Guild Wars 2

Candied dragon rolls are awesome for thief, I’m waiting for dragonbash to roll around so I can stock up.

To be honest I just run DPS food and have a few poultry and leek soup bowls in my pack if I need them. Running -condi food all the time as a roamer is a little bit of a waste IMO.

I didn’t, I got obsidian shards. I wanted to like them, but the weapons feel like they’d be ideal for a guardian, considering I play thief they just didn’t fit IMO.

I’m glad you liked them tho ^^

messiah.1908:

@Jugglemonkey – i can see why you’re saying that. for group play most thieves will go power valk/zerk build and use cluster bomb and in between use cnd etc.
i didnt go for the dmg build rather as the support build
i can aoe chill which is very important condition. here even better than necro
the immobilization is for full stack (10 seconds) sahre with 5 allies which is very powerful when time it right
and the poison aoe field which is far better than any other condition spec harass the enemy well.

as i havent compared it to the power thief i assuming that the sustain dps going to be ~equal in group fight. as the condi aoe does around 700 dps to 5 enemies just with SB (without taking into account your allies venoms) so power cluster bomb will do 4k *2 aoe in it best but then the thief will run to heal as his armor and health too low. so in 10 sec the dmg will be the same.

and for the ppl who dont like it – you dont have too. but dont say p/d full venom is easy mode build without any utilities to help you out.

Yeah, I can understand that. I do kinda have to agree with the other posters that it would be better in small organised groups or whilst roaming due to the abundance of cleanses in most zergs, but if you’re getting results then don’t let me stop you.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Jasher.6580:

Wolf.5816:

Now I have never played SW:TOR but Adding in more features to let players feel more engaged or involved in each game would be fantastic.

These all could simply add mild bonuses to your PvP ranks, titles or perhaps even your Reward tracks, making unlocking these features more involving to those who play effectively.

Bonus Features for example:

-Revenge: gain a bonus for killing the player who previously killed you.
-Double Kill: gain a slight bonus for killing two players in X seconds.
-Triple Kill: gain a bonus for killing three players in X seconds.
-Massacre: gain a large bonus for killing more than three opponents in X seconds.
-Immortal: gain a bonus at the end of the match for never dying.
-Slippery: gain a bonus once your health gets below 5% and live.
-Head Hunter: gain a bonus for killing every member of the enemy team.
-Justice: gain a bonus for Killing an enemy that recently killed one of your allies.
-Vigilant:gain a bonus every X minutes for standing on a captured point.
-Persistence: gain a bonus for dying X times in X minutes.
-Pharmacist: gain a bonus for curing X conditions off allies.
-Medic: gain a bonus for healing X total health amongst your allies.
-Professional: gain a bonus for interrupting an enemies Heal Skill.

Some fun statistics to see per game would be:

-Total time spent incapacitated: total accumulated time you were unable to control your character.
-Favorite Boon: the boon that had the most upkeep on your character.
-Favorite Kill: What effect/skill from a source you control dealt the most damage.
-Favorite Death: What effect/skill more frequently caused your death.
-Supporter: Number of allies effected by boons from your source.
-Most grateful: The ally that gained the most health from a source that your control.
-Masters Reflex: Number of successful dodges.
-Toxicity: Number of healing prevented through poison from your source.

This. Is. Genius.

Yeah, I think it could create a lot of goals/ incentives for players to try their best.

Kinda reminds me of the titles you got at the end of a round in Timesplitters 2. I always got most manic and friendly fire, rocket launchers are dangerous lol :P

Zacchary.6183:

What if it was (.6) with no bleeds instead?

Yeah, that could work. It might have to be that the bleed is only removed when dual wielding so as to not damage P/D builds too much, if that’s what you intended then I apologise for stating the obvious :P

Well, of course it’s hard to kill, you’ve taken trait trees dedicated to survivability and utility. That’s like complaining a bunker guardian is hard to kill when their build revolves around being hard to kill. The issue is the much higher damage you can now achieve in PvP with that build.

The entire reason it’s meta is because the fire and air sigil change and the ferocity change in PvP meant we could get good damage in PvP without critical strikes. Arganthium tried for a long time before that patch to get this build popular to no effect, as has been pointed out. Who actually came up with the build is a side issue: investment in critical strikes was needed before the patch for thief to fulful it’s role as a high dps roamer, now it is not, and that’s what makes the build viable.

The other reason this build is strong is that it directly counters the boon heavy meta that’s going on atm. People use strength runes for silly stacks of might, so of course a build that steals those stacks is going to be strong.

I personally think it’s only that strong in the hands of a very skilled player, I regularly get my kitten handed to me when using this spec by players that simply outplay me.

If you want to change something then by all means do, but nerfing 2/0/0/6/6 S/D thieves because of the sigil/rune/ferocity change makes as much sense as nerfing D/D ele because strength runes made that spec much stronger.

That might be a little too strong considering the fact it’s a range weapon, you can trait it for bouncing projectiles and +10% damage which you can’t do with sword, and sword is melee. That being said, I like the idea of more damage for the skill when dual wielding pistols. Maybe a smaller coefficient?

Peow peow.2189:

thieves always get offended when you put it all out that there class isnt as hard as they make it out to be. Other classes can actually handle constructive criticism

Thing is dude, you’re not offering constructive criticism. That involves making suggestions as to how to make something better. You’re just complaining.

Edit: From your post history:

Peow peow.2189:

its pretty much the only reliable pvp spec we have left. Once this is destroyed like everything else, thiefs will either die or all run s/d evasion. Oh and then guess what we will evade too much and that will be nerfed too… phucking lol has anyone looked at engineers or guardians lately?

3 months ago, on a thread about D/P thief.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/So-I-swapped-to-D-P-for-funzies/page/2#post3668037

You were saying?

You attacked a tower, the other guys used CC and high burst in a choke point. No surprises that they won, that’s called tactics.

Question to you: if it was a hammer warrior and 3 S/D eles spiking you down, would you say ele is OP? Or would you admit that YOU GOT OUTPLAYED.

Edit: From your post history:

Peow peow.2189:

its pretty much the only reliable pvp spec we have left. Once this is destroyed like everything else, thiefs will either die or all run s/d evasion. Oh and then guess what we will evade too much and that will be nerfed too… phucking lol has anyone looked at engineers or guardians lately?

3 months ago, on a thread about D/P thief.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/So-I-swapped-to-D-P-for-funzies/page/2#post3668037

You can’t have it both ways bud.

I run 2/0/0/6/6 S/D for WvW, works just fine and is reasonably quick.

Make sure you kill the scouts first, the poison/blind can really mess you up. I normally use shortbow to poison and group everything then daggerstorm, the scouts will be weak by that point so target one then detonate cluster bombs on them whilst kiting the melee guards close to the scouts. That ensures you’re still hitting through blind whilst weakening the others, the bleed stacks and poison will do more than you think. Once the scouts are dead swap to S/D to kill the guard and claimer.

It’s probably not optimal since I’m kiting the mobs through AoE instead of stacking them, but I’ve had 50+ secs left on daggerstorm cooldown after killing the claimer before so it is pretty quick. I do have problems with upgraded camps solo, but it’s not hard to find another person to help you generally.

Try using withdraw, hard to catch and roll for ini if you’re struggling with CC from the guards, I’ve killed warriors in their own un-upgraded camps with shortbow before by just kiting in circles ^^

I hope that helps somewhat ^^

If you don’t wanna overload people, you could have it print the stats in a chat screen at the end of a game, much like the combat log works. That way, players who want to see the stats can, and others who don’t care won’t even notice the change. Everyone’s happy ^^

Try to aim for 50% crit chance before fury, my thief kinda feels impotent if I run with less than that.

Edit: The full zerker comment isn’t too far off actually, I run soldiers head chest and legs with mostly everything else zerker now. Try to get your base power above 2.2k base, as long as you have a good crit chance power is generally more effective than ferocity it seems.

The main problem I have with the build is that it’s group oriented (you could even call it group reliant since you basically hold things down for your friends to hit) without supplying anything the group couldn’t do without. Not to mention it requires you to give up the majority of your damage, stealth based sustain and general utility to do it. That’s not so much your fault and more the venom utilities not being very good in general though.

Also, what build are you using OP? I have a feeling you lack power now I think of it, since if you are using unsuspecting foe and shout heals, then you’ve only got 4 trait points for the defense line. You say you have 3.6 armor which means your power is almost certainly lacking due to having to take more toughness primary gear to reach that and not having the toughness into power trait. Try posting your build, we might be able to help you out a bit better that way

To be fair to the OP, 70% crit chance is achievable with those defensive stats whilst maintaining 2k power assuming he uses the unsuspecting foe trait, which increases the crit chance against stunned enemies by 50%.

That being said, I find it very unlikely that you were hit so hard so fast with those stats. I’m honestly not sure if a signet D/D build could do that sort of damage against that sort of build, and if it could then it would take a LOT more than 20% damage from a full stun>hundred blades rotation with 70% crit chance, assuming you did in fact land all the hits. If it was an evasion based build, which seems likely, then he would not have killed you so quickly. This leads me to believe you’re either exaggerating or you just got outplayed. Sorry to be blunt :/

That also being said, we’re rogues. The whole hit and run assassin thing is part of our class design, he’s clearly built for an instagib build wheras you’re on a tank build, and our defenses are balanced around our damage output. If you doubt the balancing, try taking a thief through the gate during a tower cap that’s properly defended with arrow carts, it’s no picnic with our levels of sustain. My warrior on the other hand will enjoy the free adrenaline and carry on as before.

So yeah, a specialist 1v1 build on a strong dueling class beat a group focused tank build on a less strong dueling class. Seems legit if you ask me.

Edit: He also got the drop on you by the sounds of it, which swings things heavily in his favour. That’s the disadvantage of getting burst on a build where your healing is mostly passive.

2/0/0/6/6 S/D does work for WvW, I’ve used it for a little while now. It can have problems against heavy condi builds since the lyssa nerf, but as long as you know your limits it’s workable.

It depends what you want to do really. I wouldn’t use if you’re specifically trying to 1vX since SA builds are far stronger for that, but if you know the terrain and want to scout then the mobility is really useful.

It’s a very reactive set, so you can play it in different ways depending on your opponent.

The best way to get a feel for it I found was to watch other thieves use it. Here’s a few links that I found helpful:

Arkadius Kole playing a variety of builds, usually with a x/x/x/3/6 base. He focuses on being very highly mobile, using terrain/distance and boon stealing where necessary. I like this playstyle most and although it’s weaker now due to the lyssa and ferocity change, it still works really well with pack runes. WvW player.

http://www.twitch.tv/loljumper/profile/pastBroadcasts
Jumper’s S/D S/D 0/6/0/6/2 build, he uses combos such as larcenous strike>slice>dodge to cut down the aftercast on moves and maximise dodge uptime & dps. Pretty old vids since I don’t think he plays anymore, but as long as you’re aware of what’s changed in patches etc it’s still useful since this was pretty close to the old meta. PvP player.

Amonatory using a 2/0/6/0/6 S/D P/D build. Uses shadow arts and tactical strike for the daze, a much more defensive playstyle. He plays similarly to D/D SA in a lot of ways, so if you’re after a more “familiar” feel this might help. WvW player.

http://www.twitch.tv/sizer2654
Sizer using 2/0/0/6/6, using strength runes and air/fire sigils. He doesn’t record his broadcasts so you have to catch him when he’s online, but this is the PvP meta atm.

A good thing to remember is that whilst S/D doesn’t have an obvious burst combo like D/D does, that actually works in your favour since it can make you harder to predict.

I hope this helps! ^^

Thanks for the replies, I watched the vids and it’s interesting to see D/P and S/P used almost as a support weapon ^^

I tried making a hybrid build close to Vince’s (only because it didn’t look like it needed celestial armor), but I don’t have the might stacking runes yet so while P/D seems ok, my off set suffers damage wise :/

You’ve given me some ideas, thanks muchly ^^

So a few topics here have gotten me thinking recently, dangerous as that is. I’m not a fan of straight up condi builds as they feel too passive, so are there any common hybrid builds for thief, and are they effective/fun to play?

I’ve seen AikijinX promote his celestial hybrid build here, but it’s not something I can just try out due to the expense of celestial ascended. Do you need to use the same gear as he does, or is that just what works for him? How much room stat wise do you have to play with?

I’m curious as to what people’s experience with hybrid builds has been, really. Any insight is appreciated ^^

Peow peow.2189:

Serious Thought.5394:

Peow peow.2189:

If you dont think thieves do the most dmg then any class in this game you are lying to urself. Hop off the thief bandwagong and play a hard class like engi or ele

Not to be rude (as per signature) but do you mean condition or power damage? Its already been proven by someone using real numbers (and I have experimented gameplay wise) that Elementalist has the highest burst potential and rotation. So pure power damage goes to Scepter/Dagger Elementalist.

Highest Condition Damage (not management( Necromancer) or clearance (Guardian)) belongs to Engineers who can stack Confusion, Bleeding, Vulnerability, Poison, and Weakness with ease. No offense.

Thief can go hybrid the best. That might be what you were trying to refer to. A hybrid condi/power thief can do it best (theoretically) but in practice a Hambow (Hammer/Longbow) warrior can outpace us really quickly both in terms of mitigation and distribution of damage. 6 stacks of bleeds and Immobolize followed by fire field and blind shot then a stun, knockback,stun usually kills what they targeted. Except bunkers….probably got carried away here. Anyway. Hope I helped someone today with wall of text. Courtesy of TLDR…

TLDR: Thief has the highest/second highest (almost a tie) hybrid damage. It does not have the best condition damage, mitigation, or management nor does it actually have the highest/most-efficient power burst.

haha you are the idiot, elemntalist has cool down on the burst so he hits once burst thenhas to run.

Thief press cloak and dagger and hit and rinse repeat keep 10k dmg over and over. 3 second reveal to short, need 10 second reveal on this class.

Actually, thief has cooldown on that sort of burst too, since the only way we can match S/D ele’s spike damage is with a signet burst D/D build that has virtually no defensive options. we also have to be in stealth and behind the enemy, wheras the ele just has to be within a range of 900 or so. What you’re complaining about is actually a sustained burst D/D spec by the sounds of it. Less spike damage, but more frequent and with defensive options.

Saying the ele has to run is also a moot point, since every spike damage build ever has to kite/run if the other guy avoids the burst. Ever watch a thief that messes up a backstab and takes a burst? The whole point of the S/D ele build is that the other guy is downed by the end of your burst, or so low that they are easy to finish with auto attacks. If you don’t land the burst properly, that’s not actually the other guy’s fault.

Considering the guy very politely explained to you why he disagreed, it’s a little disrespectful to just write him off like that. If you want to rant, that’s fine, but if you’re just going to be rude then don’t expect anything but the same back.

^ What these guys said, 2/0/6/0/6 P/D dire. The combination of condi pressure and stealth traits is an absolute pain to fight against, it’s easily the strongest 1v1 build for just killing stuff but it’s not the most entertaining IMO.

Pavel.8531:

Grievous Insult:
Acrobatics Master(replaces Hard to Catch) – If the thief suffers lethal damage, he/she shows double middle fingers @ the target that dealt it to him/her, prior to going in downed state.

I actually like hard to catch, but this would be fun too ^^

Thank you Vince, I was actually looking for that ^^

Oh yeah, thiefs are horridly overpowered. No question.

Thieves on the other hand are fine, they have counters such as situational awareness. If you need a hand with that, feel free to ask, someone will point you in the right direction.

What Dee Jay said really, but here’s a few thoughts of mine.

This fight is all about positioning, and figuring out what kits the engi has equipped. The engi is a zone control class which means they’re more dangerous in small/confined spaces, so you never want to try going toe to toe with them without weakening them first. Thieves are excellent at kiting, so keep moving around and save your steal and shadowstep for when you want to burst. Take advantage of your mobility and use terrain to juke him with infiltrator’s arrow. Don’t chase him going for a last heartseeker if he’s spamming bombs, and as other’s have said, don’t try to fight in his turrets. Play to your strengths, not his.

A lot of engi’s in WvW run toolkit and either bombs or grenades, often both. That means they will likely open with magnet pull>crowbar confusion>supply crate lockdown>condi spam. If they don’t have rocket boots, this will often be their main gap closer so save a dodge for that magnet pull and keep track of when it’s off cooldown if possible. They also often use incendiary powder which can trigger on any hit on a 10 sec cooldown, so you’re going to be on fire a lot and it will hurt, cleanse it ASAP.

Using so many kits for that CC also means that the engi has very little room for stunbreaks and condi cleanse, so take advantage of that. If you’re using shortbow, try to keep poison fields down and detonate cluster bombs just before they hit for the extra stacks of bleeding. Using thieves guild in a shadow refuge then using the shortbow sneak attack is a good way to set up a burst, since the summoned thieves will pull the engi out of his turrets and blind him too.

The lack of stability often means that daze spam from S/D will work well, especially since you can use the sword to close gaps and retreat without burning a utility. You can also use larcenous strike to hit him when he’s blocking. Try to only switch to D/D when you can burst him down with one CnD>backstab>heartseeker combo, as you’ll be vulnerable if it doesn’t kill him.

The best thing to do is to duel an engi friend for a while and get him to tell you what he did/what you didn’t do. I hope some of this rambling actually helps :P

Edit: Sorry about the wall of text :/

NinjaEd.3946:

If they nerf expeditious dodger I’d quit. Not because the trait is godly, but because if they honestly find the justification to nerf it clearly the warrior community has taken over the balance team and its down hill from there.

I lol’ed.

I’d probably move to another class or quit outright if direct damage output is badly nerfed across the board (more than the ferocity change did, anyway). As long as I’m not forced to play condi to be effective I’m happy.

Edit: that being said, most of my guild have left the game/are on indefinite haitus due to the ridiculously slow rate of change to the PvP aspect of the game. Nothing has drastically changed for PvP/WvW in months so it is becoming stale, and stuff that’s blatantly OP/UP should not realistically take 5 ish months to fix.

I guess that’s a lack of change as opposed to a nerf though :P

I have 2283 hours on thief over 406 days, 3274 hours over 598 days total. I’ve been unemployed for a while, so plenty of time to practice -.-
I’m not a bad thief, I probably spend more time annoying people who try to protect dolyaks in WvW than actually duelling etc tho, so definitely room for improvement lol :P

Auesis.7301:

:3

Do I get a cookie? Or a restraining order?

How… o.O Do you not sleep or something? :P

Pandaman.4758:

I propose we ban all classes from WvW. Instead, whenever someone goes into WvW, they will be turned into baby yaks.

And then we can have zergs of baby yaks swarming each other and using their heads to bash down/repair structures.

I second this, but only if the OP yak-ness is open to counterplay from strategic quaggan deployment.

Blix.8021:

Lucentfir.7430:

WvW is about blob fest taking keeps and crap like that. I doubt thieves are a result of people leaving WvW. The only types that I think would leave are brand new roamers with not so good awareness.

I guarantee getting ganked by thieves has driven players away from wvw. There’s a reason why most people blob in the first place – they don’t want to deal with thieves.

Equally, the reason a lot of roamers play thieves is because they don’t want to deal with blobs ganking 20v1 all the time.

Crapgame.6519:

Siroso.2769:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I knew enough not to attack when he had the shield up, but that really only leaves you the option of kiting and trying to heal.

Just to clarify, if possible you absolutely do want to attack him while the shield is up. If you hit it three times, it disappears and does no damage… It’s only if you leave it alone that it explodes. You may be thinking of mace 3, which has a different animation and only triggers a strike if hit. If you spend most of the fight on shortbow you will have a far better time, with poison field, and plenty of evades… Judges intervention has a decent cd and you can kite reasonably well after that is gone.

Both work actually. The shield effect of focus 5 is a set-up and it has a time limit.

So you can turn and burn so it fades on its own or you can do some basic attacks and fade it that way. Both work. Personally, I turn and burn so its on cool down then engage. Just how it works for me but your mileage may vary.

Huh, good to know, I did indeed think that it blew up when destroyed. Thanks ^^

Kinda reinforces the point that I need to actually play guardian for a while, it’s not a class I have much experience with and it shows. I need more char slots :/

Maugetarr.6823:

It took a prominent tournament thief to get it recognized as a viable build.

Didn’t something similar happen with a tourney player popularising hambow? I can’t remember who (Rom and Super come to mind, but I don’t want to falsely attribute this), I just remember warriors being seen as weak until this particular tourney, then they were seen as OP almost overnight. Same with Jumper and his acro S/D S/D build, laughed at before the tourney, widely used afterwards.

People be fickle, I guess :P

I normally use withdraw, shadowstep, refuge, RfI and thieves guild when roaming, I swap refuge out for shadow trap and thieves guild for daggerstorm depending on what I’m doing and how many allies I have.

It’s a nice skill, I normally use it when attacking a camp where it’s easy to get zerged (like the camp north of bay, I place it on the south road entrance to ward for thieves) or a group ramming a tower door, it provides a nice escape option.

The thing to remember with it is that while it’s a stunbreak, the port can be interrupted if you’re using the destroy trap option, so try to get a little distance before you use it. It also relies on LoS so can be obstructed by trees, so you really have to plan your escape, but it’s a good skill overall.

Wow, thanks for all the replies ^^

Yeah, I did have very little chance to retaliate, mainly because the initial burst is instant cast so he could pick the times between dodges when I’m vulnerable. That initial combo often left me with 40% health, blinded and on fire, which is a pretty hard position to come back from. I knew enough not to attack when he had the shield up, but that really only leaves you the option of kiting and trying to heal. It’s hard for me to stealth since he has so many blocks, If I shadowstep away he still has JI to chase. If I do manage to avoid the JI and recover, he still has all his defensive cooldowns ready and a pretty strong scepter auto to keep pressure up. It’s a hard fight…

It’s is definitely a L2P issue, but having said that I won’t lose sleep if I still find these guys difficult. Every build should have a counter, I just want to maximise my chances of beating him anyway ^^

The general consensus seems to be that I should be more patient and try to bait out the cooldowns, I will try to work on that. I’m also going to roll a guardian now I know roughly what stats to aim for, since the best way to learn how to kill something is to play it and see what kills you. Again, thanks very much for all replies ^^

Well, I started messing around with 2/0/0/6/6 S/D in January after getting bored with always traiting into critical strikes, then logged onto the forums and saw that you do it too, and that Arcadius Cole had videos of himself playing it as well. I saw it as proof that my theorycrafting was sound, as I figured that if it was viable the odds are someone would have done it and written about it somewhere.

It’s the old adage, there’s nothing new under the sun. I played it before Sizer made it popular, you did it before he did, and odds are there’s others that did it before you. I imagine you feel the same way as people who played 0/6/6/2 before Yishis did, not much that can be done about that either.

I’m not trying to be a kitten or anything, I just think the horse might have left the stable on this one :/

Before I start, this isn’t a cry post, I want to learn something here.

I’ve run into a Gunnar’s Hold Silver General Guardian more than a few times in WvW recently. He often hangs around the bottom left camp in the borders looking for duels, and he utterly destroys me every time I fight him. If you are that guy, serious props, you are good! ^^

I know he runs 6 in the toughness tree for the meditations heal trait, and that he used scepter focus / sword torch. I also know he hit me for 6k with smite condition when I was on a glassy build (2200 armor tops), I think he used the torch to boost the damage by setting himself alight. I think he had around 14k health, from the feel of things.

I main Thief so it’s a hellish matchup for me, since I just can’t recover from hits like he can, and I have to get close to burst him. I was hoping someone could enlighten me on what the build/gear is is likely to be so I can play it a while, try to find weaknesses I can exploit. Thanks for any/all replies ^^

Pretty much what the others have said. Most thief players are like players of any other class, there’s just a lot less margin for error on most thief builds than certain other classes. Throwing yourself in the deep end with no SA/blinds is a great way to improve, assuming it’s not zerg o’clock. I’m by no means the best thief but I’m definitely better for having done that.

Speaking of good thieves, watch Woaden’s vids (link in his sig above). I struggled a lot initially with S/D acro after playing dagger SA for 8 months, watching him play really helped me get a feel for the flow of the set. Many thanks! ^^

I considered that, but I have enough money/mats to finish the armor by sunday (only waiting on laurels really, I knew I’d regret spamming WvW ranks -.-), and I don’t think I even have 200 weaponsmithing atm :/ That will definitely be the next project though.



^ This. The fact that it was done as a hotfix with no warning or reason given is very disheartening.

After playing with it for a while, it seems to be worst when you’re fully running away, in combat it’s not as bad as I initially thought (assuming you don’t spam it, or that you use withdraw first to get distance). That doesn’t make it good though, I’d still rather have an animation that doesn’t feel like lag.

Awesome, I’ll stick with pack runes and get the armor then. Thanks for all replies ^^

Frans: I know there’s not much might in my build atm, I don’t really see the point in stacking much unless you go all out and make that the main focus of your build. I run strength runes in PvP on a 0/6/0/3/5 S/P build with power of inertia, might on signet use and 2 signets, I’d prob do something similar if I had strength runes in WvW.

The best thing they could do is to remove the downed state and ressing whilst in combat, imo. It wouldn’t affect the majority of zerg fights, since no side has any arbitrary debuffs, and the larger force will still have an advantage, as they should do. But it would give smaller groups/roamers more of a chance to accomplish something when faced with a much larger force, since guerrilla tactics like thinning their numbers before a direct assault would actually work then.

That’s my 2 cents anyways.

You might do it so you can have a reward after one season without having enough tokens to get a mistforged weapon outright. That way, you still get something shiny, and can upgrade it when the next season rolls around.

Yeah, I was pretty concerned with the loss of crit chance when I swapped from lyssa runes, so I chose pack runes because of the extra 125 precision on top of the power boost. I hadn’t even thought about the fury uptime, it was a rather nice surprise ^^

Might duration isn’t something I normally build for tbh, although with 6 in shadow arts strength/hoelbrak runes would be very nice. That’s actually what was swaying me towards strength runes in the first place, they work well with pretty much every direct damage build thief has. I didn’t want to make ascended armor just for it to sit in my inventory :P

Yeah, I really like the extra precision, and the potential 100% fury and swiftness uptime pack runes give when combined with trickery V. I hear a lot about strength runes (I use them in PvP atm too), but it’s hard to gauge how much benefit you’ll get in WvW for that 90 gold without taking the plunge :/

That makes sense, the extra armor is something I could do with too. Thanks! ^^

Really nice vid, you anticipated that first thief’s port perfectly for a cheeky CnD, I need to work on that lol ^^

Edit: Just seen the end of the vid, very true sadly :/

I’m trying to work out what would be the best investment, so what would have the most overall effect. I have shoulders, gloves, boots and shortbow already ascended, so it’s the S/D and other armor parts that I could start to ascend, or get strength runes (see build link if I’m being confusing :P )

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPx3JsPNBNh4d4vl1KQ3R3FE-T1CBAB5oWRlqqcmSQJOFAYp8yLlIA8AAyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxAlYJWiNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

So yeah, what would you guys do next? thanks for any & all replies

Just tried using the skill, it’s really not great.

I’m running on a laptop so have issues in larger fights anyways, and since this skill occasionally just disables my movement keys forcing me to withdraw to be able to move again, it’s just horrible as is. Makes me sad, since shortbow is my favourite weapon for thief.

At least let us determine which way you run, if you want an aftercast where we can’t dodge. That would stop it feeling like you’re lagging out at least.

DaliIndica.9041:

Yeah but its so much more than that. Any old scrub can use it, but it takes a special kind of player, a real low life, to start getting creative with it.

Sure stealthing up and breaking the glass is doable, but its old hat.

My new sport is wiring THEM onto the glass, then spam #2 on the pistol so they have to stand there until it breaks. Its more psychological warfare.

^Lol

I did that to my friend, when he insisted on running around in circles making chicken noises in the middle of a duel. The hatred was palpable ^^

My guildie runs a build similar to this, he uses dwayna runes atm tho. The main problem he has is immobilise in group fights, 1v1 he’s very hard to bring down. Thanks for pointing out the runes, I’m sure he’d be interested in that (as am I) ^^

It’s when you’re launched, my thief’s roll for initiative gets disabled when launched too.