Guild Wars 2

Now I want to see a video where you sing this. lol

lazycalm.5186:

Is there anyway to disable it for certain weaponset? Mike having melee off and shortbow off?

I’m gonna run d/p in PvP/wvw

Why should I have it off? Can you explain it to me?

Thanks again

Auto attack is either on or off. You can not disable it based on weaponsets. I run with it off to avoid it breaking my stealth. If you run d/p then you would definitely want it off as you will be popping in stealth more often and auto attack would break stealth.

I don’t want to say it’s a learn to play issue here, but there are ways to counter stealth survivability when trying to stomp. If you see that shadow refuge or an enemy go stealth that you are trying to finish dodge to cancel your stomp and use any knock-backs/aoe that you have on the area they were down. People still take damage while stealth and a lot of times you can knock-back or down the person trying to res.

You can not tab target the NPCs in heart of the mists. Also stomping them sometimes fails for no reason at all.

If you’re going to compare warriors to thieves you have to do a stat/build comparison as well. Warriors in any build will have higher stats than a thief trying to obtain the same stat type. A thief that builds for more evades has less blind and stealth. If they build more for stealth and blinds then they have less evades. Just like a warrior who builds for one thing loses another. It’s like this for any class. If you cry about something being over powered then take into consideration that their build may just indeed be a counter to yours, and they may in fact be more skilled than you.

Nothing you do in PvP counts for anything other than the PvP achievements. There aren’t many of those, and the ones there are take forever to get. Hopefully soon they’ll add/fix achievements for the PvP community.

As some of the other posters here have said, other than stealth thieves only have evade for defense. Evading damage typically takes more skill than buffing yourself to absorb/negate/reflect damage because you have to actively hit the evade button at the right moment. There are some builds (s/x) that give thieves the ability to evade a lot more than others. It just takes timing and knowing when they are evading.

Divinity.8041:

Used to play mesmer, but forgot the absolutely cruel things you can do as d/p sb

I use full glass, but it is pretty crazy.

10/30/0/0/30

I can pretty much perm stealth, have huge spike damage, and do ridiculous things with blinds/interrupts.

pistol #5 is pretty much god like!

I can roam, and just wreak havok. I love this class, and I will never play another class again.

Welcome to the shadows! If you like the interrupts try s/p. You lose access to stealth through weapon skills so you’ll have to take that in your utilities. Keep in mind though, you can’t take a point when your stealth! So if you like stealth stick to roaming, if you want to take points then try a build not so stealth heavy like s/p or s/d.

March update…. one can hope.

Wait.. wut…? So push/pulling in Skyhammer is a cheap trick and exploit now? L2Dodge/not have your back to a drop…

The only time you should ever fall to your death in Skyhammer is when you either make a mistake and miss the tell that you were about to get knocked off/pulled or when you miss-calculate a dodge roll lol. Everyone complains about Skyhammer, but now that the glory reward is the same for win/loss what’s there to complain about other than what may be your fault for lack of skill on this map?

I just had this conversation with my guild last night. I’m the black sheep of my guild as I’m the one in spvp everyday while they do dungeons/WvW so they don’t really understand where we pvpers are coming from. There are 3 game types in GW2 that we all are aware of. PvP, WvW, and Pve. Now as I told my guild look at all the achievements you get for PvE content through the living world updates, seasonal events, dungeons, quests, and jumping puzzles. With constant PvE updates the amount of achievement points available in this game type will continue to grow exponentially leaving the other two game types in the dust. Then you’ve got the recently added plethora of WvW achievements.

Now looking at the pvp achievements it might look like at first that there are quite a few, but it takes forever to earn any of them and the point reward is minimal for the effort and time put into acquiring the achievement.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ve mentioned a few times prior that we’re looking at rebalancing the top-end of ranks to make them more attainable. We came to this decision after player feedback persuaded us to leave ranks into the game, rather than cut them.

The amount of rank points needed to hit 80 is too darn high.

Glad to see devs that are actually listening to the player base. Than you!

Sadly finishers are the only thing that us pvpers can earn to show our commitment to pvp, and better finishers are available to purchase. PvPers need something to show for their dedication to pvp. Hopefully we will see something else that can be only earned in pvp soon.

What I mean by a “secret” build is that it used to be that no thief really ran 10/30/0/0/30 in pvp. Now they are springing up like weeds! I originally made this build to buff the hell out of stealth while using s/p for an attempt at stunlocks. When I was trying to come up with a “new” build I was reminiscing the days of old when I used to be a mace rogue in wow with stunlocking capabilities. I was looking for something to that effect in GW2 to counter Warriors and Guardians. What I found was this build that not only provided all the stuns I was looking for but also mobility and a steal that would make all classes envious, not to mention better condi cleanse than my previous d/p build.

With the lack of stealth and backstab I wouldn’t use Scholar Runes. These runes are designed better for a stealth backstab as you need to be above 90% health for the damage bonus and as a thief that’s typically only the beginning of the fight. Instead try Ogre, Divinity, or my personal favorite Lyssa. The only thing with the Lyssa runes is that you’d probably want to use Basilisk venom elite for the shorter cool down.

Depends on your overall build and situation. Pve go all zerk. For WvW I prefer Traveler’s runes, and Power/Vit/Crit damage (Valkryie’s) gear. Zerk weapon’s and trinkets.

Thieves are a far less effective “Tank” than warrior. If they are stealth they do no damage… if a 25 man zerg can’t kill a thief then it’s their bad. Best option is to let the thief run away and attack something that is worth the time of a 25 man zerg. Yes thieves are probably the best survivalists but this is far different than being a “Tank”. To be an effective tank they would have to have high sustained dps while keeping survivability. Perma stealth is by no means tanking. Yes a thief can solo keep lords and pve bosses, but not near as effectively as a warrior or a guardian.

Burnfall.9573:

Because thieves can hit that high “hit like a Tank”, they play a Tank class role; not being “forced to” but are designed to be Tanks.

Once again, It’s Common Sense; if any class can hit 8-24k damage, obviously they can Tank.

I think that you misunderstand what a “Tank” in an MMO actually is. A tank is a class that can “take” hits like a tank. Thieves are most definitely not a tank, they are pure dps as they can not take hits at all or they will be down in seconds. That’s why they have mechanics like stealth and evade. As a thief to do damage greater than 8k it takes patience and skill to position ones self in the right spot and hit at the right time. A warrior just has to stand there, stun + 100blades.

Again hitting high numbers does not = being a tank. Surviving high numbers is what makes a tank…

Domey.9804:

The pistolwhip (short Story in 11 chapters)

1.it will be good
2.many thieves will try this Set in pvp
3.warrior: “kitten cant Do anything. Dat teef stuns me den evades evrythin, nerf dat anet!!!”
4.anet: "warrior has Problems, we need to “shave” pw"
5. Ini cost goes up by 1
6. Warrior: “teef still stuns me n evade All my hamr attacks, nerf more”
7.anet: “hm…better we reduce stun time back to 1/2sec But leave upped ini costs untouched”
8. Thief: "but…you wanted to buff pistolwhip? "
9. Warrior: “So many stuns, so many evades, clearly op”
10.anet: " ok we nerfed pw twice after buffing it, so its Not pw what makes thief op. We better nerf other skills from this Set. Blackpowder 2sec casttime to add counterplay. Sword AA dmg reduced by 15%"
11.thief: “i didnt want this buff, i knew what would happen…”
End

+1 Love this post. Been playing PW thief for a few months now. When I started playing it back in September I thought I found a “secret” kick #ss build for thief that no one knew about. Now it’s out in the open and we will be seeing more and more PW thieves, especially if it’s buffed. Guess it’s time to find the next “secret” OP build lol.

“Positive things coming that won’t be discussed yet (same for ranger)”

Wonder what the devs mean by this…

PW is okay the way it is now, but may indeed be better with this new change. As long as the ini cost remains consistent with the current build this may indeed be a buff to the build. With the stun and slashes separate is much better than locking yourself into a full PW when your enemy runs off. This gives you the option to stun position yourself and then sword slash. Or if you want to just use it as a stun. I believe that Anet is just trying to do something about the way it locks us into the sword slash animation.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I want to rename it Thief and steal from that other profession. (See what I did there?)

But seriously: our main mechanic is “Steal”. Unless you want to rename it Harlot or something I don’t see it changing at all, ever. I’m quite happy with “Thief”.

I agree completely. While thieves can run a variety of builds, we are all built around the same fundamentals.

“Pistol Whip possibly split into two-part skill with separate ini cost (stun and then slashes separated)”

By separating PW into a two-part skill with separate ini cost, I wonder if/how much the ini cost will be in total. Will they increase the cost or keep it the same? If they increase the cost then this is a nerf. I don’t mind having to press #3 twice for the total effect of PW. I actually like having the option to either use the full PW ability or to just use it as a stun. Always hated locking myself into an immobilize/stun for the duration of PW while my enemy runs out of it.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

When I am on the red team, I am always hopelessly confused about who is my ally and who is my enemy.

That is,.. a red circle is my team’s captured point, but a red tagged player is my enemy… except of course on the mini-map, where red players are my teammates.

Is this just me?

Why don’t we at least have “yellow and purple” teams if there is a consistent red for enemy and blue for ally?

The red and blue teams can be confusing at first because you want to associate red with the enemy. Red = Dead? You’ll get used to it after a while and it wont bother you as much. Just make sure before the match starts that you know what team your on and you’ll do fine.

<—- This thief will never carry something as cumbersome as a two handed sword. After all how am I supposed to carry all my stolen treasures and make my great escape if I’m weighed down by that big sword?

Bazzoong.7145:

Luto.1938:

Burnfall.9573:

Luto.1938:

If they remove the ability to stake when stealth are they also supposed to remove the ability to blackpowder > stake, or stake > shadowstep > shadowreturn > finish stake? I don’t think this should be removed and it’s not really and issue unless you didn’t see a thief go stealth to begin with. If someone is down and you see a thief go stealth you know where he is going to be, just use knock backs/fear/cc/or aoe him. Not that hard to counter stealth stomping as long as you know its happening.

Do know what’s happening when you are blindfolded?

Stealth stomping isn’t as powerful as blind stomping. If you know a thief went stealth then you know he’s there and can predict what he’s going to do and where he’s going to be. In an 1v1 situation if you’re down and the thief isn’t he already won the fight anyways right?

Mesmers win from downed state a lot 1v1, phatntasmal rogue can hit insanely hard…

Warriors can win from downed state if not blinded or stealth stomped…

Without blinds or stealth or teleports a thief will never stomp a decent player fast especially not in group fights.

That’s assuming the thief was able to beat a warrior (thieves hard counter).

So, are you in agreement with the OP that stealth stomp should be removed? If so then thieves will only have 2 effective means of stomping and be forced into a utility skill and/or blind traits/weaponskills.

vincecontix.1264:

Btw guys the stats on my war in the vid: 3.2k power, 3.2k toughness, around 22k vit, 88crit dmg, and 60 crit chance due high fury uptime.

Looks like warriors have very balanced stats. They’re all high! Oh… wait “only” 22k vit when it could be 30k if the other stats were slightly lower.

Burnfall.9573:

Luto.1938:

If they remove the ability to stake when stealth are they also supposed to remove the ability to blackpowder > stake, or stake > shadowstep > shadowreturn > finish stake? I don’t think this should be removed and it’s not really and issue unless you didn’t see a thief go stealth to begin with. If someone is down and you see a thief go stealth you know where he is going to be, just use knock backs/fear/cc/or aoe him. Not that hard to counter stealth stomping as long as you know its happening.

Do know what’s happening when you are blindfolded?

Stealth stomping isn’t as powerful as blind stomping. If you know a thief went stealth then you know he’s there and can predict what he’s going to do and where he’s going to be. In an 1v1 situation if you’re down and the thief isn’t he already won the fight anyways right?

If they remove the ability to stake when stealth are they also supposed to remove the ability to blackpowder > stake, or stake > shadowstep > shadowreturn > finish stake? I don’t think this should be removed and it’s not really and issue unless you didn’t see a thief go stealth to begin with. If someone is down and you see a thief go stealth you know where he is going to be, just use knock backs/fear/cc/or aoe him. Not that hard to counter stealth stomping as long as you know its happening.

Forzani.2584:

If a thief runs away from a duel, you won.

A worn out cliche that is laughably used by Thieves to prove they are balanced.

And if that thief did not run away you’d still win. Stealth isn’t a survivability tool unless it can be used to run away. The way a thief is supposed to fight isn’t head on, its jump in and stab stab then disengage. Then jump in stab stab disengage, and repeat till target is dead or you have to run away because your not doing enough dps to win. Good thieves understand this are opportunists and pick fights they can win. That’s why a good thief will always be called OP. They survive to jump in when it best suits them.

Imagi.4561:

Luto.1938:

Stooperdale.3560:

For anyone who’s ever picked up a sword, a dagger/sword combination would seem ludicrous. In fact the off hand sword is a nice fantasy idea but it doesn’t suit a nimble balanced thief at all since you need to sacrifice balance to get the power through the body into the off hand. I personally hope they add torches, maces, and even two handed swords before they give thieves heavy off hand weapons.

A thief with a two handed sword… really? How does that suit a “nimble balanced thief”?

As much as I love the look of a two handed sword it just wouldn’t fit with the thief archetype. There are many MMOs, and books where a thief type character dual wields swords. It’s the nimble master swordsman that wears light leather armor and is quick to evade/parry attacks. I would imagine that this weaponset would have high evade, parry, and bleeds to offset the survivability it would lose from not having stealth.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion about offhand sword, one of the first arguments is that it doesn’t “fit the class.”

First of all, an offhand sword does not have to be heavy .

Second, how is it odd for a Thief to use an offhand sword, when cloth-wearing casters like Mesmers can? How does it suit a “nimble” scout class like a Ranger to use a greatsword, but not a Thief? Just because GW2 is a fantasy game doesn’t mean it has to adhere to all of the traditional archetypes.

There is a reason why traditional archetypes need to be at least loosely followed. If not then we would have plate wearing Elementalists in Ham/Bow spec, permastealthing around, blowing up zergs with aoe bomb kits, and summoning dead minions.

Well maybe it wouldn’t get that bad but, without some guidelines of traditional archetypes to follow we will begin to see homogenization among all the classes. I don’t want to wield a GS as a thief for the same reasons I don’t want to wear plate, and use engi kits. Each class needs abilities that it can not access and weapon sets that it can not use.

Stooperdale.3560:

For anyone who’s ever picked up a sword, a dagger/sword combination would seem ludicrous. In fact the off hand sword is a nice fantasy idea but it doesn’t suit a nimble balanced thief at all since you need to sacrifice balance to get the power through the body into the off hand. I personally hope they add torches, maces, and even two handed swords before they give thieves heavy off hand weapons.

A thief with a two handed sword… really? How does that suit a “nimble balanced thief”?

As much as I love the look of a two handed sword it just wouldn’t fit with the thief archetype. There are many MMOs, and books where a thief type character dual wields swords. It’s the nimble master swordsman that wears light leather armor and is quick to evade/parry attacks. I would imagine that this weaponset would have high evade, parry, and bleeds to offset the survivability it would lose from not having stealth.

A better alternative would be to make it so PvPers earn gear that can only be earned in PvP. The same for PvE. There should be gear that is hard to obtain so that it is more rewarding, and that same gear should be only rewarded in PvP or PvP. The gear obtained in PvE could be a rare drop, or earned by accomplishing all of a dungeons achievements. If needed add hard modes? The PvP obtainable gear could be based on ladderboards, rank, or obtainable achievements. The harder the task the more you want the gear because you’ll see less of it. This will give us a sense of accomplishment rather than just farming forever, or buying gear that everyone has. Essentially the more accomplished (more skilled?) you are in either PvP or PvE should reflect in the gear you have earned.

Not to say you couldn’t wear the PvE gear in PvP or PvP gear in PvE, we just need gear that can be only earned in the respective game type to show everyone what we have accomplished.

I’m not to sure about your weapon skill ideas, but I’d love to dual wield swords! A weapon I’d love to see added (maybe in a major patch/expansion) is the crossbow for thieves.

I’d love to see new game modes. Temple of the Silent storm and Skyhammer were great but, only thing is that they added new elements to the same game mode. I’d love to see a capture the flag type game style as long as its on a larger PvP map than those that currently exist. Another game mode that was innovative and a lot of fun was SWOTOR’s Hut Ball. I’d even like to see a siege type map with two keeps and lords defending them (Alterac Valley?).

To this day one of my favorite types of pvp modes is “murder ball”. An example of this type of game mode is found in Rift Black Garden.

3492431

Yeah, nothing worse than a 2s cast that’s our only real CC (aside from the rather lackluster Basi Venom) that involves holding you hands above your head like you’re trying to hold up Simba and sing “The Circle of Life” before a large dark pulse moves out in a radius with a fear that doesn’t match the wiki description and can be stunbroken fairly easily since we have so few CCs.

Ever play s/p with 30 in Trickery? So many stuns, daze, interrupts. Honestly when I see a small group of people I try to pick out either the Warrior or the Necro to steal from as they have great aoe abilities to steal. Necro fear is so much fun to use when people least expect it!

Dahkeus.8243:

OP is D/D. However, you could potentially swap a utility out for Smoke Screen if you are about to engage a war maybe?

Crap forgot the OP was D/D. In that instance you’d have to rely on Smoke Screen, or Blinding Powder. The double steal trick for WW spamming would still work, it would just be different without the Blackpowder. That’s why I love running D/P for blinds. It allows for different utility skills.

Here is a cool trick I found when trying to deal damage to warriors (especially ones with a ton of HP/Regen). Aside from opening with BS like those mentioned before me. Steal from the warrior but do not use the Whrilwind ability right away. Wait for about 25-30 seconds and then Blackpowder > HS >BS. Then do another Blackpowder and use whirlwind in it. This will send blinds in an aoe around you and deal good damage to the warrior. Once that WW is over steal > Blackpowder > WW again! If the warrior is a noob then he will stand in BP, and if not he has to run. If he runs chase his kitten down with WW. Then finish with a couple HS and be accused of HS spamming lol.

supa suop.8026:

Here is my thief

Absolutely one of the coolest looking thieves here. What armor is that? Nice sword/pistol as well!

Really?… First SB evade sucks if spammed, the initiative cost is too high to spam. It does crap damage and if used more than once it’s a waste. I’ve always used infiltrator’s arrow to choose which direction to escape.

Second, everyone thinks that thief’s niche is stealth. Well that’s wrong. Their niche is the ability to use a weapon skill twice (sometimes more) in a row due to having no cool down. Thief is the only class that can “spam” weapon abilities and this is due to having initiative rather than weapon skill cool down timers. Although if a skill is spammed they run out of initiative rather quickly and then have a cool down time waiting for more initiative. This is why it is ineffective to use an ability more than twice in a row depending on the initiative cost. i.e. HS spam

Viking Jorun.5413:

But they aren’t random. The class you steal from determines the item you’ll get, and it’s designed in a way to help you counter said class.

This ^. Steal is an awesome mechanic and one of the reasons I loved thief once I got in the beta. Coming from WoW where all you get is 1 shadowstep… and in GW2 we thieves have so many… and steal is a great one. I love stealing an opponents abilities and using them against them. If your good you pick which enemy to steal from to get the best ability to fit a situation. i.e. switching from that engi target to the necro to steal the fear, then using it to fear both off the skyhammer map.

Thief builds can be built around a single ability including steal. If you build a thief around this single ability you have an incredible steal every cd.

From a lore standpoint… how in the hell would burning fit thieves? Aside from it not making sense from a RP point of view, it would be OP as hell.
Seams with the new heal we just got ANet favors condi thieves and wants us all to run condi and venom share so its not out of the realm of possibility for them to add burning in the condi thief mix. Hopefully we never see thieves that can stack burning…

Yeah this annoying bug almost got me killed the other day in WvW. At first I thought I was CC’d but then quickly realized that it was a bug. It has happened several times in the last week.

Rock, paper scissors. Not on for classes but for builds. If you can’t beat d/p thief then it 1 of tho things. The thief out skilled you or he is rock to your scissors. You could spec condi so that you reverse this and are now his anti class, but then you would have difficulty with other builds that you currently find easier.

WyldKat.4712:

The best thief would never leave behind enough evidence to be identified.

This…

Zach.3264:

I don’t expect much, but surely there’s at least one of you able to admit that HS spam needs some sort of fix. I don’t care if the damage gets an increase but unable to be spammed. Besides it being able to be spammed, why on earth would anyone be boring enough to play a build that requires you to mash 1 button and the occasional stealth?
my2c

The only way to make HS un-spammable is to increase the amount of initiative that it costs. Then there is the issue of d/p thieves who get their stealth from HS+Black powder. So when trying to balance/nerf one thing you inadvertently nerf another thus making certain weapon sets unusable.

Almost every thief build is built around 1-2 abilities, that’s just the way this game works with so few abilities / utilities to use. Some examples include; P/P is built around unload, S/D flanking strike, S/P pistol whip, D/D Heartseeker and Backstab, D/P Heartseeker Backstab, P/D Vital Shot and Shadow Strike.

I run D/P the reason is mostly due to Shadow Shot because I love the mobility/blind. D/P has virtually no wasted abilities and if built around backstab/heartseeker can do some really nice damage while keeping survivability. Then taking Furious Retaliation (gain Fury when target is at 50% hp) and Executioner(deal 20% more damage when target is below 50%) Thrill of the Crime(Fury, Might, Swiftness) and Assassin’s Signet to buff HS the fight is easily finished once your enemy is below 50% hp.

So I usually do kill someone with 1-2 heartseekers once they are below the hp threshold, and this leads people to call me a HS spammer. Even though I still use all my weapon abilities and finish with HS… it doesn’t matter what the enemy thinks because in the end I’m the one still standing. (Just gotta be careful around that horrid condi!)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYmiO3ey4E/5Ey2jeqC5J/DklODaqlA-T0Ag0CnICTxljLDXSuscNgYBxBiJBPIA

Firstly, I am a thief, secondly this is not a qq or complaint just a matter of fact. I run mostly in spvp and for the most part the classes are balanced. I’ve seen a few posts on here stating that thieves have stealth and that’s their defense. A warrior has high armor and hp. Yes you can still see the warrior but with the hp and armor it doesn’t really matter. And for the thief’s stealthy defense just AOE them and randomly swing your weapons around and stealth isn’t as defensive as you think. Stealth is a thieves class gimmick that is their get out of trouble ability. Sometimes its effective, sometimes not so much.

A question for you warriors here, What does a thief to better than a warrior? I used to think it was mobility but after having a warrior out run me the other day maybe I was wrong.

I just had to check what class he was… go figure. Isn’t 35 kills average for a warrior? j/k While the kill count may be impressive unlike Call of Duty it does not guarantee victory. Capping and holding points wins the match. Too bad you only capped 1.

This has been an issue for a long time. It would be really nice if they would fix it! Necromancers drain health ability does this as well. Two types of damage that kills me most of the time, condi and channeled abilities that I can not escape. The channeled abilities are really only an issue when shadow step /mobility moves are on cd and then I try to rely on stealth as an “Oh kitten” button. Most of the time the only way to counter it is to go stealth and get out of range or out of line of sight. Smart players will follow a channeled abilities path to track a thief as well as it is a dead giveaway to where they are. Taking damage while stealth is fine, as long as they do so without targeting me.

Zero Day.2594:

WOAH!?!?! 2:30-2:58 HOW DID YOU COUNTER PERMA STEALTH EXPLOIT THIEF AND AN ENGINEER AND KILL BOTH!?!?! HOW!?!? PERMA STEALTH EXPLOIT THIEF OP, THIS IS FAKE BECUASE WHAT YOU DID IS IMPOSSIBRU. MUST BE CUZ ENGINEER WAS THERE AND IT NERFZ OP STLEAH BUILD.

Seriously though, nice, impressive and inspiring. Kind of want to try switching from p/d condi build in sPvP to what you’re running. Mind posting the spec?

Well first the engi was an upscale so he went down kind of easy. The Ricochet from hitting the engi was how the thief was taking so much damage. As soon as the thief was out of stealth I switched to him allowing the Ricochet to finish off the engi.