right in someone’s face hitting them or they are downed. No way they are out of combat.

The “meta” would change most definitely as everyone looking for ez mode would look elsewhere.

The change would reduce the -% condi duration people can currently stack as well. Right now condi build without +% food won’t scratch anyone who uses -%.

Condi dmg + condi duration + vitality or toughness is the gear stat suggested. It would allow condi players build for more condi duration than what power builds would be able to stack with 20% from runes/10% from adjusted food. In exchange for some survivability. That’s why most power players consider condi builds cheese, high survivability, high condi dmg.

If power gets buffed, people will be able to 1 shot squishies again.

P/P is not just Unload, it has black powder/interrupt too. You can kill most warrs by afking in BP spamming aa, they are blinded forever :>

It lacks mobility/stealth/evades so most thieves avoid it.

Condi builds still need a bit more survivability than power since condi is dot.

Someone posted a great idea in some other thread: remove +/- condi duration food or make the global condi duration food in line with single condi duration foods. That would be like +/- 10% . And add a new gear stat to the game with condi duration, which would essentially be power glass equivalent.

That would allow condi players build either safer or more dmg oriented builds.

Pre season 2 the T9 match up was very unbalanced, Vabbi just rofled over everyone. Curently T9 is pretty well balanced but quiet outside prime hours. Since OP mentioned he wants to play with other people, transfer is his best option.

There was a thread couple of days ago about the same thing. Someone mentioned there is a trick to do this without actually hacking. And yeah it’s more and more common lately even in T9 and we hardly ever have queues, so I don’t think it’s that.

Joining a guild that would help with transfer costs is prob your best option. That massive exodus happened pre season 2 and although UW recovered to some extend, it’s unlikely the population will raise more anytime soon.

xihorus.2804:

Using S/P and SB for PvE content makes me wonder sometimes why I would play with any other character when doing PvE content solo. A warrior build focused around 100b is a close second.
Good damage, access to stealth, and access to a 25% movement speed signet makes thief a well-rounded class for PvE. For PvP and WvW, there are several different builds to fill different roles. Overall, thief is nicely balanced.
My only complaint about thieves comes from when I have to fight them on another class. I think the most unbalanced thing about thieves right now is the offhand pistol’s Black Powder ability. It is a bit OP when facing off against other melee classes (just my opinion).

It is certainly op against melee classes, that sort of melee that jumps into the black powder every single time. It’s too much effort to stand outside black powder when dpsing a thief who already has ton of invulnerabilities and stability to save his kitten while being able to aoe cc everyone else.

Don’t delete your lvl 80

Maybe you’ll want to play asura again. Everytime someone I know deletes their high lvl char, they regret it later.

Well yeah for S/P shadow embrace is pointless.

As an S/P, warriors should be easy, black powder just shuts them completely and a lot of them don’t even notice they are standing in it. For those I use black powder—>steal —> whirling axe in black powder.gg

Fighting warrriors without blinds is very difficult, S/D only has access to blinds on stealth from SA. If the warr camps hammer then it’s an uphill battle. Because of this I often use P/P but if I get caught without it, I usually cnd a lot more than usually save my dodges/evades for his burst skills. Keep your stun breaks for the oh kitten moments when a warr manages to cc you.

I noticed a lot of warrs lately with the cavalier/100% crit on burst/int sigils build, very annoying to fight as sword doesn’t have as high dps as daggers for single target and with their high toughness, I barely scratch them. They still hit me for almost as much as backstab tho x_x

I don’t remember the exact name, google thief gw2 fave, he has a good vid “art of thief” or something like that with 3 wep sets/builds and very nice gameplay. It’s quite recent too, May/June I believe.

And I agree on the Yishis vids, even when not up to date, the commentary is awesome for someone who wants to learn. If more people watched vids/tried to learn, I wouldn’t have to explain to a D/D thief with 500 hours what a backstab is.

Xenofly.9321:

Well, but what’s the best, meta? I need for gank.

scholar

shadowstone.9817:

I am currently playing dagger pistol because it is well balanced and a lot of fun. I wish I could play sword dagger but i find several things lacking in this build. First off the weapon attack speed for the sword is to slow and the damage output vs the dagger is to low. Second, the sword should be single target not multiple target. I would not even mind if the daze was lowered to one second if the backstab damage with the sword was more in line with dagger. I cannot believe there is such a disparity in damage between weapon sets. Its as if you are almost forced to go dagger dagger or dagger pistol to keep up with the damage of a warrior. The main focus behind the thief is high spike damage due to the soft target nature the thief is.

Then the only reason to play one or the other would be cosmetic.

Sword is stronger in group fights than 1 vs 1 as you can often hit multiple targets at once. Sword aa hits like truck if you get the full chain in. Personally I don’t see any reason to make sword like dagger, I prefer to have multiple weapon options for a variety of playstyles. If you think the only way to play thief is high spike dmg once in a while, stay with daggers.

Overall to some previous posts, any wvw buid without shadow embrace will melt to condis, pain response won’t save you. 3k extra HP from acro helps but won’t save you either. All that extra HP is useful for the start of a fight, it won’t do much during a fight. Removing a single condi can save more than 3k HP.

ranks 1200 and 250+ : 4 chests (all during one weekend), couple of rings, 1 precursor. One ring was knights, 1 chest celestial and everything else condi x_x

Sir Vincent III.1286:

GreenRipper.6432:

I have been testing some builds, I always played D / D but after testing S / D I found the gameplay much more fun. Currently use to build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwplOx7J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfko0XA-TVCBwA12fAyJU4sSQsK/k8IAwp+DgjUQe9Ap00EAAB4mtZA4m38o38o3sUAVpMC-w

Well I have two weaknesses compared to build D / D I wore:

1) Removal of conditions
2) Combo with high damage

Removal of condition gives to use FOOD to soften, but I’d rather take the risk and try to kill simply not taking condition.

One of your main problem is your choice for healing skill. Withdraw is counter productive for an S/D build since it pulls you away for your target. The best choice for S/D is hide in shadows, however, due to the inability of hide in shadows in removing torment and confusion, I start using AntiToxin Spray — which also heals and remove conditions on allies.

I like that about withdraw. I either use it to create some distance between me and target or to close a gap.

Quakeman.9378:

One does not simply play thief with a high ping.

Pretty much this. I barely notice high ping with other classes, I just get stuck in wvw portals but with thief ping affects everything. SB 5 is not only useless, it actually kills me cos it rubber bands for 2-3s. Combos don’t connect and with low passive defences, any lag spike ends up with me instantly dead :c

Delta Blues.8507:

I would like to hear opinions on this matter as well, i’ve been trying various builds S/D and S/P
Currently i’m trying thw 2/0/0/6/6 build in full zerk which does feel like a bit low dmg. The problem is that if you take out those 6 points from acro tree your survivability goes down big time, and i really love way too much that 20s steal.

Is there anyone running it successfully or am i just going to eat more frustration in trying to make it work in wvw?

I did love the dmg of a 2/6/0/0/6 build in valk armor / zerk anything else and it does work better in 1v1, but truth is most of the time you’ll need to be able to survive getting the focus in small scale fights and 2 dodges and some juking won’t cut it i’m afraid…

I see thieves use 2/0/0/6/6 in wvw but they normally don’t do that well, while they can evade a lot, they rarely hurt me much (prob lucky high might stack crit). While most of my hits hurt them a lot. All that extra HP from acro looks nice but it goes away really fast if the build has no extra toughness.

Go spvp or obsidian sanctum and learn the ways of ninja. No rage quits, just try again.

You said your 2 weaknesses are: 1. condi removal 2. high dps.

For some time, I was using in wvw a variant of the build GinhamLion mentioned, 0/6/2/0/6, it has good condi removal and good dps too.

2/0/0/6/6 is ok for spvp, it’s too evasive/has low dmg for wvw. Change the traits to suit your playstyle?

Reverence.6915:

The people who only play 1 game mode will inevitably get burnt out and bored. Just saying.

Of course, player attrition wouldn’t be this bad with better dev support, but even so, WvW is a pretty small facet of GW2. I’ve always thought of WvW as the thing you do to measure your skills learned in sPvP against others with the stuff you earned in PvE.

That’s what I consider end game and imo end game content deservers more attention from devs than what WvW currently gets.

Most wvwers don’t play solely wvw, tho we spend most of the time there. LS stories tend to empty wvw maps for a day or two and many wvwers play spvp to get better in fights.

But it’s wvw why some players log into the game everyday, the other game modes are just tools to get gold, better stuff or improve skills.

People are getting bored in WvW. With the same maps, same bugs etc. there will be a day when some of us just log out and play tetris or whatever.

I find it rather funny that someone actually rages so much, they alt f4. What bothers me tho, more and more often I get no credit for the kill, no exp, nothing. I deal dmg to them, they are still in combat, non-stealthy class and pooooof the guy is gone.

Why no SB?

It’s most likely the terrain, I guess it’s similar to when I sometimes use shadowstep over a tiny bump, get teleported to the target location and immediately back.

It’s good as an additional condi cleanse. You can get the major version for around 7g, it has 40% chance to transfer on crit instead of 60% the superior one has. If you just want to get rid of the condition, you can get sigil of purity instead. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

Direct dmg. If you want hybrid, P/D is way better since P/P doesn’t have access to stealth for sneak attack. Condis suck in zergs anyway, they get cleansed all the time.

What is your 2nd weapon set? SB is best as main for zergs, you tag everything, can aoe walls and it also has evade.

While I won’t say no to possible dmg increase, if Unload with your build doesn’t hit hard enough, go more glass. You can’t compare ranged attack dmg to melee, pistols will always hit less than our melee weapons.

I prefer weakness or vulnerability to the other mentioned condis. Bleeds/daze are already on other skills in the weaponset.

Evade but a root? >.> That would kill P/P, I’d be basically rooted for a big part of a fight, so no chance to chase someone and since the range is small already, they’d have even less difficulties to move outside the range.

I don’t want stealth/evades on P/P as I like that I can dps without any of these. I think adding some endurance regen to Unload would help survivability a lot without butchering the weapon set.

With P/P and a bow, you won’t make use of SA traits, I think it’s better put those 4pts into acro. There are 2 sigils that remove/transfer condis, they are quite nice for non-stealth condi removal.

Ricochet, it gives nice aoe dmg but I personally don’t like this trait because in wvw, you can rally enemy with it.

The suggestion is, change IP 5% heal from crit dmg to 5% lifesteal from crit dmg.

Why not just increase the % IP heals instead of making it lifesteal?

I tried IP in pve and wvw. My build is full zerk with 6/6/x/x/x for both pve and wvw, I can deal quite a lot of dps yet I find IP heals small. But I realise that in certain builds, the potential total healing can add up to quite a lot (SoM/IP/AR/omno pie).

I think increasing the % would push some of these builds into the OP category. With lifesteal, the heals remain as they are now but the dmg loss from not using executioner would be reduced.

OP? Still kitten?

You can either swap weps as needed or you could try to give up sb. Sure bow is excellent for mobility and escaping, and it took me few weeks to get used to having no bow as secondary. Now I use it only for zerging, any smaller scale fights and I feel naked with bow. For me it just doesn’t have as much use as other sets. I like P/P and that has mobility of a dead turtle xD and no stealth either. I think relying on sb for escapes just limits the options. Especially with sword, I can utilise terrain and mobs to escape. I won’t outrun my enemies but they often run in opposite direction then me :P

I lurk around forums just when I am work so yeah..

25 mights stacks isn’t a problem if the whole group helps blasting. sb for thieves, banners for warriors etc. Usually doesn’t help much explaining this to pugs but for guild runs, it’s definitely worth it.

I use sb only for zerging, can’t imagine any small fights with sb anymore.

Always valuate your build in terms of what groups you will run with, if you mostly pug, any content you find harder, 3pts in acro is better than sligtly more dps. I use 6/6/0/0/2 and 3 signets unless the group needs some utility. 5/6/0/3/0 only for CoE since I pug all the time. Those few times I was lucky to get dps group that knew what they were doing, I didn’t really need those extra dodges.

Imo, scholar is better for thieves than strength, especially since most might stacks in a groups are provided by eles.

The infusions, well, for pve only, they are a nice addition to your dps. If you however Wvw as well, you’d lose the additional +/- 1% to guard dmg. You can equip 2 same rings (to have might infusion on both) if one is infused and other the regular version.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Said it before and will say it again, without food you can’t get 100% condition duration. Not that anyone NEEDS 100% duration but the point is that without it it makes maximizing duration impossible. If they reduce or remove +duration foods they better add +duration in our traits so we can compensate without consumables.

Traits already have a line with condi duration, so many build can completely ignore it since they get more with condi duration food. Currently both + and – condi d. foods are broken, why should only food negate more than what a condi build gets from whole trait line.

I saw someone’s post earlier in this thread suggesting new gear with condi duration as one of the stats. This would allow maxing condi duration in exchange for survability.

In 1 vs x, you either fight players below your skill level or use cheese to win. Anything else and you die.

You only need 2pts in SA for shadow embrace if condis give you troubles. That’s what I use in every build for wvw. -condi duration food is useful too if you don’t mind limiting your build to it.

You can try S/D with D/P secondary, will work wonders for your survability. D/P is considered gimmicky only cos of the 5222 combo. Yet, it is probably the best weaponset thieves have as every single skill has its use.

If you want something different, you can try power P/D, it’s quite fun to play and most people will think you play condi so they’ll condi cleanse etc :P . Nice build https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Build-Oscuro-s-LRB/first#post3835366

I won’t give you sword builds since you seem to have tried quite a few already. There is simply none that will win fights all the time. If you want to play sword, give it some time and practise, you’ll get better.

I got all my asc drops (4) within one weekend at around rank 700ish.

Maybe you need to kick that pesky rng bit, one time I was getting a lot of expesinve exotic drops in wvw (made like 80g in 2 days just from selling those) so I joked about a precursor incoming. Got one few days later

The combo is nice for bursting targets low on hp but it’s not very efficient to use utilities to deal same/lower dmg than what you’d get with wep skills alone.You might need those utilities when you are in a trouble or when such a burst would down your target.

Although I must say that mixing in shadow strike with ports (and I usually only use steal and shadowstep) is quite rage inducing for some individuals :>

Maxing total stats before ferocity change was due to the fact that crit dmg was in % instead of a flat stat like everything else. Since ferocity is a flat stat, you won’t get that many more total stat points like before. The only thing you can do to max your total stats now is using as least as possible stats for precision/ferocity to reach whole % for crit chance and crit dmg. The difference is very small tho, you might want to save yourself the time.

Valk is nice for backstab builds with hidden killer and adds a nice cushion to condi dmg.

Condi dmg ignores toughness so having high armour won’t help against condi builds. vs direct dmg toughness is nice especially in longer fights as it makes your heals more effective.

With Knights you lose power as it is a minor stat on that set.

Select your gear based on what you want to do with you build, which weaponset you will be using and what type of enemies you have hard time dealing with.

Anierna.6918:

Xae Isareth.1364:

You see, the meta is fine until it makes people close their minds towards new ideas. It’s all good running an optimal build, but when the meta becomes twisted to promote a mindset of ‘this is the best and if you got any new ideas, you’re wrong.’ it becomes a problem.

The meta is found by theorycrafting to maximize damage. Theorycrafters do not close their minds to any ideas – they consider every method of optimizing dmg. And if a particular theorycrafter does not consider every option, there are plenty of other theorycrafters who analyze the data of their peers and will correct errors.

If you’d done any serious theorycrafting, you would know this. You would also know that the meta changes frequently, usually in response to game updates. The fact that the meta changes in response to new information, game updates, and better strategies proves that the meta does not ignore or suppress new ideas – it incorporates them.

This thread is in thief’s forum, not pve/dungeon forum. While in pve dmg is all that matters, pvp and wvw include other variables.

I am divided on this one. Yes I hate it when I get hit by channeled skills when I stealth but it’s amusing to use Unload and just watch it follow the thief/mesmer :P

With the current way how stealth works and it’s relative spammability, it would be very easy for a thief to get away from so many skills just by stealthing. So unless stealth mechanic changes, I think it’s okay for channeled skills to hit stealthed players.

1. Be prepared for all the kittens that will just run out of your SR or autoattack every living thing while in stealth.

Although a guide would be nice, you learn most skipping parts in one run. Some groups skip more, some less, always a good thing to check with them if they don’t follow the usual pug run and don’t mention it in lfg.

Also, the runs differ if you play in EU or NA. NA groups skip a lot more (didn’t get to kill Kholer even once when I was there) and some parts are just “thief job” even if anyone can do them. I like the loot so I prefer to skip less :/