Guild Wars 2

I’m afraid that during sieges, Arrowcarts/Ballistae are your only viable options.

It’s definitely useful… when it works.

Sadly, in its current state is nothing more than a coin toss. It won’t hit anything that moves, and even if you manage to hit a stationary target, it may simply fall prone for a second, without being pulled or anything else.

I you hold ’thieve’s guild’ key and press L2PL2PL2PLOLOLOL then release, you summon 2 Zhaitans instead of 2 thieves.

Best part is that you can stealth them with shadow refuge too

They have already nerfed the travel speed, nerfed the damage and nerfed the range.

In all honestly, I don’t concieve how it could be further nerfed without rendering it useless, but if anyone can do it, they are our A-net boys…

Master of Timespace.2548:

Try to press f1.

And shadowstep 900 range… so what?

I find truly curious how many people are against mounts…. Only to equip a speed signet/swiftness ability/ on their bar as soon as they move from combat.

Dudes, It’s the same thing.

I’d rather have a dedicated ‘Mount’ slot, or an OoC gadget, or a reusable transformation/potion, rather than lying myself into equipping a given skill only to get the speed benefit, just to replace it as soon as I smell combat.

Also, remember than in GW1 are precedents of mounts… Like the Junundu or the Siege devourer….

In GW2 we already have the flying broom and the Sonic tunneler. And if you ask me, IMO, it’s only a matter of time that we get an alike gadget that confers permanent swiftness while equipped.

YuiRS.8129:

You can only port to a point if there’s a direct route to it nearby that doesn’t require jumping. It’s as easy as that.

You can only port to a point if there’s a direct route to it nearby that doesn’t require jumping, without abrupt changes of elevations, don’t crosses a stair with a +45% angle, don’t find a peeble nor a tree chunk on the route, you are wearing your red socks of luck, and the gods of Teleportania approve your shadowstep attempt. It’s as easy as that.

If you made it, praise the gods, for tomorrow your attempt may not work, even if you try from exactly the same origin to the same target.

Psybunny.8906:

P.S I haven’t run a single stunbreak for ages in PvE, everything is 100% reliably dodgeable and scripted there.

You probably haven’t played PvE for ages too

Psybunny.8906:

I had the feeling that this was a pvp discussion, since you know this is the only gametype where spammable stunbreak matters.

Ha ha… It’s precisely the opposite.

I hardly use the stunbreaker portion in sPvP, since I always blink out BEFORE getting hit. You know, there’s is nothing to stunbreak if the stun doesn’t hit you in first place. And if the stun is instant or unblockable, it’ll also have a very short duration, so precisely, is in sPVP where the stunbreak doesn’t matter at all.

And that’s why you hardly notice a difference, as you said before.

However, in PvE, the stuns and knockdown from mobs tend to have a much longer duration, and are AoE, instant and many times unblockable. I do definitely miss the stunbreaker portion in several dungeons and events.

You want to remove stunbreak in PvP? fine. I rarely ever use it there… but please gimme back my stunbreaker for PvE.

It’s true that thieves’ shortbow packs very nice skills, and it’s definitely one of our best weapon sets (some would say the best). However, you’ll find that thief traps are miles behind the ranger traps, and that venoms are… disheartening to say the least.

Traps only do single-target damage/one-shot effects, have an awkward rectangle area that many times fail to trigger, and are on rather long cooldowns that severely limit their usefulness.

Venoms only truly work if you devote your entire build to them, and even so, only truly shine if you are surrounded at kiss range by several teammates. In any other circumstances, venoms are just amongst the weakest utilities in the entire game.

So, yes, you can build a ‘rangery’ thief with a shortbow and maybe a Sword/dagger set (which was nerfed last patch BTW), but in the end, you will find traps and venoms overall pretty weak, and inevitably, you will replace them with most powerful ‘thiefy’ abilities… and you wont feel like a true ranger, but more like a specialized thief.

Sithaco.4673:

Firstly I’ll start off by saying we aren’t useless in Fractals of the Mists, quite the opposite in fact. Smoke screen is a amazing utility to carry in the group, as well as Shadow Refuge. Bassy Venom is also very handy for long boss fights, and yea, I’ve never had trouble getting in a fotm groups, nor do I feel like I am useless to my team.

Don’t mistake me, I agree with you in the theory, but here is a more accurate depiction of how it goes on live:

Firstly I’ll start off by saying we aren’t useless in Fractals of the Mists, quite the opposite in fact. Smoke screen is a KICKED FROM GROUP amazing utility to carry in the group, as well as Shadow Refuge. Bassy Venom is also very handy for long boss fights, and yea, I’ve never had trouble getting in a fotm groups, nor do I feel like I am useless to my team.
Message error: You are not in a party
WTF? guys? Hello?
Error: Guild or party is full

If that’s not your case, feel fortunate for having such a nice guild… And don’t forget to be grateful and appreciate what thieves have, as one guy recommended to all thieves in other thread.

Engels.8537:

Stop crying, go and roll other class and learn to apreciate what the thieves have,

Nice for you to mention, because of all classes, thieves are probably the ones who value the most what they have…

… Basically because with each patch, they have less, and less, and less things.

I can tell you for certain that the last thing I’ll do with my thief is swimming

I always thought that shadow return was the compensation for having practically no access to stability on this class.

I mean: “fine, you thieves only have stability with a long recharge elite skill BUT you have an easy access stun-B if you equip swords”, which is not as good as stability itself, but at least it allowed for quick knock-down recovery.

Obviously I was wrong, or simply A-net doesn’t care a **** about it.

YuiRS.8129:

Thief was crazy OP. Thief is still OP with MH Dagger builds, but it’s a bit more manageable. Another nerf to MH Dagger is needed (reduced HS and BS damage), maybe to some evasion abilities and a buff to P/P, S/P and a few utilities is needed and then Thief will be in a good place.

MMORPG dictionary

Balanced
Adjective

Referent to a given playable class or its skills/feats/traits. It is commonly used to describe a state of being that carries absolutely no risk or danger to the speaker.

Example of usage: ‘Thieves are balanced’: Thieves may have attacks, skills and tricks, but all of them are ineffective, harmless, or my player class has all the counters to each of its abilities. So, other than being afk or falling asleep over my keyboard, I can consistently avoid all its dangerous moves or negate/mitigate all their tactical maneuvers… thus, thieves are a balanced class.

Yep… Only a few more patches, and this profession will be known as ‘Thierf’

kittennit.7648:

Bug or intended? I dont really know why it has been changed because no one played a S/D daze build (well except me maybe lol).

Must be part of Anet policy of promoting build diversity…

Anyway, I believe people won’t care at all about it. S/D was -finally- a valid alternative to D/D until last patch. Then, the nerfs put it again below D/D, which is -once again- the dominant melee style.

Scorci.3250:

i have some bad news, you might be bad at the game

Better we be…. The alternative is too terrifying for you to admit.

DrMatt.9408:

Also the googles? Why do that? I wanted a challenging jp, not to be trolled. There is like 20 people on my server standing up there asking where the chest is, and when you naturally try to jump onto the rock, you just fall straight through to the bottom. Since when have you been able to fall through terrain in this game?

Since that terrain is illusory. Aetherblades use illusory terrain to cover their hideouts, including the whole ‘rocky’ dome that covers the entire airship.

Or do you believe that the airship was built inside a closed cave?

And not all thieves spec trickery.

Wolfe.3097:

the range nerf was for shortbows themselves, not just ours…so i think its less to do with thieves, and more to do with its comparison to longbows.

that said, still sucks, and forces thieves more towards the already loathed high damage builds.

Fine, all shortbow abilities were to reduced to 900 range and buffed +14% damage to compensate… Where is our +14%?

Yeah, it happens from time to time. It’s the same principle as our old shadowshot ‘reverse pull’ with D/P #3. We shoot, mesmer reflects, and instead of us shadowstepping to him, it’s him who shadowstepped to us. This was the reason it was made ‘unblockable’.

But now that I look at it, mirror blade also has been made unblockable, (for the same reason I presume) so maybe the cause is a bug or another thing.

You have to get used to the rythm of the game. Dodging on reaction is not going to work 100% unless you have cat-reflexes. It helps a lot to ‘predict’ when the attack is coming, so you can react much faster to danger, or even supressing the need to dodge.

Most boss attacks come at a fixed cadency. Knowing that: ‘The boss is going to attaaaaack …. NOW!!’ is very different than: ’OMG!!! boss attack!!!"

Most probable cause is that you reflected a projectile from him that creates clones on hit, surely a mirror blade.

sorrow.2364:

… They aren’t supposed to be a Cluster Bomb turrets. If you want to get free badges when attacking or defending a castle, either build and use an Arrowcart, or change profession to another which is supposed to do the WvWvW turret, like Elementalist, Ranger, Necro or Engineer.
If all the professions should have all the same capabilities, why can’t I roam with my Necro as I do with my Thief?

First, no one wants free badges, thieves work as hard as everyone else to get them.

Second, dont confuse efectiveness with mechanics. A necro may not have the same roaming efectiveness as a thief but they certainly can roam. However, a thief may not fire at 1200 range, while every other class in the game can do it (regardless of efectiveness).

Magische Boek.2530:

i didnt read everything here but i see many people complaining about traps, has no1 noticed the shadow trap change? the return now works as a stun breaker, also it has 10k range! this means you can place this trap before going into battle, do your damage and when you are about to die you return, instantly out of combat and safe. how’s that not good? dont even get me started about sPvP placing this on points to travel back quickly

Yeah, well, that’s the theory. Flawless and clean….

In practice is more like… “Time to go!! Activating telepo… Whut? Where the hell am Iaaaarrghhh” *chop *chop *chop

Water is like molecular acid for thieves…

Yep, It is a nice build, but mostly for roaming in WvsW

However, for group play I much prefer Haste plus Back Fighting synergy.

First you activate Haste to deplete your dodge bar. You do this to avoid accidentally dodging incoming attacks. The extra attack speed also makes easier to grab aggro from bosses. Many people can do well without this skill, but I find that my self-preservation instinct often kicks-in and makes me dodge heavy hits… which is detrimental to this build, since you want to go downed state ASAP.

Once in downed state, the real power of this build is unleashed. Now you have a ton more life compared to your normal HP, and all your attacks do +50% damage thanks to Back Fighting

But the Big Deal comes now, since Anet, promoting build diversity, just over-buffed this build by allowing a fellow thief to use on you Merciful Ambush. Now, as long as you keep a fellow thief casting Merciful Ambush on you (or any form of stealth), you can keep spamming Venomous Knife downed stealth attack (Remember that we are already the class with the most number of skills in downed state).

Your fellow thief need a little expertise to keep you healed, but not too much, since you don’t want to recover, but extending downed state as long as you can.

This build is known as the ‘Living turret’ since, you essentially transform in a mobile turret with a crapload HP, that can shadowstep, can be ‘repaired’ and can choose the most convenient target in every moment, with a rate of fire (AoE DPS + Cripple +Bleed +Poison) that exceeds the wet dreams of any engineer. (Which I already hear QQing in their forums)

However, expect nerfs for this build, since it is easily exploitable.

Aaand the curse of ‘venomshare’ strikes again….

Seriously, Anet, just give thieves functional venoms and screw up venomshare. No one in his right mind will sacrifice an utility slot and a trait for a skill that needs 4+ people around you to work properly.

As I feared, the changes make my thief totally unkillable underwater…

… because you won’t find me underwater ever again.

Metamega.9025:

Thieves have one area that they shine in, roaming and outnumbering players not built to deal with it or inexperience, thats it, purely being annoying.

Unfortunately, this area of expertise strikes the most sensitive target of average Joe… his EGO.

Craig.2403:

…. Try leveling a thief, and learning its mechanics. Then, … think …. In his 3 seconds of revealed, take time to think …. Once he restealths, think, with your newly gathered information…. use the thief’s thinking time as your own thinking time….

You sure have high expectations for this community, do you?

DanH.5879:

well, i am happy the sword isn’t nerfed into oblivion…

Don’t say that too loud yet…

If the notes are real, I wouldn’t worry about torment at all. It will be stuck on a thief trap -which is pretty useless to begin with- and it will last… 3 seconds? 5 seconds? WooHoo!! Yeah, I bet all thieves are eager to remove Shadowstep or Shadow Refuge from their bars in order to make room for the torment trap….

It is much like the hype with anti-stealth traps… OMG!!!! They would destroy the thief class!!! The end of GW2!!! The armaggedon!!! yadah yadah…….. My thief have yet to step on one of those in WvsW since they were implemented.

The problem with venoms is that they are balanced on the premise that thieves MAY share them and MAY make them last an extra dose.

That makes its usage extremely inefficient if not under those circumstances.

Hint to Anet: Build versatility is not forcing people to spec in specific ways to get a benefit. Because in that case, people will simply choose the option with the best ‘benefit’. Build versatility is having several viable, functional, options from vanilla state, and traits should only slightly ‘improve’ or ‘boost’ those options or add certain ‘utility’ powers, not being an absolute prerequisite to make those builds work.

So, steal will be overpowered when traited and so-so when not… Yep, nice functionality balance.

Yep, It always puzzles me why people keep attacking from downed state at enemies that are at 80%+ health… Let alone dungeon bosses…

Maybe thieves should program a macro in its keyboard to quick-shout: ‘Stay still you moron!!!’

XII.9401:

Cool..play a non stealth class and lets see you predict the ambush.

Also, Why should everyone else run toughness gear to combat a single class while the thief can get away with being a glass cannon? This is GUild wars 2 not Thief wars 2 where everyone has to build their class around your own..

Toughness gear is not meant to counter specifically thieves, but bursts in general. You may find this fact shocking, but other clases are able to perform high bursts too (even higher bursts than thieves). Those clases also choose to equip berserker gear.

Your obsession with thieves (since you are a well known thief-hater) tricks your mind into believing that the game, the mechanics and everything else favors thieves and that all things revolve around them. Burst your hate bubble and you may realize that thieves are not as golden as you believe.

Lopez.7369:

Steal is incredible in PvP for the actual stealing ability. Most thieves don’t know how to use it properly, though.

Well, yes, steal might be great if you Spec Deadly arts +Trickery…. But to my Crit/Shadow/Acro spec steal doesn’t offer a kitten.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker.

It always has been a stunbreaker. Since day-one release. Go check in-game and figure it by yourself if you don’t believe it.

If leaked notes come to be true, with S/- nerfed into the ground, and SB erradicated from zerg battles, it’s logical that they want to give us something to keep us entertained in sieges and other major attacks, just to kill boredom until the gates are down, the other army retreats from the bridge and so on…

I guess it’s better than just cheerleading our zerg anyways.

The Ele’s down!!!! MEDIIIC !!!!

I’m not sure if I smell a faint trace of irony on this thread….

When you have to devote an entire build to make one type of ability work (venoms), is a clear sign than something is not right with those abilites in first place.

Tell us your results.

Don’t worry, if the leaked notes come to be true it will be applied with a venom, so you won’t equip it anyways…

It was (well, technically it still is) our best defense against knockdowns, since the class have miserable access to stability.

Furthermore, in PvE some monster knockdowns are pretty long duration…. Oh! But who cares about PvE in first place? …

Nice Job with the promised thief-mobility buffs, Anet… You are doing a tremendous work here. Keep’m rolling… I’m curious to see how much more mobile could you make the thief class.

He must be a thief hater in first place…. So, of course, thieves have the fault of everything.

… Rangers have to constantly adjust their builds because of all the nerfs we get. Thieves and other Elite classes don’t…

ROFL, you truly don’t have any idea about what your are talking about, do you? And on top of that… thief ‘Elite’ class… Haha… thanks for the morning laugh….

Those skills are proof on some inconsistent decisions when ‘polishing’ (AKA rushing) the thief class for the game’s release.

Because if they were meant as a purely defensive skills, and not intended to be used offensively for closing gaps, or maneuvering, they simply should work like ‘disabling shot’, always moving you away from opponent.

But if you have the freedom to turn the camera to choose whatever direction you like, simply allow them to be used like regular dodges.

And please don’t try to convince me that twisting your wrist takes more ‘skill’ than pressing 2 keys at the same time. If you are playing under parkinson’s disease, it’s definitely your problem.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Kyrion.2749:

Ok, Thiefy hit hard a couple of times… Soooo what? It’s not that other classes can’t hit that hard (or even higher).

Should I post some screenshots of Warry’s killshots or Mesmy’s shatters to make you feel better? Any class can spec to ‘overload’ a given skill to hit for ridiculous amounts of damage.

So what’s your point? That you specced to get high backstabs and you got -gasp- high backstabs?

Your attack is INVISIBLE… whats so hard to understand ???

You know.. people can NOT see you anymore… your gone… your not there…
There is no way to counter… its… not… visible…

Kill shot IS VISIBLE… Stationary… requires 3 stack adrenaline.

Iam starting to think we have a zombie appocalypse…
some ppl seem totaly braindead…

Oh! The dagger wielding thief just dissapeared in front of me!!!

OMG!!! What is he gonna do???!!! I don’t see anything!! I have no idea of what’s he’s going to do with that dagger in his main hand!!!!

Let’s see… He could use it to cut some pizzas… or he could use it to clean the grime under his nails…. But I don’t see anything!!!! I don’t know what he could be doing right now!!!

I have an idea! I’ll better remain stationary without attacking and without using any skills until he appears again, that way, i’ll know for sure what to do!!!! Ha ha!… take that thiefy, you can’t beat my supreme intellect !!!!!

BTW, yeah, warry killshot is super-visible from the middle of a zerg or when you are focused fighting another one…. Neon lights hover over his head, and everyone around him becomes traslucent so you can clearly see him aligning the shot from 1500 range.

Ok, Thiefy hit hard a couple of times… Soooo what? It’s not that other classes can’t hit that hard (or even higher).

Should I post some screenshots of Warry’s killshots or Mesmy’s shatters to make you feel better? Any class can spec to ‘overload’ a given skill to hit for ridiculous amounts of damage.

So what’s your point? That you specced to get high backstabs and you got -gasp- high backstabs?

Just FYI, from the wiki…

Gambler’s fallacy

It is believed gambling addiction may, in part, be influenced by the gambler’s own erroneous beliefs about the nature of probability. If gamblers approach gambling with the intent of winning and they initially end up losing, the only way for them to break even or win in the long run is to keep playing.

Some problem gamblers have the erroneous belief that if they keep playing, they will eventually win. While it is logically correct to say that more trials of a probabilistic event increase the likelihood of the event occurring at least once, some hold the fallacious belief that previous failures influence the likelihood of future successes. If individual incidences of probabilistic events are independent of each other, then this belief is incorrect. To hold such a belief is to commit the gambler’s fallacy.

As an example, there is a 63.3% chance that a Vegas-style slot machine with a 1:100 likelihood of paying out each pull will have paid out once or more after 100 pulls.
There is a 39.5% chance that this same machine will have paid out at least once after 50 pulls.

A problem gambler that is susceptible to the gambler’s fallacy would believe that, if after 50 pulls the slot machine has not paid out, there is a 63.3% likelihood that the machine will pay out within the next 50 pulls, because there is a 63.3% chance of the machine paying out within any particular block of 100 trials. In reality, the likelihood that the machine will pay out in the next 50 pulls is still 39.5%.

The oversight made here is that independent probabilistic events do not actually influence one another. Gamblers are equating a posteriori probability with a priori probability. Gamblers believe that if there is a certain likelihood of a probabilistic event occurring after a certain number of trials, then as the number of past failures increases, the likelihood of the event occurring in future trials increases. The reality of the situation is that once a particular trial has been deemed a failure, we know a posteriori that there is a 0% chance of that event occurring, even if a priori there is a 1% chance of the event occurring. Within a particular set of 100 pulls, after 50 pulls we are no longer in a block of 100 1:100 events, but a block of 50 0:100 events and 50 1:100 events.