Guild Wars 2

I agree with OP, however, I never see how this is a problem because one, I get maybe 2 tries at most before my stealth runs out?

Whenever I use sneak attack it seems to reveal me every time, so I’d be ok with this change. I don’t, however, see how this is going to make a difference.

I love how every thread that is supposed to point out the flaws of the class turns into a L2Read and “You’re a kitten” response.

If you watch those Youtube videos of thief outnumbered, you will either encounter 1) a very smart player (yishis, aikijinx, etc) or 2) someone that is fighting against a bunch of bad players. This is not a good measure of how good the class is.

Travlane.5948:

people think “thieves kill GC so fast” but its bc thieves usually run GC….. now if other classes usually run GC u would say GC builds just die fast. but the fact we think"THIEF" when the word GC comes up ….its basically an unfair connection based off of a very high average. GC does not belong to thief class alone. thief does run GC much more than any other classes combined. GC on ANY class will be melted by other GC builds also on any other class.

This. A million times this. You picked thief. Every thief / rogue / assassin in the history of games is a bursty GC type. We die easy but output a bunch of damage early. You want sustained damage? Play a warrior. We’re medium AC melee for a reason. Thief / Rogue / Assassin is synonymous with GC.

Just to throw this out there, I was in sPvP, and yes, it’s possible to one shot a Thief with an Ele. I couldn’t tell you what happened because I don’t play Ele, but I was running toward the point, RtL hits me, I’m immob’d then I drop in the next two hits before I can even react. Running a D/P trickery build, stealth is 1sec w/ HiS, or 1.5 with aftercast + HS. I don’t carry Blinding Powder in PvP because, well for obvious reasons. zOMG ELE OP.

The point, if you’re running a glass build, you should be able to kill other glass builds. That’s the nature of them, hence why they’re called GLASS.

Whenever I get chilled, chances are, I’m dead. When I fight a Necro that uses staff, chances are, I’m dead.

Also, BPS + whirling axe isn’t that bad lol. Drop it down in a cluster of people, and it’s not THAT bad.

KeyOrion.9506:

Any glass cannon that can 1-2, or 1-2-3 hits and down an opponent 100% of the time…I believe to be way over the top.

Toughness doesn’t seem to do jack squat unless you fall from a cliff. Whereas vitality against a 1-2 hit is the only thing that’ll keep people up and in combat.

But then you stealth if the enemy survives, then go back at them with pistol whip, stun, 1-2 hit, and their down.

Can’t hit a target, if your not allowed to target an enemy in stealth mode. We can AoE blanket the area, but most thieves will pull back a distance.

Then you have 3-5 players, wasting their time, playing pin the tail on the thief to take them out.

People don’t “cry” about it.

Their just kittened OFF about it. There is a difference.

Unfortunately I fully believe that 1/2 the team in arenet main nothing BUT thieves. I seen one play necromancer, and was quite SHOCKED. But, seen nothing but a lot of Dev thieves during logins in way to many areas.

I’m still trying to L2P on PvP/WvW, but I’m pretty sure if you have a build that can 1-2 shot people 100% of the time, you wouldn’t have enough utility to just HAPPEN to stealth out of nowhere if they’re still standing after that. A good aegis and / or a good evade and you’re out 3 cooldowns @ at least 30secs, no stealth outside of just CnD. What’s the thief to do? Plus you don’t have access to PW, because builds that 1-2 shot people don’t use swords.

Zero Day.2594:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Zero Day.2594:

Aen Gelinor.4062:

Me say remove all professions from the game, they’re op. We can play as ranger pets.

Leave the warrior. Warrior is balanced. (I think they’ve said it’s in a good place)

So that means they plan on buffing all other classes to be on par with warrior, right?

Noooo…. that’s a bit too hard. It’s easier to nerf everything so that people are more inclined to play the warrior class. And once everyone’s playing a warrior, the game will be balanced. I think they’re making good progress on the thief class.

(All about the big picture…)

This is what we call in fighting games as “Losing at the character select screen”. We picked thief. We already lost. :<

By decapping, do you mean just that? Just neutralize the zone and move on? Do you ever stick around to actually cap the points? I find that most of the time when I’m trying to cap I seem to overstay my welcome and get run by a million of the opposing team members.

I really think that they complain because we’re really annoying to fight, rather than the fact that they’re OP.

Clone / phantasm Mesmers are the MOST annoying to fight by far because they drop stuff that damages you WHILE they’re in stealth, and you have to go through this clicking frenzy of actually targetting them. Even if you call target, when they drop into stealth that reticle drops.

Compare that to the fact that an Ele, Warrior, Necro, other Thieves, Engies can pretty much one shot us or make fields that we cannot even step foot into because our builds are so specific that we need to be super squishy, I think we’re pretty balanced in the sense that we’re high risk high reward.

I’ve played thief since launch, but I’m still noobish at pvp / wvw.

Chicago Jack.5647:

To be honest though, the argument is somewhat rather pointless as shortbow is the weapon you need to learn since you will, or rather should, be sitting in it more than d/p. It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

So on this note. I’m on a constant quest on L2P. Can you explain how you would use this set? Every time I switch to this set I’m either trying to run away, or I don’t succeed in doing anything before some warrior just Bolo’s me or downs me w/ his stupid fire bow.

You see it when you get that nice lightning auto attack on ele scepter, mesmer pistol clone, and mesmer gs though Just sayin’

Pistol thief gets Unload every 5 seconds or something? You combine that w/ Venomous Aura and you get stacks of stuff. I hardly think they’re there for damage, more for extra stacks of condis and annoyance.

Mordecai.6318:

I’m kind of upset everyone feels this is innovative or new.

You’re just mad that no one saw your P/D build on IntotheMists that’s been sitting there for a long time :P

I’ll have to disagree with both of you and say that S/P is hard against good players, also D/P is hard against good players. I’ve been hard countered and downed by S/P before I could even do anything while I was using D/P and vice versa.

Then again, what do I know, I’m a bad thief that is currently trying to l2p by using S/P and moving away from D/P that I’m so used to.

As a related note, when the patch goes live, what two sigils would be viable for SB? Probably battle + energy?

I don’t know about you guys, but I run D/P and I always find that I’m in a situation against some condi necro or mesmer or engi or i’m in some sort of 1vX with a bajillion immobs, that make getting away really hard. Even black powder will not save me from this.

Really? In the mists, I put it down on a golem, ran the hell away, hid behind a wall and i was still able to teleport to them.

If you’re autoattacking someone, sometimes when I untarget and then shadowstep, it will port me over there, and give me a revealed debuff. It’s so weird. Try it on a golem in pvp. Put a trap down, do some auto attacks, then port. You’ll be revealed. I have to wait for a good .5 seconds before it works properly. It’s worse when I’m autoatttacking with pistol because I don’t get sneak attack.

I was messing around with this trap, and it seems like if I’m engaging the enemy, and I pop it, I’m automatically revealed. I can’t even get a backstab off. The 10 stacks of might are nice, though. Am I not using this properly?

Yeah, I messed up, but people have already started to respond to the messages, so I edited and included the “Ignore the last line” XD It was Acrobatics that no one puts 30 points into.

Omg, LoL. 6 mins in and you finally get downed. And your thief guildie never got downed once. If it were me I’d have gotten immob > death within 1 min. I’m surprised at the lack of immobs and the amount of uplevels in that video. It was a good video though, I was thoroughly entertained.

babazhook.6805:

There are quite a few builds that work with p/d. I find it more flexible then most.

I myself now use 20/0/30/20/0 though I have used 10/0/30/0/30 and even 20/0/10/10/30. (this gives 3+k armor 20k+ health)

The poison on steal is a good skill out of DA. Dire is my preferred armor of choice and it on my trinkets as well. If I want some more heal or power I switch out a weapon set rather then the armor as it a lot easier to carry around extra weapons.

For the added OOMPH one gets from power I stack might rather then go carrion.

Assassins retreat is my speed rather then using an armor set specced for it or I will sometimes put in signet of shadows for map movement.

Just keep in mind for a condition spec you can toy with all sets of trait choices and find the one you most like. I like my dodges as example over using cnd and stealth and rely on shadow arts for might stacks and the regen more then anything.

As example a Withdraw/RFI/ and signet of agility is one of my favorite choices on the toolbar as I get all manner of dodges on demand.

Once you get your armor set try different combos of traits and find the one that works for you the best. Most any makes a good roamer in wvw and I find too many people who recommend builds do not consider the fact that every player is different when it comes to taste or even the ability to do the twitch at the right time.

As example I can never cloak and dagger on demand as some can so avoid that.

I’m trying to figure out what you would put in 20/0/10/10/30. Would this be a power build or a condition / venom build? I’m also guessing you run Shadow’s Embrace, Assassin’s Retreat (since you talk about it above), Thrill, Bountiful, and Sleight. Not sure about what would go into DA though, since if I were to play a power build, I’d run Mug / Dagger Mastery, but if I were to run venoms I’d probably put Quick Venoms and Venomous Strength. o.O?

Carpboy.7145:

Full dire or carrion. Carrion is a lot squishier bu you do more dmg. Dire is pretty much invincible. Traits go 10/0/30/0/30. Grab perplexity runes with sleight of hand, and scorpion wire

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY6YlUmiO3eS7E/5EB3DnaUo694rj1saFoJA-jkCB4iDimWAkkOQ0HwZqFRjtsuIasKZER1KlYmbDRzkL1CBsYNA-w

You can also use caltrops instead of scorpion wire or shadow refuge. I just prefer it the way it is

Is P/D the only occasion where you would go 30 into SA? I thought that was taboo. :\

EDIT -

Oh wait, it was 30 points into Acrobatics. I’m stupid, ignore that last part.

I just ran it in sPvP for a bit, and I’d say running HiS and SS helps a lot. Maybe I’ll try out Pain Response next.

:( He doesn’t archive his videos. I want to see what his play looks like.

So should I be taking Panic Strike over Ricochet? What do you guys think? I feel like rico is better for zerging whereas panic is better for more 1v1ish type.

I’m not sure what’s the point of Shadow Trap in WvW. Care to explain, ryan?

I’m pretty sure there’s a good amount of thieves using some sort of venomshare build. I’m thinking about going into it for sure.

Your D/D build is hilarious though. I think that’s how I should play Thief. Burst or die. LOL Because more often than not I’m already dying. I’m surprised at the number of people not stunbreaking your bursts.

Darkstorn.5423:

Yes but he hasn’t realized it yet

I will necro this thread just to say that sarcasm is the best thing to attempt on the internet

Interceptor, you should choose Basilisk Venom. It’s the most useful underwater. The other ones suck.

Really? Man, I really must not be a good player. Whenever I see 2-3 mesmers on any team I’m so angry because of the amount of condi, shatter, stealth they can put out is so stupid. I feel like they can stealth and dodge better than we can.

I…. what? I must be a really bad player because I have a tough time killing a necro.

That being said, I got into soloQ with 2 other thieves, a mesmer, and a guardian, against what looked like a balanced team, and we facerolled them. It was glorious.

Hell, I’d be happy with even 2 – 3 hit kills. Every time I try to backstab someone I get around 7k with decent survivability. With health pools and evades and such, I can’t get 3 backstabs off in the window it takes someone to hit 6, pop a stun break, then hit 6, or block.

For our limited AC and low health pools, generally speaking, would it be more beneficial for us to run higher toughness? Or just get more hp?

I’m on mag and it’s tough when we fight the tier 1 servers. I can’t seem to get into any battles without running into some sort of zerg. Then I get downed in two seconds and I just kick back w/ SB until someone is way the hell back there trying to catch up. Feel so useless.

Putting on the noob hat for a second, What does PVT armor mean, and where do they go? Guessing Soldier’s that goes on head chest and legs?

Dahkeus.8243:

Actually, as D/D, I use all 5 skills. 5 and 1 are still the bread and butter, but HS is for when targets are 1/3rd hp or less or when you just need to travel around. 3 is an extra evade for clutch moments and a handy clone buster vs mesmers. 4 is an occaisional snare and often a good way to apply basilisk before you opponent expects it. I use 4 with basilisk a lot to stun an enemy before they can contest a point.

However, having your timing right is really what makes the difference between people who pick up D/D for the first time in PvP and shortly write it off and the people who pull it off successfully. Being able to chain CnDs without triggering revealed is often key to winning a lot of fights, particularly since coming from stealth, then landing CnD -> backstab with basilisk is such good burst that is very hard to counter.

Thank you, something I was looking for. Also, D/D in sPvP? I thought that was bad as well because you can’t cap points.

All other posts up to this point were helpful in helping me understand this set better. I realize I was playing it wrong.

I’m actually genuinely curious about what S/P is capable of, which is why I was waiting for you to help me understand how this weaponset works. As Travlane said, no one’s attacking you personally and it would help someone like me L2S/P.

Interceptor.2653:

Lamuness.3570:

S/D + S/P are both LOLMASH3.

Why did you quote his post if you didn’t even read it? If you mash #3 on S/P, the only kills you’ll get are critters, guards, uplevels, people who are AFK, and yourself. Every weapon skill on S/P is useful in one regard or another. Even the autoattack.

Sorry, but when I read it, and hit reply, the “edit” seems to have slipped in there while I assumed nothing had changed. But I was mainly addressing his point that D/P had the lowest skill ceiling against something like S/P or S/D; something I was under the impression of having the lowest skill ceiling.

Viking Jorun.5413:

You’d be completely wrong, and your assumption that sword is for spiking shows your inferior knowledge about the class. Sword is designed as a sustained damage weapon, while dagger is a burst damage weapon, meaning that sword builds are made to stay in the fight and keep pressure, while dagger is a get-in-get-out spike weapon meant to quickly take down already pressured opponents.

Secondly, D/P has far to much reward for its very little risk, while S/P, S/D, and D/D are balanced to the point where a skilled player will shine when using these, and many top-tier PvPers stray from D/P due to its low skill ceiling and inability to hold a point.

D/P in WvW, however, is extremely good due to its high access to stealth on demand without the necessity of an enemy to gain it from, ala CnD. In this facet you would be correct, but this is a PvP discussion. I’m sure you’re trolling by telling experienced players that D/P requires far more skill than S/P, S/D, D/D, and even P/P. It’s laughable, really.

EDIT: Also, anyone running S/P who mindlessly spams 3 is going to die very, very quickly. Maybe you should try something other than your canned D/P build to expand your horizons.

So which is it? I hear that D/P is good because you use every skill on your bar. Whereas D/D you use 5 and 1 occasionally 2 and S/D + S/P are both LOLMASH3. I’ve been running D/P in PvP / WvW / PvE, and am currently experimenting with S/P, but I can’t get the survivability / damage as I can w/ D/P. 3 takes too long to come out, and 5 doesn’t seem like it helps w/ sword very much. I don’t get any useful combo fields unless I’m forgetting something.

I will be trying S/D next in PvP / WvW, but for now it seems like S/P isn’t my playstyle.

snacktime.1082:

Highly skilled players who look down on those with less experience/skill, should take a step back and think about what they are saying. You really want the game to only be fun for your skill level? That’s happened before fyi, and those games die fast deaths.

Speaking from experience, why is Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 still a game that everyone gravitates towards, even though the game’s flawed, random, and has a lower skill cap than a game like, Virtua Fighter with its deep gameplay, punishes you for mistakes, and is overall totally balanced where tiers are so close together?

Because UMvC3 has the ability to let new players in with broken teams that are easy to play. A bad player vs. a bad player w/ these teams will net a ton of wins, with people crying for nerfs and OPness. A good player will blow through these teams. Also, VF has no one playing it anymore despite it being the most balanced game ever.

Same reason why people (Americans) like to watch Football over Golf. I’m sure Golf requires a ton of skill and conditioning. Football is like the 25/30/0/0/15 builds. Fast, fun, exciting, and nets you kills.

I’m sure my logic is flawed somewhere in there, but the idea still stands that, let the bad players play bad. If they don’t learn, it’s up to the good players like us to teach them a lesson.

Dustfinger.9510:

Faeyd.5094:

Also, a nice way to unwind is to run a signet burn D/D build and 2/2/2 them as much as they do you. You should see some of the whispers you get.

yes! Show bads why they need to learn to play. This is the answer. Not calling for nerfs to whole classes. This just proves that the ability to bad-spam one skill isn’t just for theives.

What is this Signet Burn build? I’d like to unwind one of these days.

To OP:
Seriously, if you’re having trouble as a necro against thieves who 222222 all day, I think there’s something wrong with your build. If you’re a thief and you have trouble against other thieves who 222222 all day, then there’s something wrong with your build, or how you’re playing thief. I think blind is a hard counter to this problem, which isn’t a problem in the first place.

Honestly, I’ve run into a handful of these in my short time PvPing, and I still need to L2P, but if I see one, I hit 5, and watch them jump around, or I stealth myself. I get impatient when it’s another D/P class and want to burst his face, mostly because I’m scared of his teammates coming, but that’s another problem entirely.

Do those infiltrator arrow movements still work? I swear I’ve tried some on those lowell videos and they don’t work for me anymore.

EDIT:

Nm, I’m dumb. You have to be at certain angles for it to work.

Well technically, it’s not ON the point, it’s next to it. I’ve started to run away more to heal up and reposition, but it still seems to be just an annoyance to just run, since their cds are going down too.

Question, What does PVT armor mean? I’m running 0/30/30/10/0 zerk / soldier gear and I feel like I’m not doing enough damage. @ 5k backstab, most classes get off a heal or block and now I’m just chasing after them trying to land a few more. At this point I’m about to say screw it and run full zerker.

EDIT :
Did I say Valk / Soldier? I meant zerker / soldier with valk / zerk trinkets

I posted this in the other thread, but, I play with a standard 0/30/30/10/0 build in sPvP / solo Q. What I use it for is I get them slightly away from the point, and I can keep 2-3 people busy swatting at gnats because they’re so focused on trying to kill me, while hopefully my teammates are capping other points. Eventually I die, but I can keep them busy for a good 2-3 minutes. Am I playing it wrong? I feel as a stealth thief this is helpful for the rest of my team. Sure I’m not capping points, but I’m distracting at least 30% of the team from them capping points.

Sorry, I don’t have much WvW insight but in sPvP HJ or solo Q, should I feel bad that I can successfully hold and engage 3 members of a given team at a control point and not die for a good 2-3 minutes? It’s funny when I stealth and they start swatting around like hitting gnats. All the while my other teammates are capping other points (HOPEFULLY) so that when I eventually go down, they don’t get the stomp for another 15 secs while I port / blinding powder.

In WvW I can keep a good 3-4 people busy as well. I usually get overwhelmed, but a good distraction is a good thing, I feel. Am I playing this wrong?

Cynz.9437:

i find ice stab that we can steal from eles is horse kitten and is useless in 90% of the time… gunk at least allows quite few combo finishers

This. At least throw gunk gives you a nice field for a blast finisher.

Question about this, I think it’s Rabid armor set, does precision affect condition damage? Why put precision on with condi damage?

Travlane.5948:

if u want good…everything is boring for dugeons….

Yeah, unfortunately. I used to run P/P and all I did was 3333333333 lol. Sorry. But it is a good build.

This sounds effective but also sounds pretty boring lol.

Alice, running all those Cleric’s doesn’t get you into trouble? You have a ton of heal power and enough toughness, but you have 11k hp? I can’t imagine this. Unless you were planning on full support?