Guild Wars 2

Lighting rod is awesome with staff, with S/D it doesn’t add that much and you lose a lot by not using fresh air. Yes it hits hard (lol try to fear someone when using a ram :P ) but it’s also easy to miss hits on those skills, while you lose all the dmg you’d have with fresh air.

Only ele that enjoys RTL into mobs has autotarget on.

Monk rune/any healing build has very little use in pve.

WvW is a whole lot different story, monk rune + cleric gear/rice ball food is aweasome and the heals can be impressive. Won’t do much in massive zergs but medium/small scale, healing ele is good.

The problem is that the more you go into healing power, the more you depend on others to kill stuff and if the dps players you roam with are not competent, heals won’t save it.

I personal find healing ele fun to play like once every 2 months for an hour or so, I just can’t play support and I hate to rely on other others doing dps sooooo WTB dedicated healer! :P

OP, I think monk rune is a decent choice if you are happy to play more support in wvw, especially since anet removed boon duration from traits, those 20% are even better BUT I woudln’t put them on my gear with strenght on it already.

Also, with xpac, we might get gear with new stats that would include boon duration/condi duration and you would probably regret changing strenght for monk runes.

Usually commander is expected to lead everyone else during a fight, forget about frontline with zerker ele.

You could try tanky healing build that has pretty decent survivability but imo, I think guardian is still way better in this. Mainly because tanky healing ele can well support others but the heals are not as high for the ele him/herself and it’s weak against high burst.

Ele can make it work as a commander but it does take a lot of effort and has its limitations in comparison to guard/warrior.

Doesn’t matter if you run rev in the exotics provided or asc, the difference is small. Rev still has dps of a strawberry cupcake.

I tried few builds with different stats (healer/condi/dps), and even with full zerker + scholar + power/fer food, I was killing gate guard so long, my guildie started laughting.

From what I remember, the dps wasn’t this bad during the previous tests on the new pve maps (and those were in full cele).

I thought so but didn’t want to assume since I don’t know everyone on UW by their account names.

AmberUK.5380:

Player advertising for people for the opposing sever

We have someone who keeps shouting out in map/team chat to get players for the other server isn’t this spying? There is no report option for this

We got on guy like that on UW too, I just reported him for spamming and blocked him. I don’t need to read the bs he writes in map chat every few mins or when our tiny zerg gets wiped.

What is more annoying tho, some of our commanders tag down when they see him and that eventually leads to people don’t following them cos well, they can’t see the tag on map.

This started only few days ago together with enemies trying to join commander party.

Failed ports drive me crazy :/

Yet you keep comparing the most op class atm with thief to validate your reasons to give thief more HP.

Whether you think devs care or not, it’s way more likely traits/skill would be changed instead of our HP pool.

Perhaps you should check other subforums, you’d find a thread where a devs agrees that all dmg sources are currently strong. Oh hey, if the problem is being 1 shot after dmg was buffed, why increase HP instead of reducing the dmg output across all classes? So it’s okay to 1 shot other classes but thief should be given more HP to deal with the insane burst? In case you forgot, ele and guardians also have the lowest health pool, if you stab zerker ele for 10-15k, he won’t outheal that while he is rolling his face in dirt.

Regarding condi, they are problem if you don’t use shadow embrace or you fight a pu mes, which was overbuffed. Thieves had issues with condis when using no SE even before. If built for condi removal, current zerker thief can fight and kill pu mes much easier than other classes can. Oh pu mes can reset and come back to kill a thief, get real, thieves have been doing this since launch.

I simply dislike the idea of turning thief class into warrior, we are supposed to be squishy and to avoid dmg instead of soaking it. If you want to facetank dmg flying at you, reroll.

I like this idea.

T7/8 are pretty good for roaming, T9 is rather quiet lately.

Zergs in T9 are usually 20-40 people (if there is a commander online), but normally it’s small groups taking objectives.

AC1/3 is easy with ele in party
TA up, the other path “forward” can be really tricky if you are not used to skipping, having a thief in party helps
SE 1/3 guard is awesome here
HoTW 1 is fairly straightforward

Didn’t mention CoF1 cos from my own experience with that path, just 1 braindead player can make the four under bubble part real pain and frustrating. The stone running just before that, gl if you are the only one who can run them. In ok party, the path is easy, if you get very inexperienced party, people will rage quit at some point.

Taobella.6597:

What would balance thief is allowing blind to be stack able con

Another way would be to give thief an X buff well they sit in stealth something like. every second thief in stealth they gave 1% dmg mod to next hit. make it stack to 10 max. duration of 15 seconds on each stack.

Why do you think giving thieves anything that benefits from SITTING IN STEALTH is a good idea?

Xovian.8572:

Damage is just currently that ridiculous in the game.

Seems like most people forget we just had a major balance patch and those always bring some ridiculous specs so comparing thief vs mesmer to reason for higher HP request is just a knee jerk reaction.

Everyone’s dmg was buffed, even dev said that all dmg sources are strong currently so it’s more likely anet will reduce the dmg than give thieves higher HP.

Personally, I don’t think thief class should be balanced by slapping on some extra stats, the class is all about active defense, if needed, those should be buffed.

Sandrox.9524:

Warrior is w/o stealth(huge difference) and dosnt have as much evade as thief got.But yeah warrior still got more positive than thief. Imo,giving thief a 5k more base health should solve all the problems. It is wierd that mesmers now does more dmg than thieves with 1 combo and yet they got lot more base health and almost the same stealth as thief have.(And much more stealth potencially,if specced for it). buffing thieves base health by 5k or slightly even more wont make thieves OP by any way,just more survivable..the alterntive is to give them more base power which they could insta downed mesmer like mesmers can do to thieves now.Which imo the worse one out of the two.

They could slightly reduce the overall dmg. The whole problem why thieves blow up so fast now is the low HP pool and no fool proof fail safe mechanics, like invulnerabilities. We got good dmg but if others can 1 shot thieves easily, it’s hard to backstab someone when downed :P

Stealth is cute but doesn’t stop others from dealing dmg to the thief.

OP, if you can’t backstab someone over 6k, try putting some armour on?

I think most players wishing for staff are thinking melee turtle ninja style gameplay, not ranged mage :/

Depends on the skills/traits for those weapons and whether I’ll prefer them over the existing ones.

dietzero.3514:

They killed their own hype…

If my lowbies can get lvl 80 exotics from loot chests, why not ascended?

Btw OP, the chance of getting anything good from rank up chests is pretty low….
…. loooow…

… it sucks.

CM Story
The champ just before the secret door doesn’t spawn and the event gets stuck at “separatists killed 2/3”. The switch to open the secret door doesn’t activate and the party can’t progress further.
Fix: look for the champ, we found it near chest that spawns after killing the golem at start.
Reason: no clue

Time to burn through 40k of badges and acquire carpal at MF.

I consider trickery must have trait line for the utility it offers and DA/CS/Trix is actually the max dps build. Trickery is just awesome <3

If you go DA/CS/Trix, backstabs are pretty insane10k -15k+ on average and no, I am not talking about stabbing upscaled naked ele running around wvw. With buffs from allies it’s even more, I hit tower lord for 24k lol. The dmg is there, just spec for it.

Mango pies cos I am constantly broke, omno pies/truffle steak are my fav.

9211 dolys turned into juicy steaks

Lord Kuru.3685:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I haven’t fought her solo but wouldn’t it be easier to agro her to one side of the room instead out of it without agroing the other champ and fight her in that room?

You mean the corner opposite the stairs? That used to be a good spot, but can it still be done with the modified aggro of the champ?

Plus, depending on your profession, if you have any minions, that corner is a bit small when she does her teleport attack as each minion will spawn a red circle.

And in the corner you have to fight the camera as well as Tazza.

Yup that corner in opposite the stairs. I don’t know if it works, I was asking ^ ^

IrisTheCasual.3742:

Sublimatio.6981:

Sublimatio.6981:

The worst elitist pug is when I enter fotm with necro and get kicked despite being better than all of them

demn girl, it just have happened again

Last night, my fotm 40 exploded with an engi who argued with my friend and I. He had never picked up the hammer during Cliffside and stated that he needed “kit swap to survive”. So when we pointed it out how the group was just basically pushing the task to only two guys to repetitively pick up the hammer and pull, he defended himself with how he has practically “carried” the group with superior DPS and constant healing with his water field. And how we should be ashamed to bring the two useless classes, ranger and necro, to our advertised “experienced zerker” group. The guy is an disillusioned sad joke that was spoonfed by metabattles and DnT guides. Haiz…

At least your friend helped, in my party 3 rushed far ahead, the 4th went past by me when I asked him to pick the hammer cos my stacks were high. I asked some of them to come back for the hammer…. silence.. they kept running and stacked at the next seal so nicely.

I haven’t fought her solo but wouldn’t it be easier to agro her to one side of the room instead out of it without agroing the other champ and fight her in that room?

Personally for me the main reason I don’t run this path more often is that in the usual paths people have idea what to do and tend to have somewhat dps focused builds. In SE p2 all you get are folks that want the dungeon master title and the last 2 golem mechanic just blows their mind.

Flawless strike, unless you are constantly under 90% HP.

Vornollo.5182:

babazhook.6805:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I find SA/Ac/Trix really good vs condi builds, even PU mesmers.

Hows that build damage wise?

Considering stats have been pulled loose from traitlines, it’s not too shabby.
It’s just really, really passive.

Not my thing.

I’d personally advice to sit in shortbow more against condi classes. Maintain pressure while staying largely out of range if possible. I noticed that especially with DA/CS, the shortbow puts mesmers in a tough spot. Bait out the utilities, dodges and heals on Shortbow, then burst in with S/D (or D/P for that matter).

But yeah, it’s one hell of a matchup.

The dmg loss is maybe 25-33% (really rough estimate), that’s in exchange for really good condi cleanses. One major complaint thieves have is lack of condi removals, but the class is weak only vs massive condi burst, sustained condi pressure is not a problem if built for it.

Any build can be played passively, SA is still beneficial for those who like aggressive play now more than before. Dmging condi removed when the thief enters stealth + regen which doesn’t require sitting in stealth. Acro is way more passive than SA but it’s not really needed cos SE priorises dmging condis. CS/SA/Trix has a bit lower dmg than DA/CS/Trix but hell lot more survivability (not saying you have to go shadow reju, SE is all that’s needed).

Very few played 6/6/x/x/x before and it was just as the equivalent build now, reliance on high burst and dying when someone sneezes condis on other side of the map.

How do you expect d/p or d/d with sb to clear condi bomb with 10+ stacks of confusion/bleeds and tons of cover up condis. If lucky, shadowstep removes what hurts most, if not, the mesmer can laugh at thief pew pewing with bow when he has confusion on.

I find SA/Ac/Trix really good vs condi builds, even PU mesmers.

If you’d spec into shadow arts, that doesn’t mean you have to take shadow rejuvenation. With shadow embrace/shadow protector and blind on stealth, you have the condi removal you need, blinds are always good and regen gives smaller heal than shadow reju but allows for more aggressive gameplay as you don’t have to sit in stealth to benefit from it.

30min time limit

Invade other guild’s guild hall, find super champ boss (random spawn and the other guild can either select the type of champ or its skills). Defeat the champ while killing other players to be able to claim a trophy from the opposing guild.

Keep trophy in your guild hall for visitors to admire or cry if it was theirs :P

Chobits.2430:

I’m excited about the possibility of Ele getting warhorn. I would like to see them make it main hand rather than offhand for Ele. How hard could that be?

Undoubtedly, warhorn mainhand would be the hottest weapon ever. I can see eles whacking everyone with it into eternity…. lmao … soo sexy! >…<’

From WvW perspective – encoutered taunt only on few occassions including several duels with a ranger. I was playing my thief and I found taunt to be really punishing for that class, but haven’t fought it with other classes so hard to compare. It seems like Taunt is very strong vs class that relies on active defence and is squishy.

At this point I don’t care if I’ll get the access or not, they pretty much killed any interest I had in HoT by the lack of info over all those months.

When xpac comes out, I’ll play it but untill then it’s hmm yeah whatever.

When the event fails I think you can’t continue further anyway?

Most guild premades will be like mine – horrible team comp and team work, even with TS, which we normally use just to argue why our 3 mesmers shouldn’t try to tank 3 enemy heavies^ ^

Guild premades will be fun for solo queue players.

WvW has been bleeding the players for some time now. Nothing new :P

data.4093:

I’m trying to understand these topics on mesmer. When I first saw the new stuff I thought mesmers would be super strong against slower classes. Then after I saw thief I thought, “kitten anet really wants to keep thief a hard counter for mes”. Has anyone tried using acro on thief? The main mesmer build being complained about and nerfed uses daze to gain stun and immobilize. Did no one else notice the acrobatics thief line is literally built to counter this?

s/d; d/d thief here. I tried full dps thief build (no acro) and one with acro, while acro has some really nice traits which should help vs mesmer, with the current super dmg everyone dishes out, I didn’t find acro that useful (in comparison to extra dps). If screw up once and I go 100-0. Blinds are really nice vs dagger offhand thief too.

It’s all RNG, I could go months without any asc drop and then few times I had multiple asc drops within days of each other.

Had 2 pre drops (from red keep guard and one from dredge), the 2nd happened on the day my guildie was planning to buy pre for his legendary ^ ^

From pve point of view:

Ranger – great for doing open world solo, groups and world bosses. The “stand still” while killing something approach is most feasible with ranger. However, if you ever step into dungeon, you’ll find that approach will frustrate your party members and you won’t add much to the overall team performance.

Staff Elementalist – deserves to be mentioned here despite the class squishiness. In open world solo, you can’t play it ranged as much as with ranger and you’ll have to be more careful as squishy ele can’t take many hits. But if you prefer to do pve with someone/small group, you can range as much as you want. World bosses, ranged easy peasy. In dungeons, staff allows you to be in melee and range too and your party members won’t blame you everytime something bad happens, ranger gets all the hate even if they didn’t cause it.

So pick the class on what content you intend to play most.

There isn’t exactly that type of rune in the game right now but Aristocracy rune is fairly similar, 45% might duration, condi stat, some might stacks on using healing skill (instead of +5%dmg). It’s account bound rune you get from CM dungeon.

You can change stats of asc armour/weapons in mystic forge for the cost of 5 ectos/exotic insignia or inscription and anthology of heroes (buy it from Miyani at mystic forge for 10 shards).

Brother Grimm.5176:

Khisanth.2948:

Legendary is the same as ascended. It’s just for the visuals.

I’d say the more important difference now is the fact that it can CHANGE stats out of combat (now that weapons have more stats).

Do people with legendaries swap stats on the go all the time? Cos most seem to go with one stat for most of their playing time. Also, a legendary weapon still has sigils which might work well with one build but are totally useless with another. Imo, swapping stats on the go isn’t as useful as many claim it to be.

After the patch, it’s possible to change stats on ascended gear (armour/weps) in mystic forge for the cost of 5 ectos/inscription or insignia. So more than ever, legendaries are about visuals.

Nivik.2961:

I just wanted to add this in here for any thief like myself who was getting a bit depressed with all the doom and gloom on the forums.

Although some classes excel at QQ production and back patting on how good they are for playing the horribly underpowered class for years (looking at mesmers now), essentially every single class subforum is filled with doom and gloom.

It’s always feels good to win vs someone if people think they had to outplay his OP opponent :P

D/D alone kinda sucks, it’s good only if you manage to instagib someone, if not, you are a toast.

But since thief can swap weapons, you can offset D/D shortcomings with secondary set. Go D/D to CnD/steal/stab only for the burst, don’t rely on D/D keeping you alive.

It’s not a sword problem, it’s the over the top dmg everyone can do now that makes S/D look underwhelming but the weaponset is still in good place.

I use same traits are you, zerker gear and with food/buffs on (wvw), I’ve seen 11k 3rd sword aa’s ^ ^ While most follow the usual rotation and use sword 3 even when they don’t have to, you can actually mow through people just using aa’s. Sword doesn’t need more dmg.

This gets really tricky in AC explorable now, people are so used to blowing bosses up fast, now when it takes longer, parties die more often. While I like seeing high crits, I think it’s a good thing that people are required to use their skills, but then if I want to help some lowbies, I can’t carry as easily as before.

So far I got blamed several times for using defensive gear in zerker party cos my ele with ice bow should melt everything ^ ^