Guild Wars 2

brunohstein.9038:

Kindread.9481:

brunohstein.9038:

Kindread.9481:

Ah good, I see we are on the same page then.

I have not done any PvP yet, and focus almost exclusively on PvE. I also find the 0.8sec duration to be just fine the way I use it, but it would be nice to have it extended to maybe 1.5sec so you can more easily trip up mobs that are chasing you.

@brunohstein
I only recently got the trait: Power of Inertia and I am quite amazed as its uptime. Because of how I usually begin combat (with 3 quick dodges and 3 quick DBs) I also get 3 stacks of Might, which greatly increase my damage for the remainder of the fight.

My traits provide me might whenever I use a venom skill too, so I am constantly with 2-3 stacks of might.

I also agree that the caltrops dropped when you dodge could last longer.

So you use a Venom/Bleed build?

Just today I was thinking of trying something like that out. Afterall, I already stack a bunch of Condition Damage, why not try and toss in some Poison at the same time!

Care to share your build with me?

Of course, here it is: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlcmKPHay7E+5EhniviWtH30mtsTxV1KA

As I was waiting for your reply I started to put together a build for this … oddly enough we have almost the exact same choices!

The only differences would be:

Elite Skill: Dagger Storm: I understand the AoE bleed damage is significant, but I heard that Thieves Guild does a bit more, but on a longer cooldown, they can also act as canon fodder if you need them too.

Deadly Arts 3rd Major skill: You choose the +5% dagger damage, while I agree this is a good choice, what are your thoughts on the trait: Residual Venoms as a replacement? Seems to me like the extra stack of poison might be worthwhile.

20 point trait Trickster: The 20% reduction in Trick cooldowns is very nice, but what are your thoughts on the trait Fluid Strikes instead? With how much we dodge roll around we would very rarely be at full endurance, which would give us a solid 10% increase in damage.

Thanks for sharing

brunohstein.9038:

Kindread.9481:

Ah good, I see we are on the same page then.

I have not done any PvP yet, and focus almost exclusively on PvE. I also find the 0.8sec duration to be just fine the way I use it, but it would be nice to have it extended to maybe 1.5sec so you can more easily trip up mobs that are chasing you.

@brunohstein
I only recently got the trait: Power of Inertia and I am quite amazed as its uptime. Because of how I usually begin combat (with 3 quick dodges and 3 quick DBs) I also get 3 stacks of Might, which greatly increase my damage for the remainder of the fight.

My traits provide me might whenever I use a venom skill too, so I am constantly with 2-3 stacks of might.

I also agree that the caltrops dropped when you dodge could last longer.

So you use a Venom/Bleed build?

Just today I was thinking of trying something like that out. Afterall, I already stack a bunch of Condition Damage, why not try and toss in some Poison at the same time!

Care to share your build with me?

Tulisin.6945:

Kindread.9481:

Feline Grace you can dodge 3x before you need to wait for it to regen, thats 3 stacks of bleeding just from dodging!

Uncatchable caltrops stack one bleed per second up to the four second duration, not one bleed period. So triple dodging will give you, for a brief period of time, a triple caltrops field that gives 3 stacks of bleed every second standing in it. If you can land all three fields on your target and cause them to stand in it for the full duration, that is 12 stacks of bleed applied via your dodges, not 3. Given enough condition damage to get 100/tick bleeds (not that much) and enough +duration to push bleeds to 4 seconds, a dodge will give you 1600 damage/target (4 bleed stacks, each doing 100 damage 4 times). Not a huge amount, but nothing to scoff at for the cost of a dodge, not to mention it is AE and those aren’t max numbers.

Great information Tulisin! I guess I never noticed that the caltrops from Dodge continue to stack bleed effects on a stationary target. I will have to mess around with this when I get home tonight!

You seem to be implying through your post that bleed effects are decent damage, but nothing to write home about. Are you comparing bleed damage to crit damage? I always felt like I did a bit more damage with a Pistol Whip crit build, but just LOVE the playstyle of the D/D Bleed build.

Toversletje.9345:

i can do 25 stacks of bleeding sometimes and i dont use any caltrops for that ive had times when i could do even more stacks but it just wont go higher than 25 :p

I would love to hear how you accomplish this!

I have a pretty hard time getting up into the 20 stack range and that is with the trait: Uncatchable, and the skill: Caltrops.

Burst damage on a stationary mob I can pretty easily reach 21-22 and maintain it for a few seconds, then keep it steady in the teens. I would love to hear how you do this!

Ah good, I see we are on the same page then.

I have not done any PvP yet, and focus almost exclusively on PvE. I also find the 0.8sec duration to be just fine the way I use it, but it would be nice to have it extended to maybe 1.5sec so you can more easily trip up mobs that are chasing you.

@brunohstein
I only recently got the trait: Power of Inertia and I am quite amazed as its uptime. Because of how I usually begin combat (with 3 quick dodges and 3 quick DBs) I also get 3 stacks of Might, which greatly increase my damage for the remainder of the fight.

Just curious if anyone had any input on this trait:

Uncatchable
Leave Caltrops behind when you dodge.
(Adds 1x Bleeding stack, and the Cripple condition)

I enjoy this trait, but am curious as to how others find its usefulness.

Basically I position myself behind a mob, dodge roll through them to drop the caltrops directly on top of them, and then Death Blossom back to were I just was. I do this 3 times very VERY quickly which tosses up 12 stacks of bleeding.

On bosses I will usually drop Caltrops (the skill not the caltrops from the Uncatchable trait) just before I begin this rotation of Dodge/DB. By the time I finish this rotation I will usually have ~18-20 stacks of bleeding, and will usually end up in the low 20s before they start fading off.

This does not include using Steal, and tossing out a 4ths DB, which would bring the total stacks of bleeding up to 15, which with even marginal amounts of Condition Damage is enough to destroy a veteran mob, or put a pretty good dent in a Champion.

I have heard people say that the Trait: Uncatchable is garbage, but with the tratit: Feline Grace you can dodge 3x before you need to wait for it to regen, thats 3 stacks of bleeding just from dodging!

According to the Wiki page on Critial Hits (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit) The table that lays out what % of damage you increase by for every 5% of Crit Chance, and Crit Damage.

As you say, you do not have to be a GC to reach 50% crit chance, but according to the chart listed on the Wiki page, 50% crit chance, with ZERO Crit Damage still increases your Long Run Damage by 25%.

If you increase your Crit Damage to 30 (availiable through traits) and still have 50% crit chance you then increase your Long Run Damage by 40%.

At 100% Crit Damage (through traits and gear, not including base) and run at 50% crit chance you increase your Long Run Damage by 75%.

@5% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by .25%
@10% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by .5%
@15% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by .8%
@20% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 1.0%
@25% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 1.3%
@30% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 1.5%
@35% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 1.8%
@40% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 2.0%
@45% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 2.3%
@50% Crit Chance every 5% Crit Damage increases your Long Run Damage by 2.5%

So at 50% Crit Chance:
0% Crit Damage = 25% Long Run Damage
25% Crit Damage = 37.5% Long Run Damage
50% Crit Damage = 50% Long Run Damage
75% Crit Damage = 62.5% Long Run Damage
100% Crit Damage = 75% Long Run Damage

I am still not sure how this is not scaling well. Please do not misunderstand me, I am still a pretty new player and just want to fully understand this process.

I guess I do not understand your issue here …

Critical Hits do an additional .5 damage per point of damage you would normally do. So if you normally hit for 1000 damage, you would crit for 1500 damage without ANY +Crit Damage gear ot traits.

When you add in the passive bonus you get from the trait tree it increases that amount by an additional 30%, bringing your 1000 damage hit up to 1800 damage on crit.

I do agree that 200% +Crit Damage is a good amount to aim for (higher if you can manage it with your build) I am not sure why you feel anything less is a substantial damage loss. Prehaps I am not fulling understanding what you are calling “Long Run Damage”.

4 of the 8 classes intergrate Crit Damage in with Percision in their Trait tree. This increases your base Crit Damage from 50% to 80%.

As a crit based Thief I run with ~80% Crit Chance (100% when I pop Fury) and ~150% Crit Damage. This seems to be a pretty good starting point, but I do plan on trying to raise it to ~200% as I get better gear.

The only time that downscalling has been an issue for me is when you are on the line of a level adjustment area, sometimes the higher level mobs will path over pretty close to the lower level area. As an example I went back to Metrica Province (a level 1-15 zone) at level 41. There was an area that I was downleveled to 10, right next to it was an area that was set for level 15, and as soon as I walked into that area I would have been set to level 15. Well there were some mobs that wandered a bit to close to the level 10 area and aggroed on me while I was still level 10 … Needless to say I was a bit shocked when only 2 of them destroyed me.

Normally I would have to agree with Peetee, as a high level with a bunch of traits/skills you can walk through a lower level area and pull some pretty massive groups and walk away nearly unscathed.

cesmode.4257:

Vakirauta.6397:

Yes, there is mate.
What’s the point of playing an elementalist over a healer?
Or a tank over a guardian? A dps’er over a thief?

I encourage you to browse this website that says there is no holy trinity.

You can spec to be more towards the healy side, but if you sit there doing nothing when health bars are full, you are a detriment to the group. If your DPS suffers because you are statted for +Healing Power only, you are a detriment to the group.

The way combat, hate, and boss fights are designed work around everyone attacking the boss, keeping themselves alive, and helping eachother out. You perform a mixture of the three roles for the most successful outcome. The groups that I have been in that have been the most successful, do not have dedicated roles.

Bad players are bad. This has been true throughout the ages. I for one enjoy grouping with Support and Control classes, as long as we also have enough damage classes to clear the content. If I ever saw an Elementalist that spec’d support (heals) that was just standing around waiting to heal I would have some pretty harsh words for that person.

The groups that I have been in that have been the most successful have dedicated roles … its called coordination.

cesmode.4257:

If tanking is viable, arenanet failed. That is all.

One person should not be able to hold hate on a mob for the entire encounter, and live to tell about it.

One person should not have the cooldowns and abilities to heal the entire group from standing in badfloors all the time.

Even though there are builds that lean one way or another, why do people feel the need to fight against the system, against the way the game was designed? Surely people heard that this game had no trinity, before they bought it. Yet, they buy it and try to make it into a WoW clone-tank,healer/dps?

It is not how this game was meant to be played.

How can you say the game was not meant to be played that way? Just because ANet renamed the roles in the group does not change anything. We just went from Tank, Healer, DPS, to Control, Support, Damage.

I do not think anyone is under the illusions that aggro has changed significantly and a “tank” can no longer spam a threat ability and save the group .. this type of thinking no longer applies in this game. The same can be said about the “healing” role. Just because someone has traited and geared for +healing and group support does not mean they just stand in the back and play whack-a-mole with health bars. This game is far more technical than that. But to say these roles are useless, or were nto meant to be in this game is just down right ignorant.

Just because your group of 5 DPS can do challenging content, does not mean it is the ONLY way to do that content. It also does not mean that if you take a well played control (tank) class into your group that you would not have a MUCH eaiser time with said content.

I’ve also played quite a few of the classes and so far Thief has been the most engaging to play thus far. I think the trick is to play it as a glass canon honestly. While other classes can basically sit there for extended periods of time with the occasional dodge roll, we have to be in constant movement.

I have tried several of the weapon sets and have finally decided that the Dagger/Dagger set is for me. The Sword/Pistol just did not have nearly as much mobility and I ended up getting bored with it. My off weapon set is Pistol/Pistol, not because it is better than Shortbow, but because I like the style. (i.e. exhaust your initiave in Melee, hit the skill Roll for Initiative, swap to P/P while in roll and start to strafe while Unloading … its quite epic)

Unless a dev happens to come by and leak that information, I dont think you are going to get your anwser.

Very good question though! I really hope the developers are keep that in mind as they move forward.

Robbyx.1284:

Surbrus.6942:

Robbyx.1284:

They did indeed remove the “holy trinity”, trouble is they replaced it with just one class….DPS…..anything else and you are just fooling yourself….healing ele’s are a waste of a slot, “tanks” are absolutely worthless as they cannot hold aggro.

This game is solely about DPS and how much you can inflict that DPS on mobs.

Nice to see that you read the thread, and have a clue about what you are talking about.

I liked your insights into the hate mechanic, and optimal strategies for dealing with the mechanic. Perhaps you should elaborate further on this topic?

The thread is about “no holy trinity”, which i responded to…and there is no hate mechanic other than how much DPS you can pump out, that is a fact, there is no need to elaborate further, Anet made it very simple….DPS.

ANet never said the only viable class was DPS, and you are fooling yourself if you think that.

It was very clearly stated that there are multiple roles a person can take, these include but are not limited to: Damage, Support, and Control. Now this does not mean all people that play the role of “Control” must be tanks, or those that play the role of “Support” must be healers. There are many viable paths a player who enjoyes those roles that are not DPS can contribute to a party in some pretty amazing ways.

Hellkaiser.6025:

There “can” be, but there “shouldn’t” be.

If you’re the kind of player who perpetuates the fallacy that you “need” x role for a dungeon then you are part of an underlying problem that personally is like a cancer to a game community, leads to pigeonholing and ultimately creates conflict where there should be none.

I have yet to see ANYONE post that there needs to be a tank or a healer role, but to say that there “shouldn’t” be is just foolish. Everyone enjoys these types of games differently and I have to admit, ANet has done a WONDERFUL job of keeping each profession and role viable if played correctly.

Do you NEED a tank/healer? No.
Does a tank/healer make a group easier to be apart of? Yes. (assuming they know how to play their class)

Apperently I am the only one that enjoyes new goals on a regular basis in my MMOs. I hated the side-ways progression of GW1 and feel GW2 is doing a great thing in adding more diffucult content, and better gear. This “power creep” everyone keeps talking about is going to keep me, and hundreds of thousands of people playing this game. Lets hope someday they even raise the level cap!

It may also be worth mentioning that the “Holy Trinity” that ANet said was no longer needed was replaced with another Holy Trinity: Damage/Support/Control.

They simply changed the names and put some polish on combat … Dont get me wrong, it works well, but saying “HOLY TRINITY IS DEAD” is just ignorant.

Just because you may have run across some poor players that claimed to be a “tank” or a “healer” does not mean that those types of builds are useless.

I recently switched to a glass canon build Sword/Pistol Thief build. The dungeons I have run with no control (tank) players I would say my damage was about halved due to mechanics that kept me out of melee range. With a control (tank) class I can easily double my melee uptime. In essence a tanky type player can not only add their damage to the mix, but add a LOT more for the other players.

This is true for boss encounters, but not necessarily true for trash pulls, that can be easily burned down by 5 DPS Glass Canons in seconds most of the time.

I have yet to group with a designated Elementalist healer, but due to the nature of the game if you can not control where a mob is and you have 4 DPS classes flying all over the place, chances are 50-70% of the time they will be out of range of said Elementalists heals.

Prehaps this one?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-dungeon-leveling-build/first#post870169

Looks like you could maintain Vulnerability, Confusion, and Weakness with the Auto-Attack alone, seems odd to me.

Prehaps change it to only add Confusion and Weakness on the 2nd and 3rd attack, and decrease the duration to 2-3 seconds.

I could see Skill#4: Cauterizing Blades to be an issue. If you have significantly less condition damage than someone else in your group, you would be stealing their bleed stacks and effectivly doing less damage to the mob this way. On the other hand, using this weapon set chances are you would be stacking Condition Damage, so the difference in damage would be minor … I like the idea though!

My wife and I duo a lot (about 90% of our game time is together) She plays a Guardian, and I play a Thief.

I am almost always using D/D because of her traits and skills as a Guardian I get a huge benefit from being in melee range, unfortunatly due to the wackyness of GW2 mob aggro, I usually end up getting the attention of the mobs. This does not matter most of the time as mobs are generally dead within seconds … even veterans just seem to fall over when we get near them now that we are in our 40s. The problem lies with bosses, specifically [Group Event] bosses.

I can usually dance around the [Group Event] bosses for a while as a D/D Thief, but once I start taking some AoE damage, or my health just gets wittled down I usually jump back (Roll for Initiative FTW) swap out to P/P and start to Unload.

This usually results in the boss chasing me around while my wife hits the thing in the back with her mace for a while until I feel safe enough to switch back to D/D (which does a ton more damage) and get the bleed stacks back up to ~20 (Death Blossom+Caltrops+Uncatchable).

So to make a long story even longer: P/P works for me because kiting with a Shortbow just seems to clunky, as I am kiting a boss that can do ~50% of my health in a single hit, I do not like to stop and aim a ground targetted AoE … I would rather keep moving and spam the instant cast skills that a Pistol has. Granted I may do less damage, but overall I feel I do even more beacuse I land more attacks.

More talented people may prefer Shortbows, but for those of us that cant aim a ground targetted AoE while side strafing away from a boss, P/P seems the way to go.

My wife and I feel the same way. We started out making an Elementalist and a Guardian, but switched out the elementalist to a Thief for greater synergy.

She plays the Guardian quite well as a Support/Healer. Tossing out boons and laying down symbols on the ground constantly that heal for ~700 health per second. To all those people saying this game does not have tanks or healers are just fooling themselves. Anet just changed the name of these roles to Support and Control.

As a casual player I like this idea, it would help me accomplish a goal that would normally take me months to do.

On the other hand I feel this might negitivatly effect the “awesomness” factor of someone obtaining a Legendary weapon. There are very few objects in this game that take a significant time sink to aquire, and speeding up the process for those people that do not have the time to invest may not be the best solution.

I enjoy seeing people run past me in Lions Arch with a Legendary weapon. I always stop and look in awe and envy, which is kinda the point. If more and more people were able to easily obtain these weapons it would water down the effect of having one.

Some people need to feel like they have earned something. It may be an epic weapon/armor/title, but those objectives need to be there in some form or another. Not all players may feel this way. There are many that play this game that feel the “grindyness” of the game is too much, and feel gear/reputation/title grinds are meant for other games. I am in no position to say they are wrong in feeling that way, but everyone enjoys these games in different ways and the developers are doing their best to please everyone.

Legendary weapons may not be for everyone, and from what I have seen and heard they are not mandatory to obtain.

20% of 869 is 173.8, this would mean you would heal for 273.8 per hit, which would be great … if it were true.

The actual value is 5% of your total Healing Power.

The link you posted even states that the value is 5%, I am confused as to why you say 20%.

You get 5% of your Healing Power for the “On Hit” heal.

So as an example:
@ level 80 with NO Healing Power you get ~100 health per hit.

@ level 80 with 1000 Healing Power you get ~150 Health per hit.

1000*.05=50

Yes I should not have said “Maintain” … I can burst 20-25 stacks while Caltrops is active. I also use the trait Uncatchable to add a few more bleed effects, but it has half the radious that Caltrops has. I do have a bit of Condition Duration on my gear, but not enough to write home about, I dont think it is necessary though.

I would say on average I can put up 12-14 stacks on a mob that has the health to withstand that much. As I said in my post most mobs die before I can get it to 10.

I am addicted to the damage numbers that flow out of a mob that has that many stacks of bleeding though … it actually looks like they are BLEEDING numbers all over the place lol!

I would like to see more traits like, “Venomous Aura” added for our support role.

No one said all support roles need to be the same. There are plunty of classes that can spam Might, or Regeneration on all group members, why not give thieves something a little different and let them spam damage related “buffs” to nearby group members, similar to how the trait Venomous Aura works.

Some suggestions might be:

Grant your group the passive effect of Signet of Shadows/Assassins Signet/Signet of Agility.

When a group member strikes an enemy that you have inflicted with the bleed condition they go into a blood frenzy. (Grants the Fury boon for 10 seconds, 45 second internal cooldown)

Give groups a reason to look for Thieves, or at least accept them. Guardians offer amazing defensive benefits in the form of Boons and heals, let Thieves be known as the class that offers more offensive benefits!

Thanks Doggie for your reply!

I was wondering how well P/P would work in late game and Fractals. I would think the Daze and AoE blind would be quite useful.

I have not done any PvP yet, but am glad to see it may be viable!

Tomkatt.1684:

Need some help with conditions setup. Firstly I’m curious if adding condition damage and doing major bleeds and poisons in PvE would be worth what I’d sacrifice from damage and crit. I like it so far, but am not heavily invested.

Currently I’m running D/D and P/P, mostly utilizing Death Blossom, dagger 1, and caltrops for damage, as well as pistol, both standard and with stealth 1 skill to stack more bleeds.

For utility, I’ve got the 25% speed boost signet, Caltrops, and Blinding Powder.

Current setup is 10 in trickery and 10 in Critical strikes, with my trait picks being 5% bonus damage to pistol and caltrops on dodge. I’m currently level 30.

Is condition damage like this viable in PvE? I’m noticing with Deathblossom spam, I’m having a much easier time rounding up enemies for aoe kills, and with pistol 5 and 1, blinds have been particularly useful against vets and even champs. How much should I be investing in condition damage vs. other stats? Any thoughts on this?

I am just a few levels above you and having great luck with a Condition Damage D/D build. Caltrops+Death Blossom is amazing! Doing AC Story the other day we had a bad pull in the first room and ended up with 5 mobs at once. We had a Guardian and a Warrior to hold them and I just went to town with AoE bleed damage. I was able to maintain 20-25 stacks of bleeding on all of them for quite a while and the damage was astounding!

For your normal PvE questing its pretty easy to gather up the mobs and DB them down quickly. 6-12 stacks of bleed damage seems to be all I can get on most mobs before they die.

Thanks for your post Einlanzer. It is good to see someone else using a similar setup (DD+Caltrops) to some success.

I have also heard that Vital Shot (pistol#1) is borked in some way, but I so rarely use that weapon skill I have not really noticed.

I usually swap over to P/P once I exhaust my Initiative with D/D, pop the skill Roll for Initiative and then unload with #3 for damage, #4 for if a daze is needed, and #5 if I am in a dungeon with other melees and an AoE blind would help them. (Black Powder is quite an awesome skill).

Hello fellow thieves!

I have been leveling up a Thief for the past week and gotten up to level 40 (I have very limited play time). I have tried all of the weapon combos and found my niche to be the D/D combo with P/P when things get hairy. I have been doing very well and have soloed quite a few champions. I enjoy Bleed effects and seeing all the numbers pop up, There is nothing quite like the sight of 25 stacks of Bleeding on a mob and seeing all that damage flying around!

I have done AC Story with a premade group that consisted of a Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer, and myself (We decided to 4 man it for my first run, the rest of them had been through it several times). We pretty much smoked the place and I felt I did pretty well in the damage department, and only died a few times (mostly because I was unfamiliar with the mobs/traps in the dungeon).

So I love reading these message boards and seeing other peoples builds and ideas, but one thing seems pretty consistant … D/D is a poor choice for Thieves! Also another thing that just baffles me is that people say D/D has no AoE damage … How can people say this? Death Blossom with Condition Damage gear, along with Caltrops just destroys mobs. I have tried to compare this with a Shortbow, and while the SB is a good weapon, it does not seem to be any better than massive amounts of AoE bleed damage.

Can anyone help me clarify why D/D is a poor choice? Because currently (only level 40) I just dont see the downside to playing D/D.

Druitt.7629:

^^ Oh, and Caltrops is great too. It’s surprisingly powerful at lower levels.

This.

Caltrops has been on my hotkey bar since about level 12. now in my 20s and can pull huge groups and wipe them out in seconds with Caltrops, and Death Blossom, and the caltrops from the trait: Uncatchable.

I just recently started leveling a Thief. I will admit the first few levels were kinda rough, but once you get a few key triats this class really starts to shine. I leveled a Guardian first, so I was kinda used to face tanking a bit more than most classes. Needless to say switching over to a Thief was a bit … interesting at first.

There is one key thing I learned quickly, and that is do not stack defensive stats. I run D/D with Condition Damage and Power gear and tear up groups of mobs.

Here is my basic PvE strat:
1. Gather up a group of 3+ mobs
2. Death Blossom over them
3. Dodge roll away from them (leaving behind Caltrops(Trickery 10))
4. Death Blossom x2
5. Steal (+3 Initiative)
6. Death Blossom x1
7. Dodge roll away and let them come to you through the Caltrops
8. Roll for Initiative to get a bunch of Initiative back
9. Repeat …

The amount of damage you can do through the Bleed effects is rather astounding! And 95% of the fight you are in a state of evade, so you very rarely take damage.

I think many people that start Thieves assume that if they are taking too much damage, they need to stack more Vit/Tough/Healing or whatever, when the fact of the matter is, Thieves are just more skill oriented than other classes. If you want to rely on your auto-attack and the occasional dodge roll, then this is not the class for you.

@ImariKurumi

I run with nearly that exact same build. (0/5/30/30/5) Except I use Meditations instead of Shouts becuase my party already has quite a few boons floating around. Meditations obviously help me survive better.

Mace/Torch is my prefered, occasionally switching to a Focus for the extra blocks, the regen from Focus #4 is overkill for my build as I already maintain Regen about 70% of the time. Add in my pocket Water Elementalist (my wife) and it is easily up 100% of the time.

My build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccccV0z0MrvnmMrvnm0VxxVzVbcab

Love this class, love the direction it is going, and even with the changes I am still OP.

I hate to say it, but … l2p or choose another class please

So far there has been very few encounters that I could not heal/dodge my way through. Granted my damage is ****, but I can take a beating like a champ!

Bristow.8912:

Actually no since rune boon duration increase from rune does not stack (at least it doesn’t stack with Virtue path boon increase), reported already but still no input if it is working as intended.

username.4932:

What? Really? Can anyone verify this?

That is rather disturbing news, I really can not think of a reason why this would be intentional.

I play a Healing Power focused Guardian. I focus on Regeneration, Virtue of Resolve, and Symbol healing (Writ of the Merciful).

I have had very little problems in dungeons and in pretty much any PvE content vs veteran packs and some champion mobs.

The other day I ran across another guardian who was using very nearly the exact same spec I was (but geared slightly better). Our combined healing power was completly insane. We were pulling packs of mobs (10-20 at a time), and duoing champions with ease.

Thats not to say other spec’s/classes could not do the same, but it is saying that the +healing stat is not complete rubbish as has been stated here. Basically instead of a Tank and Healer duo, we had a Tank/Healer and Tank/Healer duo … though Anet can call it Control and Support all they want.

As Animus stated, the 5 points out of Radiance, and put into Virtues to pick up the trait Inspired Virtue will grant you quite a lot of healing, and support to you and your team. This combined with the elite skill Renewed Focus works wonders!

As for your Major traits, here is a Guildhead link basically matching what Animus is talking about
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMcczmcMzmGavmmGavm0VxxVmVqcab

On the other hand, you could go for a Meditation build and focus more on +Healing. This will grant you and your group more healing, but less boons. You will die a lot less, and grant your group more sustained support this way. Here is an example build of what I am talking about.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMcczmcMzmrnvmmrnvm0VxxVzVbcab

Notice the only thing I changed was 2 of your skills on buttons 7 and 8 (keeping skill #9 as “Hold the Line!” for the added Regen, and Protection on a somewhat short cooldown). Also the major skills in the Valor line have changed. This will give you a bit more versitility in dungeons if you need to switch back to a boon support build if the healing you are providing is overkill for yourself.

Let me talk about the Honor line for a moment, and what kind of group heals you will be seeing from this build type:
The Major skills in the Honor line consist of Wirt Exaltation, which basically doubles the size of your Symbols, This is quite important because of all the AoEs that get tossed around from mobs, you need to make sure you and your group have enough room to stay inside your symbols. The next Major trait is Writ of the Merciful. This skill will give your group another heal over time effect which stacks with Regen, and Virtue of Resolve as long as they stay inside your symbol. The last Major trait is Battle Presence which grants the passive healing from Virtue of Resolve to your entire group.

The overall healing is quite significant to you and your group with this build. With 1400 Healing you will be healing your entire group for 700-750 health per second. This assumes you keep the Regeneration boon up about 75% of the time, and your Symbol up 50% of the time, and keep Virtue of Resolve on passive 100% of the time.

You should stay in the front line with this build and use your Meditation skills on cooldown, and pop your virtues everytime you have Renewed Focus ready for you for added boons and instant healing from Virtue of Resolve. The extra healing you receive from the Meditation skills, and the healing you and your group receive from your roll dodge should be enough to keep you alive in melee range against pretty much anything as long as you continue to time your dodges correctly to avoid the really big hits.

Meditations heal you for around 2k each, and your dodge roll heals for about 600.

Lets take an example of 60 seconds of a hard encounter (boss or other):
Healing Amounts:
Symbol: ~150/sec @50% upkeep = 9,000/min
Regeneration: ~300/sec @75% upkeep = 18,000/min
Virtue of Resolve Passive: ~150/sec @100% upkeep = 9,000/min
Meditation #1(Smite Condition): ~125/sec @100% usage = 7,500/min
Meditation #2(Judge’s Intervention): ~53/sec @100% usage = 3,180/min
Dodge Rolling: ~60/sec @1 use/10 seconds (more with the Vigor Boon) = 3,600/min
Signet of Resolve: ~250/sec @100% usage = 15,000/min

So our totals here would be (assuming you kept everything on cooldown and dodged everytime you had enough endurance to do so)

Heals/Sec to you: 1,088
Heals/Min to you: 65,280

Heals/Sec to allies: 660
Heals/Min to allies: 39,600

As you can see you are able to support your group very well through healing as long as they understand they need to stay in your symbols. This is not as hard as people make it out to be if you have a group that is capable of communicating with you .. which may not happen to often if you rely on Pick Up Groups as your only form of dungeon grouping.

I will work on a Boon healing amount list later. It is a bit more complicated as you have to factor in crit chance.

vincentvfx.1794:

p.s. so Kindred when i use my virtue of resolve if i have the trait, i will get a short heal over time buff and then have to wait a 60 seconds until the normal virtue of resolve regeneration kicks in again? that does not seem like such a great deal.

Keep in mind that the Regeneration boon you get from popping Virtue of Resolve (with the Inspired Virtues trait) is about twice as powerful as the passive Virtue of Resolve healing (called Rejuvenation).

@vincentvfx

Yes, when you activate Virtue of Resolve you get a small instant heal (from the virtue activation) and the Regeneration Boon for a few seconds that is applies to you and your allies. You then have to wait for 60 seconds to get the passive effect back.

The tradeoff may not seem worth it, but it has saved me several times in the past. You can also take the Elite skill Renewed Focus to reset the cooldown on all virtues, so you could pop all your virtues, get the added effects of the activation, AND the boons from the trait Inspired Virtues, then pop Renewed Focus and immediatly get the passives back from all your virtues. The effect is ovbiously more powerful in a group, as you effect all nearby allies when you activate your virtues.

Also if you take the trait Altruistic Healing (30 points into the Valor line) you get a small heal for each person effected by a boon that you cast, which pairs very nicely with Inspired Virtues.

@Lumines

I understand you may not enjoy the Guardian burn build for various reasons, and that is fine, not every build is for every person .. but to say that it is unwise for guardians to invest heavily in condition damage is not entirely accurate.

I assume when you say “cover the burn application” you mean because in PvP people have so many ways to remove conditions that you want to “hide” your DoT under less powerful conditions. As a properly spec’d Burn Guardian you can easily reapply your Burn condition every 1-2 seconds, with some exceptions. It wouldnt matter if someone could spam every condition remove they had to remove the burn effect, you would be reapplying it as soon as they were done casting the spell.

I only have experience with the Guardian class, so I do not know how quickly Mesmers/Thieves/Engineers etc. can reapply their conditions, but from what you are saying, it can not be nearly as fast as what we can do with Burn.

I find many of them worded incorrectly/confusing also. I tend to visit the GW2 Wiki site quite often. They are spelled out a bit more in the descriptions there, and on many skills you can click on the Discussion tab at the top and see what players have said about them. Keep in mind some of the comments there may have been from Beta, and many skills changed since then.

The trait: Inspired Virtues grats the following boons WHEN ACTIVATED.

Virtue of Justice: Grants Might for X seconds
Virtue of Resolve: Grants Regeneration for X seconds
Virtue of Courage: Grats Protection for X seconds.

Once a Virtue is activated (by pressing the F1, F2, or F3 keys) the passive benefit will no longer effect you until they recycle, which takes 30, 60, and 90 seconds.

I think its best to avoid kitten conversations with people in general. Some people have the need to constantly out-do everyone around them, make others feel bad, and make themselfs look godlike. It seems to happen a lot in this game because there is no way to measure how well others are doing.

Honestly the best groups I have had while doing dungeons were the ones that were doing low amounts of damage. The only way I could tell was that the mobs seems to take a bit longer to kill, but hardly anyone ever died. IMO go for lower numbers, but keep a resonable amount of survivability. You do no damage when you are dead.

I think there should be an audio signal each time you kill an enemy with the Scepter.

First kill: “15 Love”
Second kill: “30 Love”
Third kill: 40 Love"
Forth kill: SCOOOOORE! <sound of croud cheering>

It will reset each time you are downed, and after you get your 4th kill you get a buff that changes the graphical image of the balls of light into tennis balls.

Cyrus is right on the money.

I leveled with a random build, just enjoying the story and world more than min/maxing, but if you want to level quickly read carefully what Cyrus said. Espically the part about the trait: Renewed Justice. You cant get it till level 40, but it really is amazing to have Virtue of Justice recycle after each kill, it will speed up your killing time significantly.

I would also suggest using a Sword and Torch. Greatsword is the other option, but I prefer the Sword/Torch combo for the quick attacks, and frontal AoE attack from the torch. It also will allow you to do quite a lot more burn damage.

The skills Hold the Line! and Save Yourselves! are also really good. I would also take Smite Condition as your third skill. Its a very short cooldown, removes a condition, and does decent point blank AoE damage. Retreat! is also nice for the Swiftness, but the cooldown is 60 seconds, as opposed to Hold the Line! which is only 35 seconds and gives you some added protection and healing.

Check out this link:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccocz0MmrvGmmrvGm0f0aVoM

While I do like the Scepter in PvE (havent done have PvP or WvW yet) I do get a tough frustrated at the slow movement of the auto-attack projectiles.

I would however hate to see the actual attack speed of the auto-attack nerfed. Between the #1 auto-attack, and the #2 fast hitting AoE (albeit small AoE) you can stack some really nice burning damage quite quickly.

@ImariKurumi

I lost my main Guardian to a hacker and started over, so I don’t have any level 80 experience. I tend to bounce back and forth between 2 builds. One is a highly defensive Shout/Boon build with a heavy emphasis on Symbols. It works quite well for events and in dungeons when I know I will be playing support/control. With this build I tend to wear a lot of Healing, Toughness, and Vitality gear. I could see wearing Cleric’s armor while running this build as you need to be a bit tanky, and still have a very substantial amount of +Healing to prevent death to yourself and others.

My other build is a Condition Damage build with Spirit Weapons. I have been using this build when soloing, but did run through AC with it with my group (a set team of folks over Vent) and it worked very well. I felt like I was doing quite a lot of damage, but had to rely a lot more on dodging, and actually had to switch out to a scepter a few times and let my Spirit Weapons stay in melee range to help my damage. This worked well even though I was not in melee range. The burning condition stayed upnearly 100% of the time between my Scepter, and the trait A Fire Inside (spirit weapons cause burning damage). For this build I would likely use the Shaman gear, as the extra Vitality would go a long ways, and of corse the added Condition Damage is the key to this build.