Guild Wars 2

nerva.7940:

The biggest blunder would be to keep 8v8 hotjoin and the stupid free tourneys. This will split up the players all over the place. Solo queue 1v1 team ranked needs to completely replace hotjoin and free tourneys. 8v8 NEEDS TO BE COMPLETELY ABOLISHED

Until 1v1 solo ranked queue im simply not touching spvp. especially if glory remains meaningless

I agree completely. 8v8 is garbage, and free tournies just split the player base more. Both Jons during the SoTG mentioned that they would like to see glory not be as worthless though, so that’s a plus.

Magiofdeath.2745:

And how do you combat something you can’t see every 6-12 secs? Blindly throw AOE all over the place? Seems impractical. How do you fight back when you’re downed to someone that is stealthed and finishing you off? I’m sorry, but that part is complete BS. I think that annoys me the most. NO other class can stealth finish someone with their class’s mechanics (maybe snow leopard norn can?). GW1 didn’t have stealth, and assassins were fine in that game. They were still pretty powerful, but not any more powerful than any other class (and they were better in PvE than GW2 thiefs!). GW1 had more balanced PvP than 2 will ever have. GW2’s pvp is more like any other traditional mmo pvp, unbalanced.

Lol lettuce, looks like you got served by proof.

There are a number of ways, it’s mostly about knowing your enemy. Is the thief using a dagger or sword mainhand? Likely they are. If they’ve melee’d you at all, this is most likely the case. If they stealth via CnD or Black powder, they are 90% of the time going for a backstab or Tactical strike.

Knowing this is important, because it gives you a HUGE clue as to where they are going, which is right behind you. Simply waiting a second and then turning and spamming 1 will let you know for sure, as your attack chains only complete if you’re hitting the thief. I get easy kills on thieves like this almost every day.

Then you have the aspect of stealth rhythm. Thieves have 3 – 4 seconds (if traited, glass cannons aren’t) to land their stealth skill after entering stealth, and since the thief is trying to kill you this is almost always what they will do. It takes some judgement but if they are far away and stealth, 3 – 4 seconds and dodge. Did they CnD you? They are immediately heading for your back. Dodge ASAP, use an invuln, block, blind, just turn around, teleport, throw a trap, anything. If they throw down SR, they are probably in danger of dying. Walk up to the circle and spam 1 until your chain completes. If they just run away…Well they weren’t much threat were they?

As for: “NO other class can stealth finish someone with their class’s mechanics” Stealth is one of the weaker finishers. Blind is superior, stability is a strong contender and completely better if you can take a few hits, and invulnerability (Mist Form, Elixer S, etc.) you can literally do absolutely NOTHING about.

I’d swap Haste for Blinding Powder, and swap signet of agility for just about anything else that’s a stun break. Shadowstep would be a great choice, Infil. Signet or Roll for Initiative also work well.

In shadow arts I’d swap Patience for Shadow’s Embrace. Otherwise cripple and chill will ruin a lot of your backstabs and allows just about anyone to kite you down. Also anyone or anything that throws lots of conditions your way is going to kill you and there won’t be much you can do about it. Plus, you’re likely not going to be spending that much time in stealth as you’ll probably want to backstab as quick as possible anyways.

Other than that it looks pretty good.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah I kind of agree that although there are ways to hurt him, it relies on the Thief making mistakes as much as it does on the Warrior.

People tell you to dodge the Cloak and Dagger attack which is fair enough, but incredibly hard to do in a WvW environment. It becomes a non-issue once there are other targets around you (even mobs and critters) and he can use them to Stealth as well.

So in theory, yes, try to dodge his Cloak and Dagger if you can but far more importantly, try to CC and stun the Thief nd put him under a lot of pressure.

I’d think a Hammer and Rifle would give you the best shot, the Hammer for all the stuns and CC and the rifle for the range damage and pressure.

Just be aware of the “Blind of Stealth” trait many Thieves run with as it could ruin a crucial attack. So keep spaming.

Unfortunately Dee Jay is pretty much right. I played P/D for a while and warriors were definitely my easiest matchup since they can do almost nothing about all the bleeds you stack.

Your best bet is to play keep away with them, and hit them as hard as you can with your rifle and only purge the bleeds when you get 8+. That means if they get in close range, dodge their CnD and knock them back if you can. That also stops caltrops, which will completely murder you.

RedSpectrum.1975:

thanks for the advice Jericho im torn between the first slot tree and acro though. My build is 10/30/30/0/0 fo my steal can get that opening damage in. Its a really tough choice between the two for me.

If you’re using D/D, I think you’re right in keeping Mug. I wouldn’t bother going into Acrobatics unless you’re going to devote at least 15 points for Feline Grace, as it’s probably our best minor trait.

It does apply in combat, but since you are slowed so drastically in combat it isn’t as noticeable. Doesn’t mean that it’s useless, as you can still catch up to anyone in combat not using swiftness.

Fleet Shadow (+50% increase in speed while in stealth AND in combat) works very similarly, as it feels more like have swiftness out of combat while in combat.

knyy.6427:

thank you for posting the most op build available. saw some in wvw and they are unkillable. they only get killed if they are too greedy and you have a zerg in which all people spam aoe. how in the world can this not be op?

Take a look at the build. 1 stun break. CC the thief a couple of times and it’s gg especially if you have a friend or two helping (which is entirely possible as the OP is often times in the back lines). Also, cripple and chill, while can be removed via stealth make it almost impossible to get a backstab off in time and just generally waste a thief’s time and init.

Also, the backstab damage while relatively high still will only crit a medium armor target for 5k at the very max, so it’s not like an insta-gib or anything.

Roll for init is also on double the cooldown of infiltrator’s signet, which is mostly what turns me off from it.

It’s annoying, but that’s pretty much how all of our skills work. I don’t think Flanking Strike is the only one.

Hi Thief here. Sorry to bother you Mesmers, he escaped again.

(Drags OP back out the door by his ear)

Gwalchgwn.1659:

If ammy = amulet
The sPvP amulet is the sum of the stats from your armour, weapons, amulet, rings, earrings and backpack. So if you want a knight setup, you need to have
Knight armour, 6 pieces
Knight amulet, knight weapons, knight amulet, knight earring (2pieces), knight ring (2 pieces) and knight backpack.

This is generally true but beware! Some stat amulets in sPvP like “Knights” are NOT the same as the “Knights” exotic gear you get in PvE. Just an example, knights in PvP is like Vital, Power, Prec…But in PvE It’s Toughness, Power, Precision.

Also, Berserker’s amulet in sPvP gives some vital, where in PvE as far as I know no berserker gear gives vit.

Speedy.8546:

hey Jericho thanks for replying, do you know how toughness compare to overall survivability in comparision with vitality perhaps?

No problem!

Some people will tell you that Vit is always more important hands down, and generally this is true as it “scales” better with our low base health. However, a little extra toughness goes a long way.

In general, higher toughness = better heals. Recovering 3k health on a char with 2.9k armor is much more potent than recovering 3k health on a char with 2k armor simply because they can hold onto it longer.

So if you run a couple of traits that allow you to regen health, adding in some extra toughness definitely helps it, but you shouldn’t go overboard as you’ll then be gimping your offense.

Speedy.8546:

u can’t dodge all day, the most normal death cenario for me is me running out of dodges, u say u like acrobatics, but take it from u i see your something like 0/10/30/30/0 which is real low on dmg, 25/30/0/0/15 i run, with 17k hp, it’s a pain to get it that high without taking acrobatics, but with it i’m at 20k or so, so can always switch if i start feeding to get that extra dodge sweet

It’s really not that low on damage, I still get ~5k – 7k backstab crits depending on target armor. It’s true, it’s not nearly as high as it could be, but the way I see it: It’s much better to do medium-high damage and come out of crazy situations alive than overkill a target and get blown up the second you make a mistake or run into a 2v1.

With high vit, low to no toughness, and low to no healing power, you might survive for a bit but will lose almost any battle of attrition against tankier mobs / players if you have no way to cleanse conditions and recover health in between heals.

Some survival strats I use:

1. Don’t neglect Shadow Arts. Almost all of the traits here are designed to keep you safer longer and really make stealth much more of a safe haven than it already is.

2. Don’t neglect Acrobatics. If for no other reason than you get Feline Grace, it’s worth it. Assassin’s Reward is also an amazing trait.

3. Stealth utils + stunbreakers will save your life in really rough situations, especially if you’ve traited for health regen in stealth.

4. You shouldn’t be getting hit much anyways, many thief weapon skills have built-in evades and blinds, so use them wisely. Combined with Feline Grace (and especially vigor) + your evade skills, you can dodge all day.

I like to treat my heal as an “oh crap” button. Against anything but the toughest mobs / Champs, you should barely even need it. So in summary: Survival on a thief is quite a bit different than some other classes. We are not made to face-tank, we use our active survival (Dodges, cripple & kite, stealth, blinds, etc.) more to avoid damage in the first place.

Stealth != invincibility nor should it be. There are many ways to deal with it, just daze them, dodge roll, shadowstep away into LoS, etc. etc.

If channeled attacks instantly dropped when stealthing, then all the thief qq really would be a lot more justified.

I think it works in PvE / WvW, but in PvP neither the runes nor the sigils increase the daze duration for Tac strike.

That would be cool, but I really don’t see that happening as I’m sure Anet has bigger fish to fry.

Also,

“YOU MUST LIKE PAIN!!!” Oh female thieves, you so crazy.

If you’re looking to completely maximize your damage, runes specific to your build are usually the best choice. However, as others stated, orbs get the job done and are incredibly cheap in comparison.

Krev.4803:

Hey, so I’ve decided to run a condition damage thief, and I went for Carrion Emblazoned armour to boost cond, plus it adds power and vitality. The runes I have at the moment are 6xUndead, which are good for cond, but add toughness which is a trait I don’t have anywhere else. My traits go 0, 0, 20, 20, 30 if it helps.

My question is; should I switch to Necro runes that increase vitality instead of toughness, which fits in better with the rest of my armour, or is that little bit of toughness going to be a help to me because of the way I’ve set up the thief?

If you’re running carrion everything, I wouldn’t advise the 6x undead unless you can’t afford anything else right now. If you’re going P/D, 2x Afflicted, 2x Centaur, 2x Krait is probably a better choice as it can bump your bleed times by a few seconds, which if you do the math equates to quite a bit more damage over time.

Asum.4960:

runeblade.7514:

I never played a thief. Before this patch, I was scared of thieves and their daggerstorm due to their OPness. Cripple, Strong damage, reflect.

Lately, I notice I don’t fear them anymore. I just go up to them and smack them with my axe till they die.

No.

People just finally, at least to some extend, learned how to counter thieves, which makes them falling off rapidly in power, since statistically they are probably the weakest profession of all.

Daggerstorm reflects projectiles, and when a 30 man zerg decided to attack the daggerstorm Thief with projectiles… well, it didn’t went well.

Thieves were always about exploiting bad play, while being at a huge disadvantage against good players of other professions.

This exactly. Dagger Storm definitely has its uses, but against a single enemy it’s fairly worthless especially if they are smart enough to swap to melee and just beat the thief to death.

And to add to the note of thieves seeming less powerful: The above posters are correct. Thieve’s power has not drastically decreased, it’s just that people are learning what to do when a thief does “X.”

I liken thieves to the Spy from TF2, and not because of the obvious reasons, but because as soon as you are up against a team who plays intelligently and spy checks, watch’s their backs and just generally knows how a spy plays, the class is much less effective. As thieves, we tend to prey on those who don’t understand our mechanics or just panic the second we go invisible. Those numbers are decreasing steadily as time goes on.

As far as I know, there’s nothing in the game that allows anyone to see “through” stealth. It’s likely since he’s a thief himself he’s just good at guessing where you will go. You can try to be a little more unpredictable with your movement ie: not moving in strait lines, combining stealth with shadowsteps, etc.

Also, channeled attacks will follow you through stealth and still hit if they are cast before you enter. Oh, and if he is using his number 1 skill, it will only complete the full chain if he is actually hitting you. This is a great way to track stealthed thieves if you know they are right by you.

Nooooo! Then I wouldn’t be able to run my current 30 in Acro + Thrill of the Crime

But in all seriousness, I get where you guys are coming from.

OP:

I’ve recently switched out to a 0/10/30/30/0 build and it’s pretty amazing. I run berserker jewlelry, but with P/V/T armor + weapons. I know it’s rough missing out on a lot of crit damage, but both the SA line and Acro line are just too good to pass up.

That definitely looks like some hax to me. Even S/D wouldn’t let you teleport around as much as that guy was (straight back, never to the OP), not that he was even using it. It’s also weird that those teleports don’t really look like a typical shadowstep in that there’s no black swirls.

I actually have grown to really like Flanking Strike, the biggest game changer for me was figuring out when to use it and the fact that you can move on the second strike, making it easier to hit.

When it crits, it can do some serious damage. Not backstab damage, but it is at least quickly repeatable, and can sometimes be much easier to land than Crippling Strike. Maybe if it had a higher crit chance on the second strike I’d consider using it more often.

I’m not sure, but I think that if two players are in the same party on the same map, but different servers they will show up as blacked out. The exception seems to be if you are in an instance like a story or dungeon.

When I take newbies from my guild in sPvP, I really just try to teach them that although they may die a lot, dying is really how you learn how to play and build better.

When I was new, of course I got stomped quite a bit too, it just comes with the territory. I’m not against having a special room for ranks <5 or something, but honestly constant exposure to tough situations teaches you important lessons, it’s simply up to the player to pick up on that.

Here’s what I would advise if you absolutely must be another one of those guys using P/D…

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYIQJQ6YlUmaOHfy9E95EBXBj6f4rdKuqVB

I didn’t fill in runes, but I’d go with 2x centaur, 2x krait, 2x afflicted for max bleed times on vital shot. Off hand weapon is up to you: D/D if you like Death Blossom, SB for mobility and stealth poison fields.

I wouldn’t mind maybe some sort of soft-counter to stealth, but the OP’s idea would either:

A:) Make thieves useless
B:) Force all thieves to take Shadow’s Embrace in the shadow arts tree, leaving the idea completely worthless anyways.

Human 80 Thief.

Anonymity Hood
AC Shoulders
Named Chest
CoE Gloves
Assassin Leggings
Assassin Boots

Yiyojin.3241:

Luck my but If you are not PvE-ing, i have no idea how you got thos collors.
I have a lot of friends that do only PvP since I do only PvP. How many of them have “cool” collors? No one.

You can easily get a lot of unidentified dye from opening higher-tier chests using glory.

I really don’t think it belongs on a thief, even if it might fit thematically.

Nerfing backstab directly is really going to hurt thieves who don’t use the stupid front-load everything and blow all utils to (maybe) kill one newb combo.

I’m not saying that something shouldn’t be done, I think it’s pretty cheesy too. I just hope the devs think before they nerf the whole class across the board when the problem seems to lie more with Mug + CnD (and people’s inability to react fast enough to the combo).

Ideally, I think it would be a good solution to simply slow down the Mug + CnD instead of straight damage nerfs (we’ve seen what happens when they do this, 50% damage nerf on Dancing Dagger anyone?). Alternatively, maybe make Basilisk Venom not apply via Mug, or make it a trait that they must pick up.

Lokheit.7943:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aether

By far the best one in the game :O

Oooo, that one does look fancy.

Personally, I actually like the look of the very common yet somewhat ornate Krytan SB. It seems silly, but the Silver-ish detailings mesh well with dark colors. What can I say, I’m a man of simple tastes.

OP:

I also use D/P. Here is the build I’m currently running, and duels are typically no problem:

(Copy+Paste this link or it won’t work)
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c3RV-FCRw-_0I5V-kd0;9;5TT9;259B34A5;35BG0-JF0l3IBl3IB5Bn

I know it seems weird to take Hidden Killer instead of Executioner, but with mainhand dagger you have heartseeker anyways, and I would rather know that every time I land a successful backstab from behind it’s going to do heavy damage regardless of target health.

30 Shadow Arts to assist in your survivability. Shadow’s Embrace is taken, not necessarily to combat bleed damage but really to combat chill and cripple, which will destroy you if not mitigated. Shadow’s Rejuv. is great esp. for a glassier build like this. Infusion of Shadow also works with your Black Powder + Heartseeker.

10 Into Acrobatics means no Feline Grace, but you won’t need it as much given your constant access to blinds. Fleet Shadow helps ensure you’ll always have enough time to circle around and backstab your enemy in the middle of a fight, given that your stealth via black powder + heartseeker is shorter than average.

My usual rotation:

I open with Shortbow, spam them with 1 a couple of times and maybe drop choking gas to get them poisoned. After a little bit of damage trading, I swap to D/P. If they rush me, I’ll just drop a Black Powder right there and proceed to melee them for a full chain. If they want to kite, Steal + Precast Black Powder means you’ll land on them in the blind field. I usually do one full melee rotation, then heartseeker and line up for a backstab.

If they are already at about 50% health, wait for the heal cast and use Headshot, interrupting them. If they are trying to put more distance between you, shadow shot is a great way to close the gap. If they’re still running frantically trying to get away after that, you can either Heartseeker them if at low health, or just chase them around with the Shortbow.

I think part of the reason warriors and thieves feel pretty different between PvE and PvP, is that the warrior has better base stats and PvE is where hard numbers matter a lot more especially during the lower levels.

In PvP, a thief tends to be more effective the more they can exploit an enemy’s sense of where they are. Sure, stealth drops target in PvE, but you can’t fool a computer like you can a human. There’s some other things too, like the fact that using Infiltrator’s Strike on the sword will immobilize, and prevent an actual human enemy from turning, but not NPCs. Small things like this can drastically change both build effetiveness and profession effectiveness across different modes.

No, and I think it would be awesome for getting more PvE players into PvP.

In a 1v1 with a bunker guard when I’m on my thief, I like to swap to my D/P set and permablind as best I can. It’s still rough, and a smart guardian will probably still win but I’ve won several encounters both against bunker guards and eles like this.

P/D is over the top in WvW pretty much exclusively, though this is a product of the “culling” bug which will be fixed soon. It’s still annoying in sPvP for other classes I’m sure, but they’re countered pretty hard by S/D thieves, D/D Eles, several guardian builds, and conditionmancer necros to name a few off the top of my head, and the culling isn’t a factor there.

Pros:

1. Highest access to stealth of any of the professions, and stealth in this game is a very powerful in-combat tool.

2. One of, if not the highest burst damage professions when specced for it, you have the capability to kill someone in seconds if they can’t react fast enough.

3. In group fights, you are great at finishing fights your allies start. When traited, if an enemy is below 50% damage they are as good as dead when you catch them unless they can do some serious kiting.

4. A fairly wide variety of build options, unlike some other professions I’ve played (Ele, Necro..) Also, most of our weapon skills mesh very well with all sorts of builds.

5. Stealth res, which can save you from a party wipe in dungeons, also fairly useful in PvP/WvW.

Cons:

1. Initiative. Many people who don’t play thief think it’s brokenly OP, but really it’s one of our biggest hindrances. Instead of individual cooldowns on each skill, we essentially have a global CD. Thus, timing and pre-planning are important, as we can’t use as many skills overall as other professions, even though we can repeat the same one twice.

2. Lowest base health in the game along with guardians and ele’s, both of whom can easily make up for it.

3. Having very high burst comes at a price: You typically get ripped up if you get caught in a combo or just run out of defensive options.

4. Lack of combo fields. Typically, once you get more into PvP, you’ll realize how important these are. We do have spammable combo finishers though.

Alias J.2610:

Sounds logical now… would going for Vitality AND Toughness as equipment stats be advised? Or would Power, Vitality and Condition Damage yield a better effect overall? (I know I’m talking about Damage vs Damage Reduction here, which are 2 distinctly different stats – my question is, would the extra damage given from Power on equipment outweigh the benefits of having extra survivability from combined Toughness from equipment?)

If you’re a condition thief, I’d probably focus everything onto Carrion (Cond. Dmg, Power, Vit). Toughness isn’t incredibly important on a thief, and you really don’t want to gimp your offense to have a smidgen more survivability in stats alone.

What makes you more survivable on a thief primarily comes from your trait choices which heavily influence your use of stealth and dodge. If you can, try to pick up Feline Grace in the Acrobatics tree, and go as heavy as you can into Shadow Arts. It’s not the raw defensive stats that matter as much, but those lines have amazing traits that really can mean the difference between life and death, especially for glassier thieves.

oZii.2864:

Yes what Binary Said! If you are running Signet of Shadows you don’t need fleet shadow. You can not exceed 33% movement speed. From testing fleet shadow really only works in combat.

Indeed, you can’t exceed 33% out of combat. In combat, it’s great if you’re using it in combination with something like D/P offhand, makes getting backstabs a lot less tricky on opponents with swiftness as the stealth provided from HS’s leap finisher is very short even when traited.

If you really want to keep 10 in Acro, go for vigor on heal instead, but as others said, it’s probably best spent elsewhere.

Hmm… I think the gloves are actually from the “Named” armor sets which you can also buy on the TP.

Thieves were designed by Anet to be able to use the same skill twice. The difference that most people don’t get, and I myself didn’t get until I made one, is that they can use their total skill pool LESS OFTEN overall than other professions. If you don’t believe me, make a thief and try to use all of your skills in the exact same manner you would with say, a warrior or ele.

With initiative, it is essentially a global CD on thief skills. Without traiting into high initiative regen (which most thieves don’t, since it tends to severely cut into their damage or survivability), if you blow your initiative at the wrong time, or just fail to hit with it, you are a sitting duck. Unlike other professions, you can’t just weapon swap and spam away. You’ll have to either blow a util to stealth and wait (while your enemy is recovering and capping a point), or sit there spamming 1 hoping the enemy doesn’t CC you in any way.

This means that timing is essential for a thief. Before my thief, I had a Necro and a D/D Ele. The ele I can safely say was incredibly easy to duel with compared to my thief, as I almost never really needed to think “hmm…Can I get away with using this now?” If I missed a skill or 3, no biggie, just swap to another attunement and use any of my other skills.

If I mis-time just about any 2 skills on my thief, it can easily cost me my life. This is the tradeoff, unfortunately.

With all that said, I actually wouldn’t mind something being done to heartseeker. Preferably make it manual aim. If they increase the init cost, it’s going to make D/P thieves (and any other thief not running the stupid BS build) suffer much more as HS with other builds is being used typically as a gap closer, execution skill, or leap finisher ie: Black Powder + HS for stealth, which btw costs 3/4 of your init pool currently.

PixelPredator.6987:

dEjAhVu.4526:

Think about what weapons you enjoy the most. GW2 Classes are very dynamic.

My favorite thing about this game is there are no defined “Healers/Tanks/Burst” classes. Some admittably do it better than others but I firmly believe each class is capable of those traditional roles.

Your weapon choice will probably determine the kind of build you want. I personally would never use P/P or S/D if I wanted to focus on condition damage.

So…. What weapon sets do you enjoy?

Well I would prefer dagger and pistol, but what is the most effective combination in a 1v1 situation?

Edit: I also enjoy using a D/D

“Most effective” is highly subjective here. I’ll post my build for what is, IMO, one of the best dueling builds:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF33R;0Rw-_0I5V-kd0;9;5TJJ;259A34-58;25Nl0L;1sV2DsV2D5BA

Open in S/D with Infiltrator’s Strike, then flank around them and hit them with Crippling Strike. Use the shadow return on your infil strike once they turn to hit you and repeat again. If you see they’re at about half health, with some experience you can interrupt heals and big casts via Tactical Strike, requires a bit of prediction though.

Once target is at about half health, I like to swap to D/P. If you’re already in range, hit Black Powder, then use your full #1 chain → Heartseeker. If not, you can precast Black Powder with steal, and port next to them into a blind field. Since heartseeker is a leap finisher and you’re in a smoke field, it will stealth you. Perfect time to line up for a backstab. If your backstab crits, they’re likely 1 heartseeker away from death. If they try to run and heal, Headshot will interrupt them.

This looks somewhat complicated, but it happens in a matter of seconds once you get used to it, and most people are very confused fighting this build, as it’s a somewhat unorthodox way to play thief from the typical backstab build people encounter. Shouldn’t be afraid to use all of your skills as necessary, this build also has very high init regen, so you should use all of your skills as necessary, no need to hold on to anything.

Sifu.6527:

Jericho.4521:

I run a very similar build as well, but the trait selection is slightly different. In Shadow Arts I pick up Shadow Protector, Shadow’s Embrace, and Shadow Rejuv. All this regen allows me to weave in and out of fights with Infil strike and recover health when I’m in a bad situation.

I find its the perfect counter to P/D thieves, as they’ll be struggling to keep stacks on you while they’re constantly getting CC’d and you’re stealthing. And I think the poster above is right, as more P/D thieves figure out how ridiculous that build is, more will jump on the bandwagon and we’ll have lot’s of requests for how to beat that build.

Also, I used to do the Infil. Strike -> CnD -> Tac strike mini combo, but now I reserve that for when I get a target to around 50% health, so I can interrupt their healing spell. Before that, you’re better just using Infil Strike -> Crippling Strike -> Shadow Return and flank them. They typically can’t hit you while being forced to face forward and immobilized.

P/D fanboi here.

You can easily counter D/D + S/D with a pistol offhand. Most likely, the fight will end in a draw.

However, the build is very good vs others.

Indeed, but I use a SB for secondary. Being forced into melee constantly is pretty dangerous, and having extra evades + high damage on cluster bomb helps assuming you can somewhat predict where the thief is, and surprise shot is very nice if you have deception utils.

The reason you gave is part of the reason I stopped using D/D as a secondary. P/D thieves who know what they’re doing can stop your infil. strike shenanigans.

I agree with the poster above. On paper, it sounds pretty good, but 10s CD, plus the fact that it can “activate” without the target having any boons, thus missing the point completely is frustrating.

Unless they’ve changed that part….hmm…Anyone know?

I think some of the basic infrastructure of what would make a good stand-alone PvP game is not there yet. Until they got that out of the way, I think the other posters are right in that it may actually worsen people’s view of GW2 if they can’t experience all the other aspects of the game along with it.

Me: Thief (S/D)
Feared: Bunker Guardians
Least Feared: Warriors

I run a very similar build as well, but the trait selection is slightly different. In Shadow Arts I pick up Shadow Protector, Shadow’s Embrace, and Shadow Rejuv. All this regen allows me to weave in and out of fights with Infil strike and recover health when I’m in a bad situation.

I find its the perfect counter to P/D thieves, as they’ll be struggling to keep stacks on you while they’re constantly getting CC’d and you’re stealthing. And I think the poster above is right, as more P/D thieves figure out how ridiculous that build is, more will jump on the bandwagon and we’ll have lot’s of requests for how to beat that build.

Also, I used to do the Infil. Strike → CnD → Tac strike mini combo, but now I reserve that for when I get a target to around 50% health, so I can interrupt their healing spell. Before that, you’re better just using Infil Strike → Crippling Strike → Shadow Return and flank them. They typically can’t hit you while being forced to face forward and immobilized.