Guild Wars 2

If the person who had the bounty on his head got the reward when he killed the one who set the bounty, I’d be all for it. Otherwise it’d be way too one sided victimising in a lot of cases.

That, and only one bounty on your head at a time. Unless you want to further encourage pin sniping by blobs.

Pretty much the title. Levelling another thief because I’m bored, kinda just want to make it a core only thief. The old panic strike SA build probably still works, just wondering if anyone has anything more interesting to play with?

I’ve been running with just force and stamina on my berserker staff, I have force and air on a marauder staff but I’m probably going to swap the sigils soon so air/force is on the zerk staff and stamina/force is on the marauder one, with stamina/bloodlust on S/P.

^ this. If a ranger presses the rapid fire button a split second before you stealth, he’s still gonna cast the whole thing on you.

Just to be clear, I’m not massively looking forward to rifle either. I think it’ll be stupidly op, or useless. Most likely both, and in that order. It’ll also take a lot for it to replace D/P, since the utility on that set is immense, and I already hit between 9-15k backstabs depending on armor class and toughness. Pretty sure I can hit higher than that as well.

Lastly, it’s probably going to be fairly boring to play once the fun of high damage wears off if it’s a DPS spec. I’m mainly looking forward to it as it’s going to mean I have a use for that predator rifle sat in my bank, as my engi sure isn’t making use of it.

All things considered, if it’s a spec that you’d only use with rifle and D/P doesn’t benefit from it, I’d be happy with that. Daredevil is the glassy DPS elite spec, let’s have something different this time around.

Posted this in another thread, just gonna copy and paste.

Just something to note, having stealth and a long range damage skill could be more balanced than you realise, simply because taking this elite spec locks you out of daredevil. So what you should be thinking about is what would core thief look like with a rifle. This has several repercussions:

1) Mobility and evades will be significantly lower than what most thieves are probably used to by now.
2) Reveals are probably going to mean death for this spec, which combined with the lack of defenses on core thief means any druid with sic ‘em will likely hard counter this build.
3) You can’t play pulmonary impact for interrupt damage, so if the spec is CC/support based it loses that damage source.
4) This build will have zero condi cleanse outside of stealth, due to not being able to take EA from daredevil and core thief being too reliant on SA for cleanse. See 2 on reveals.
5) Rifle thieves will have to take that spec, leaving a choice of two from DA, SA and trickery. So it’s either going to be glass or lose significant damage modifiers to gain condi cleanse and minimal damage reduction.
6) I’m assuming that the ICD on stealth attacks was implemented with this elite spec in mind (think of the acro nerfs while daredevil was in development). So if we have a long range sniper, I’d bet that it’s boon steal will be deliberately limited, making aegis/blocks/protection/reflects much more useful vs this build.

So, if they make the rifle DPS based, they simply have to avoid giving evades, mobility or massive damage modifiers in the elite spec traits. Making the traits support/CC based (with both a power and condi line) but the weapon DPS based would be an interesting way to introduce more builds, while leaving limits on the power of a glass rifle spec.

I’ve been using staff with sigil of stamina (+1 on this, really good sigil for thief with bound) and force, with S/P on offhand with strength (could prob swap this for something else if you have warriors in party) and bloodlust for trash mobs and breakbars. Works really well I find.

And yeah, I mostly just auto, using bound enough to keep the buff up and 3 to dodge big hits as needed. I use DA CS DD with all damage traits except I take invigorating precision for the sustain, and I was reliably out dps’ing our ele last time we did fractals.

It’s worth it as an opener still. I hit a ranger for 27k the other day, 13k backstab and he died before PI went off. I’ve seen 15k stabs on the same build.

It depends how you build though. I get mobbed by multiple players a lot, so I build to be able to nuke one guy right from the start to improve my odds of winning. That said, if my backstab would hit for 13k, my bounds and shadowstep will hit for 7-8k easily, so after the initial engage it’s less worth it, you’re right.

Something I found works quite well is stealthing, casting basi, waiting to destealth without attacking and using black powder’s projectile to interrupt. People always spam skills as soon as they see you so it’s likely to get the interrupt, they’ve probably wasted a couple defensives trying to predict your burst, and it sets you up to bound steal stab so the damage lands at the same time as the PI proc. At worst, you simply restealth (if you see endure pain or something). If you’re gonna land backstab, might as well try to end the fight with it.

Tbh I’m mostly just happy about being able to use my predator rifle after they gutted rifle engi, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to this spec. The idea of rifle thief kinda bores me.

That said, Deceiver’s proposal was one of the more fully developed and balanced ideas put out there, so I’d have no problem with it becoming reality either. If someone enjoys it and it’s not horrendously OP/UP, it’s a win tbh.

The forums have been a little slow recently, so here’s a topic: post with your current favourite build, where it’s used, why you like it, and what it’s good at.

My current favourite WvW build is this D/P build; it’s got 15-17k health depending on WvW buffs and it hits like an absolute truck with just under 3k power fully buffed. I hit a ranger for 27k in total the other day (black powder bound steal stab combo) and he was down before the pulmonary impact proc hit.

I like it because it lets me do enough damage to threaten just about anything, but still has decent survival due to DD. 2v1 is more than doable when you can just nuke the most troublesome guy into the floor in the first few seconds of the fight.

So what’s your favourite build at the moment?

Like I say Orpheal, I wouldn’t take my criticism too personally as the majority of the issues are the same issues the Devs will face if they decide to make a rifle thief. It’s not an easy problem, since you’d have to totally change how thief plays (slippery glass cannon) to make it work imo. Your idea was creative, which I liked

And I’ve had a predator rifle sat in my bank ever since my engi got a hammer, so I’m looking forward to being able to use it again. That said, I’m pretty sure the spec is either gonna be support or condi based, if only because that will be easier to balance in the long run.

Between sword 2, shadowstep and steal I can move 3.3k units to engage with melee, and if stuff goes wrong I can port 2.4k units back towards where I started. That’s pretty much the max distance I can target something on open ground. What more do you want exactly?

I’d go human. Asura are egomaniacs so they wouldn’t care about something like honour, and sylvari have more of a greater good sort of mindset because of the dream. Duelists are inherently self interested, which fits humans more.

Just a couple of thoughts:

Is the rifle to be a 1200 range weapon or 1500 range? Putting an extended range on a minor trait for a weapon that can’t be used without the spec is a bit redundant by the way, might as well just state the ranges in the skills.

That said, if it’s 1200 brought to 1500 with sonic bullets, it’s gonna be useless for two reasons: firstly druids/dragonhunters will outrange you with their longbows (and even if the range is higher there isn’t much you can do to stop them, they have way better defensive capabilities), and secondly the spec does almost nothing to help you survive a warrior or daredevil getting close. In fact it hinders you, since the spec removes the ability to use survival skills like shadowstep. Where are the stun breaks? I see you have permanent stability while attacking, but without a ranged autoattack to keep stacking stab all I have to do is go defensive while you fire, wait for the reload and you’re up guano creek without a paddle. You can’t run from me or kite without swapping weapon sets, at which point you’re a core thief that’s missing a specialisation.

Outside of daredevil, the only condi cleanse you’d have without utilities is pain response and shadows embrace. You only have one way of stealthing on the set, which presumably will have a cooldown, so you’re going to be eaten alive by basically any condi class as long as they save their spike for when you just swap to rifle.

Then there’s the issue of tankiness. If you make the damage coefficients such that you can be tanky, in order to offset the mentioned lack of defense, then a glass rifle thief will deal insane damage. If you make it so you have to build glass (like the rest of the profession currently works), then it’s going to be useless due to an almost total lack of active and passive defense.

Lastly, it seems clunky. You want us to press the utility buttons in a specific order to load the bullets, while immobile, and then press the utility buttons in the correct order to fire the bullets, with minimal stealth or evades, no passive defense and more than likely glass stats? Unless I’ve misread something, there’s not much point to the 5 skill loading bullets randomly if you press the utilities to fire the specific bullet you want. That and the melee autoattack means the weapon has no sustained DPS at range, and with the lack of defense and stunbreaks it’s useless at close range too, forcing you to swap to your second set when pressured.

I’m not trying to be harsh or anything, I just don’t understand how this is going to be anything but a death sentence when swapping to rifle in its current state.

ANet. Nerf ANet.

So what’s the best damage food and utility combo these days? I usually use cheap power food with furious maintenance oils, just fancy a change.

Azukas.1426:

Kolly.9872:

I use D/P too when going for ranked but dunno why I find easier to win duels when I am on my S/P build than on D/P. Maybe I’m just bad on DP but I win easily on SP those duels I always lose when on DP

S/P has a lower skill requirement to succeed. If you trait Bound you get all the OH utility that D/P has, but you get Pistol Whip. Even w/out quickness PW is very dangerous when fighting against.

Having the extra evade on pistol whip is also very helpful if you know when to use it. It’s not in the tooltip, but it’s there and it helps a lot.

Vitali.5039:

I need some tips for this build
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsaVn0MBFmilNBmOB8PhlriybDygPo7mmuAY+5z+uH-TpBEABE8AAMvMAEHCAAOCAMt/gBnAAA

I’m looking for a Bloodborne like build, can someone educate me?

Just some thoughts;

Tripwire will be a bit awkward to use in that build, as hard CC overwrites each other (so a 4s daze immediately followed by a pistol whip results in less CC time than just leaving the daze). You might find haste or fist flurry a better option. Shadow trap is also a fun option if you know where to use it, helps make up for not taking dash.

Rage sigil is better than fire for S/P IMO as the quickness on autos really makes the set so much more dangerous. Just use autos when hasted, not pistol whip, as it is better DPS and quickness cuts your evade time from pistol whip. Leeching over hydromancy can add additional damage to your next spike, and makes up for the loss of fire/blood.

ArthurDent.9538:

A few of the stolen skills need rebalancing. Essence sap and consume plasma are both far too strong while throw gunk is terribly weak. The rest are decently balanced though there is no real reason why the ranger one is the only one with a CD on top of steal CD.

Pretty sure the ranger steal has a CD because of the way it cleanses condis, with improv it would be slightly OP vs condi ranger otherwise.

Essence sap is pretty crazy strong, you can kill your average glass rev with an interrupt from steal with mug traited, two essence saps and a shadowshot. It was fair while retribution was worth running to counter interrupt damage, but it’s way too strong now.

That said, I’d rather see the nerf on unwavering avoidance undone, and then have enhanced bulwark nerfed with a 5-8s CD or changed outright since that was the actual problem with rev stab in the first place.

godmoney.6025:

About the 1second arm time. I believe all traps in the game should have an arming time. Arming time on traps make sense. IRL I would never run up to a bear in the wild and try to place a trap under it, I would place the trap and lure him into it.

@DH teleporting under someone’s feet and dropping a 0sec cast time insta-proc trap that critical hits for 12million damage is bullkitten.

IRL Trying to throw a trap doesn’t make sense either, it could land upside down on the ground and be useless.

That being said, thief traps need a bigger trigger zone, and I’m a bit drunk.

I’d be fine with the arming time if our traps were circles like the other classes, it just seems rather inconsistent all round when compared with DH traps now. But hey, that’s the game I guess.

Turk.5460:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Turk.5460:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I ran traps in my condi build, but no perma stealth. I’d burst like a medi guard: heal>steal>cancel heal with weapon swap for geomancy sigil. This is pretty much dead now, which is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong, ghost thief needed to die. But the traps counting as a strike ought to have been sufficient, no?

Kawloon Fuathach.3807:

They picked the wrong solution to the issue that was at hand.

^ This. Stealth stacking was the issue.

Nope. Not being revealed while applying and maintaining lethal conditions was the issue. That is what this (poorly) fixed. Please don’t bring your misguided gripe with the core mechanic into this.

If you read my post, you’d see I said geomancy sigil, so I’d be revealed when spiking anyways. That, and my complaint was with the interaction with steal being changed due to the arm time, which makes it much harder to actually land traps, not with the traps causing reveal.

Please try to read the post before commenting next time, makes you look less silly

Just because I didn’t feel the need to snip your quote doesn’t mean I was replying to the entire post from start to finish. Please try to understand basic logic and context clues before commenting next time, makes you look less silly.

Well you should be more specific then lol xD

Honestly I fail to see how the gripe is misguided when the thief can just change traps out to other skills that allow them to apply condis while stealthed. That, and the fact you really don’t need permastealth in full marauder to begin with, let alone trailblazer or dire.

Sure, the update killed that specific build, which is good for the game as a whole. Changing how stealth stacks or how SA works would have been sufficient to balance the build without nerfing everything associated with traps though.

Edit: Just to be clear, meta D/P with dash doesn’t need any stealth taken off of it. What I’m thinking of is a change that puts a cap on stealth so you can’t stealth indefinitely using D/P with bound or SA, and making SA more active in how it works so it doesn’t encourage camping in stealth to begin with. ANet were pretty crazy to buff needle trap in the last balance patch though, so this is probably a pipe dream.

Turk.5460:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I ran traps in my condi build, but no perma stealth. I’d burst like a medi guard: heal>steal>cancel heal with weapon swap for geomancy sigil. This is pretty much dead now, which is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong, ghost thief needed to die. But the traps counting as a strike ought to have been sufficient, no?

Kawloon Fuathach.3807:

They picked the wrong solution to the issue that was at hand.

^ This. Stealth stacking was the issue.

Nope. Not being revealed while applying and maintaining lethal conditions was the issue. That is what this (poorly) fixed. Please don’t bring your misguided gripe with the core mechanic into this.

If you read my post, you’d see I said geomancy sigil, so I’d be revealed when spiking anyways. That, and my complaint was with the interaction with steal being changed due to the arm time, which makes it much harder to actually land traps, not with the traps causing reveal.

Please try to read the post before commenting next time, makes you look less silly

I ran traps in my condi build, but no perma stealth. I’d burst like a medi guard: heal>steal>cancel heal with weapon swap for geomancy sigil. This is pretty much dead now, which is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong, ghost thief needed to die. But the traps counting as a strike ought to have been sufficient, no?

Kawloon Fuathach.3807:

They picked the wrong solution to the issue that was at hand.

^ This. Stealth stacking was the issue.

I play a lot of S/P, it’s not viable in sPvP because you have to make sacrifices D/P doesn’t. WvW it can be good, but D/P or condi still outpaces it.

If you take dash, you have no stealth access without blasting smoke fields which eats all your ini, so decapping vs a team that’s watching for it is hard. Playing standard D/P traits with S/P is a lot of fun in WvW and I enjoy skirmishing with it, but the lack of stealth means you’re an easy kill for a D/P thief on the fringes.

If you take bound for the stealth access, you’re either playing DA in which case you’re much slower than a D/P thief over ground and will lose the decap wars, or you’re playing acro in which case you lose a lot of offensive utility for passives and you still can’t team fight as well as staff (although staff with S/P offhand is a pretty nice duelling set vs some specs).

Lastly, stab heavily counters S/P as it makes it easier to walk out of pistol whips and you get no interrupt damage. Shadow shot and heartseeker work regardless of stab.

These things are true to an extent for all thief builds (if you get caught you get killed etc), but S/P has less tools available than D/P, which doesn’t have to sacrifice DPS traits for stealth like S/P does. This is why it’s the meta in a game mode that needs stealth for tactical advantage.

Thief is definitely viable, it’s got great damage. I use rev for PvE personally, but that’s because it has way more margin for error and better support at the cost of a lower maximum DPS, which is better for me as I don’t play high end PvE much and I don’t learn the fights inside out so the class carries me. If you’re looking to put that kind of effort into PvE, thief is totally viable.

Yeah, only allies can see the footprints when you’re in stealth. The only one I’m not sure about is if enemies can see infiltrator’s arrow if you have the dreamer equipped when in stealth, since normal projectile effects are visible under this conditions anyways.

Yeah, supposedly they improved the interaction of the skill with terrain. I seem to remember them doing something similar with shortbow 3, long ago.

I play condi and power fairly evenly at the moment, depending on the server we’re playing and the general comp of their roamers. For instance: if I run into lots of roaming DH trappers, I’m likely to play condi as unblockable traps and poison fields confers an advantage in that matchup. Sure, I can use acro staff, but there’s an easier option so why not take it? Your opponent certainly will.

You also have to take your playstyle into account: I play much better defensively than offensively, that is to say I’m assuming my opponent is being aggressive and chasing down the kill. That mindset favours condi in outnumbered fights, as people are more likely to be lazy with defensive skills and cleanses as they think numbers confer an advantage.

Bottom line, you can’t assume one build is the best in all situations, you have to adapt to the situation. If there’s a rise in condi builds in general, it’s probably in response to the meta builds, not in spite of them.

It also depends what your other interests are. I’m 27, turning 28 this year, but I’m able to duel ESL players and win, and I’m also a juggler hence my account name.

While not professional (I don’t like making my hobbies my work), I can juggle 7 balls or 5 clubs, I can unicycle, and I know from conversations with other jugglers that I could easily turn pro if I got an act together, so my spacial coordination, peripheral vision and timing is about as good as it’s gonna get. Stuff like that makes a difference.

Nomads is a weak choice, go sentinel. 3k armor, 20k health, 2.2k power and 200%+ crit damage with guaranteed crits. My glass thief does around 50% more damage on crits compared to the sentinel thief, but I can still hit 5-7k against most things so it’s very funny 1v1 and for plain trolling.

babazhook.6805:

Cygnus.6903:

saerni.2584:

20k ish HP for full dire. Less if they run some trailblazers or other set.

Once they are forced out of stealth they will be burning initiative to regain it. You just need to interrupt their leap and force BP to expire to make them stay visible. Drop AoE traps on top of yourself and then more AoE on the BP if they are in stealth.

20k HP on something with 3k defense is pretty disgusting…

Once they are out of stealth, they can dodge, dodge again, dodge again, dodge yet again, use shadow step, use shortbow 5, really. A thief that doesn’t use this decease of a build is hard enough to kill. Ghosts still retain enough of those options to survive a few seconds of reveal.

‘You just need to interrupt the leap’. For a lot of classes that means you have to reach the BP first.

People acting like it’s easy to do anything against this build are almost as bad as it’s users.

Where does ghost thief get its ability to dodge dodge dodge and dodge again? They give up Acro and DD so as to trait in DA, Sa and trickery. They have two dodges.

I play da/trick/DD on my P/D condi trapper, dash and the DD heal give good dodges and mobility but I don’t permastealth and have minimal cleanse. Pretty sure the build he’s talking about is that old 30/30/30/30/30 build cropping up again.

That said, the reason I don’t permastealth is because with 20k health, 3.3k armor, dash mobility, shadow trap to engage or ooc, a 3 second invuln and 2.65k condi damage on a full spike I rarely find I need that much stealth anyways.

Vornollo.5182:

@Martin
DecieverX said there that the OP’s suggestion for the easy OOC stealth was bad because it takes away part of the investment and Risk that is and should be attached to Stealth.
Essentially you just both said the same thing, though the context is different :P

Anyhow, for the OP’s suggestion.
Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. The issue with those Ghost Thieves comes from two things 1) Trapper Runes’ effect and 2) Lack of Physical damage on Needle Trap + Caltrops.
Easiest fix is to give Needle Trap Physical Damage, it’d make the Trap Stronger, but make the Perma-Stealthing quite tedious.
That said, I don’t like nerfing a build/skill that already isn’t viable for anything other than trolling. Just ignore the Thief and there’s no way that he can pressure you enough to actually get anything done.
Another idea could be the Stealth Disruptor Trap.

To be honest, this is also my point: the issue with ghost thief is precisely neither of those two things. I’m fine with the spec getting changed as yes, it’s basically another clone death PU mesmer as has been said, I just want it to not be changed in a way that screws over other builds. My original suggestion clearly didn’t do that when looking back, but I mostly wanted to start a discussion so I’m not bothered about my idea being bad tbh.

The reason trapper runes aren’t the issue is that most thieves that have put thought into it will run plex runes and stealth with D/P, which already gives more than enough stealth when running SA. I run trapper runes on my condi thief because I play P/D, so I want the extra stealth to set up sneak attacks from range which is something ghost thief doesn’t need to do.

ANet is very unlikely to add physical damage to traps as the traps had physical damage originally, and were specifically changed to encourage use with trapper runes. On top of that, needle trap was inexplicably buffed last patch, so you can pretty much guarantee that needle trap won’t get damage added to it in the future. There are also other skills that would fit the bill (knockdown trap, pain inverter (asura racial) with confusion and poison from steal plus plex runes) should a thief want to perma stealth and burst without needle trap.

I’d also like to say that if needle trap gets damage on it again, I’d be fine with that personally as I’d just put geomancy sigils on both weapons to make up for the fact I’m revealed. I don’t play perma stealth, nor do I feel you need to to play traps effectively. I just think that if you consider the health of the profession as a whole, stealth stacking is actually the problem that needs addressing here.

Like I say, I have no issue with nerfs, it’s just irritating when people complain about something then ask for nerfs to things that won’t actually solve the problem haha xD

Edit: Don’t take this as a personal attack or anything, it’s not meant that way. Just explaining my reasoning ^^

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

This is a really good suggestion, much better than mine haha like I said I was just brainstorming a bit there, I’d rather find a solution that makes stealth more balanced without destroying a playstyle completely. I mean, if you’re full dire/trailblazer you can afford to be revealed sometimes.

And I don’t have a problem with ghost thieves myself, for the record, I’d just rather not see traps etc nerfed when the problem is stealth stacking. It’s not a problem in pvp as you only want a few seconds of stealth anyways, in wvw it’s way more problematic.

Pretty much the title: if people are serious about balancing ghost thieves and stealth in wvw, then stealth stacking needs to change in some way. Black powder (pistol 5) is the obvious target for changes, as it leaves combo finishers well alone so any group support we have through that is unchanged.

So instead of a smoke field, what if black powder gave a dark field, aoe blind and stealthed the thief for 3s? 4s with SA. Maybe have a skill split with Pvp so that’s left as it is (since the problem is WvW related), that can be discussed.

Pistol offhand builds would then still be able to stealth, they’d gain a lifesteal option which would benefit P/P, and you’d still get enough stealth to reposition etc anyways, but it would make it far harder to continuously stack stealth without building for it. Thieves needing to stealth a group would still have Refuge, the smoke wall and blinding powder.

The main issue I can think of is counterplay, but there is no opportunity to interrupt with bound or permanent stealth thieves already, so hey. The point of this is to force an opportunity cost between stealth and damage.

Genuinely just brainstorming here, so any thoughts are welcome.

The way I see it, if ricochet were to come back it would need to be in critical strikes or in a new elite spec centred around rifle and guns. Maybe a trait that swaps the might stacking on unload for pierce, or adds bounce chance at 33% of your crit chance or something like that. I think if we get bouncy bullets it should be dependant on crit, as trailblazer P/D thief is frankly strong enough as is.

Strength sigil and hammer auto stacks a lot of might, esp with hgh on top.

Wonderful. Thanks for the info tho, its nice they finally gave an answer for it.

Zero Day.2594:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Necro much?

2 years issues are still relevant if they warrant another nerf.

Seems legit.

Definitely, but considering it got nerfed before the necro and the content of his post, I think he just didn’t look at the dates lol

Look. Anet wants to see traps being used, hence the buffs, and the problem with ghost thief is D/P stealth stacking, not traps. The only way ghost thief will be balanced is if anet nerfs stealth stacking, which hurts D/P meta. Is that what you all really want?

I play P/D trapper thief when there’s lots of builds my power bud struggles with, it’s plenty strong atm even without permanent stealth. I’ve killed ghost thieves by intentionally taking a burst while stood on shadow trap, cleansing, then using shadow trap’s port to apply my own needle trap burst. You can also see where the traps are placed if you watch carefully, and dodge through them to waste their cds. On staff thief I dodge the traps, then wait for black powder and Shadow refuge and aoe the crap out of it to force them out of stealth (eventually). Most ghost thieves aren’t that good and panic when the other guy is hitting you through stealth, take advantage of that.

Yeah, it’s an utter cheese build. But it’s killable with permanent stealth, and the only way to remove permanent stealth is to nerf D/P. Again, is that what you all really want?

Necro much?

My build is in my sig, works pretty well for duels and general roaming tbh.

I swap between EA and PI, pain response and auto evade, and staff/shortbow offhand quite a lot depending on what I’m fighting. S/P works as a boonstrip cc set for me, it reliably removes protection and stab for a spike vs ele and druid while staff lets me deal with warriors and DH much more easily, and with shortbow you can permastealth out of combat by blasting smoke fields and bounding. The 2100 range on infiltrator’s and steal combined makes it pretty good for +1 as well, it benefits massively from quickness access if you want to gank tho.

I mostly WvW so I’ve not had to adapt this specific build for the endurance changes yet, but it works for most 1v1’s at present. D/P is a better set but S/P is still dangerous in the right hands.

Edit: just be aware that you have very little room for error vs other thieves, esp if you’re not running don’t stop. That’s part of the fun though

Acro staff is pretty strong vs power mes atm, lots of evades, lots of aoe to keep the clones at bay. In particular, wait for the mesmer to use continuum split, as if it’s destroyed the mes returns to that position and you can see the orb even if the mes is in stealth so it’s a perfect vault target if you get the timing right. The auto evade trait also helps a bunch as stopping you getting one shot if you mess up your timing.

It needed less sustain, basically. I think they’ve done a good job of nerfing acro without destroying it this time around, if you take staff master you get a similar level of evades to before but you have to be more careful against condis. The old build had too much sustain on a point and didn’t have to hit and run, which is contrary to the rest of thief design, so something was bound to get changed.

It forces you to make a choice between the auto evade trait and pain response, and staff master and EA, based on the comp you’re facing. Which isn’t a bad thing all told.

Acro staff feels more or less the same as pre nerf if you take staff master over EA, so with the extra cleanse (and the option of purity/generosity sigils on staff) I’d say it’s been balanced fairly well tbh.

Urejt.5648:

I dont like they removed staff from thief.

They didn’t remove staff from thief. They reduced evades across the board, and toned down some traits that were clearly overperforming. A staff thief or D/D condi thief shouldn’t be able to constantly attack and chain dodges in the way they were, and the quicker those changes hit WvW the better frankly.

saerni.2584:

Did the caltrops from Uncatchable get buffed? Or just the utility skill?

Good catch there, it’s on caltrops not uncatchable. I’m tired lol xD

So yeah, it’s more reasonable than I first thought.

coso.9173:

WvW too I guess, right?

Yeah, mostly WvW roaming. The only use I have for it in PvE is porting back fro the TP to a crafting station, but there’s not much need to outwit mobs with ports in PvE all round.

Zero Day.2594:

Since I’m loosely following this game…

I’m psych’ed about the coming skill balance changes.

My money’s on nerfs to things that are still useful and buffs to poison/traps.

You should have made a bigger bet haha xD

roamzero.9486:

Cecilia.5179:

They buffed Ghost thief… This makes me want WvW exclusive balance.

What’s funny is that despite that, for some reason they refuse to unsplit MH Pistol changes and keep them PVP only. As far as condi builds go oldschool P/D is alot funner to play than that ghost trap build..

I play P/D condi trapper for roaming a lot, so I’m happy with those changes even if I don’t think they were strictly necessary. And yes, it’s way more fun than ghost thief, and frankly it’s easier to bait people into traps when they have a target to chase.

As I say, I don’t think the needle trap and caltrops changes were needed. I have 100% bleed and poison duration, so one needle trap will now do 17k damage over 20s according to the tooltip, and dodging will put a 10s bleed on someone if they hit the caltrops. This is before might and vulnerability as well, which I have plenty of. I mean, it’s nice, I’ll take it, but they’ve made a trap spike really, really dangerous for reasons unknown.

It’s good and bad tbh, I liked that staff was halfway viable but the evade spam needed to stop as well, so something’s gotta take a hit. The channeled vigor nerf is hardly noticable imo, 15 endurance lost is minimal esp when traited, so they concentrated on acro. If anything I’m more annoyed that the changes won’t affect WvW and PvE, I dislike the skill split there.

Cecilia: Ghost thief won’t get nerfed unless they change the stealth stacking of D/P. So it’s pretty much here to stay unfortunately, since they can’t change that without breaking the meta build entirely.

I play P/D trapper, shadow trap is insanely useful in that build. Setting up ganks on chokepoints, two stealths for sneak attacks with pistol, a stunbreak, a pretty much guaranteed OOC skill when used correctly and a port to the enemy that works even if the target is stealthed which is borderline broken when used right. Not to mention 15 stacks of might when traited. It’s only problem is that you have to focus your build around traps and be aware of the LoS issue and your location to get the most from it.

I like to use it like this: precast shadow trap and steal, then swap weapons for geomancy proc on top of steal condis. Wait for them to cleanse, precast needle trap and port to them using shadow trap (which works even if the target is stealthed, so this works wonders against thieves and mesmers) and cancel your heal for the on heal trap. Then spam the area with poison fields from shortbow, as you probably got them pinned down by this point. Works very well vs ele, thief and DH that have one big cleanse that they rely on, and can catch out druids if you can force them to use the cleanse signet early.