Guild Wars 2

Xae Isareth.1364:

Karolis.4261:

Xae Isareth.1364:

You know, after all this, I’ll probably still use the skill. Because like warrior axe #5, its just such a kitten skill.

In PvE, if you’re playing thief, you’re not ‘optimised’ anyways generally since you’re not an ele/warrior/guardian, so may as well unoptimise yourself in style.

Dont get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in using death blossom if u like it in…open world pve, www, spvp. But when it comes to dungeons you are gimping your group by doing so in comparison of taking S/P for aoe that also provides wonderful group utility -black powder.
And thief is “Optimised” enough and does as much or even more dps then glorified warriors, that everyone and their grandmother plays with their googled builds and no actual insight to class, but requires much more from a player to survive because of pretty much 2x lower ehp.

Warrior is third at best on the DPS scale lol. Ele is king in DPS.

And that dps scale i based on what ? Dps meters? Oh w8 we don’t have any and thank god. According to same scale thief is second I believe. SO much from being “unoptimised”. And I dont think that ele is such a huge dps on its own, its more of what he brings to group and thats fury, 25 stacks of might in a blink of an eye (what increases all partys damage, not only its own) and fgs, which is broken as kitten and anet has no clue what to do with it w/o breaking it.

Edit: GOD kitten IT ANET, GIMME MY POSTING PRIVILEGES BACK!

An Error Prevented Saving:

Flood Control: Please wait 3600 seconds between posts!

Fluffy KITTEN!

Xae Isareth.1364:

You know, after all this, I’ll probably still use the skill. Because like warrior axe #5, its just such a kitten skill.

In PvE, if you’re playing thief, you’re not ‘optimised’ anyways generally since you’re not an ele/warrior/guardian, so may as well unoptimise yourself in style.

Dont get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in using death blossom if u like it in…open world pve, www, spvp. But when it comes to dungeons you are gimping your group by doing so in comparison of taking S/P for aoe that also provides wonderful group utility -black powder.
And thief is “Optimised” enough and does as much or even more dps then glorified warriors, that everyone and their grandmother plays with their googled builds and no actual insight to class, but requires much more from a player to survive because of pretty much 2x lower ehp.

Right, lets go to calculations. No buffs, no stacks.
Single pistol whip does 12-13 k damage on lvl 80 mob. Auto attack chain does roughly the same, in almost same time frame (Pistol whip has 2.2s cast time according to wiki and auto attack chain takes pretty much the same for bare eye). So 12k/2.2 = 5454 dps. Honestly… reason to use pistolwhip is stun, higher number of cleaved targets, signet of malice proc and evade, not much higher dps.

Single bleed stack does 120 dps with around 1500 condition damage. 25 stacks of bleed would do 120*25=3000 dps. Single death blossom+auto attack chain (which cant cleave so in aoe situation it would drop dps, but lets assume it cleaves) in carrion gear would do 450(db) + 2500(aa including 3 seconds of poison from last aa chain) damage in roughly 3s time so( 2500 + 450)/3 = about 1000 dps and you can use death blossom every 3s at most (1ini regen every 1s, lets include any ini regen traits u might have, allthough every other deathblossom you would have to follow with 2 auto attack chains to regen initiative) for sustained dps. So we have 3000 dps from 25stacks of bleed and 1000 dps from physical damage and poison = 4000 dps. Now that would happen only if you could keep 25 stacks of bleed constantly which u can’t. In reality you can keep around 10 stacks of bleeds while bumping up to 18-20 very briefly with caltrops (25 maybe if you go balls deep in DB spam, but then u get initiative starved), so your 3k dps from bleeds is actually more like 1500 dps what drops total dps to 2500. You can pick any gear any build, be it full berserker, hybrid celestial or full condi carion, rabid, even rampager with all its precision and no crit power (not even mentioning dire, cause that would decrease physical part of damage even more), none of that would come even close to what aoe damage full berserker S/P can pump out.
If we would take into account grp damage where vulnerability comes into play, damage gap would be even wider.
Conclusion: Death blossom is kitten poor excuse of aoe skill, same as d/d is a kitten poor excuse of aoe weapon set. If you are running D/D and know that you will have to aoe (and you will have to aoe pretty much everywhere), bring real aoe weapon as secondary.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Again, it’s not about the raw DPS, it’s about the versatility. Damage coming from both physical and condition sources, and the ability to drop a significant amount of passive AoE damage while you focus fire one target are huge boons that going hybrid with D/D gives you the ability to do. You also get the smaller bonus of increased Poison efficacy, improved Caltrops (they stack super well), cripple, steal items, and whatever else you may have in your utility kitten nal.

Now, the kicker here, and something I’m sure some people aren’t getting, is that it’s largely a PvE vs PvP thing. The above versatility does tend to be more useful in PvE than it is in PvP. I’d bet a lot of people who complain about Death Blossom are primarily PvPers. As someone who primarily does PvE, I absolutely don’t want my Death Blossom going anywhere.

I’m primary doing pve now. If I want melee Aoe with evade frame I use S/P. From PvP perspective… I want Death blossom to get lost in the jungle and die from malaria, so it would get replaced by something actually useful like shadowshot on D/P.

Edit.: Since anet lets me post only once in an hour for spreading truth, im answering to next post here.
When it comes to trash things die faster then caltrops and death blossom would be able get to its full effect. Single pistolwhip does at least 10 k damage to lvl 80 mobs for 5 initiative, considering one will come back from critting, thats 4 seconds worth of initiative done in 2 seconds time. To do 10 k damage from bleeds in 4 seconds you gotta have 25 stacks of bleeds 100 damage tick per stack You would have to have 200 damage per tick per stack to do that in 2s. Not even mentioning time to ge tthose stacks up even with caltrops+deathblossom and caltrops has cooldown. Anything will be dead long before that, not even mentioning stuff in dungeons where you will be running with might and vulnerability stacks. SO yeah… Pistol whip and S/P in general provides MUCH MORE damage then deathblossom and caltrops. Dont get me started on boss fights where you can have 25 stacks of vulnerability which dont affect condition damage, thats extra 25 % physical damage.
So yeah, Deathblossom, besides of looking cool and attracting newbies attention, is useless same as any condi damage. On trash and mobs in open world because : they die much faster from physical damage then you are able to stack high amount of bleeds. In Boss fights because of bleed cap of 25 stacks and lack of damage in general because damage modifiers from traits and vulnerability not working with conditions. Im pistol whiping for up to 20- 25k on bosses and numbers close to that from full auto attack chain in between when topping up initiative, thats 7 k + damage per second. To reach 7 k dps with 25 personal stacks of bleeds you would have to do 300 damage per single stack tick which is simply impossible, same as keeping 25 stacks of bleeds up from single source.
Oh and you dont even have to go far to find weapon set with 0 access to aoe – thats D/P, same class.

Aeron.7291:

Hi there, I made a couple of days ago a post about finding a thief condition damage build with D / D and P / P but, it’s a very odd combination for a condition damage build so i’m asking you guys if you could make me a build with D / D and P / P with the following requirements :

- D / D and P / P
- Steath Backstab
- all purpose build, mainly PvE

And please also tell me what i need to do with my traits and what gear i should use ( Power, Healing power, precision, ), the runes and what accessory items i should use, same goes for the weapons ( Runes, power or precision, etc .. things i should know) !

Thx ^^

Wall of text inc.
Best Dps build as far as traits and gear goes is 5 or 6/6/x/x/x with last 2-3 points in shadow arts for infusion of shadow for constant stream of backstabs, acrobatics for feline grace or trickery for thrill of crime or flanking strikes. Berserker gear and scholar runes. Utilities are a subject to change on the go depending on situation.
You should realize that d/d and p/p will not work as an all purpose weapon combination. Closest to all purpose is s/p with shortbow as secondary when u cant melee and/or need to blast combo fields. You should have every weapon set (not that much – 6 weapons in total) available to switch for different situations.
D/D – High single target damage used only for boss fights when you have access to targets back and I would argue that in prolonged fight its dps outshines S/P only if you have infusion of shadow traited and can backstab as soon as revealed wears off, otherwise you will get initiative starved and will have to use auto attacks a lot. Do not try to use it in stacks or clearing packs of trash. Some might argue that it has death blossom for aoe – they are stupid, sry.
D/P – Useless in pve. Can tank mobs with black powder, but don’t have cleave therefore is useless against anything but 1 mob.
S/P – All purpose melee weapon choice. High Cleave Damage on auto attack chain, little higher damage on Pistolwhip which is also stun and evade (good for evading stuff w/o losing damage) and its a 9 hit attack so it works wonderful with signet of malice, specially when you hit more then one target (Can recover from almost fatal damage real fast if combined with invigorating precision). Has Black Powder which is awesome for perma blinding one or whole pack of mobs, works best when stacking trash in one spot by breaking line of sight or using knocbacks/pulls.
S/D – Situational. High damage cleave auto attack. Can steal boons with Nr3 which is also an evade, what makes it weapon of choice in some fights (like dredge fractal first boss).
Shortbow – All purpose ranged weapon. Auto attack bounces to 3 targets. Cluster Bombs does OK aoe Damage with low initiative cost. Not exploded Cluster Bomb is also spamable blast finisher good for might stacking in fire fields – that is required from thieves in most cases. Has evade on nr.3 which is no longer worth mentioning thanks to anets smartnerfs. Also blasting into smoke screen (or any smoke field) will provide group stealth what can be rotated with shadow refuge for long skips in dungeons/fractals.
P/D – has no place in pve same as D/P, besides making you able to solo champions with it, but it has very low damage (also single target only, you can trait for ricochet but thats a very poor mans aoe choice. )
P/P – red headed child of thieves. While it sounds cool and it should have high dps – it doesn’t. Mainly because of kitten auto attack which(same as any p/p attack) is also single target (can use ricochet, but thats a poor mans aoe choice), but i gues thats what you get for using ranged weapon instead of melee. Unload however is 8 hit attack which is also projectile finisher and works nice with signet of malice and darkfields for lifesteal. Best ranged weapon choice for grawl fractals last boss for health sustain imo (His flaming arrow will most likely down you, drop shadow refuge at your feet – sneak attack – unload will save your hide.) Dont rly see any other fights that this might be useful.
So as you can see limiting yourself to D/D and P/P will get you nowhere further then kitten ing around in open world where your performance dont rly matter.

wbfytw.4265:

I Know what is the meta for thief. Thing is I dont like it !
now for my build ill use D/DxBow
what kind of gear do i need and what traits ?

Well then you know that pve meta for thief is 5/6/x/x/x with full berserker gear and scholar runes. But since you don’t like “meta for thief” gl using that shortbow with d/d and keeping thief name on the lowest level together with bearbows.

I’m not following what this thread is about.
Oh and btw 0/30/30/10/0 d/d and 0/0/30/20/20 p/d is mine. Respect that.

Duke Nukem.6783:

i was hoping the patch would nerf all the things about the theif that were brokenly overpowered, sadly this was not the case.

they still can engage and escape without consequence with stealth while 3 to 6 people chase after them looking like fools because they can do nothing to stop them

they still do overwhelming damage to a single target thats broken by comparison to anyone else

they still chase down a target so easily with their constant dagger leaps and high no cooldowns

im aware that this is where theifs usually go to ask eachother how to be more OP so yea bring on the backlash…and dont say that ranger counters stealth…..it doesnt

Well said , keyboard turning skill clicker, well said. Oh and yeah ranger counters stealth, same as any other heavy area control class. And no I didn’t mean that he counters stealth by sic-em.

Okay im confused, why can I see mouse cursor even when turning/moving camera?

Maxite.6102:

You can rant, pout and insult all you like. But most dungeons do take less time and skill than about any other aspect in the game , yet pay out considerably more. That hardly seems a good thing.

But I am sorry if that upsets your tinfoil hats, or “I hate this game/company yet continue to play!” sensibilities.

And you’re wrong. Champ trains requires 0 skill, 0 gear, 0 anything and you cant get same money per hour as pugging dungeons.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m curious why some people have that black/white attitude. If it’s a ranger with a bow, the dungeon-run MUST last more than 1 hour, it MUST have at least 2 wipes.

I could say the same to any other profession. Mesmer, keep your clones out of aggro! Necro, those minions are the reason why we wiped again. GS-Warrior, why don’t you have banners instead of full-signets? Thieves, just get rid of sword, please! … and so on.

In truth, every profession can be played in a lot of different ways and be viable. Not necessarily speedrun-viable, but wipeless viable without doubling the run-timer.

If you want to have casual runs, great! Join casual groups, it’s all good. We want to have fast runs, we join speed-clear groups. Everyone’s happy.

The best quote in this thread imho. Every one of you can choose which group you wanna join. I wouldn’t join a speedrun-group with an experimental new build with any profession. I don’t expect others to have a certain build when doing normal runs though, you don’t turn 30 minutes into 90 minutes just because of a build, it’s the player skill that matters, and how he/she can work with the chosen skills.

You realize that sword(P) is best weapon for thief in stacks and in most situations provides best dps unless targets back is easily accessible for D/D +infusion of shadows backstab stream, right?

Soa Cirri.6012:

Dungeons go like this:

Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.

Rangers aren’t a stacking class.

I have two rangers, my first character was a ranger, and I still play it, but rangers are horrible for dungeons. One big reason is that their weapons are scaled to balance with the damage done by pets, but there are so many idiotic gimmicks in dungeons that one-hit-kill pets that you’re looking at working at reduced DPS capacity at inopportune times. You’re forced to then ignore your pet and focus on your own DPS exclusively (which, again, scaled to balance with pet DPS, is going to be lower than everyone else’s, and on top of that requires mostly selfish traiting), or on creating some sort of hybrid support build. if you go Hybrid/support you’re pretty much kissing DPS goodbye and edging limply into territory dominated by other classes.

Fundamentally, their abilities require room to move around so they can really dominate a wide space (traps, sword #1 leaps, a pet that flaps around closing gaps like crazy). So, in just about any other circumstance the Ranger really shines: open world, PvP, WvW (really great fun imo). But in dungeons there is nothing they can do that most other classes can do better. Which is stack.

Pick up melee weapon, full berserker gear, spotter, frost spirit and trait accordingly.
Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.
Oh look Ranger is as much of a stack class as everyone else.
Your welcome.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

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

Because its thief skill.

sila.2916:

frans.8092:

Why are you using Rampager trinkets in there, what is the planned use of Critical Chance?

mistake must be Celestials

thief is good with bleeding also using some power things and critical , i think thief with condy dmg + some critical damage will be useful for dps , i am using in PVP this build and it works but in PVE and WvW don’t know

Celestial for PvP (WvW included ofc, doh) would work with P/D I gues. For PvE I would kick your kitten out of grp same second I would see that you are using celestial, P/D or D/D Death blossom or …. Dagger anywhere but boss fights.

I myself run S/P and Shortbow 25/30/x/x/x full berserker for pve (changing to any weapon set that fight might require like s/d for boon stealing etc etc, but mainly s/p and sb).
You really don’t need those points in SA and shadows embrace. You are better putting those points into trickery for dungeon running and maybe in acrobatics for fractals where u might need to dodge more. Use Signet of agility instead of SA to clean high stacks of conditions for you and your group. Passive also offers nice precision boost and second active refills endurance. Signet of shadows are useless in most cases unless well… for running from A to Z (also aoe blinding wolf packs in CoE and maybe in some similar situations to avoid initial burst). Also Utility slots, heal and elite aren’t carved in stone, you should change it according to situation. As for heal I almost always take signet of malice, specially if I’m in melee with S/P – it synergises very well with it (+ lately i started using invigorating precision in some encounters instead of executioner to keep HP topped off, it really feels in AoE situations when running with nearly 100 % crit chance, cant say that its bad on single targets either). I don’t use Combined training (5 % for skill that provides half of your dps only dont feel worth the slot), pick mug instead for extra healing when i rly need it. Critical haste is a nice dps boost, but in some fights when you are using Pistol whip as planned evade it might kill you by activating on wrong time (CoE alpha for example if quickness activates when u start casting PW it will make its evade frame shorter and you might get hit). I pick Furious retaliation instead (combined with thrill of the crime) to keep my fury up at all times, because many of those pug glorified warriors forget that they gotta bring furry.

Well if you think about your characters future… Warrior will always be golden child of devs in every game.Period. Thief/Rogue/Assassin class will always get uncalled for nerfs because keyboardturningclickers demand it. So i gues warrior.
Ps.: WTB Unbound scrools

Y thats not lagg. Half of animation you do jumpback/dodge like it was before and other half u do that kittened backpedal animation that you cant even cancel. Nice way to make good skill ( supposedly OP lol) completaly useless.

/rushes off to create double shortbow thief named Michael Jackson.

Azingly.2064:

(Wvw) Hi everyone, where is the main damage source of d/p? I ask this because my backstabs dont chunk as hard as d/d and when i trade auto attacks with someone i take more damage than them. Im running full beserker with ogre runes, cav acessories and trinkets, and beserker rings. 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/0/10
Is there something wrong with my build or am i playing it wrong? Even with blindfields a gs warrior just outdpses me.
Thanks

Actually your backstabs hit exactly the same, no matter what weapon set you use. Use your logics, woman.

Gakeman.5296:

Karolis.4261:

Wyrden.4713:

Karolis.4261:

Gakeman.5296:

style.6173:

BlackDevil.9268:

Ghostwolf.9863:

musu.9205:

But since thief highly counters mesmer

Never noticed this, 4/4/0/0/6 shatter.

And no to your request, 3s stability from a stolen ability from a steal that might not even land and clones usually deal with Aegis. You can also make a build focusing on destroying boons if it bothers you that much.

Maybe you never faced good thieves then, cause overall, thief is the hard-counter to mesmers at the moment.

Might not even land? Either that mesmer can dodge really good, or the thief is just failing to spam f1.

Make a build to counter a skill? Let’s just not do that shall we?
The stability and aegis are both not in the description, while the buffs are already long enough. The moment you think you can counter the thief by using I-wave when he uses his shadow refuge, it wont push him out cause he uses the cheap steal skill. The skill is already strong enough without it, why put both aegis and stability on it too? It’s not like mesmer gets stability from the signet of inspiration. It’s actually funny cause mesmer has almost 0 access to stability.

Wrong. At equal skill levels, a mesmer should win.

Come back, when you are actually on the leaderboards. Thx.

Why ? Those leaderboards looks like “who’s the biggest noob” list to me.

u just insulted all the top 1000 rank players

anyway, i played both mesmer and thief, i do think that thief would loose if mesmer is specced exactly to counter thief, but due to us trying to be as versitale as possible, we cant counter thiefs with a current build , but its fine, i dont think consume plasma needs to be nerfed, thiefs mostly build for 1v1 anyway due to em beeing roamers in pvp

Yes I did, what they gonna do about it ?

Laugh at u. Cause u have no idea about this game. Most ppl in the top 1000 suck really hard and if u arent even in the lb i have bad news for u. Or where do u get your tpvp experience? Hotjoin? Lolz.

You are making no sense.

KingMango.9785:

Hey Nimrud, I thought exactly the same. A pro player might not be allowed to use it, since they have to win with skill
But if you aren’t playing top 1000 and play solo Q, take it. I do – if i think it fits. You find yourself often as close defender or in other roles a thief isn’t made for. The two guys are really helpful. One uses scorpion wire and the other backstabs I think.
About Dagger Storm, it can be canceld with dodge and you stay with stability. Have fun and don’t care about others calling you noob. There’s no way to avoid that. Want a funny proof? Watch Sensotix latest thief video on youtube. The warrior is calling him noob after he killed him – so funny
@all – sry for bad english – …no not really

The fk this supposed to mean?

Wyrden.4713:

Karolis.4261:

Gakeman.5296:

style.6173:

BlackDevil.9268:

Ghostwolf.9863:

musu.9205:

But since thief highly counters mesmer

Never noticed this, 4/4/0/0/6 shatter.

And no to your request, 3s stability from a stolen ability from a steal that might not even land and clones usually deal with Aegis. You can also make a build focusing on destroying boons if it bothers you that much.

Maybe you never faced good thieves then, cause overall, thief is the hard-counter to mesmers at the moment.

Might not even land? Either that mesmer can dodge really good, or the thief is just failing to spam f1.

Make a build to counter a skill? Let’s just not do that shall we?
The stability and aegis are both not in the description, while the buffs are already long enough. The moment you think you can counter the thief by using I-wave when he uses his shadow refuge, it wont push him out cause he uses the cheap steal skill. The skill is already strong enough without it, why put both aegis and stability on it too? It’s not like mesmer gets stability from the signet of inspiration. It’s actually funny cause mesmer has almost 0 access to stability.

Wrong. At equal skill levels, a mesmer should win.

Come back, when you are actually on the leaderboards. Thx.

Why ? Those leaderboards looks like “who’s the biggest noob” list to me.

u just insulted all the top 1000 rank players

anyway, i played both mesmer and thief, i do think that thief would loose if mesmer is specced exactly to counter thief, but due to us trying to be as versitale as possible, we cant counter thiefs with a current build , but its fine, i dont think consume plasma needs to be nerfed, thiefs mostly build for 1v1 anyway due to em beeing roamers in pvp

Yes I did, what they gonna do about it ?

Nimrud.5642:

So all in all, its not un-ethical to use it or something like that? I just dont want to be hated. Thx for the answers.

You picked a wrong class if you “dont want to be hated”.

Gakeman.5296:

style.6173:

BlackDevil.9268:

Ghostwolf.9863:

musu.9205:

But since thief highly counters mesmer

Never noticed this, 4/4/0/0/6 shatter.

And no to your request, 3s stability from a stolen ability from a steal that might not even land and clones usually deal with Aegis. You can also make a build focusing on destroying boons if it bothers you that much.

Maybe you never faced good thieves then, cause overall, thief is the hard-counter to mesmers at the moment.

Might not even land? Either that mesmer can dodge really good, or the thief is just failing to spam f1.

Make a build to counter a skill? Let’s just not do that shall we?
The stability and aegis are both not in the description, while the buffs are already long enough. The moment you think you can counter the thief by using I-wave when he uses his shadow refuge, it wont push him out cause he uses the cheap steal skill. The skill is already strong enough without it, why put both aegis and stability on it too? It’s not like mesmer gets stability from the signet of inspiration. It’s actually funny cause mesmer has almost 0 access to stability.

Wrong. At equal skill levels, a mesmer should win.

Come back, when you are actually on the leaderboards. Thx.

Why ? Those leaderboards looks like “who’s the biggest noob” list to me.

You run D/P for pve? Oh dear god…

hihey.1075:

Gakeman.5296:

Hey guys,
I can kill most mesmer with sword only easy . No clue how most mesmer cant think, that thief does not hard counter them. I guess a little nerf to “Consume Plasma” is totally okay.

I killed mesmers with off hand dagger ONLY, but that only makes the player I faced terribad.
I also killed thieves without any weapon on my mesmer, relying only on clone procs, but that also makes the thief I faced terribad.

Look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjyvreIrqI
Do you think they should nerf thieves because I beat a perplexity engi with only one dagger?

OMG OP NURF!

a t s e.9614:

Just remove shadow rejuv, bads should die without it.

You’re just bad…thief bait.

Im actually interested if this trait effect multiplies based on number of targets you are critting like signet of malice does. As for example if you hit 2x targets for 20 k pw, will it suck 1000 or 2000 health. Didn’t have a chance to try it out yet since im only ghosting forums latelly

Lamuness.3570:

Wow, I have so much problems with Mesmer, I can hardly count thieves as a hard counter to Mes, yet everyone says they are. But if you’re telling me to bring a set like SA : x/D into PvP you’ve got another thing coming to you. It’s such a selfish build to be running in pvp. Assuming this isn’t for PvP, can one show me videos of this high level thief play vs. a good mesmer? Outside of chain CnD’ing, I feel like there’s nothing I can do against them.

This is not a reply of “You guys don’t know wtf you’re talking about”, rather, I’m trying to L2P because Mesmers, Necros, and Engies give me the MOST problems. Wth am I doing wrong?

Because outside of chaining CnD and looking for opportunities to open up and don’t smash clones instead of mesmer because of super kittened single target attacks… there is not much else you can do.

Kibbles.9813:

(Note that the following mainly pertains to WvW; the current PvP Meta doesn’t use any points in SA anyway)

Whenever I run into a Thief in WvW they’re nearly guaranteed to run one set of D/P and 6 points in SA with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. The whole concept always struck me as a bit of a “training wheels” build since you’re sacrificing a lot of utility and raw damage for the ability to 5+2 your way out of nearly any losing engagement.

While on-demand Stealth is a very important core aspect of the Profession, that particular setup is also incredibly boring to fight against since most (bad) Thieves won’t deal enough damage to be a major threat to you in between having to repeat the BP+HSeeker combo just to stay alive. The main counters to the combo are Interrupts and Stuns / Dazes, both of which you either readily have access to (D/P, S/P, Sleight of Hand) or lack completely. Even then, depending on their loadout a Shadow Arts traited Thief will outheal most of the damage you can lay on them between visibility periods. As an end result, every Thief winds up running D/P because it’s really the only safe way to play against other D/P Thieves, and we end up with a bunch of Black Powder bunnyhopping slap fights.

So this is the crazy suggestion part, but what if Black Powder was changed to a Darkness field instead of a Smoke field? It would still retain the crucial Blind area control that is necessary to survive in melee engagements, but would change the 5+2 to no longer give you a “get out of jail free” card and allow for more strategic use of the skill. Leap Finishers (e.g. HSeeker) would gain target-specific Blindness, and Projectile Finishers (Shadow Shot / Headshot) would gain Lifesteal.

“But my Backstabs!”, I hear the horrified cries of outrage. Shadow Shot would have to receive a buff to compensate for this, but the change would place D/P squarely as a Blind-focused melee setup with tons of potential to remain in melee range effortlessly, limiting Backstabs to Utility-deployed Stealth (Smoke Screen, BP, SR). D/D would return to the high risk / high reward core “Backstab loadout” role; as it stands D/D has very little benefits over D/P aside from greater damage output at a major cost of survivability, and the proposed change would address that.

In closing, here’s the TL;DR:
- Black Powder from Smoke to Darkness combo
- (Major) buff to Shadow Shot
- No more 5+2 spamfests
- Bad Thieves dying in droves

Comments and angry rants welcome! I’d love to hear how this would work / wouldn’t work / why it would be “the final blow to an already dying Profession” / what would be necessary as compensation if this change would take effect.

So instead of 52and 1 “spam” with occasional 3 to close gaps you would like it to become 333 spam only, I see.

Shemsu.8721:

randomly.6395:

Shemsu.8721:

Shockwave.1230:

Karolis.4261:

Let me explain you some basic stealth mechanics. If you do direct damage to someone while you are in stealth – you get revealed. That’s exactly what you are describing here.

I don’t know where your expectation is derived from, but mine comes from Heartseeker and Smoke fields.

IF you hit someone with heartseeker WHILE in stealth you will be revealed

If you use heartseeker while in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth.

If you use cluster bomb in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth, but immediately become revealed.

If you use heartseeker in a smokefield while ALREADY stealthed, you will be revealed

What?

Let me explain you some basic stealth mechanics. If you do direct damage to someone while you are in stealth – you get revealed. That’s exactly what you are describing here.

Mystogan.4157:

Alot of gc thieves go 0/6/0/6/2 for modifers its like 27% dmg inc and 47% if enemy is below 50% hp

Yes because going 5-6 into acrobatics for 10% damage boost when endurance is not full instead of going 5-6 into dark arts what will bring much more damage makes so much sense for glass cannon build. FYI dark arts has much more reliable damage modifier, 250-300 extra power what gives you even more damage, Mug and sundering strikes. If you go 6 into acrobatics thats no longer a glass cannon.

Energy on shortbow to escape… like a kitten!

Castien.1872:

I’ve recently returned to GW2 and I plan to roll a thief. From what I’ve seen so far, everyone is suggesting Berserker gear, D/D + S/P with a SB in reserve, but I’m REALLY bad at dodging (worst dodger I know of). Is there something that can survive a bit better than running all Berserker gear yet still do a good amount of damage? What’s a good build (armor, trinkets, weapons, traits, runes, skills) to start with?

What I’d like to do on my Thief is:
1. Open world PvE (map completion, world bosses and farming mats)
2. WvW (I’d like to learn to roam/scout, but I can always zerg if necessary)
3. Might jump in some dungeons every once in a while (not sure about this one though)

Want a thief build that can take some damage and not die? No problem, here you go – preview of best thief build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8zw1i7s10

What: Noob questions
Why: Best

Ps.: 30 point/line system was far less complicated for first look then current 6 point/line system. So less experienced people wouldn’t end up using 14/14/14/14/14/14 builds – Seriously??

I mean… Its not fun when target you are trying to kill is moving around, right? So anet found a solution – perma immobilize. And game is back in track. Right?

I mean… zerglets ask – zergnet provides, right?

D/P is the same as ever was besides the crit damage nerf that affects all power builds on all classes. In fact D/P should feel crit damage nerf less then D/D if you play it as you supposed to – using BP as a defensive tool, not only as free access to stealth as you can see 99% of time.

Full berserker 25/30/0/0/15 (+-) with executioner was, is and will stay thief pve meta. As for weapons – all of it. If you rly have to chose then S/P and Shortbow.

No. Even with shadows embrace there are necro builds that burst you much more with condis then you can burst them with direct damage. Thief OP.

I’m still failing to see the point of this topic. I think OP is just bad, so are the rest of ya. Cheers.

a t s e.9614:

Yea PU is useless too just like this P/D thief build and btw sorry if I offended some people who use this build. Im sure someday you will get bored of playing an ez-mode build by yourself. Not crying for nerfs right here it just surprising how it turned out to be easier than MM necro.

Define useless.

a t s e.9614:

I just tryed the condi build P/D with 30 SA and wow it is probably the easiest build by far. Even more than MM necro I would say. You get low on hp? Perma reset with stealth and regen.

It really feels like a bunker-troll build that is completly useless in spvp outside of hotjoin . Also I see alot of people in solo Q running around with this build. They are basicly doing nothing for the team but whatever.

So yea some people have been trashing D/P and S/D power builds which is really funny because nothing is more easier than P/D condi thief in the entiere game. Even PU mesmers cant reset a fight like this.

But anyway I might use this to troll in hotjoin and no where else, it feels cheap too since its the build that kills people and not my own skill.

Im talking about 2/0/6/0/6 build with krait runes , to make it more cheesy I need to unlock the confusion on steal GM trait.

Hmm P/D can reset fights exactly same way as any X/D. Use your logics, woman.

oZii.2864:

Alot of wasted dodge rolls because it looks cool flip dodging. I know there is a slight distant advantage to jump dodging it’s even stated on the wiki (I think some people do it cause it looks cool). Still hate seeing wasted dodges like that usually after every CnD you would jump dodge even if there was no threat especially in your condi footage.

Other than that good video.

Well with condi build dodges after CnD is done mainly to apply dodgetrops. I myself got used dodging so much straight after CnD when playing p/d with dodgetrops that it transfered to my D/D gameplay permanetly, even when using blind on stealth. But in reality in such outnumbered fights… whenever you randomly dodge you will, most likely, dodge something.

That charr ranger at 9:24 is genius- cast barrage on you and fear you out of it with his pet
Oh and I approve music choice at that part!
Edit:
(3600 seconds between posts?really?!)
Dude you put video of me using foul language in map chat! Might get banned again now even though I’m not actually playing for a long time now:D
Although what I said in party chat about stomp/ress speed is golden truth.
Edit Nr.2: And my Valentine pvp hero signature is gone again :/ kitten corruption.

Oh look my forum ban is over.
I demand a one time stat change for all my crit damage gear.

Forzani.2584:

DeWolfe.2174:

Sentry.3691:

The results will look something like this:
1)2.5K steal
2)5.5k c&d
3)8k backstab
[…] a couple auto attacks for 500 each
4)10k Heartseeker
DEAD x_x

The combination of shadow stepping, stealth, high evasion, extremely high spike damage, and no cooldowns due to the initiative system results in a very, very broken class.

Amen! Sometimes, after getting ganked by this utterly non skilled/ op rotation, I’ll take a screen cap of the combat log. I really don’t want to spend the time to look but, I’m certain this rotation is an extremely high percentage of my deaths in WvW. It’s also VERY macro friendly which makes it very bad for the game. This rotation needs a 50% damage reduction. And, I used to say 20% but, as time and power creep continues, I keep upping the nerf.

To the Dev’s, don’t you EVER say you are working towards build diversity when you don’t touch the most spammed rotation in the game.

In some situations it’s pretty obvious some are using macros.

If you think that you need a macro to perform this kind of combo… well there’s the reason you get killed.

Hmm interesting. They are nerfing crit damage amount you can get from gear/runes/traits and your solution is to willingly take even less crit damage by using soldier/knight gear.

Sithaco.4673:

Ah this thread :’)

OP, how is this any different to an Elementalist mist form stomping or a Warrior endure pain + stability stomping or any other class invulnerability stomping?

/thread

Actually its very different. Mist form and Endure pain+stability makes user invulnerable to everything. Stealth only makes thief invisible.
For OP… And what will you do if thief is stomping your friend without stealth? Well do the same when hes stealthed = same results.

No it doesn’t. +1 s stealth doesn’t works on stealth achieved through combo fields.

a t s e.9614:

FLiP.7680:

a t s e.9614:

lol ok, Im bad and D/P is OP, now show me a video of you beating a hambow warrior with D/D I wanna see that. You so pro!

Did you ever hear about Cloaked in Shadows? They will miss so many hits… i wish i have better pc to make some videos.

I dont use SA traitline, im using trickery 10/30/0/0/30.

Emm… you should realize that different weapon set might require different traits. While D/P has little to no use from cloaked in shadows d/d works very well with that trait.