Guild Wars 2

Okay, and? In the other thread people, including me, explained that to get those numbers you have to run a super glassy build which dies to pretty much anything, especially if you’re talking zerg vs zerg in wvw. What’s your point? That a full glass cannon specced thief can do 10k damage? A zerker warrior, ele or shatter mesmer can do the same thing while having other advantages.

What’s your point? Just showing that a class can do high numbers is not indicative of anything.

First of all, why are we talking condition builds in PvE anyway? Dungeons make them quite useless and open world pve can be done with lvl 10 blue gear and no traits.

And, well, d/d needs a buff, and changing DB to be more useful in power based builds will go a long way. The problem is that introducing some game changing skill on dagger 4 will also buff p/d and s/d both of which are currently really good anyway, so a change to #3 is the easiest way to go. Maybe a longer evade will help, as currently d/d is the only melee set without any defensive ability besides stealth. You have flanking strike on s/d, black powder on s/p and d/p and shadow strike on p/d. For such a melee centric set it seems like a longer evade could be a good idea.

Edit: Or maybe add a blind to the skill?

I don’t understand, what is the point of this thread? There have been no dev responses or fixes for the last few months…

NinjaEd.3946:

Also few professions have effective means to deal with condition overload, and many professions lack sufficient condition clearing period. If I play a condi build and I see a thief or engineer or necro I focus them, because they don’t deal with them too well.

???

Are you serious?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Consume_Conditions
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Swarm
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Putrid_Mark
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_power

This is what I run, it’s not the highest burst spec but I like it:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypNOx0J8PNRLBtd0HxL86Ma/gAcAA-T1BFwAFOEACODAI3fU+hS9n06DA8AAuqEkUADMGA-w

I sometimes change the last trait in DA to revealed training and the 2 points in trickery can be used in acrobatics or SA if you want might on dodge or condi removal or whatever. The power signet is sometimes changed to SR.

It’s mostly good for small fights, with the purpose of quickly shutting down enemy thieves and other glass cannons. Panic strike is really good at preventing escapes and finishing people off, tho the new trait seems good too.

IMO, d/p is superiour to d/d in almost every regard, but I find d/d much more fluid and fun to play. The old d/d builds still kinda work, but require a lot more skill to pull off. I’ve gotten a bit sick of it and started running in small groups with d/d 6/6/0/0/2 or 5/6/0/0/3 or 6/6/2/0/0 with full zerk scholar. You die, a lot, but the burst is incredible and I can kill most d/p thieves with 1 cnd backstab, which is pretty fun.

ngdani.9482:

Personally, i am still using the “old” build of 0/6/6/2/0 with travelers, and although damage isn’t nearly as good if you might stacked with runes of strength (i’ve ran both sets), but i love my movespeed and i find you’re able to sustain yourself and survive better against many classes.

Try using speed runes instead of traveler. You lose like, 2% crit dmg and 40 power in exchange for 1500hp, and still retain the movement speed. I find it helps a lot since fights are now longer and conditions are more prevalent.

This has been going on for quite a while now, there’s a huge thread which the devs made with 48 pages of people raising the issue, yet there has been no official answer for a couple of months now at least.

Most of the people report the same problem – lag, usually at specific times of day, both EU and NA. It’s definitely not an isolated case and it makes the game nearly unplayable. The queen’s gauntlet, dungeons, any PvP content is impossible to play like this. Various rubberbanding, skill delays, damage delays and disconnects are not uncommon. Other online games and activities seem not to suffer from the same problem.

Is there any chance of an official response? At least an acknowledgement that they’re aware of the issue? Any possible solutions?

Hey everyone, after taking a long detour to necro, mesmer and warrior I decided to dust off my thief and play it for a while. After scrapping my lyssa runes(ugh :\) and putting the condi dire perplexity gear in the bank(so boring, pretty much the reason I stopped playing thief), I’ve made this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVlsMpypdPx0J8PNBNBt9wrQI4uGrYGaFAA-TVTBwAFVS84MAoUJUCTYROEAXVm0VpAK9BTUCiwkwx9Hyp+DgHAAhAEtFA-w

That’s exactly what I have equipped on my thief atm, not some theory crafted max ascended build I’m hoping to use. I really like 25% movement speed and I like having all my utility slots, so the runes are quite important to me. I was considering traveler runes, but after checking with the build editor it seems I would gain around 30 power and 2% crit chance in exchange for 1.5k HP, so it seems to be not worth it.

I’m looking for some tweaks you guys can suggest to improve this build, stuff like changing traits and a few equips without revamping the whole thing from the ground up.

Also, is it true that sigil of air is bugged and sometimes reveals you if it procs on CnD? If so, would fire or strength be a better alternative? Blood?

Better food options would also be welcome, hopefully it’s not one of those 1g/serving things that people like to post on their build.

Oh, on a general note, is it true that d/d is considered to be much worse than d/p atm? I tried both and d/p just feels so awkward and slow, with such a clunky way to enter stealth and high initiative use. I felt like I was kiting more and applying a lot less pressure. Would a d/p build require more offensive zerker gear than what I currently run?

Thanks in advance

(This is all from a wvw perspective, pvp might be different due to point contesting)

The thing is, in the context of a 1v1 or 1vX it’s almost completely irrelevant whether or not you avoid the first stomp, you’re dead anyway.
When talking about teamfights tho, things become quite different. I would argue ranger has the best downstate as it pretty much forces the enemy to pursue the stomp or he’ll selfrevive really quickly. The fact that he has an AoE daze available to stop multiple stomps make it quite valuable as well, as it can take several enemies out of the fight for a few seconds.
Guardian is probably next, as the AoE push allows them to mess up quite a few people while the symbol also allows for quicker revives.
Ele is pretty good, being able to move quite far towards his team lets him get to safety and force the enemy to chace him, and unlike every other stomp denial, it’s almost completely impossible to counteract(immobilize is the only thing that works). Their earth abillity, while irrelevant to stomp prevention, does some heavy damage and immob, which is nice in a team fight(maybe even allowing a rally)
Thief is about average imo, the movement is not quite as far as an ele and the stealth is pretty good, but all it does is buy them some time without putting too much pressure on the opponent.

Necro, Warrior, Mesmer and Engi aren’t amazing, they’re weak at preventing stomps and weak at allowing your team to rez you easily. Mesmer doesn’t move far enough and it’s random.

Haha, are you serious? Do you realize how ridiculously broken a P/D condition thief will be with those 2 skills?

Boon steal on a spammable ranged skill with low casting time is bad enough, but cnd applying torment and not requiring you to get close or hit will be hilariously broken with sneak attack with the pistol, I can’t believe that sounds even remotely plausible to you.

Let’s not bring warriors into this, I agree they may need toning down, but it has nothing to do with this stealth discussion. As for eles, Their mobility has high cooldowns and the benefit of you seeing where they’re going. A thief has just as much mobility(shadowstep, shortbow, heartseeker) but it’s combined with a very spammable stealth and a get out free card with shadow refuge. Even worse, a thief can disengage while still remaining on the field, sitting in stealth and regenerating health. At least a warrior running away is one you’re sure not gonna unload a 5k hit on you out of nowhere.

And yes, “I can kill thieves”. Ok, so can I. A lot of thief players are bad, and what’s worse, a badly played thief outclasses any other badly played profession, so a lot of thieves stay bad. I kill thieves on my necro, I kill thieves on my ele, I die myself when playing thief(because I’m bad at it). That’s not the point. It’s not fun.

So a stance warrior running gs/sw+sh is pretty much unkillable if they decide to run away. But I’d rather the game had less of this kind of nonsense, not more.

Using something that minimizes risk to yourself is not always “training wheels”.

I think people are misrepresenting some of the(valid) complaints about the class.
It’s not just a l2p issue. It’s not an OP/balance issue. It’s an enjoyment issue. People don’t enjoy playing when thieves enter the picture. Whether or not it’s OP or not doesn’t matter, what matters is that stealth is a mechanic which has no real counter(swinging weapons and AOE are not counters to the mechanic, they’re counters to the player) which is frustrating to fight against especially on the wide open maps in wvw. Coupled with the best engage and disengage in the game, playing against a thief is a high risk/low reward situation for most other classes, as a completent thief will almost never ever die unless they make a critical mistake.

When a thief is around, it usually devolves to either the thief winning or the thief running away. Regardless of the fact that you can kill bad thieves(and even bad thieves usually perform much better than other badly played professions with the possible exception of warrior), it’s just not fun. It’s a valid complaint regardless of how many times you throw “l2p” accusations at it.

Lately(a few weeks now) I’ve been having rubberbanding issues(where people jump around the map, damage takes some time to show up) at certain times(it seems to mostly happen during the day, servertime, starting around 9am). Since I’m not from NA and I play on NA servers, I suspect it could be my ISP.

I ran the diagnostic tool(-diag) and got:
0 Meta-PC [192.168.1.10]
0/ 25 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 25 = 0% 0/ 25 = 0% 192.168.1.1
25/ 25 =100% |
2 —- 25/ 25 =100% 0/ 25 = 0% 10.165.128.1

and there it stops. This looks like a router blocking the trace, is there a way to get around that? How can I tell if the lag is caused due to my connection?

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about skill lag in wvw or whatever, I realize that’s a different issue.

Hmm, I’m having a hard time understanding the purpose of this build. Is this meant for small groups/roaming? If so, the wells seem out of place since they’re quite easy to avoid in those kinds on engagements. I dislike power based builds in general for small scale roaming since they usually either have good damage or good survival, not both. While your armor and HP seem high, remember we get no blocks/invulns/evades/stealth/leaps/teleports, making us quite the sitting duck. And since you’re not running axe and/or Vital Persistence(slower life force degeneration) your DS defense isn’t even that good and not that easy to regenerate, making it good for absorbing 1 or 2 bursts before giving in.

For large fights, you seem very tanky with high armor and food and whatnot, but your survival on the frontline isn’t very good since you lack the best source of stability necros have(foot in the grave) and we don’t get any invulns/blocks/leaps to maintain good frontline positioning. If you are frontlining after all, ground placed wells might as well be wasted. Also, well of corruption is pretty much one of the strongest skills in the game, not running it seems like a waste. Also, in large groups dagger/warhorn is not a very good weapon combo.
Unblockable marks are a bit of a waste, except Putrid Mark(#4 skill) most of them are rather weak on a power build and you WANT the enemies to trip marks to strip aegis or waste dodges. Stripping aegis from 5 guys is much better than 3 seconds of bleed with no condi damage.
Daze on warhorn, as well, is overrated. It’s long, sure, but countered entirely by stability which the other frontliners WILL have up most of the time. And dagger has no cleave, which sucks.
Well of darkness by itself is nice, but if you plan on running that most of the time taking Chilling Darkness(chill on blind) makes it a lot more powerful.

Also, the healing well is an awful, awful skill imo and should almost never be used.

Shinjo.6092:

phaeris.7604:

For the damage backstab does, it’s ridiculously easy to get off.

Fine showing your backstab for 750, i’ll show you backstabs on my supposedly tanky ele for 10k.

Considering the backstab arc is 180 it’s just so little punishment if you miss.

Stealth should break on attack. Considering how easy it is to restealth why is it an issue?

Also any competent thief can beat any class. See how easy it is to turn around that statement?

Because it’s not always easy? Cnd takes half your init pool and can be blocked/dodged/blind/etc. I’ve never played d/p but bp+hs combo takes even more init. And even after that, it’s not enough. You have to get in melee range behind the person within 4 seconds to land a hit. Ever tried to get behind a war/guardian who’s spinning around in circles? Or an ele who’s zipping back and forth? Or an engineer who’s dropping bombs behind everywhere he goes? All of a sudden that backstab isn’t so easy to land anymore.

What is it with people making this argument all the time? “It takes a lot of initiative”, really?

Imagine any other class getting a skill that said “become invisible for 4 seconds, cure conditions every 3 seconds, heal 300hp/s, if you attack before the duration expires your next attack deals three times the damage. Cooldown: 6 seconds”.

Now, admittedly, CnD actually has to hit. Fine, “Cooldown: 9 seconds” for BP+HS.
If we look at necromancer skills with a cooldown of 9 seconds or less, we get a channeled attack on axe that simply does damage and replenishes some life force and a mark that causes bleeding and regeneration. Do any of these sound even half as good?

Now, I have no idea if thieves are OP or not, what I do know is that a d/p thief is NOT fun to play against. Most of the time when I see a d/p thief I try to ignore them, they chase me, pull out the second they see I’m not an uplvl ranger and can actually put up a fight, go stealth and run away. Then they come back, and the process is repeated a few times until either they screw up or I run out of cooldowns/patience and I screw up. Honestly, this isn’t fun, this isn’t engaging or challenging.

Umm, at 9:12 you’re fighting a warrior and he goes into mist form? what? I played very little warrior but I can’t remember anything that lets them do that o.O

The ooze font puzzle is terrible – it involves managing aggro which in this game is supposed to be impossible/very hard by design. Seems like it contradicts the rest of the design principles. I’m talking about the elementals obviously, not the ooze. That part could’ve been made so much better if the oozes were green and untargetable by cleave/aoe. Also, the stay cool achievement seems bugged, me and several of my friends are unable to get it despite taking NO damage or stepping into the fire(Maybe not completely bugged, but it seems glitchy).

The skins are terrible – they are just recolored TA skins(or was it Sylvari cultural?) and the drop rates are abysmal.

The clockwork boss is meh – just giving invuln stacks to bosses is not really good game design, especially since once again you need to manage aggro. It’s not hard, it’s just not fun.

Slick and Sparki is pretty much the only good part of this run, along with the possibility of making 700g in one run I guess(tho I personally never met anyone who got a skin drop).

8/10

I really like it, and the staff works very well, but either the picture is too dark or the armor needs a bit more contrast, it kinda blends in atm and creates a washed out look.

My necro, left is my roaming/small group gear, right is my well/zerg gear.

Roaming: Inquest Chest(CoE) Stately Legs(Karma/WvW) Cabalist Boots(Crafted) Masquerade Shoulders(Crafted).
Dyes are Pitch, Brandywine, Wineshade.

Zerg: Conjurer Chest(Crafted) Masquerade Legs(Crafted) Exalted Boots(Crafted) Winged Shoulders(Crafted).
Dyes are Pitch, Rose Tint, Rose Shade, Wine Shade and Persephone.

Lovestruck weapons.

So…

I’ve been playing GW2 for a few weeks now, and I’m looking for a friendly guild.
Not that experienced, obiously

Maining a level 80 mesmer specced for PvE and currently trying to level up a few alts.
I’m mostly interested in PvE content. I really like the idea of WvW but it seems like something I’d be more interested in if I had a good group to run around with.

I like voice comms, though I have a bit of an accent since I’m not from NA.
Playing quite a lot at the moment and I’m on during various hours most days a week.
Size doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not too small, I’d like someone to play with at random hours, not just during prime time.

IGN is Best Sherlock.

Thanks guys